The 3DS graphics chip is a bit foggy

[heartgold]

Dream Trigger 3D, a musical shooter from D3 Publisher, has a level where players float through a foggy forest. Art Co., the developer, didn’t need to make fog from scratch.



When we were discussing the development of Dream Trigger 3D, a representative revealed the 3DS had fog effects built in on a chip. So, if you want to cover a stage with volumetric fog you can use the 3DS’ built in hardware to do so[/p]

Source

So basically 3DS helps developers render Fog effects via its own chip.

 

[relminator]

AFAIK, the DS can do hardware fogs.

Any GPU that does hardware depth-buffers can easily add fog since they can do fog while doing z-buffer writes.

 

[Zorua]

The title is kinda misleading. It should be, 'The 3DS graphics chip supports fog effects'. Anyway, this is good news. I like games which have a foggy atmosphere.

 

[nryn99]

reading the title i thought that the graphics were foggy.

 

[Veho]

AFAIK, the DS can do hardware fogs.

But is it volumetric fog, or just a "fog" filter at a preset distance?

 

[heartgold]

reading the title i thought that the graphics were foggy.

Read some more cause I swear there's 'chip' after the 'graphics' wording.

IMO title is fine and a little sense of humour, not cool?

 

[nryn99]

reading the title i thought that the graphics were foggy.

Read some more cause I swear there's 'chip' after the 'graphics' wording.

IMO title is fine and a little sense of humour, not cool?

yeah, and i get the sense of humor. don't change the title.

that was just my first impression. at first i that's what i thought. then rereading the title i though that maybe the 3d graphics chip makes the games foggy/or the specs were unclear. but reading the thread clears up the fog.

 

[Veho]

the specs were unclear

That was my first thought after reading the title.

 

[relminator]

AFAIK, the DS can do hardware fogs.

But is it volumetric fog, or just a "fog" filter at a preset distance?

Just distance fogging.

 

[Recorderdude]

yeah, when I read the title I thought that it meant that the details on the exact specs of the chip were foggy, or nobody really knew exactly what it could do

Still, auto-fog is cool shit. Growing up with a GC and SNES, I always thought fog and fur textures (namely in starfox adv) made the games look really damn cool.

 

[cwstjdenobs]

Built in volumetric fog? Are people sure this has a programmable pipeline? It's sounding a lot like old fixed pipeline OGL all the time.

 

[r3gR3t]

Same thing with the title here

Still, AutoFog function is awesome for game developers. Maybe even homebrew developers will make use of this, when the 3DS gets hacked, of course

 

[DryYoshi]

I thought the 'foggy' part was supposed to mean 'vague'.

 

[Rayder]

OOH! OOH! 3D Silent Hill!

 

[Schlupi]

OOH! OOH! 3D Silent Hill!

Oh.

 

[Hadrian]

OOH! OOH! 3D Silent Hill!

I'd want one if there has been one that was better than passable in the last several.

 

[shakirmoledina]

lol creator... it seems a lot of filters, effects, etc have been added on the 3ds rather than just better graphics in terms of resolution or quality. It seems like nintendo have thought of the hardware very well that making it more powerful is not as good as adding a fog or anti-aliasing etc

 

[lostdwarf]

The chip in question is the CPU built by Armada and Nintendo. It has a graphics IP built in to it called PICA 200 Meastro. The 3DS CPU is a 'system on a chip'.(like hummingbird/snapdragon)

Clock speeds unconfirmed but point towards a 800MHz - 1GHz with multiple pipelines.

http://www.dmprof.com/english/e_products/e_case/

1. DMP's MAESTRO-2G technology

* per pixel lighting
* procedural texture
* refraction mapping
* subdivision primitive
* shadow
* gaseous object rendering (this is your so called 'FOG')
http://www.dmprof.com/english/e_products/e_pica_200/

3DS - http://www.dmprof.com/e_news/e_press/372/

As you can see, it does a LOT more than just reproducing fog. It does shading, refraction and rendering ALL WITHOUT using the cpu itself.
Add in the CPU and you get this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr3bvrvJYyo
and that was just a quick, first gen demo.

 

[SPH73]

Coming soon: John Caprenter's "THE FOG" The Video Game

 

[CrimzonEyed]

Title made me think "oh noes the graphic will be foggy?"