God of War III

[AtheK]

No biggie. Its not like the ending was ever in doubt.

 

its a big thing, atleast for me, i would have bashed the salesman.

 

I had a diff ending in my mind, so did Santa Monica team, just that majority thought this was the right ending.

 

So you saying that it is no bigge, it is kinda insensitive

Edited March 29, 2010 by AtheK

[Bulovski]

Has anyone noticed the similarities between Kratos and Hulk? Hulk Smash, Kratos Smash. Hulk Angry, Kratos Angry. Pretty much sums up the dialogue in the two franchises.

 

[MarketTantrik]

Has anyone noticed the similarities between Kratos and Hulk? Hulk Smash, Kratos Smash. Hulk Angry, Kratos Angry. Pretty much sums up the dialogue in the two franchises.

 

I would still take this over "Jason!" "Jason!" "Jason!" "Jasoooooon!" "Jaaaason!" "Jason!" "Jason!" "Jasooooooon!"

[Pushy]

That's unfair, sony. What would they do it? Cumgun points at Sony for not giving our Indian gamers those video goodies in XMB itself.

 

Cumgun lock and loaded Saaaar..awaiting yewr orders

 

I am sure u guys mut have noticed that with new bd games come trailers and stuff which u can access from the video menu of xmb. I noticed it with gow3. Pretty neat I'd say. Now we can watch those videos without launching the game itself.

 

Mammoth space in bd ftw.

 

not there, this side...

 

Was at Game4u today ,wanted to buy the bluetooth headset when the sales guy came to me and suggested me to buy GOW3 , i said i will buy, i need to get collection first , and then he said i played this game and its awesome and in the end....:HE f**kIN TOLD ME THE ENDING

 

rofl PWNT beech

[playstation]

That's unfair, sony. What would they do it? Cumgun points at Sony for not giving our Indian gamers those video goodies in XMB itself.

is it just India or the entire pal region does not get the video goodies?? some one confirm if it is just India ...We should take this to Sony India.

[Pushy]

is it just India or the entire pal region does not get the video goodies?? some one confirm if it is just India ...We should take this to Sony India.

 

what can SI do about it? it's not that GOW3 disc were prepared here

 

if u actually care to read while purchasing(the Milestone Interactive plastic transparent cover wrapped above the Box) it reads imported followed by the date (iirc it was Mar 10 2010)

Edited March 29, 2010 by Pushy

[AtheK]

now people want to complain about a damn trailer not available on the disc

[playstation]

what can SI do about it? it's not that GOW3 disc were prepared here

 

if u actually care to read while purchasing(the Milestone Interactive plastic transparent cover wrapped above the Box) it reads imported followed by the date (iirc it was Mar 10 2010)

yes they cant do anything if it is not made here ...the thing is mine is second hand copy and also the disc and box being lighter so i thought it is made in India.

 

now people want to complain about a damn trailer not available on the disc

The way Hot -kratos-Pixel put it i thought there were much we are missing..did not knew that it was just a game trailer.. My bad.

[Pushy]

This is untrue.

 

aww..come on man....that guy knows Sir Rakesh...don't u tell he's lying

 

 

[AtheK]

The way Hot -kratos-Pixel put it i thought there were much we are missing..did not knew that it was just a game trailer.. My bad.

For him trailers are more important then the game, he does not have to open youtube

Edited March 29, 2010 by AtheK

[AtheK]

I see many pages of invisible posts. What did I miss?

peace

couple of awesome gif's from CC, which were kinda OT so i had to unapprove them

[playstation]

For him trailers are more important then the game, he does not have to open youtube

 

Its probably the entire EU region. Maybe because they have to add multi-language support and there wasn't enough space. Coz if there's any region where you want a GT5 trailer, its EU.

 

Multi-language support is also the reason GOW2 didn't have progressive scan in the EU version

peace

okay.

thanks for explaining that Sambha. .

Cant wait for GT5

[KnackChap]

EG/DF tech analysis on GOW3 now up

 

Kratos himself is an extremely detailed model, though it's interesting to note that the raw polygon count is considerably lower than the 35,000 or so that comprise the in-game model of Nathan Drake in Uncharted 2. That the Spartan maniac looks so good is all down to the individual make-up of the model. The poly count is just one element of the whole composition.

 

"We use as many polys as it takes," art director Ken Feldman says. "Off the top of my head, texture sizes for these character are quite big. I think we are using 2048s for the lower, upper body and head. Each character gets a normal, diffuse, specular, gloss (power map), ambient occlusion, and skin shader map. We also use layered textures to create more tiling, and use environment maps where needed."

 

"If you look at Kratos on the PS2, he is about 5000 polygons," Feldman says. "He is about 20,000 polygons now. I think he had three textures on the PlayStation 2. I think he has at least 20 textures on him now. The animation data on him is probably about six times as big.

 

A new technique known as blended normal mapping adds to the realism of the basic model and hugely enhances the range of animation available. Muscles move convincingly, facial animations convey the hatred and rage of Kratos in a way we've never seen before.

 

The system operates to such a level of realism that wrinkles in the character's skin are added and taken away as joints within the face of the model are manipulated. The musculature simulation is so accurate that veins literally pop into view on Kratos's arms as he moves them around.

