Where's the N. U. R. B. S?

[elheber]

I've seen as much footage as i can. Nowhere have i seen any game impliment NURBS. Is this wasted CPU power or does not using NURBS save the CPUs some work?

[DappaDizzle]

I may sound dumb but what is NURBS

[stanDarsh]

Non Uniform Rational B-Splines

[solidus]

Non Uniform Rational B-Splines
You've just translated korean to chinese for him...

Just go to the frontpage of pspinsider ( http://www.pspinsider.com ) and check the big pic on top.

[klaymen]

Non Uniform Rational B-Splines

exactly. geez, what kind of idiot doesn't know that?? tch! loser.


(j/k i still don't fully understand NURBS yet)

[elheber]

I guess the best way of explaining it would be like this:

NURBS allows curved polygons. That way the tires on a car will actualy be round instead of an octagon (just to be sure: an octagon is the shape of a stop sign), and faces and bodies will look smooth without being jaggy or anything.

It's a crapload more complicated but that's a good way for you to think of it.

Now that we all kind of understand what it is, can someone take a shot at why no games seem to be using this in their screenshots? I'm kind of pissed i don't see them.

[SunDevil]

Good Bye

[martinj]

Hehe let me add some info too,
It is a mathematical dscription on a curve with more then one radiuses, or something that is not a circle...the curves you see are set as curves instead of many straight lines. They are given a mathematical alogarithm to define the "thing" you see

[Kiwi]

Here's the explanation on PSPi (http://www.pspinsider.com/):

Link (http://www.pspinsider.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=1)

[Danji]

That's a lot of explanations...

[jaxmkii]

klayman i just just was reading your quote... did no one ever tell you about the french resitance? and that france was the ONLY european mainland county to maintain a formitable resistane after ocupation of the Nazis. so formatable that the alied forces relied opon them for intellegence in the days before D-day and during the first days of the land invastion stoped many Nazi renforcement convoys form ever reaching the front often at the cost of there familes lives... :( :x i realy would like to know at what point did it become fashonable to mindlessly trash the french

[psycho_logik]

Sorry i know this has nothing to do with the topic but i had to place my word here... jaxmkii is right, what's the point in bashing french people? I speak for myself when i said this : "Don't be surprised if France don't help US to catch terrorists in Iraq, cause anybody knows by now that trashing countries searching for bad guys, you just double the numbers of people hating you...
To be clear, you just mutiply terrorist by 100... So France is very wise in my point of view !!! Have nothing against US thought exept for their stup... President :evil:

was my two cents...

[klaymen]

klayman i just just was reading your quote... did no one ever tell you about the french resitance? and that france was the ONLY european mainland county to maintain a formitable resistane after ocupation of the Nazis. so formatable that the alied forces relied opon them for intellegence in the days before D-day and during the first days of the land invastion stoped many Nazi renforcement convoys form ever reaching the front often at the cost of there familes lives... :( :x i realy would like to know at what point did it become fashonable to mindlessly trash the french

there, i changed it

nationalist american humor (http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokefrenchmilitaryhistory.htm)

[elheber]

So why all this hype about NURBS? I remember everyone on the boards saw this as The Great Graphical Revolution. If NURBS make the system take a preformance hit i'd rather lay off the NURBS. But if there is designated hardware for NURBS in the PSP, why is no one using them?

The NURBS aren't rocking my world.

[brownbeaner2]

So why all this hype about NURBS? I remember everyone on the boards saw this as The Great Graphical Revolution. If NURBS make the system take a preformance hit i'd rather lay off the NURBS. But if there is designated hardware for NURBS in the PSP, why is no one using them?

The NURBS aren't rocking my world.
im thinking they will receive SDK -middleware to helped them if not, then im also lost in the NURBS matter.

[vulcan4d]

When it was first announced that the PSP was capable of doing nurbs I was sceptical and I still am. Nurbs use a lot of processing power, anyone who has used any sort of animation rendering software like 3d studio max, lightwave or maya will tell you this. I did so I'm telling you now, if a game ever comes out using nurbs, don't expect much.

[CrumCon]

go to ign for some movies.. and go to main page of pspinsider.
without NURBS... PSP games already look so good :)
i also fai lto see many jaggies in those psp games.

Just imagine when devs use the new spec of PSP ; 32MB + 4mb eRAM, 36MB RAM!!
man... even the footages already par with most current gen consoles.

hell... even GT4 Mobile looks better then most racing games on current-gen consoles

[elheber]

When it was first announced that the PSP was capable of doing nurbs I was sceptical and I still am. Nurbs use a lot of processing power, anyone who has used any sort of animation rendering software like 3d studio max, lightwave or maya will tell you this. I did so I'm telling you now, if a game ever comes out using nurbs, don't expect much.So it was mostly Hype. Thank's dude. I feel like i can relax now... i wasn't crazy.

