Interview on UE3 with Tim Sweeney

[Asus]

Interview with Epic's Tim Sweeney on UnrealEngine3

Theres another interview.
They mention a few more things with graphics and what will be required in 2 years time when a game based on the engine is expected to be out.

They make mention of 64Bit and virtual displacement mapping which I found odd since even Vertex Shader Version 2.0 can do virtual displacment mapping. VS3.0 can make use of true displacement mapping.

With regards to "virtual displacement mapping" or what is known as offset-mapping, other than the normally expected nice bumpy edges of corner walls, will this software technology be used for other things like, maybe, bullet-holes on walls or enemies? Currently, what is virtual displacement mapping utilized for in UE3?

We're using virtual displacement mapping on surfaces where large-scale tessellation is too costly to be practical as a way of increasing surface detail. Mostly, this means world geometry -- walls, floors, and other surfaces that tend to cover large areas with thousands of polygons, which would balloon up to millions of polygons with real displacement mapping. On the other hand, our in-game characters have enough polygons that we can build sufficient detail into the actual geometry that virtual displacement mapping is unnecessary. You would need to view a character's polygons from centimeters away to see the parallax.

Is PS3.0 needed? Should someone bet on a 6800 with it's PS3.0 for future games? That's what I wanna know. "Lage scale tessellation too costly"? BTW PS3.0 is what they are talking about. PS3.0 uses a tessellation unit to form geometry. From what I read it seems they are putting everything into Pixel Shaders mostly rather than Vertex Shaders, which is where Displacment mapping is and is the only visual difference between it and PS2.0.

 

[blackeye]

The video I saw from E3 for the engine looked amazing. If they say that directx 9 is the minimum card it must be a hell of a system buster. Directx 10 will just have been released by the time this engine is out. But maybee buy then the average consumer will have his or her dx 9 card. It two years away. The x800 series will really show its age when your playing on this engine.