A topic in OT made me wonder...

[Tim]

(Sorry, not linking you to the topic because I'm a little lazy)

I wonder how long it will be before games are 100% photo-realistic. I truly hope this is something that I will see in my lifetime.

 

[AndroidVageta]

Going at the current rate and with newer tech being implemented every new Direct X...Id say, realistically, to get to having photo-realistic completely life like graphics...maybe 50-100 years? To get to freaking awesome uncanny valley graphics...maybe 10-15 years?

It all really depends on how you define it all honestly...

 

[Maleficus]

I like having games with a variety of visual styles, I hope I never see a time where games are 100% photo-realistic, at least not all of them.

 

[Zenoth]

I really hope that not all the games end up being photo-realistic. I'll still want to play games like World of Goo even in twenty years from now. It's an art, more than just entertainment, art styles and variety in visuals must never ever attain any form of uniformity. But I would have nothing against a few rare "realistic looking" games, and when those games will arrive? Who knows really, at the moment we could say that it wouldn't happen until at least two or three decades, but then things and techs change so fast, that in maybe only five years from now we will say that it would happen in only five extra years.

 

[Tim]

What do you mean by "define it all"? I would have thought 100% photo-realistic would be easy enough to define and leaves no middle ground.

Also, please give some kind of evidential theory of your "50-100" years reply. My suggestion to you is to keep in mind the pace of what's already happened in such a short relative time frame (1990-present) as opposed to what you've suggested.

Please don't take this reply the wrong way.

 

[Tim]

I like having games with a variety of visual styles, I hope I never see a time where games are 100% photo-realistic, at least not all of them.

While it's great that you have that opinion, please try to answer the question and stay on topic.

 

[zerocool84]

It all depends on what you think is photo realistic. There are time where Crysis really did look photo realistic in-game. Hell I remember back in the Dreamcast games when NFL 2K came out, people thought it was a real game.

 

[Tim]

I suppose it's almost fair enough if you really want to haggle over the real definition of photo-realism, but please address the second part of my reply to you.

 

[AndroidVageta]

If you mean photo realistic in the since of purely graphics...15 years or so I would think...my 50-100 year guesstimate was based on a completely real world...real adaptive AI, realistic physics on EVERYTHING...individual grass blades, leaves, rocks, pebbles, water, etc...50 years EASILY I would say.

But who knows, I think thats a reasonable guess IF we continue with technology how it is now...if say 10 years from now we come out with pure optical and/or quantum computers...then real life games could be 10 years or so away...