[KlawHammer]

mmmm a NURBS convo was also taking place at one stage about the PS3....

[Makaveli_786]

NURBS can be transformed into complicated shapes as well, I think theyr great and if used correctly they will revolutionize graphics, its like a map that can be totally curved and basically turned into what you want and therefore will bring us extremely complexed geometry in the future.

[richjwild]

the games were running on an emulator, and i thought nurbs was in the psp, so you wont be able to see nurbs on them vids

[NickSCFC]

Wrong!

[richjwild]

well thankyou for appreciating my attempt at figuring it out, and thankyou also for explaining why i am wrong.

:roll:

[gamingmonkey2004]

I've seen as much footage as i can. Nowhere have i seen any game impliment NURBS. Is this wasted CPU power or does not using NURBS save the CPUs some work?

i thought i saw on the PSPi front page something about how that wasnt the PSP full power. it was just a emulation on the comp or something. i dont remeber it all but yeah PSPi front page check it

[solidus]

I have a little question about NURBS.
Did Sony create or do they own the technology?

[NickSCFC]

Quake 3 used NURBS, the graphics still looked square as fuck.

[solidus]

Quake 3 uses curved surfaces altough i think it used bezier surfaces.
Shrek and other things used NURBS so that's why i asked this question. Is the technology owned by Sony, or created?

[Makaveli_786]

Man its a technology anybody can use like Antialiasing, only difference is the damn thing has never really been incorporated into anything before.

[NickSCFC]

I just don't see the big deal, especially as we have three threads (all by me) about real PSP games, real games, real games that we will be playing on PSP, oh let's not talk about them, let's just come out with thick comments like "Do you u there will be a Tekken game on the PSPs?"

[solidus]

That didn't make sense... explain further how this goes into this topic...

So NURBS are not Sony related in any way, i tought i heard it did somewhere.

[Makaveli_786]

Ive seen a lot of other people talk about NURBS and they didnt even mention Sony so im pretty sure it has nothing to do with Sony, Im not certain though.

[solidus]

Yeah, i've been searching the net and found nothing about Sony owning NURBS in any way. Oh well...

[Makaveli_786]

Since Sony are basically the first ones to make use of it they could have some good experience with it by the time other people realize its potential.

[NickSCFC]

Like I said earlier, ID used it in Quake 3, and it looked as square as Virtua Fighter 1.

[solidus]

Can you give a link on that because last time i checked it used curved surfaces/bezier surfaces.

[NickSCFC]

Try searching the net, John Carmack babbled on about it in an old copy of Edge, to be honest it's not very interesting and doesn't seem to change game graphics at all.

[solidus]

I didn't know the PC could render NURBS, or can they?

[NickSCFC]

It's nowt special.

[solidus]

Than why can't the Ps2, GC and X-box handle it seein they don't have the hardware. What extra hardware does the PC use to render it?

[Makaveli_786]

Who told you PC renders NURBS :shock:

[solidus]

It was sarcastic to Nick's comment when he said it's not special...
Quake 3 couldn't have nurbs because no system would support it.

[kevindenoyette]

i read this long article on N.U.R.B.S. i think it boils down to the fact that they're great for complex graphics, but poopy for simple graphics.

[solidus]

To make it simple, you know how the belly of Shrek moves? That's NURBS.

[Makaveli_786]

NURBS are used to make extremely complexed shapes but they do have theyr problems, actually im surprised they put NURBS in a handheld, how the hell do they expect a handheld to handle something like that when top of the line PC cards dont :shock:

Then again maybe theyr hiding something about the PSP, could be fun if you could plug it into your TV and get amazing graphics.

[solidus]

I think Pc cards could render NURBS if they wanted to. I know it might sound stupid, but the NURBS are build into the Psp's OS and hardware. Why not include the hardware in Pc cards?

[Makaveli_786]

I think they dont want to take that path yet, NURBS have a few problems though like theyr great for round things but not for edges.

If used correctly they could be used just for the round things and combined with normal polygons, its good stuff.

The facial quality in Jak and Dexter should become a lot better and car wheels will look like car wheels, not hexagons.

[solidus]

Like i said, they do't want to "yet".
Imagine how transformation would look llike on Psp using NURBS.

[Makaveli_786]

Yup, dont believe that idiot Nick on Quake 3, he doesnt know anything hes just trying to ride Bill Gates dick :?

[solidus]

Ofcourse i don't because Q3 doesn't use NURBS to begin with and secondly no system playing Q3 can render NURBS.

