When will computer games look completely realistic?

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Jan 31, 2013
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You'll be dead before photo realistic graphics are possible. We are barely on the edge now of having realistic physics. Chances are it will be another 100+ years before we even get close. It's certainly something we cannot achieve on silicon based products. Besides, what would be the point of realism in a game. The point of playing a game is escaping reality for said time frame. I for one am not waiting for it, nor expect it anytime soon.
 

atpokey

Member
May 16, 2011
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I suppose it depends how much you expect of it, in many cases a lot of visuals are amazingly realistic. For humans, simply adding some blemishes to models made them far more acceptable. Rendering in real time however... I don't see it as impossible, but the human eye is SO discerning that it makes it a high bar to reach.
 

Revolution 11

Senior member
Jun 2, 2011
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Even if real-time rendering reaches "realistic" graphics, the next challenge will be motion/physics. Realistic motion is also very difficult. You can have realistic movements within a short range of variation (walking a few steps can look real) but freedom of motion on the scale of humans has not been done yet.

Even Nvidia's new water simulation is too bouncy and "floaty", not fluid enough. It still moves like CGI water, not real water.
 

pw38

Senior member
Apr 21, 2010
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well, i think movie cgi has clearly made it to that point. when its done right, you simply cant tell its not real...

Nonsense. Movie CGI isn't completely fool proof. There are definite tells. Even the best of them don't get it right. If you can fool me I'll eat cake but I don't think you can.
 

Howard

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
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Photorealistic scenes in real-time are completely possible within our lifetimes if we leave human movements and expressions out of the scene.

car_amb_720p.jpg


I was argue that image is near photorealistic already. Ray tracing and radiosity light effects are going to be the next big leap in realism, until then, everything's gonna look like an updated version of FarCry 3.
Sorry but that looks fake.
 

Enigmoid

Platinum Member
Sep 27, 2012
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The main thing they need to work on is uniformity. A lot of CG looks fake simply because it is too flat or similar.

Some of those pictures are quite realistic but some are not.

The eggplants look quite fake, just too shiny, calyx looks wrong somehow.
The car on the driveway looks pretty fake, especially the tires, hedge on the left looks wrong, ground looks unnaturally flat in that picture.

But yeah, some of those pictures look quite realistic to me.

What they really need to do is stop recycling textures and models. This obviously increases costs a lot.
 

colonelciller

Senior member
Sep 29, 2012
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What they really need to do is stop recycling textures and models. This obviously increases costs a lot.

agree 100% with this.
even just slightly tweaking an object or a light source would often do the trick... so often times i think it's a lazy artist... or just someone who isn't as OCD as me :cool: