[15:07:56] Captain Vimes: Well, Half-Life 2 did some pretty neat stuff with it.
[15:08:20] Captain Vimes: Though I suspect the main reason we're moving back in that direction is because of the recent obsession over Japanese culture.
[15:08:21] Temporal: anything 3D uses vector graphics... not raster
[15:08:41] Temporal: I don't think it has anything to do with Japanese culture. :P
[15:08:48] Captain Vimes finally gets it
[15:09:09] Temporal: raster graphics means bitmaps... pixels, sprites, etc.
[15:09:19] Captain Vimes: Aah, I thought you were referring to Wind Waker style, not sprites.
[15:09:52] Temporal: no... I'm talking much lower level than that...
[15:09:57] Temporal: basic rendering mechanisms
[15:10:20] Captain Vimes: I've always thought of vector as being 2D, and raster being 3D, for the main reason that most advanced pictures are done in raster format
[15:10:34] Temporal: with raster graphics, the screen is a grid of pixels, and you directly manipulate the color of each pixel
[15:10:57] Temporal: with vector graphics, the screen is a smooth space in which you can draw shapes
[15:11:39] Temporal: typically you build those shapes out of lines and triangles... maybe curves in more advanced systems
[15:12:01] Captain Vimes: Or, in all systems, now that we've gotten to this point in time.
[15:12:13] Temporal: ehh
[15:12:22] Temporal: 3D graphics cards don't draw curves
[15:12:27] Temporal: they only do triangles
[15:12:44] Captain Vimes: Is that the reason that NURBS aren't used as often?
[15:12:51] Captain Vimes: Or am I missing yet another thing?
[15:12:56] Temporal: "curved surfaces" in games are really just algorithms that generate triangles
[15:13:24] Temporal: NURBS is generally accomplished by using lots of triangles to approximate the NURBS surface
[15:13:45] Temporal: the only advantage is that, rather than having an artist place the triangles manually, you can use the NURBS algorithm to do it.
[15:14:12] Temporal: (and you can change the level of detail dynamically, since the triangles are generated)
[15:14:32] Captain Vimes: Hmph. And here I thought NURBS would be more performance friendly.
[15:15:01] Temporal: well, in some ways it is... in that you can dynamically change LOD to improve performance
[15:15:23] Temporal: but it also costs time to generate the triangles
[15:15:47] Captain Vimes: Quite a few triangles, to make a smooth looking curve.
[15:15:57] Temporal: the reason we're moving back to vector graphics now (even for 2D rendering) is because suddenly we have these super-high-power vector graphics engines (3D cards) in every computer
[15:16:14] Temporal: so now we can actually generate vector images that look *better* than raster images
[15:16:53] Captain Vimes: Yeah, so raster images are only really for hard-core old-school fans.
[15:16:55] Temporal: raster graphics take less computing power since you're just copying an image directly to the screen... but you can't resize or rotate the image, etc.
[15:17:17] Temporal: so they were good when computers didn't have the power
[15:17:48] Captain Vimes: But now, we have enough power that programmers aren't squeezing every cycle from their code for efficiency anymore.
[15:17:55] Temporal: right
[15:18:18] Temporal: on the other hand, raster graphics take a lot of memory to store images. Which is why vector graphics came first... before that sort of memory was available
[15:18:50] Temporal: but the original vector graphics were really basic. Wire-frame only, very few vertices, etc.
[15:19:43] Captain Vimes: I remember one old one where you rotated around the circular walls, and shot at incoming enemies.
[15:21:01] Captain Vimes: And raster is unlikely to ever make a comeback at this point, seeing that they boast PS3 will support real-time ray-tracing
[15:21:35] Temporal: O.o
[15:21:54] Temporal: they do?
[15:22:08] Captain Vimes: It's conjecture, but if it's true...
[15:22:14] Captain Vimes: Hoo boy.
[15:22:28] Temporal: that's actually entirely different from raster *or* vector...
[15:23:01] Temporal: I kind of doubt it, though. It wouldn't be practical.
[15:23:53] Captain Vimes joined.
[15:23:53] Captain Vimes left.
[15:24:01] Captain Vimes grumbles
[15:24:06] Captain Vimes: I need to get that router looked at.
[15:24:11] Captain Vimes went away: Grub!
[15:24:14] Temporal: get my last two messages?
[15:24:17] Temporal: ... oh, ok then
[15:24:25] Captain Vimes: Yessir
[15:49:10] Captain Vimes returned.
[16:43:58] Captain Vimes joined.
[16:43:58] Captain Vimes left.
[16:44:11] Temporal: O.o
[16:46:14] Captain Vimes: My router, again.
[16:46:29] Temporal: it's just funny that you apparently re-joined before you left
[16:46:40] Captain Vimes: Well, at least the principle works.
[17:07:01] Captain Vimes: I have to go, parents need me Computer
[17:07:07] Temporal: see ya
[18:09:10] Captain Vimes left.
[23:13:58] Dev joined.
[23:14:15] Dev: Er.
[23:14:27] Dev: ... naturally. I show up to make my big debut and there's no one around.
[23:14:39] Dev: Oh well.
[23:15:19] Dev left.
[23:15:42] Kass joined.
[23:16:09] Kass: ... how lonely.
[23:16:24] Kass wavewaves at the people reading the chat log!
[23:16:30] Kass quits.
[23:16:46] Kass left.
[23:47:26] Temporal joined.
[23:50:46] Dev joined.
[23:50:53] Temporal: boo
[23:50:55] Kass joined.
[23:51:01] Dev: Pig?
[23:51:03] Temporal: oh wow, three people!
[23:51:08] Temporal: what?
[23:51:18] Dev: In Japanese, pigs say "boo".
[23:51:30] Dev: Or, I guess it would "bu".
[23:51:39] Dev: Anyway! I'm going to the café.
[23:51:40] Kass: "Buuuuu~!"
[23:51:44] Kass: Nooo!
[23:51:55] Kass: I wanted to give you guys a survey. ::pouts::
[23:51:55] Dev: I'll be back. Eventually.
[23:52:08] Kass: Bah.
[23:52:15] Temporal: ::finally finishes cleaning the jpeg artifacts::
[23:52:26] Dev: So, see you then. Shouldn't be TOO long. :P
[23:52:32] Kass: Hmph.
[23:52:43] Dev went away: Café run.
[23:54:01] Kass fills out survey for friend's psychology something or whatever class.
[23:54:40] Temporal pretends he didn't hear about this survey because he doesn't want to do it, whatever it is.
[23:54:52] Kass: ... Aww.
[23:55:08] Kass: C'mon. She needs survey responses for her class assignment!
[23:55:33] Temporal: how long is it?
[23:55:34] Kass: I'm number nineteen out of, like, thirty.
[23:55:45] Kass: It's four questions long. But you have to say "why". :P
[23:55:52] Temporal: ick
[23:56:00] Kass: It's about male/female relationships.