What about Wii
by Ivan Mandzhukov · in Hardware Issues · 08/26/2007 (5:34 am) · 16 replies
This question is to the GarageGames crew. So friends, please tell me approximately how much is going to be the license for Nintendo Wii? Also is it possible to port an already created game on TGEA to Wii? And one last question licensing Wii support is going to give us any new tools except the application/sourse for porting games on Wii? May be more of you will think i am the next indie(an) :) who is asking for this basic information but to be frank noone is going to hook for making game for wii without clearing the rules an expectations.
#2
realy nice answer. Do you mean that our games must not include shaders. You can imagine how badly will seem a game without shaders.
08/26/2007 (8:11 am)
Thank you Mr Zepp,realy nice answer. Do you mean that our games must not include shaders. You can imagine how badly will seem a game without shaders.
#3
08/26/2007 (12:14 pm)
I can imagine, of course--but the Wii doesn't support shaders.
#4
Besides, you can create visual effects without shaders... they can just make it so much easier to do so.
Look at the kind of games already made for GameCube and Wii, that will give you an idea of what you can do with it. Good luck!
08/26/2007 (2:01 pm)
Metodi- none of the Wii games have shaders, do you think they all look bad? :)Besides, you can create visual effects without shaders... they can just make it so much easier to do so.
Look at the kind of games already made for GameCube and Wii, that will give you an idea of what you can do with it. Good luck!
#5
08/28/2007 (2:10 am)
Wii is more of a fun console than a graphical one
#6
08/28/2007 (1:05 pm)
I see...anyway fun games need to have animation-like graphics. i think it is quite difficult almost impossible to make an animation look for the player itself and for anymies. what about terrain? shadows will not have animation look until you use a shader.I do understand that it is more important to make a nice gameplay than graphics but combining them together is always the best. 
#7
08/28/2007 (2:59 pm)
Shadows were invented with the advent of shaders! Before that there was no such thing as shadow in computer graphics. Everything was flat. 3D was, well, stuck in two. And then came the glory of shaders which created shadow and depth.
#8
08/28/2007 (4:12 pm)
@Metodi--while I don't necessarily agree with you--GG doesn't make this decision. Nintendo decided to not support shaders on the Wii, and nothing you can do within your code can make the hardware support shaders, if the hardware itself can't use them.
#9
Stephen, I'm going to trust you on that, but does that mean that in games like Zelda they used software rendering to get the water effects? The water definitely looks shaderized.
08/28/2007 (5:28 pm)
You could always use baked in textures as sort of a fake normal mapping. I believe that's what the bump detail texture on terrain does.Stephen, I'm going to trust you on that, but does that mean that in games like Zelda they used software rendering to get the water effects? The water definitely looks shaderized.
#10
Can you at least tell us if it is going to be weeks or months, or by the end of the year or Q1 2008 or SOME kind of estimate? I'm looking to start a new project and Torque might work for what I need to do, but not if it doesn't come out in a reasonable timeframe. If you miss your estimate, I can understand, but I'd like to have some ballpark figure so I can make an engine decision at this point.
Thanks.
08/28/2007 (6:15 pm)
"As has been said many times, when we have additional information, we will let you know :)"Can you at least tell us if it is going to be weeks or months, or by the end of the year or Q1 2008 or SOME kind of estimate? I'm looking to start a new project and Torque might work for what I need to do, but not if it doesn't come out in a reasonable timeframe. If you miss your estimate, I can understand, but I'd like to have some ballpark figure so I can make an engine decision at this point.
Thanks.
#11
08/29/2007 (6:30 am)
A lot of it depends on Nintendo's release date estimates for the different development models, whether for shelf development or WiiWare. They are pretty tightlipped on release dates, and I'm sure that that tightness extends to their contractors as well. 
#12
Detail texture is multi-textured, and it uses the DOT3 combiner op.
Homework:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderMan_Interface_Specification
08/29/2007 (10:06 am)
Software rendering and shaders are not mutually exclusive.Detail texture is multi-textured, and it uses the DOT3 combiner op.
Homework:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderMan_Interface_Specification
#13
08/29/2007 (1:58 pm)
I can't agree with you guys.i have seen some wii games and definatelly they have shaders. may be it is not HLSL or GLSL, it may be some new kind of high-level asembly for its vector processor but i am sure the graphics in some wii games is not only based on FFPTnL (Fixed Function Pipeline Texture and Lighting). what about wiiware? i gues veru few of you have seen wiiware tools to be so sure about how FX are realized.
#14
08/29/2007 (2:17 pm)
We just go by what Nintendo tells us Metodi. They aren't telling us "Wii allows for vertex shader level XXX and pixel shader YYY".
#15
08/29/2007 (2:31 pm)
It also does not mean that some games have not written enhanced software shaders. It may have taken a very talented programmer to approximate the effects in realtime. Or it may have been much easier using some form of hardware shaders. Unless we see the SDK, we will not know.
#16
I haven't used TEV, but it sounds similar to register combiners.
08/30/2007 (10:50 am)
revoeyes.blogspot.com/2007/07/wii-has-more-power-than-you-think.htmlI haven't used TEV, but it sounds similar to register combiners.
Torque 3D Owner Stephen Zepp
The Wii port only supports TGE, not TGE-A (the Wii Console cannot handle the rendering capability of TGE-A).
There are several new functionalities and assistance tools, but none have anything to do really with making the game itself--just how to port the game to the Wii.
As has been said many times, when we have additional information, we will let you know :)