Naughty Dog Making Dev Tools For First And Third Parties

We all know by now that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is head-and-shoulders above the competition in terms of overall technicall prowess, and according to a recent interview, developer Naughty Dog hopes this will lead to other designers taking better advantage of the PlayStation 3's capabilities.

In speaking to Gamasutra, Uncharted 2 lead designer and writer Neil Druckmann mentioned their "in-house team that actually develops tools for other first parties and even for third parties." Translation: if other developers are going to be using Naughty Dog's tools, more games could start to exhibit the technical excellence found in Uncharted 2. Druckmann himself said he'd "like to play more games that look like" their gem of a sequel, and we're certainly not going to argue that point. In terms of the graphics, the team almost completely revamped their approach in comparison to the original Uncharted, but Druckmann also wants to clear something up about "maxing out the PS3:"

"I'm sure people have seen reports in the past where we said we were using '100 percent of the PlayStation 3,' and we're not lying or exaggerating when we say that. What we mean is that none of the SPUs are ever idle. They're working 100 percent of the time. In the first Uncharted, they were idle about 70 percent of the time, because we were just on the GPU."

What he's saying is that the PS3 isn't "maxed out," but it's all in how you go about accessing the system's available power. Remember, the team has already said they're already working to optimize that Uncharted 2 engine still further, and they've also said they could indeed make everything look even better. ...that's a little difficult to imagine. But at any rate, we're excited about other teams using Naughty Dog's tools; we really, really want more experiences like Drake's newest adventure.

Related Game(s): Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

11/14/2009 10:34:57 AM Ben Dutka

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Comments (39 posts)

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Naztycuts
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 10:50:31 AM
Reply

This is good for the ps3 and the industry as a whole. I look forward to the games that choose to use these tools. Way to be making all the right moves Naughty Dog. Maybe they can incorporate the tools into the next Call of Duty that series needs some help graphically.

8 up, 0 down

Naga
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 10:55:47 AM

Call of Duty is better off dead, I'm sick of that dreaded name

15 up, 4 down

Naztycuts
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:02:01 AM

Dude CoD won't die do you have any idea how much money they're stuffing in there pockets at activision? Me neither but I kmow it's more than I'll see in my lifetime.

0 up, 0 down

Father33
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:34:11 AM

I agree. What's up with how bad the graphics are for MW2? Good animations and high framerate don't make flat textures look any better. World at War even looks better!

6 up, 0 down

www
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 3:17:06 PM

There's no problem with COD's graphics!

0 up, 12 down

Jawknee
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 4:06:18 PM

They're not the worst but I think a lot of people expected better. 600p res also is pretty lame.

Last edited by Jawknee on 11/14/2009 4:08:32 PM

7 up, 0 down

sha4dowknight05
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 10:56:36 AM
Reply

haha great

1 up, 0 down

Streets_74
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:06:18 AM
Reply

That made me smile, I would love to see Naughty Dog to pick up the Eight Days game since it's such a similar game I can see them taking it to places they never thought posible.

3 up, 0 down

Qubex
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:17:05 AM
Reply

So how can any future CoD's ever beat this then; or KZ3... hmmm; I think multi-plats are really going to suffer... everything is going to be dumbed down because of the XFlop!

I will stick with my exclusives for value... Only thing I have to say is the that the "EGO" engine from Codemasters is really good, considering its multi-plat; however they may have tweaked the engine to run well on the PS3 and give "DIrt II" that real rendered look. "Frostbyte" is another decent engine... Anyway, we will see how it all transpires...

Q!

"i am home"

Last edited by Qubex on 11/14/2009 11:17:24 AM

1 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 1:04:22 PM

The new engines will bring a rain of pain onto the old xbox-beloved Unreal 3.

4 up, 0 down

BlackBriar
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:36:50 AM
Reply

Naughty Dog should give one to valve, and tell them its not that hard to make a game for PS3, And give Gabe a Hug and box of jelly doughnuts and tell him "Why So Serious?"

19 up, 0 down

frylock25
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 12:02:05 PM

"wanna know how i got these scars?"

1 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 1:05:08 PM

But if they cut his cheeks open he could fit more donuts in his mouth ;)

2 up, 0 down

Snaaaake
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 3:40:45 AM

@frylock25
"See, Kaz once put a knife in my mouth to mimic the scene in Dark Knight and he got too serious and say "Why so serious?" and cut me, then I yell "WHY SO SERIOUS!?!?!".

0 up, 0 down

Deleted User
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 3:12:44 PM

The Source Engine is a fine peice of work and much more flexible than anything anyone has put out in the last 10 years

0 up, 3 down

Zorigo
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:56:23 AM
Reply

my mate mentioned U" compared to MW2, as an overall game, and said u2 has great grapics and stuff but its not addicting. i agree that its not addicting, but the gameplay mechanic is nicer and slicker, the graphics are amazing, and the story mode is epic.

