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Gaming Graphics

W

WaxHaX0rS

Member
This question was addressed somewhere in another thread but not answered, so I decided to ask it here. How long do you think it'll be before computer gaming graphics will get to a point where it's so real-looking that it's almost like watching a movie, except you control it in real time?
 
Oh it'll happen eventually, there just has to be demand for it: look at how far we've come already. DOOM 3 graphics are already better than those awesome Starcraft video clips, and I thought that would never happen.
 
It's impossible to fool the brain into thinking that what you are seeing on a video screen is real, when you sub-conciously know that you are playing a game. The user interface will always pull you away from the game. And no game will EVER be bug-proof. There will be times when something goes wrong, and you notice, and get very annoyed. So it'll never happen.
 
Originally posted by: WaxHaX0rS
This question was addressed somewhere in another thread but not answered, so I decided to ask it here. How long do you think it'll be before computer gaming graphics will get to a point where it's so real-looking that it's almost like watching a movie, except you control it in real time?
Click to expand...


i seen a video some where of some uber work station. it rendered a dodge saloon car (the big one, the intrepid?) in a kind of plaza area

when i first saw it i thought it was a ipix 360 camera thing, but he moved around in every direction, zoomed in and out, and changed the cars colour....i swear it looked just like a photo

granted that machine had terabytes of ram probably
 
I think Misterchief has a point. Most games take place in some "unreal" enviroment and the brain will notice that; it will never look "real" no matter what.

Another problem is the amount of detail you need, it is of course possible to design and render buildings, cars etc in a realistic way but what about people and other "organic" structures?
Just imagine the amount of work required to render a realistic human being, every little detail must be just right; even if the hardware can handle it you still need someone to design the model, textures etc.
It is difficult enough to make realistic images in 2D (as far as I know no one has ever succeded in creating a realistic image of a non-existing person, at least not good enough to fool anyone; but I might be wrong) of people and in 3D it becomes much, much harder.
 
The real question is - are better graphics what we need to be going for to make games more realistic?

Personally, I would consider things such as physics and AI a much bigger problem in terms of making games look like movies. Graphics can be great, but as soon as you see a characters arm go through a wall or something along those lines (something that happens in even the best current physics engines) all realism goes right out of the window. AI is another issue that will prevent games from getting the "feel" of a movie. Right now you can either script actions, or make characters react to the current environment, but the concept of personality and character (especially for the supporting roles) is completely absent.

Just my two cents.
 
I would say for a person to think a game is real will require actually being in the game using those VR goggles and gloves so you can interact without a mouse. Of course you'll also need surround sound and it would help if you can actually move on foot but the images you see will also have to be very realistic.

At the moment, games aren't aiming as much for realism in their gameplay, they're aiming for realistic effects and graphics which is a fair point otherwise it'll pretty much be a 1 shot kill for you in most games and that wouldn't be very fun!

I think there will be a time when there is propper VR, but not for a good 10 - 20 years. On the rendering front, I'm sure quantum computers would be able to render some pretty good images! Of course once again there has to be infrastructure there as in someone has to make the engine, the textures the models everything.
 
Unfortunately you cannot use quantum computers for rendering (there are only about 3-4 "real" applications of quantum computing).

Besides, rendering be done on parallell processors so this is a problem that should scale well on ordinary computers. Even if we can not increase the clock frequency much further we can always move to multi-core GPUs.
 
One thing NightFalcon about AI and physics..

Consider the goal of games to the devs employer. Money. What sells games? It certainly isn't quality AI and physics.

I agree with you wholeheartedly however. Just pointing out why it isn't happening.
 
OP, I think it will be quite a while before something like you described will happen. I think it will happen eventually, just not in the forseeable future, being that games as they are right now are far from looking lifelike and still require a tremendous amount of resources. In fact, I don't believe I have even seen someone program a picture that looked just like a photograph, let alone creating an entire world.
 
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Oh it'll happen eventually, there just has to be demand for it: look at how far we've come already. DOOM 3 graphics are already better than those awesome Starcraft video clips, and I thought that would never happen.
Click to expand...