[Makaveli_786]

LOL, if it did have NURBS you couldnt see them, it would be like taking a lot of time making NURBS then you cant see them, how stupid would that be :?

[solidus]

Hell, they used bezier surfaces and you can't even notice them...

[Makaveli_786]

I heard they used Sub D's in LOTR movies.

[Kiwi]

Sub D's?

[Makaveli_786]

Sub-divisional surfaces, some people prefer them over NURBS.

Personally I think theyr a pain in the ass and take too long to calculate, when they become layered theyr pretty much impossible to deal with too.

[Kiwi]

Something for the professionals then. Well they obviously did a good job with them in LOTR anyway.

[solidus]

I don't expect Sub D's to be featured in games for a while tough but to be honest, that's what i tought of NURBS first too.

[Kiwi]

Would somebody perhaps be able to give an example image of where Sub D's have been used?

[solidus]

http://www.turbosquid.com/Previews/Content_on_2_19_2004_23_19_27\policevan-comp_a.jpg195302b5-a9c8-4299-a2f7-80d2eb03317eLarge.jpg
This is made using subdivisional surface (dub d's) Geometry.

[Kiwi]

Looks pretty nice.

[julps31]

What is it? When you use different sets of geometry to build one object? Plus I guess devs will become more comfortable with using nurbs in the future but for now since there not use to them they'll keep on using polygons.

[Kiwi]

Apparently Pixar uses Subdivisional Surfacing in their films:

subdivisional surfacing, a modeling method that flexibly represents points in space.

[solidus]

Pixar uses both NURBS and sub D's, with almost every 3D rendering method.

[Makaveli_786]

A NURB is a curved polygon in essense.

With a Sub-D you can take a frame and add a layer on top of it.

The thing with NURBS is they can tear when you try making them into very complex shapes, with Sub-D's you can take a Square and make it a sphere by just adding Sub-D's on top.

They both have their advantages and disadvantages.

[nixice]

Spline rendering was shown in the Luga's Forest demo on the show floor -- the animated character was rendered with rounded edges utilizing a lot fewer polygons than it would usually take to create those kinds of curves. Not exactly NURBS -- it'll take a while to sort all that out, and I'm not the dude to do that -- but the general technology was shown active.

I'm not sure when we'll see more of this type of rendering. Or if -- this kind of rendering is also plenty possible on PS2 and other systems (although actual NURBS, this kind of spline rendering, I dunno how applicable it can be to today's games), so it might just be a transparent part of the PSP's tech.

[NickSCFC]

*falls asleep*

[solidus]

*falls asleep*
If you can't comprehend these kind of talk, please stay out of it instead of spamming.

I don't see many games acctually needing the use of NURBS to be honest. Could you provide me a source for your statement, i would like to read the article.

[NickSCFC]

*wakes up*

NURBS!!!!!!!!!!!




Where am I?

[unreal]

I'm a game developer and we use NURBS alot, though usually for shapes such as helmets and simple characters. For more complex characters, its a full bone and rig setup. NURB's are best for quick and easy modelling, and can give some great results, but personally I prefer sub d's for the build-on-top-of-previous-models which we do alot of.

[solidus]

i was refering to Psp games...
what games are you working on?

[lix]

I believe NURBS were used on car models in 'The Italian Job' game a while back. The body panels could be deformed by changing a few control points.

As for it being used in PSP games, well I reckon it'll only get used in special occasions for models like cars, or walls. But it does hit the performance of games as it does take a fair amount of calculation time.

And on the PSP despite it being in 'hardware' the graphics co-cpu still has to process these nurbs using software and a vector unit, and will indeed take precious time away from rendering anything else using maths, such as skinned character models.

The benefits of using nurbs are alas probably nulled by other factors. They certainly are not free.... and are indeed hyped more than they should be.

Model tesselation also exists in the graphics processor to make models look 'smoother', but again the cost of use will probably render that as just hype too.

[unreal]

i was refering to Psp games...
what games are you working on?

On the PSP, Nurbs will liely be used in sports games or Gran Turismo, it can be used for good damage models, quite realistic looking on the PSP's screen.
And I'm currently working on a beat-em-up for promoting a martial arts website, and my main project is an RPG, no time to explain it here, but it's huge!

[solidus]

Hmm, Gt i doubt but other racing games will probably use it... But i still doubt we'll be seeing it in any games the first year, it's quit demanding on the system.

[elheber]

And on the PSP despite it being in 'hardware' the graphics co-cpu still has to process these nurbs using software and a vector unit, and will indeed take precious time away from rendering anything else using maths, such as skinned character models.Thank you! Don't know where you got your info, but i don't really care 'cause it all sounds authentic. 5 pages 'til a good answer; it was worth the wait.