 

God of War III's main protagonists are all animated by hand, simply because it was found that the animators themselves produced more effective work than basic motion capture from the actors offered. However, for secondary characters, Image Metrics' performance capture system recorded the voice actors' facial movements and mapped them on a per-pixel basis to the 3D models, with touch-up work carried out by the Sony Santa Monica team.

 

"The satisfaction comes from seeing Kratos in the game and saying, 'wow, that's him'," explains lead character artist Patrick Murphy. "You can see his veins, you can see him breathing. It looks better than the cinematics. That's the satisfaction."

 

Another core part of God of War III's cinematic look and feel comes from the basic setup of the framebuffer, and the implementation of HDR lighting. Two framebuffer possibilities for HDR on the PlayStation 3 include LogLUV (aka NAO32, used in Uncharted and Heavenly Sword), and RGBM: an alternative setup that has found a home in Uncharted 2 and indeed in God of War III.

 

The basic technical setups for both formats are covered elsewhere (though GOWIII uses its own version of RGBM), but in terms of the final effect and what it means for the look of the game, the result is a massively expanded colour palette which gifts the artists with a higher-precision range of colours in which to create a unique, stylised and film-like look.

 

In terms of post-processing effects, the game is given an additional boost in realism thanks to an impressive implementation of motion blur. Superficially, it's a similar system to that seen in previous technological showcases like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Killzone 2, and helps to smooth some of the judder caused by a frame-rate that can vary between anything from 30 frames per second to 60.

 

Most games that implement motion blur do so just on a "camera" basis - that is, the whole scene is processed - an effect that of variable effectiveness in terms of achieving a realistic look.

 

According to Sony Santa Monica's Ken Feldman, motion blur is calculated not just on the camera, but on an individual object and inner object basis too.

 

Another key effect in producing a filmic look to God of War III comes from development of new anti-aliasing technology. Removing the jaggies associated with videogaming obviously helps to create a more pleasing appearance.

 

Initially the game used the RSX chip to carry out a traditional 2x multisampling anti-aliasing effect. This, combined with the game's lack of high-contrast edges, produced an extremely clean look in last year's E3 demo. For the final game, the Sony Santa Monica team implemented a solution that goes way beyond that.

 

According to director of technology Tim Moss, God of War III worked with the Sony technology group in the UK to produce an edge-smoothing technique for the game that the developers call MLAA, or morphological anti-aliasing. Indeed, Moss's colleague Christer Ericson took us to task on the specifics of MLAA a few months back in this DF blog post, revealing that the team has put extensive research into this in search of their own solution.

 

The specifics of the implementation are still unknown at this time (though Ken Feldman suggests it "goes beyond" the papers Ericson spoke about in the DF piece) but the bottom line is that the final result in God of War III is simply phenomenal: aliasing is all but eliminated and the sub-pixel jitter typically associated with this technique has been massively reduced compared to other implementations we've seen.

 

"[Dynamic lighting] is one of the big features of our engine. We built it around being able to use up to 20 dynamic lights per game object," Ken Feldman explains.

 

"The light can be big or small, it doesn't matter. In the end, I believe we support up to 50 dynamic lights per game object. We are not using a deferred lighting scheme. Our lead programmer Vassily Filippov came up with this amazing system during pre-production... We can place lights in Maya and have them update in real-time in the game on the PS3, it's like being able to paint with lights. Lighting is a fast and a very enjoyable artistic process."

 

Where there is light, there is a shadow. Or at least there should be. On the majority of videogames, shadowing tech is fairly basic. Producing realistic shadows is computationally expensive, hence we get a range of ugly artifacts as a result: serrated edges that look ugly up close, or cascade shadowmaps that transition in quality in stages right before your eyes.

 

God of War III stands out in this regard simply because you don't tend to notice the shadows. They're realistic. The human eye is drawn to elements that stick out like a sore thumb, and that includes shadows.

 

God of War III is a special game by an immensely talented team, backed not only by a colossal $44m budget, but also with the collaborative know-how of some of the world's best developers and access to the resources of Sony's own dedicated engineering groups.

 

It's games like this, along with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Killzone 2, that give the platform holder ownership of the bleeding edge of console gaming technology in the current generation.

 

It also makes a very convincing argument that there's plenty of life left in the system yet. God of War III is just the first PS3 title from Sony Santa Monica, and already director Stig Asmussen is hinting that we can expect "a lot more" from the current God of War III engine.

 

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-maki...-war-iii?page=4

[Snake]

[achilles]

while i agree that uc2 has overall better graphics (the detail etc. and the character models) that was naughty dog's second game on the ps3. can't wait to see what SM can do next.

[CarbonCore]

Ugh, we PC fangirls had 2xAA and dynamic lighting back in 1999, whats the big deal?

[Tyler]

I would still take this over "Jason!" "Jason!" "Jason!" "Jasoooooon!" "Jaaaason!" "Jason!" "Jason!" "Jasooooooon!"

 

Oh come on. That was only one part of the game. Kratos has been doing the Hulk thing consistently in like four games.

[dislike]

Gow3 Platinumed,damn its my fastest platinum ever,took me 10hours in total gameplay time to do it!!

[dislike]

this looks exactly like the kraken from God of War2

[Noctis]

this looks exactly like the kraken from God of War2

 

Maybe because God of War comes from Greek Mythology and not the other way?

Edited March 29, 2010 by Noctis