Real Time.....

What does it really mean, in gaming terms? I hear it mentioned all the time but perhaps don't fully appreciate the advantages.

As for Kara?. I want one! Anybody remember Cherry 2000?

I like my games to have depth to the back story and this looks like a lot of thought has gone into it. It might only be a tech demo for now, but I doubt it will remain that way.

1987, eh? I missed that one. That was the year Mannequin came out too. And I've yet to see that also.

That Kara demo sounds really cool. I am gonna look into that more later on. Makes you wonder. The history of man(kind) has sort of always been about slavery, getting other people to do your bidding. Male fantasies eh? We're just naturally programmed to want things we cannot have.

I wonder what the ultimate women's fantasy is? Is it the same as us? I doubt it. They probably want a man who comes with an inbuilt screwdriver or something.

Real time? Are you referring to how 3D images are processed in real time as opposed to having already been rendered earlier? If so, here's my take on it: in 3D games we get to look about a virtual world, choose our view point and so our graphics systems are constantly calculating what that view looks like. Remember that this view might also include dynamic lighting and shadow effects, movable objects (including yourself) and other characters (especially enemy AI) - all of this needs to be calculated as you view it (in real time).

If it was pre-rendered, you wouldn't have any other point of view. The rules of how a scene was going to unfold would already be laid out in such a restrictive way that they would follow what the artist/editor/programmer already prepared earlier, like watching a film that had been decided on earlier. There's no real time processing to calculate how a scene looks as it's all been decided already. There is some overlap though: cut scenes in some games (like GTA IV) account for how you've chosen to personalise your character model. Anyway, I doubt you'll read this. Just complain that I'm boring you again. One of them Cherry 2000* models look good to me. Just gotta remember not to get it (too) wet...

*NSFW - not really suitable for work/children

Edited by deleted (Sun 11-Mar-12 13:41:11)

Thanks mate.

I see where you are coming from, but I'm still unsure what the real benefits are. After all, many open world "sandbox" games seem to work ok already. Does it reduce the size of games on discs? Many Xbox games apparently have 3 discs already. I suppose further down the line when we inevitably turn to downloading all our content, it could prove far more effective.

I would never call you boring Spook. That said, if it comes to choosing with whom to enjoy an evening of scintillating conversation, I wouldn't climb over Melanie G to get to you. Not that she says a lot when I am imagining how the evening might go mind you.

Don't even know who Melanie G is. If she's anything like... Well, anyway. Back to real time - I don't think it has anything to do with game data size. I think (don't know), but I think most game data is texture and sound based.

Textures will be picked up and assembled into a scene, fitting a wireframe. I think this is what they call rendering. Anyway, I'm knackered. Gotta go to sleep. Shame there's no Melanies for me to climb over!

Melanie Griffith (aka Cherry).

Oh! That Mel G. Face. Palm. Doh.

Actually, ahem. In my defense I've only had 2 hours or so sleep. And no, no naughty business unfortunately. I was working on my little project. What little project? Ah. Well. Now that's a secret!

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-Mar-12 20:02:33)

Two hours sleep? Secret project? Good god man, you're not building your own?

Ahahaha. Yup! How did you guess?

real time rendering = any fully interactive 3d computer game.

Non real time or "pre-rendered" = Shrek, and avatar for example. These are rendered by huge super computers at about 1fps and recorded to be played back at a later date by a simple video.

I.E real time is anything that your computer physically has to calculate and render its self. So all 3D games. (some cut scenes are pre-rendered and are actually just video of this being played back. Lots of games do this for cut scenes. It is because it can look a lot better than a real time scene can look. But its only a video file thats it.)

Non real time is any video of CGI or animation. Its just a recording of something rendered outside of the machine and at an earlier time than it is being displayed. Its technically just a recording and its made into a video and sped up to a nice smooth FPS. Then is get played back to you on your TV or monitor.

This is done because it can take months to render a 180min CGI film with 100x the power of your computer. So its would be impossible for your computer to render even one frame of some things in an entire day, let alone second. This is why non real time graphics can look so much more amazing than real time stuff.


So when people say "this is real time footage of game X" They mean that the graphics are actually physically being rendered on the screen by that particular machine in real time, i.e at a nice smooth FPS hopefully


Hope this makes sense.

To put very simply.... Pre-rendered is just a video of computer generated graphics sped up to a smooth frame rate and played back.
And Real-Time is actual computer graphics being drawn on the screen by a machine AT THE TIME.

ALL computer games MUST be real-time, because otherwise you cant interact with whats being show on screen. You cant interact with a pre-recorded video. Its just what it is, a static video. A recording of something.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Mar-12 02:30:23)

Thanks Death.

So I guess the question is why are games developers making a big thing about it lately? If all graphics are real time anyway, are they just trying to point out how close to pre rendering their visuals are looking now? Or are they trying to show that real time cut scenes are saving another resource such as disc space? Do traditional pre rendered cut scenes take up large amounts of disc space? Or perhaps real time cut scenes shorten the development process? I have definitely noticed "real time" being referenced more and more often in developers articles.

Either way, Kara is a real time cut scene and looks excellent.