Ratchet & Clank Future Developer Diary #3

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For the third developer video diary, we’re shifting our focus to the more technical aspects of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction – which brings us to Mark Lee. Mark is one of the few… the proud… the engine programmers. Mark and the rest of the engine team are responsible for creating the majority of Insomniac’s technology that helps bring all of their games onto the PS3.

Mark will be discussing keeping RCF’s frame rate rock solid and lessons the team learned from Resistance: Fall of Man in this dev diary.


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46 Comments

  • The few….the proud…..the marines??….

    No, the developers!

    Informative, thanks!

  • any news on resistance 2?

  • Great stuff!

    I’ve just finished my 2nd play through of this game. :-P

  • I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Insomniac needs to open a consultancy division to help all those other developers who can’t get their heads around the PS3 architecture. They would make a mint and everyone would get better games on the PS3. Win Win for all!!

  • It does seem as if there are a select few devs that are utilising the PS3 better than the rest – Insomniac are defintely one of them. R:FoM – never seen a hitch in FPS. Ratchet & Clank looks to be the same and looks stunning

  • I cant wait to play this today or tomorrow

  • cant wait for R&C!!

  • I downloaded the R&C demo and really enjoyed it.

    It looked frickin’ awesome in HD.

    I think that I’ll go buy it.

  • Does anyone who has the game know how much sixaxis is implemented?
    Lots or only a little?

  • @parthianarcher

    they use the sixaxis in few different ways ive seen so far. You seen one in the emo, they have weapons that use it. That what i know of so far.

    This is one stunning game. Great job guy. Cna you please teach other developers how to develope a quality game?! This is right on par visualy with HS.

  • These guys are all cool, but I miss Ted Price… Where the heck is that guy? TED COME BACK!!!!!!! “ha” anyways, I hope we hear more about Resistance 2 aswell… but I’m interested in how they will evolve the R&C series from where it is now. I hope they let us traverse planets on the fly in real 3-d space. As in allowing us to blast off from “said” planet and go right into space and travel to the next planet. Thru segments of shooting and stuff, but more hands on. Just a thought.

  • Hee Mark Lee i’ve got a question for you if you dont mind :)

    The word is that GTA5 isnt really rendered in 1920x1080p. I wonder at what resolution R&C is rendered (not the output reso but the real rendered one) is it really 1280x720p@ 60fps or is it rendered at another resolution?

    Thank you, cant what for R&C here !

  • nice hearing the team speak behind these great games. MORE! let people know how hard it is.. and show EA how it’s done.

  • Just agreeing it’s too bad Insomniac is about the only developer who can program the PS3 the way it’s meant to be. Too bad almost every other developer is having a tough time with it….

  • @Bierbeer

    Wow are you serious? You are asking him about someone elses project and engine? How can he know, its up to those guys.

  • R&C future was great man that ending is crazy. Man you guys got a lot of things to be working on: Secret Agent Clank, R&C future sequel because that ending leaves you wanting more, and Resistance 2. Im going to go and continue playingand upgrade the omega weapons and finish off my skill points, have all weapons and have all skins. Does anybody kno what happened to eye of judgment no retailer in NYC has it.

  • Ratchet and Clank runs in 720p. On my Samsung LCD, you can see this by hitting the “Info” button on the remote during gameplay. I’m sure you can do something similar on other HDTVs.

    Also, about the comments that Insomniac should show other developers how to code for PS3, it’s not necessarily that simple. When developers say the PS3 is hard to develop for, they don’t necessarily mean that they can’t figure out how to do it, but more likely that it simply takes more work in order to do so. I imagine that existing C++ compilers are not as good at taking advantage of the Cell SPUs as they are at taking advantage of more conventional processor cores, in which case the developers would have to drop down to assembly more often. It could be that EA simply decided they didn’t want to do that in some of their recent releases.

  • Oh, the fact that it’s 720p is also on the back of the retail box, of course. But doing the thing with the info button would have told you it’s 720p just from the demo.

  • @15 My question is about R&C, and yes i know the demo and game are on output 720p (maybe software scaled) but my question is to some1 who really knows about the engine at what resolution is it rendered. My Sony FULL HD tv also says 720p but that is technically the output, it could be that it is rendered in a different resolution by the engine and software scaled to 720p.

    I was just wondering because i’ve heard some rumor about that R&C is not rendered at 720p.

    So again my question: at what resolution is R&C rendered. :)

  • Oh, sry. Well, if you don’t get an answer here, you can tell by carefully looking at fine details in gameplay footage that move mostly parallel to the TV’s plane in the 3d space of the game. Something good to look at might be Ratchet’s fingers in one of those freefall scenes where you use Sixaxis to steer.

  • In particular, what you should be able to see is, when you look at individual pixels on the border between two objects which contrast highly with one another (such as Ratchet’s brown gloves and a light-orange cloud background) where the foreground object is blurred in order to have anti-aliasing, the band of pixels which are blurred because they’re neither completely the foreground object nor completely the background object should be thicker than normal. The closer the “real” resolution is to 1280×720, the less of this you’ll be able to see. I wasn’t able to see any of it on Ratchet’s fingers or boots during a freefall Sixaxis scene.

