Beyond Programmable Shading

Beyond Programmable Shading

An interesting presentation there from iD Software, discussing some of the theory behind their next generation engine (iD Tech 6, noting that iD Tech 5 is what's being used in Rage). It also agrees and expounds upon with the voxel based approach we see in Cinema 2.0 with great detail. Very interesting. Although, it does not fully resolve the issues of animating voxel structures, suggesting rendering dynamic geometry polygonally. On the other hand, the procedural generate of voxel surfaces for infinite detail is an interesting prospect I had not considered.
http://s08.idav.ucdavis.edu/olick-cu...m-in-games.pdf

It's hard to imagine that we've gone from fully fixed function GPUs architectures to fully programmable ones in less than a decade.

AMD's new Cinema 2.0 Inititive

Seems pretty cool, some of the stuff coming out of it is pretty mind blowing.

Cinema 2.0: The Next Chapter in the Ultimate Visual Experience? Story

Excerpts from the new Ruby 2.0 demo and the scorpion one:
http://download.amd.com/Corporate/AMD_RUBY_S04.mov
http://download.amd.com/Corporate/Ci...FINCHER_HD.mov

Stills form Ruby 2.0:
PCGH - Ruby 2.0: Screenshots und Video der neuen Radeon-Technologiedemo - 2008/08/Ruby_new_demo_000.jpg

Keep in mind this is all running real time on a quad core phenom x4 9850, ATI 4870 X2 platform.

Apparently this technology also ties into a new "cloud computing" rendering platform from a company called OTOY, and is being used in a new online world created by one of the MySpace founders called LivePlace/CitySpace. There's more info on them here, and yes, it's very very pretty!
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/09...ng-technology/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/11...-in-the-cloud/
It's interesting to note that the same technology behind OTOY was used to render some of the Transformers TV commercials in real time, as demonstrated in the videos on the sites I linked to. So it is absolutely cinema quality.

Another technology apparently developed in partnership with OTOY for the LivePlaces platform avatars is a new 3D human model capture and real time rendering system. The results speak for themselves, they look real.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/12/am...-human-models/

Now, if they can deliver this level of photorealism into the gaming world, I will be a very happy person. And considering the recent strategic partership between AMD and Blizzard, which will include the bundling of ATI GPUs with WoW, and noting that Activision Blizzard is now the largest gaming entity on Earth (Market cap of $18 billion vs EA's $16 billion), this may actually be a possibility.

Update:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Lar...cing,5769.html

Apparently, a company called JulesWorld is behind OTOY, and OTOY is just a technology product they developed. My bad. Interestingly, they have been using it to do real time raytracing and global illumination (photon mapping in particular) using voxel data sets since the 2900XT came out. That technology is the basis of the new Ruby demos as well. It's only with the 4870 that they've been able to do 60fps with AA though.

The trouble with mapping this over to games, is that voxel data sets are not always the easiest thing to animate, and they take up a LOT of storage space and memory. Although with size, the work of Ben Houstan has helped here a bit (see here). Also in a demonstation video, the people from JulesWorld say they have a novel compression method developed in partnership with AMD (see here). And then, if you watch the video, there is clearly a great deal of animation and destruction going on. The question is, is that baked animation, or generated dynamically? For games, it must be the latter, but I remain hopeful.

It's not as though voxel based approaches to physics, animation and destruction don't exist. Just look at Digital Molecular Matter (ok, more voxel-like than voxels exactly, it splits objects into tetrahedron volumes), as used in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game. So it's entirely possible that this will work out. If this is really how the next generation of gaming is going to be, I can tell you I never would have predicted it. Looking at recent presentations on DirectX 11, it clearly leans towards subdivision surfaces and bezier patches with displacement mapping. I thought it was either that, or further advancement of relief mapping (which operates using local per surface raytracing into the displacement map to find the correct location/depth of the current pixel). But ray traced voxels? I never seriously considered it until now.

I mean, yeah I could see voxels for the physical simulation of destructive objects, which is what DMM does, and definately for fluid/smoke simulation (it's the only way). However, in all those cases, either the voxel object is substituted with a polygonal one for rendering (DMM) or a polygonal iso-surface is generated (fluid simulation), and only in rare cases is the voxel field directly ray traced/cast (smoke, certain variants of relief mapping). But I guess technology has improved faster than my personal imagination.

