PhyreEngine The new hotness

1. PhyreEngine™
The new hotness
Rich Forster
SCEI Euro R&D

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Introduction
• What is it?
• It’s a game engine including
– Modular run time
– Art pipeline
– Example game templates
– Samples and docs

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PhyreEngine™ Titles
• GripShift

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PhyreEngine™ Titles
• fl0w + expansion pack

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PhyreEngine™ Titles
• Colin McRae: DiRT

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Agenda
• Overview
• Technology
• Terrain Engine
• Roadmap

7. Overview

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PhyreEngine™ Genesis
• Built on pre-existing technologies
– PSSG for core graphics
– Multi-stream for sound
– Bullet, Havok and AGEIA for physics
• Added value from R&D projects
– Also using PSSG for rendering

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Run-time
• Cross platform
– Optimized for multi-core especially PS3
• Modular design
– Extractable and reusable components

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Provided as source
• Gives control to the user
• Extend and customize
• Transparency
– See how it works
– Debugging

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Art pipeline
• Ships with exporters for Maya and Max
– Supported by PhyreEngine™ team
• Compatible with most COLLADA tools
• PhyreStation asset processing tool
– Workspace model for assets

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Example game templates
• Self-contained sample projects
– Include full source and art work

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Samples and Documentation
• 70+ samples
– Each documented at code level
• Full reference manuals
– Inline API documentation
• Conference materials
• White papers

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Low-Cost Development Platform
• Enables PC development
– OpenGL and Direct3D
– Simple recompile for PLAYSTATION®3
• Run on Debugging Stations
– With SN’s tools
• Artist tools
– Debug station viewer

16. Technology

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SPU or Multi-Thread
• Geometry processing
– Skinning, morphing, culling, compression
• PhyreEngine™ handles streaming
• Can develop from non-SPU code
• Many already implemented
– 60 stream, 31 packet
– Each can be integrated into any other engine

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SPU or Multi-Thread
• Animation
– Blending
– Procedural generation
– Controllable time flow
• Uses frame coherence
– Persistent data stores playback position
– Enables prefetch of required animation data
– Prefetch handled by PhyreEngine™

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SPU or Multi-Thread
• Scene management
– Graph traversal and update
– Portal visibility
• Converts a scattered memory pattern
– Into a format easily processed by an SPU
• SPU implementations of common nodes

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Lighting
• HDR
– 8 or 16 bit with example HDR resolves
• Shadows
– Maps (inc. dual paraboloid and parallel split)
– Volumes – dynamic generation

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Physics
• Integration with existing physics engines
– Bullet
– Havok
– AGEIA
– Basis for your own

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LOD and Effects
• Level of detail
– Support for geometry and shaders
• Particle Systems
– Based on XML description
– Offline code generation for SPU and PPU/PC
– Author in PhyreStation

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PhyreStation
• PhyreEngine™ asset processing tool
– Interactive
• Preview, debugging
– Automated
• Refactoring, optimization

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Workspace Model

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Graph Editors
• Geometry and animation

26. Terrain Engine

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Terrain Engine

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Freeform mesh based terrain

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Features
• Streaming textures and geometry
– Large worlds - without tiled textures!

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Continuous Level of Detail
• Continuous LOD
– Similar to mesh-based
clipmaps

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Terrain blocks
• High level culling by scene graph
• PhyreEngine™ modifier system packets
• Polygon culling by modifier

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Levels of detail
• Specific modifiers for each LOD
• Input:
– Streams defining required LOD data
• Outputs:
– Tessellated geometry
– Index data

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Levels of detail

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Development
• Initially developed on Windows
– Using Cell SDK Vectormath library
• SPU version = 5 minutes
– Included code in SPU cpp file
– Compiled…
– Linked…
– Ran

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Performance
• 1040 cycle quad generation loop
• 200M quads/SPU/s
Initialization
Subdivision
Geomorph
Fix up
Cull

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Workflow
• Model low res meshes – 100 tris/quads
– Use as building blocks

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Workflow
• Import and arrange in terrain editor
– Subdivided to produce hi res terrain
• Export sections for sculpting
– Deform in 3D

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Workflow
• Export grid sections for texture editing
– Simultaneously edit diffuse, bump and gloss
– Can also bake lighting due to unique texturing

39. Recent Additions

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PhyreEngine™ 2.0
• Particle systems in PhyreStation

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PhyreEngine™ 2.0
• SPU render post processing examples
SSAO Depth Of Field

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PhyreEngine™ 2.0.1
• Initial terrain engine example
• Bullet physics integration
• HLSL example in Direct3D renderer

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PhyreEngine™ 2.0.1 - April
• White Papers
– Polygon culling and modifiers in general
– GCM memory management
– SPU features
• Scene management and culling
• Job framework
• Fragment program patching
• Texture post processing

44. Roadmap
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PhyreEngine™ 2.1 - June
• New game template
– Racing game using terrain engine

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PhyreEngine™ 2.1 - June
• Full terrain engine and tools
• First release of foliage technology
– Examples and initial tools

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PhyreEngine™ 2.2 - August
• Further integration of foliage system
• PhyreStation updates
– Advanced level editing
– Shader editing & optimization

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PhyreEngine™ 2.3 - November
• Scripting Engine beta
– SPU based bytecode VM
– PC tools and PPU library
– Simple visual editor

49. Summary

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Summary
• Actively developed and supported
• Already proven in chart-topping titles
– Across several genres and multiple platforms
• Freely available for PLAYSTATION®3
developers
– With cross platform support

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Questions?