  • this game is absolutely sick i cant stop playing it

  • I reallt wanted to buy this game last tuesday, and im sorry insomniac, i just couldnt. I was to busy with hockey. I will make sure i buy this game early nest week and ill play it like crazy, just like i did with resistance. PS. I like these lil vids.

  • Just a heads up we sold nearly 40 copies of this game over the span of 1 and a half days at my store. We had 17 pre-orders for it.

    However, we only have like 7 copies left as of tonight when I got off work. We don’t get a shipment in until Wed, either. Awesome stuff, really…

  • To everyone at SONY……

    Man, this has been a ridiculous 9-11 month ride with the PS3. From it’s launch people tried to right it off as a failure because it wasn’t on par with the competition right out of the gate. Oh yeah, then there’s it’s price point which consumers were totally clueless on. They didn’t understand the deal they were getting and the money you were willing to lose on each console sold. Then there was all the online bashing as well as the bashing the system received from the media. Then there was the internal issues of SCEI, especially concerning the horrible managment and leadership of Ken Kutaragi who despite his failures as a leader is still highly respected and then there was also his recent public demotion which then lead him to resign. It was mainly because of his poor business decisions that we have lost exclusivity to several titles. Add onto to this, the competition’s “head-start” lead which allowed them ample time grow a larger user base. Add to this, developers only focused on that platform allowing for a year’s time to understand the hardware which by the way isn’t next-gen but rather is current-gen with a cross or mixture of next-gen elements. The one plus factor for the competition was it’s online gaming center which is the only real strength they have in my opinion. With this online gaming center, they’re only utilizing their strengths. Aside from this, another competitor comes out of nowhere and brainwashes the world with its suductive flare. Wii all know the story, now let’s see how long it lasts. Despite all of the negativity and controversy surrounding the PS3, SONY would not cave in to what people wanted to see which was see SONY, a very competent, quality, and highly experienced company go down and surrender its hold and dominance on the market that it has clearly defined. To all the naysayers, I am sorry to tell you that PS3 and SONY for that matter aren’t going anywhere and we are just getting started. Let this be added motivation for everyone at SONY.

    When this is all said and done, consumers and people in the industry will bow down to SONY and its trend-setting PS3 computer entertainment system. We will get all exclusivity rights to the titles that slipped right out of our fingers. In the end, SONY will stand triumphant as the only company in the videogames business to win or decide 3 console generations, a feat which has never been accomplished until now.

    Like I said, it has been a hellacious 9-11 months, but now the mourning is on the horizon and the sun is finally starting to shed its light. Ratchet & Clank Future along with titles like Uncharted, Haze, MGS4, Motorstorm 2, Singstar PS3, God of War PS3, Killzone 3, Tekken 6, Folklore, and a host of others are the games that are finally shedding light on our platform. Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end of our main competitor’s short reign on our market. Game developers are now beginning to see that SONY made the right choice in supporting and backing blu-ray instead of HD-DVD. And of our significant other, we’ll see how they fair in the long run.

    I am very proud of every last one of you guys at SONY. Believe or not, this whole experience has now made the company stronger and more durable and more flexible than ever. Most companies faced with this kind of pressure would have caved in and quit a long time ago, but not SONY, the very best in consumer electronics. Bravo, again I say, bravo! You guys hung in there and are now about to reap the benefits. No doubt, PS3 is a 10-year life-cycle console that will be able to compete with future platforms from the competition.

    To the competition. You tried, in fact, you tried really hard, but the saying will remain the same….SONY wins again!!!

    SONY………Like. No. Other.

    the6one………

  • You know, looking back in retrospect, it hasn’t really been that bad of a year… People just like to [DELETED] is all. think about it… Resistance, Oblivion, Ridge Racer 7, Fight night round 3, Virtua fighter 5, Ninja Gaiden sigma, Heavenly Sword, Lair “which I love”, Genji 2 “which i love too”, Warhawk, Ratchet and clank, Rainbow six vegas, Graw 2, The darkness… Then add in all the PSN games that are pretty decent… PS3 had a great year. It’s just people are morons. Folklore is awesome too. I’ve had plenty to keep me busy.

  • Motorstorm too… “but it’s not my favorite game” Sur it was riddled with problems. 2-d flat panel audicences and some lousy texture work… not to mention no speedomitor and lack of options and tracks… It was still a diverse game to have early on. I just hope they give us more options in the next one. A cockpit mode would be great and I wish they’d tweak the Bikes ot be more fun to play as. They’re too stiff and unforgiving. Bikes should be loose and fun to control.

  • Cool shirt is Mark Lee wearing!