There are still more questions. Like how do they deal with aliasing inherint to voxel representations? Are they using level sets? How does their custom AA system work? Is simply the monte-carlo method of casting random rays into the pixel? When will we see production quality fluid simulations, like RealFlow, since clearly the renderer can handle it? Is it possible to blend voxel data with polygonal data and maintain performance? What kind of global illumination algorithms are they using exactly? Are they programming in pure Direct3D 9.0/10.0, or are they also using the CTM/Stream SDK to program the GPUs directly? Are voxels stuck onto a regular grid, or more free-form "volumes" as in DMM? Mainly, can they stretch and deform so that dynamically animated bodies remain contiguous and visually pleasing?

Now I can die a happy man!

Me and a friend somehow managed to sneak into the VIP gala dinner and event for the opening of the ROM's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. I met some of the most famous people of my life there. Here's a list of some of the people I met in person:

• Michaëlle Jean - Governer General of Canada
• Jean-Daniel Lafond - Film-maker, Husband of Michaëlle Jean
• Daniel Libeskind - Architect of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal & the NYC Freedom Tower
  
• Paul Gross - Host, Actor (Due South, Men with Brooms, etc.)
  
• Gordon Pinsent - Actor (Red Green Show, Due South, etc.)
• Fraser Walters, Victor Micallef, Remigio Pereira & Peter McCutcheon - Canadian Tenors
• Cody Karey - Musician

Of course, there were many more people present, such as Michael Lee-Chin himself, David Suzuki, David Foster and Sean Cullen. I'm certain that there were many CEOs, presidents, chairmen and other notables I did not recognize.

There were also many performers I saw at the concert, namely: Jann Arden, Jean Paul, Eva Avila, Isabel Bayrakdarin, Deborad Cox, K'naan, Leahy, Natalie McMaster, Alexandria Maillot, M'Girl, Sharon Riley & the Faith Chorale, and Dione Taylor. I watched them all at eye level from the bleachers and about 40 feet away.

In addition, there was plenty of drinks and finger foods going around. I enjoyed them greatly, as I toured the new extension for about an hour; the first group to do so. I'm certain, that I'm the first member of the general public to step in many areas of the building, and what a building it is! All in all, it was definitely an experience of a lifetime.

PS: Just remembered, I got on CityTV also. Maybe you'll see me?

Why arguing about God is stupid

The following was written in response to this comment on why the God debate is important:

Whether you like it or not, belief has impact upon peoples' actions. And incorrect beliefs frequently lead to harm. I don't see why you should consider it such a crime to fight ignorance wherever it festers.

Fundamentally, I agree with you. However, it's a question of relevance. I would work to reduce fanaticism in general before touching the question of God's existence. It's not like being an atheist somehow makes one any less extreme. You can be godless and still think that there is an alien spaceship hiding in the tail of a comet. Again, the suppression of religion in China has only moderately dampened superstitious beliefs. Plus, God's existence will always be unprovable one way or another, and clearly living a good life is fairly independent of the question. Just because this belief isn't necessary, doesn't mean that having it is a terrible thing. In other words, thinking that arguing about God's existence will make the world a significantly better place is itself an incorrect belief.

If I were you, I'd stop wasting my time with this distraction, and put my efforts into tackling problems that actually matter. For example, one might study the social dynamics of Islamic/Christian extremism/nationalism, try to find a workable solution, and then actually do something. Note that telling these people to simply stop believing in God is not a solution, because they would never agree with you, for one. Moreover, it would do almost nothing to resolve their conflicts, since most of them have a highly economic or political basis anyways. In short, don't bother trying to change a person's fundamental beliefs. Instead, teach them how to live productively and peacefully, regardless of the abstractions they happen to prefer.

Personally, I think this strategy will yield far better results than the one you depict. After all, a question who's answer is fairly irrelevant has no significantly wrong answers. The worst thing you can do with religion is to think it really matters, because then you give power to those that would manipulate it. You can't really affect a person using an idea they don't take very seriously. Thus, faith wouldn't be such a problem, if only people treated it like it wasn't a problem.

Self-Perception

This post is more quizzical than usual. The question being: How do you perceive yourself, and what are the relative merits and disadvantages of it?

Personally, I tend not to perceive myself. 99% of the time, I maintain awareness of what is immediately being input into my senses, and not much more. I go with the flow, and there is no "I", just the situation at hand.

Now, an obvious consequence of this, is that my emotional state is very heavily influenced by my environment. Of more concern, however, is that problematic behaviours of mine go largely unnoticed, due to this ignorance of self. Well, at least until after the fact, but by then, it's much too late.

On the other hand, I can avoid the application of my piercing critical faculty upon myself. Knowing how powerful and crucifying it can be, this odd "self-defence" mechanism has become deeply ingrained in my way of thinking and perceptions. For the same reason, I avoid looking in mirrors for time periods of any length. I choose not to look at myself, so I cannot see my faults, and butcher myself for them.

