EARLY ADVANCEMENTS IN THE PLAYSTATION - PART 2: GRAPHICS

    In 1994, Sony released it’s first console, the Playstation. It’s formation came around from a deal between Sony and Nintendo in 1988. They were working together to develop an add on known as the Super Disc for the Super Nintendo[1]. The collaboration broke apart, with Sony releasing the Playstation, and Nintendo releasing the Nintendo 64 two years later. A more detailed history can be found in the previous blog post I wrote here.

The Hardware used in the Playsation
[2] DAVID LEVERTON (2009) Hardware of the Playstation 1 [Online Image] Available from: http://davidleverton.wordpress.com/category/console-development/ [Accessed 13/04/14]

    The hardware used in the Playstation made it stand above the rest of the 3D capable consoles at the time, as Sony predicted that 3D graphics would be the future of Video Games. Built to run 3D graphics, the console used a processor called the RISC meaning that instructions performed by the processor were simple and fewer, which would allow the system to perform multiple instructions at the same time[3]. All in all this meant that the Playstation had a faster clock speed. Another advantage the Playstation had was that it was able to pull off RAM from the CD and use it in the processing of the game. When you turned off the console the RAM would be purge of all information, meaning it could be used again in a different way the next time you picked it up. To get around the loss of progression in a game the Playstation was produced with ports allowing the use of the companies’ produced flash memory cards to save data.

    What I’ve really been preparing for is talking about the graphical side to the Playstation. I grew up with the Playstation, being one of the first consoles I played as a child, with many fond memories of playing these games. To this day I’ll still play them, having to deal with their now outdated graphics and clunky controls. Maybe I’m nostalgic, but I feel I can appreciate these earlier games and how they became a foundation for the games we enjoy now.
    As the Playstation had a limited processing power, game designers and art designers had to come up with ingenious ways to lower the processing power or use the technical limitations of the console to their advantage.

    Even with these hardware advancements, Game designers and Art designers found ingenious ways to lower the processing power or use it's technical limitations of the console to their advantage. I'm starting this topic with Crash Bandicoot. 

The early concept of Crash Bandicoot, Willie the Wombat
[4] CHARLES ZEBILLAS, NAUGHTY DOG (1994) Early Concept of Crash Bandicoot [Online Image] Available from:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Willy_wombat.jpg [Accessed 13/04/14]

    Released in 1996 the games art style was developed with the idea of lowering the polygon count. Crash was designed to have no neck reducing the amount of polygons on screen. During the transition from concept art to 3D model he lost his tail which appeared in the early concepts to reduce processing power. Crash was also originally design with trousers but this was changed to shorts as the Playstation had issues displaying this without flicking. Designer Charles Zembillas, has stated that Crash’s design was, “51% by technical and visual necessity and 49% by inspiration". This thought also extended into the colour design for Crash. Orange was selected as the main colour to allow for older TVs to play the games without the issue of colour bleeding[5]. Camera placement was also crucial in the maximising the technical limitation, either always pointed down from above the shoulder or pointed from the side. It was unmovable to the player, so assets were allowed to render off screen to keep a stable frame rate and while also hiding the draw distance for the game.

Jill Valentine from Resident Evil featuring the usage of Pre-rendered Environments.
[6] CAPCOM (1996) Resident Evil, Playstation 1 screenshot of Jill Valentine in the Dining Area of the Mansion [Online Image] Available from: http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2983/ss5cn.jpg [Accessed 13/04/14]

    Resident Evil managed to cut down on processing power by having pre-rendered backgrounds and static camera angles, something which many games implemented after the release of this ground breaking game. Digimon World (1999) and Final Fantasy VII (1997) used this technique to get effects, both creating a full immersive world. The pre-rendered environment meant that a small fraction of the polygon count went to the background, while detailing for the characters increased. The static camera angles were used so only parts of the room had to be rendered helping to reduce the processing power, and again lowering the poly count for the background. But depending on the placement of the cameras it caused the player to feel more tense, a tactic also used in the Silent Hill Franchise.
 

One of Spyro's ingame world, using the Panoramic engine which makes use of Level of detail renders.
[7] INSOMNIAC GAMES (1998) One of the Worlds in Spyro. Available from: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000502/spyro_07.gif [Accessed 13/04/2014]

    The Spyro game franchise first emerged in 1998 featuring a completely new way of keeping a high draw distance and having many assets on screen at once. The first game in the series was the first game to use the 3D panoramic engine. This engine allowed the game’s assets to have level of detail renders, which kept a high amount of immersion and gave the game an overall stable performance. This has become a standard in industry now. Spyro also featured almost cutscene like moments in there games which would allow for ingame loading, granting more expansive levels to load without the players knowledge.

Harry Mason from Silent Hill helping to show the draw distance of the game via the fog.
[8] KONAMI (1999) Harry Mason and Draw distance [Online Image] Available from: https://warosu.org/data/vr/img/0013/34/1389901877596.jpg [Accessed 13/04/13]

    Silent Hill came out in 1999 and used the draw distance in game to their advantage by incorporated the fog into the lore of the game. Fogged over and darkened area only helped add to the games atmosphere, to magnify the tension and the feeling of not knowing what might be a few yards ahead of you.
    All of these techniques allowed for the processing power to be maximised giving the player more content on screen creating full and interesting environments for that time. The only problem now is that the pre-rendered backgrounds now look outdated, as well as the lack of control of the camera which we are used to now mixed in with the game controls made the game feel clunky nowadays.

    From looking at Playstation games, I’ve noticed there is a dramatic split in the art styles at this generation. Half of the games were very stylised allowing for polygons to be saved and creating almost mascot-like characters for the platform, such as Spyro and Crash. While the other half battled with the 3D realism, a long way from the sprites of the NES and SNES age. The realistic games often used the pre-rendered background which can be seen in games such as Resident Evil. All of these elements I looked at in the earlier games were all done using the limitations of the console to their advantage or find ways of limited the processing power to areas where it wasn’t needed, something I personally feel we should look back on and implement in more recent games.
    Pre-rendered background now could be used in isometric view port games with a fixed camera, such as Dungeon Crawlers like the Diablo franchise and the upcoming isometric RPGs suchlike Divinity: Original sin. One game currently in development using this technique is Pillars of Eternity. Their backgrounds look stunning, much like the Resident Evil Remake backgrounds. They do suffer with issues of lighting effects which will always make the background and the figures look off to one another. I feel with more experimentation into this field we can minimise the lightning issues and maximise background animation to allow the models and environment to blend in more as I feel Pillars of Eternity have achieve in their game.

A Pre-rendered Background appearing in Pillars of Eternity.
[9] OBSIDIAN (2013) One of the Pre-rednered Backgrounds in Pillars of Eternity [Online Image] Avaliable from: http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/10/Project-Eternity.jpg [Accessed 13/04/14]

     As for level of detail renders, they have become a standard in industry. Elements in the background first spawn into view as image planes, the closer you get to the element, a more simplistic model spawns in it's place gradually getting more and more detailed the closer you come to the element. Plenty of games use this technique now to allow for a more immersive game.

Bibliography

[1] - IGN STAFF (1998) History of the Playstaion [Online] Available from: http://uk.ign.com/articles/1998/08/28/history-of-the-playstation [Accessed 13/04/2014]

[2] - DAVID LEVERTON (2009) Hardware of the Playstation 1 [Online Image] Available from: http://davidleverton.wordpress.com/category/console-development/ [Accessed 13/04/14]

[3] - JEFF TYSON (????) How Playstation Work [Online] Avaliable from http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/playstation2.htm [Accessed 13/04/2014]

[4] - CHARLES ZEBILLAS, NAUGHTY DOG (1994) Early Concept of Crash Bandicoot [Online Image] Available from:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Willy_wombat.jpg [Accessed 13/04/14]

  [5] - DYK GAMING (2013)Crash Bandicoot - Did You Know Gaming? Feat. Caddicarus [Online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaLgYPn_Fqs [Accessed 13/04/2014] 

 [6] - CAPCOM (1996) Resident Evil Playstation 1 screenshot of Jill Valentine in the Dining Area of the Mansion [Online Image] Available from: http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2983/ss5cn.jpg [Accessed 13/04/14]

[7] INSOMNIAC GAMES (1998) One of the Worlds in Spyro. Available from: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000502/spyro_07.gif [Accessed 13/04/2014]

[8] KONAMI (1999) Harry Mason and Draw distance [Online Image] Available from: https://warosu.org/data/vr/img/0013/34/1389901877596.jpg [Accessed 13/04/13]

[9] - OBSIDIAN (2013) One of the Pre-rendered Backgrounds in Pillars of Eternity [Online Image] Avaliable from: http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/10/Project-Eternity.jpg [Accessed 13/04/14]