    Is that available anywhere?

    greetz from the Netherlands

    p.s. R&C, i pre-ordered it! come on with it :)… comes out here on the 9th of november

  • R&C is absolutely awsome; and deserves game of the year more than certain other over hyped games, (which are good too, just not as good). Any possibility of downloadable content in the future? And I have to say this, I think it would be so cool to have a resistance chimera skin to unlock in R&C future tools. Hint hint…

  • Potential Customer

    @ the6one

    How was it consumers were clueless about the price? I don’t care if it cost $100K for Sony to produce each console, the fact is $600 was too much for the average person that just wanted a game console with a good selection of games.

    I bought mine recently with the $150 discount from Sonystyle. In fact it was Sony who didn’t understand the correct price point. They’ve corrected THEIR mistake recently and hopefully for my sake and everyone that owns a PS3, these things will begin to sell.

    When there are 120 million PS fans and only a couple million buy the PS3 at launch, don’t blame the consumer. The totally clueless ones were Sony and the people who paid $600 for the “privleage” to be the first to play Resistance and Motorstorm.

    Unlike November 2006, by the end of November 2007 the PS3 will really be worth the money Sony is now asking for it.

  • The next thing is really try to add dynamic shadows and HDR to the engine, Resistance as a franchise especially needs that extra umph to the visuals, and the absence of a next-gen lighting/shadowing implementation held back the first game’s visuals quite a bit. My clan and I play four nights a week so we love it but I think better visuals will also definitely draw more people in.

  • @30

    EXACTLY! Resistance really needed some realtime HDR lighting and shadows. The game looks kinda dated graphically already without it, as many PC and 360 FPS games use it.

  • the olympiad of gaming needs no oracle…no seer…masses ratchet up the buzz-its rising…the awakening giant/ zeus like chronus before him defers to the mighty warriors who fought the mighty battles on the site of psone and ps2…now henceforth the torch is passed to the muscularPS3…..MIGHTIER THAN ITS SISTER/BROTHER YET GRACIOUS TO THE PATH THEY SET…now in its own footprints for present and future battles…. masses are you ready for the new master of gaming

  • @4 Savage Me likey! :D

    @32 orbio234 … Um… Yeah, what he said.

    Already got my copy and I just finished it late last night!~ Now, I need to kick some major butt, ’cause the Omega series is EXPENSIVE. Personally, I’m happy about that, ’cause that gives me something to strive for that won’t be over in a snap. And in related news: Golden Groovitron!! Love you guys for that! :D

  • @ 33 Have all my Omega weapons and Golden Groovitron just trying to get all the wepons to lvl VX only need like 4 more ^_^. Next will be getting the rest pf the skill points I need LOVE THIS GAME AS HOW I LOVED ALL R&C GAMES!!!

  • W.T.F. is the game rendered SO dark? W.T.F. is there no gamma correction? The game is nigh unplayable. Don’t get me wrong, the game is much better than I expected base on the demo; but for gawd sakes, add a light source or two wouldya? I’d like to actually see some of the areas I’m gaming through.

  • @kittonwy

    “” My clan and I play four nights a week “”

    to quote southpark:- ‘how do you kill that which has no life’

    -haha- :)

    @psychoeddie

    your screen is [DELETED] mate, game looks fine on my system. ever heard of a brightness button??

    R+C is the best looking PS3 game to date! the dawn has indeed come for the PS3, the amount of stuff coming out the next couple of months is what we have been waiting these long empty months for. 2008 WILL be the year the world realises just how amazing a system it is, and with guys like Insomniac on our side i’m happy to be a faboy.

  • @ Mark Lee – dude i want your shirt! and your game of course :)

    Peace,
    Lh

  • @mobiletone

    The brightness is turned all the way up. I only have problems when I play ps3 games. They all look way TOO dark and so far the only ps3 game I’ve found with gamma correction is Darkness (See: Irony). No game should ever be published without gamma correction. Did I mention that my television is over 30 years old?

  • LOL I can’t believe PE is playing a brand new HD system like the PS3 on a 30 year old television.

    Wow. If you could afford one you’d think you’d replace the other to match up.

  • @afrosheen

    Now why would I replace a perfectly good television, old as it may be, with one of those new fangled, overpriced, obsolete in 30 days, expensive boat anchors? All the game developers need to is add gamma correction, which should have been in the game in the first place. My PS and PS2 have no issues with lighting on my tv, only the ps3.

  • Potential Customer

    @PsychoEddie

    There should be a knob on your tv(probably large and silver) next to the contrast and color knobs that controls the brightness of your set. LOL

  • @Potential Customer

    um…Hello…McFly!?

    @mobiletone

    The brightness is turned all the way up.

  • hey Eddie does your tv have a scart socket :) or are you running the ps3 through a psx RF / AV converter cable.

    it seems your tv doesn’t like the ps3 for whatever reason, just go to a pawn shop or ex-rental and buy a new one for $50, that’s the price of a game man. i’m sure they’ll give you trade on your classic tv set.

  • @mobiletone

    You just gave me an idea. It maybe the betamax that the video is running through. I’ll have to try removing the inline components and try running it directly to the tv.

  • *smiles*

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