Of course, in the long term, this compensation is fruitless. Inevitably, my self-criticism finds a way through, having built up such ferocity in its suppression that it rends my soul apart. It's clear that the real solution is not to avoid this problem, but confront it head on, and tame my sense of self-loathing. However, this requires learning many skills to deal with it; skills that I currently lack. Still, I am in the process of doing this, and I will be victorious.

Although, perhaps victory isn't the point. Rather, I must learn to be happy alongside my imperfections, unafraid of self-judgement, and able to deal with its results. This is still a point of debate and confusion is my mind. Indeed, it's less about what I "must" do than what I "will" do, I suppose.

In any case, I do know another mode of self-perception; one I experience when the critical component of my mind is distracted. Here, I see myself in an objective sense, almost third person. I see me for all that I am, good and bad, and I see my position in my physical and social surroundings far more clearly. It is always brief, but I sense a profound clarity of thought, action and direction in it, and certainly, a much greater understanding of the self. Due to this more direct perception of behaviour patterns and habits, I feel I can control and change them with much greater ease. From what I can tell, this is a greatly advantageous state of mind.

The flip side of this way of thinking, is that it puts me at a far greater vulnerability to my wild and rampaging self-criticism. Since I can see so much more of myself, there is that much more surface area for caustic thoughts to attack. Then, as soon as I feel that unbearable burning, I react and withdraw, which explains the brevity of the experience.

Even as I write this, I think not of what the words mean to me, but only about the words themselves, from their selection and arrangement to their collective logical validity. Despite this, it seems to me that I need much more of this latter modality in my life, and I intend to get some.

With that said, what are your thoughts?

Help Me Be More Perfect

It's slowly become apparent to me that I crave perfection, like a metaphysical opium that grips my soul in its vice. It has become the crystal bullet that fires into my mind, driving it over the edge, for I desire it enough to indulge fantasy over the reality of its unreality. I sense, in the complexity of my minds imaginations, that I can find some happiness in delusion. Yet, I know this to be a faulty solution, leading only to the deterioration of self. Like a crack addict, I find myself crawling through the sewers of the mind in search of it, and as foolish as it is, all I want to do is ask, "Can you help me be more perfect?"

I hypothesize that if someone was there beside me, I could find the immortal strength to conclude this impossible quest. Again, I know that this is absurd, since only the equally ill would want to be accompanied by one so fixated as I. Thus, I feel left with my dreams, and thinking just maybe, if I focus completely enough, I can make these apparitions real enough to be satisfied. I could be that divine creature, that icon of glory, that God, and even if it only be in my mind, I wonder: What's the harm in that?

I argue that, after all, reality is in the eye of the beholder. I could see myself this way by a simple choice to do so; albeit, ignoring the obvious contradictions coming from my external reality. However, perception is but a function of the mind. In the end, I perceive what I want to perceive, even if it means choosing ignorance.

Of course, therein lies the contradiction. For, in ignoring that input, I am assuredly not perfect, but then, isn't the entire point of delusion to disregard reality? The question is not one of objective perfection, but of personal belief. It's what I feel, not what I know, and feelings are not bound to the realm of rationalism and logic. In short, I can be perfect in my mind, by simply ceasing to care about reality and "real" perfection.

Now, this is a very self-absorbed way of looking at things, I know, but when I have found so little in the world around me, why not? My best guess, is that I've just been unlucky, and there is actually a lot to be found in the outside world. Perhaps not perfection as I imagine it, but in fact, some quality that is better than what I can imagine. Frankly, I'm not sure these days. I have a lot of doubts, and only a few answers.

Maybe if I can rid myself of this obsession, I can take a step towards real goodness, real truth and real perfection. So, having realized this, I again ask the reader, "Can you help me be more perfect, by helping me to rid myself of the need this statement implies?"

To be totally honest though, I don't expect an answer. Why should the world come through with me this time? I certainly don't deserve it. I'm a broken person, which I know most people prefer to steer clear of, and that's fine. I'll probably figure it out on my own anyways... I hope. Although, these days, I have great doubt that I know what I'm doing anymore. Titanic doubt.

Pain

I wrote this randomly in a span of 5 minutes. Take it for what you will.

I bleed the truth
With the mind of Knuth
Thoughts twisted inwards
Become Rage's vineyards
At the Mirror I stand
Ready, my icy hand

I rip flesh from bone
To see who's home
No soul is found
So to Hell, I pound
Stomping irate
The God of Hate

Manson is foe
With friendly glow
Makes you his bitch
With the dead twitch
Releasing from pain
All the insane

These Words disturbed
Show evil perturbed
As I sit here waiting
For this endless grating
My heart's own torture
My self-directed mortar.