F1 Championship Edition: living, breathing example of the PS3’s power
December 31st, 1969
The critically-acclaimed Formula One racing sim, Formula One Championship Edition for the PS3, exhibited a glaring example of the huge power the Playstation 3 houses inside. The racing sim dares to push the envelope past virtual visuals and sits right next to realism. N'Gai Croal of Newsweek had a few questions for SCE Studio Liverpool's Game Director Graeme Ankers about the game and just how sexy it looks on the PS3.
From the interview, Ankers pointed out that the game was specifically built to put the title into a worthy next-generation level. So everything from damage modeling, high-definition rendering and life-like AI to the captivating simulation gameplay and every bit of detail was under scrutiny. If anything just didn't look real enough, they put it back to the drawing board until it comes out exceeding expectations or just right.
"One of the key challenges you face when developing a game for Playstation 3 is making sure everything in the game consistently hits the high benchmarks you've set yourself," Ankers explained.
The game allows the player to race against 21 other cars in a single track. A single car on the track uses as much memory as 22 cars would use for the PS2 version. Everything they had estimated came close enough that difficulties in realizing the next-generation level of detail for the game were minimal. And the weather effects... whew! Are they a sight to look at or what?
Ankers explained that the game models realistic rain. And it's not done on a looped way like other games have done before. The rain is simulated per droplet, meaning each drop can have a different impact effect, splash direction and splash area on the car, your helmet view and on moving parts like tires.
Cars veering off course or navigating turns will actually show how water sprays off the wheels from the wet track or from the rain. The game models each droplet by using the PS3's unique CELL architecture.
Even though the game doesn't delegate SPUs to specific tasks, each SPU is called on to do jobs in a priority basis. And because each SPU can process vertex shading tasks hand-in-hand with the RSX graphics engine, the game can render more than the usual vertex shading programs to deliver that superb "WOW!" effect.
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