Has nothing to do with demand. And Starcraft came out like 7 years ago... And there are already games with better graphics than Doom 3... that's just not a good camparison. Even rendered videos today aren't realistic. We just can't do it anytime soon.
 
Originally posted by: malak
Has nothing to do with demand. And Starcraft came out like 7 years ago... And there are already games with better graphics than Doom 3... that's just not a good camparison. Even rendered videos today aren't realistic. We just can't do it anytime soon.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about total realism. I was talking about progress in graphical power.

 
I think the comparison between StarCraft and DOOM3 is valid. The high-end CG cutscenes of just a few years ago are starting to be able to be rendered in real-time in games. Look at Half-Life 1 and Half-life 2. Doom 2 and Doom 3. We've come along way from Asteroids 20-30 years ago, what about in the next 20 years? What about 10 years, seeing as things seem to be getting better at an exponential rate. You never know.

BTW, I know that it will be a long time before it's completely lifelike, but I mean really close. For example, it would be difficult to have it completely realistic with all of the trillions of individual objects and details that you could probably point out in any given scene in the real world.
 
It would be a long way until then. Just think at the level of detail that you can see in the real world - the video resolution should be bumped maybe tenfold. Also, human faces weren't yet simulated properly, the talk still is not very well simulated (lips movement, neck movement, and so on).
There is a long time, and I don't think it will be in the next 10 years.

Calin
 
I think within the next 10 years, a high-end desktop will be able to render photorealistic video in real time (say, 24 fps). My benchmark would be rendering a completely CG scene from one of today's movies - think LOTR, or some such. You certainly won't mistake it for reality, as it'll still be rendered to a screen, but you won't be able to tell the difference between it and a shot taken from a video camera. That's the direction that games like DOOM3 are taking us. Remember, the resolution requirements aren't that high. Digital video rendered for a 60 foot cinema screen is only 2048x1556, or perhaps double that for very high end work, so we aren't talking orders-of-magnitude increase in the number of pixels to generate theatre-quality video. The problems are the models and algorithms needed to mimic what we see in the real world, and the CPU cycles to run them.

/frank
 
Has anyone heard of the Uncanny Valley? We are progressing to a point where characters and virtual worlds are so realistic that we expect the most out of them. We expect these incredibly lifelike images to be real, so much that we nitpick them to death. Essentially, people respond better to good images than they do to NEAR perfect images. <br> I would like for the poster that said quantum computing can't render to explain why it cannot render. I don't believe the assertion.
 
Originally posted by: malak
Originally posted by: Aisengard
Oh it'll happen eventually, there just has to be demand for it: look at how far we've come already. DOOM 3 graphics are already better than those awesome Starcraft video clips, and I thought that would never happen.
Click to expand...

Has nothing to do with demand. And Starcraft came out like 7 years ago... And there are already games with better graphics than Doom 3... that's just not a good camparison. Even rendered videos today aren't realistic. We just can't do it anytime soon.
Click to expand...


I love that "Joe has nine apples..." quote! :laugh::laugh::laugh:
 
I think you reach a point of diminishing returns, though. The progress from Asteroids 20-30 years ago as you said, isn't necessarily the amount of progress we will make in the next 20 years.

Also, given the fact that since Asteroids we have created just about every type of game in every type of genre possible. To do that we needed advanced interfaces and graphics. Now, when we've reached a point where all that differentiates one FPS from another or one MMORPG from another is the story and characters that pull the gamer in, companies will just look to add little touches like that. Creating an awesome gameplay > Creating an awesome environment...
 
Id give the technology another 10 years and to make the game another 10 years. haha

Im willing to wait for a game where you can go through a forest scene and not see the backround repeat itself every couple scenes. I think it would involve some sort of AI that can produce not one leaf but many leaves that arent identical in color or texture (maybe even movement)

Just dont forget how far we are from Orginial Doom. If you dont remember get on a computer and install it play for 10 minutes or so.
 
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