1 up, 3 down

frylock25
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 12:05:57 PM

not addicting? were you actually playing U2? is ur roommate an xbot?

6 up, 0 down

Kowhoho
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 4:25:57 PM

I think the opposite is true. The first time I sat down with the game I was totally blown away by the first scene and I kept saying "Just one more chapter" for about 6 hours. If I had done that with MW2, the game would already be over. ;)

6 up, 0 down

Smoothhands
Monday, November 16, 2009 @ 8:03:00 PM

lol not addicting? I couldn't put the game down... I played it 3 times already

0 up, 0 down

Jawknee
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 12:12:04 PM
Reply

Awesome. They need to call every third party dev and say "your doing it wrong, let us help you".

4 up, 0 down

Alienange
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 12:40:24 PM
Reply

This is good news for the graphics whores out there, but can Naughty Dog supply a writer with every copy of their engine?

8 up, 0 down

WorldEndsWithMe
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 1:02:46 PM
Reply

Fantastic news, I think that's all that SE meant too, they are are probably using the SPU's but are in no way "maxing it out"
The future looks so bright I gotta wear shades.

Maybe we will get a great RPG with these graphics and the smoothness somewhere down the line.

2 up, 0 down

Naztycuts
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 3:34:01 PM

Dont tease like that worldendswithme i'm salivating! If they made an excellent rpg with UC2 graphics the world would explode

0 up, 0 down

Qubex
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 1:15:12 AM

Naztycuts, I was thinking the same thing!

Q!

"i am home"

0 up, 0 down

Deleted User
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 3:19:37 PM

SE is def using all the SPUs... if they were not that pos GPU that was thrown in the PS3 wouldn't be able to push the game at 10fps. Developers are doing the opposite on the 360... offloading some additional stuff onto the GPU now that they can drop the resolution just enough to fit into the 10mb zbuffer for completely free anti-aliasing. There are always ways to make improvements and push these systems a bit further

0 up, 2 down

Deadman
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 4:40:24 PM
Reply

Hats off to ND for helping to push the industry further.

Last edited by Deadman on 11/14/2009 4:46:02 PM

3 up, 0 down

maxpontiac
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 5:46:58 PM
Reply

Nice to see this happening. There is no reason that every PS3 game should not have better graphics.

1 up, 0 down

frylock25
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 6:05:58 PM

i have been saying that same damn thing for years now.

0 up, 0 down

kevinater321
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 8:59:24 PM

Well budget is a huge factor but other than that you are correct.

1 up, 0 down

NoSmokingBandit
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 10:44:46 PM
Reply

Doesnt Insomniac share quite a bit of code too? Sony developers are just one giant family, eh?

0 up, 0 down

___________
Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 11:20:30 PM
Reply

waste of talent.

0 up, 6 down

Qubex
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 1:15:45 AM

Why?

Q!

"i am home"

0 up, 0 down

blitz30952
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 1:58:03 AM

I'm surprised this guy hasn't been kicked out already...

0 up, 1 down

___________
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 7:19:35 AM

because i would rather them work on uncharted 3 or even better uncharted for the psp.
or even better a horror title.
this gen is seriously lacking when it comes to proper horror games,some of the best were on the ps1.
then those saw sequels on the ps2, than the ps3 came and most have not seen sequels.
those that did completley destroyed the series, ala resi 5 or silent hill homecoming.
never been a fan of siren blood curse either.
and the less said about the latest alone in the dark title the better.

1 up, 5 down

Jawknee
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 1:57:57 PM

Your comment wasn't completely predictable. Not in the least bit.

0 up, 0 down

raztad
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 2:21:47 PM

@above above

How is related all that stuff to ND's sharing their know-how?. If anything it will help everybody to improve their tech.

Last edited by raztad on 11/15/2009 2:22:43 PM

0 up, 0 down

Poor_boy
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 2:34:23 AM
Reply

As the saying goes... Sharing is caring. On the business side of things selling their engine could bring additional revenues to Naughty Dog. Quantic Dreams, developer of Heavy Rain, another graphically prowess game, should maybe do the same, after all they did invested a lot of resources on the technical side of their baby. Watching explicit details on the characters' face in Heavy Rain is a bit hair raising at times.

Last edited by Poor_boy on 11/15/2009 2:35:53 AM

1 up, 0 down

Snaaaake
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 3:42:47 AM
Reply

ND outdid themselves by giving us Uncharted : Drake's Fortune.
This year they outdid the world by giving us Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

4 up, 0 down

Ricochet
Sunday, November 15, 2009 @ 7:41:58 AM
Reply

"Druckmann himself said he'd "like to play more games that look like" their gem of a sequel"

That's the highest compliment a dev can give.

1 up, 1 down

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