Dangling the Dollar -- VR/4K Vs. Photorealism

[bunge]

The Atari 2600 has some very compelling games.

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

Mr Fox,

There are many tens of thousands of us at least. But most of us rarely speak up due to the fear of being ridiculed by the majority of gamers who view frame rate and resolution as more important than realism. Generally, most people don't like being ostracized by their peers. In my case, I'm different. I care very little about what other people think about me; if I have an opinion, I'm going to declare it.

You rebel, you!

 

[Cyan]

Mr Fox,

There are many tens of thousands of us at least. But most of us rarely speak up due to the fear of being ridiculed by the majority of gamers who view frame rate and resolution as more important than realism. Generally, most people don't like being ostracized by their peers. In my case, I'm different. I care very little about what other people think about me; if I have an opinion, I'm going to declare it.

I support your quest, and your passion. I don't care about realism that much, but anyways...

It's very nice if each car in.., say, Gran Turismo, has 7.500 millions of polygons, :smile2: but...couldn't they remove some from the cap of the spout to inflate the wheel? All in all, it isn't seen, because it's hidden, and put them somewhere else? Say.., the trees?

Let's say they achieved the graphics top with Killzone 2, for instance, and it becomes REAL to the point no one can surpass that. Imagine if Guerrilla in the 3rd game, :smile2: instead of improving the graphics so they are more real, they decide to destroy reality.

So they go to the streets and they start sullying the streets and making graffitis, because it's just that, it got to a point where they can't improve, so they have to worsen the world their are basing on.

 

[babcat]

Developers are making some games today with backgrounds and environments that are clearly pushing towards photorealism. They are NOT there yet, but they are moving forward. What makes me irate is when intentionally stylized characters are introduced. For example, all of the characters of Uncharted 4 are highly stylized.

 

[Globalisateur]

There is a current push for gaming content that is optimized for virtual reality, extremely high resolutions, and sixty frames per second (minimum) framerates. Achieving these objectives consumes massive amounts of processing power; they are effectively halting the progression towards near photorealistic games. Instead of pushing towards the best possible graphics at ordinary but perfectly acceptable frame-rates and resolutions (for example 720P/1080P and 30FPS), developers have incentives to create content for high resolution displays and virtual reality devices.
...
My dream has always been to play a video game that looks as close as possible to real life. I know that I'm getting setup to be mocked, so let me say that I'm not saying there cannot be elements of the game that are dramatized or exaggerated: explosions, bullet time, more damage than would be produced by the same incident (car wreck, gunshot, etc) in real life. I'm talking about the foliage, the grass, the walls, the cars, and especially THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES.

In my life, I've seen the progression towards photorealism in gaming slow dramatically. But now I fear, at least for a period of time, it might come to a near stop.
...

Beware: photorealism != real life (realism).

What do you want: Video games where the world is depicted like on a picture or videogames that look like what you are seeing with your own eyes?

 

[babcat]

What I want are video games that look every bit as "real" as live action television programs.

I realize that we do not have the technology to make such games right now, but I think we can come close. For example, even if the animation isn't 100% perfect, just utilizing proper shading (what has already been done in real time demos) to make the skin and hair look photorealistic would go a long way.

 

[babcat]

We could have the following graphical quality for skin, hair, and sub-surface features on the NEO and upcoming consoles if GRAPHICAL REALISM was made a priority rather than resolution and frame-rate. The following image was running real time on outdated GPU hardware.

 

[milk]

To complain that resolution is the cause for neo games to not be targetting significantly better gfx is to completely miss the point of neo. The whole idea of a 1.5 type console is that it offers a mildly improved versions of the 1.0 version. Resolution is the least disruptive thing you could change to increase quality without risking unbalancing the carefully crafted choices made by artists. Having significantly different shaders, assets or lighting systems between neo and vanilla ps4 would do for not very coherent looking games. The more thar game development matures, the more artists want to consider the final shipped result "cannon".

 

[milk]

As for development costs, I might be playing the devil's avocate here, but I think babcat's 480p utopia would actually be CHEAPER to develop, as the lower spacial fidelity would require less minutiae on models, assets and animations, while the saved cycles would be spent on code. Not only is the biggest portion of the development budget spent on art production, but also better, more accurate, rendering code is not necessarily harder to create, or need more investment. It could even free software engineers from spending as much time squeezing bytes worth of optimization left right and center.

 

[MrFox]

We could have the following graphical quality for skin, hair, and sub-surface features on the NEO and upcoming consoles if GRAPHICAL REALISM was made a priority rather than resolution and frame-rate. The following image was running real time on outdated GPU hardware.

I like the legal disclaimer saying "not actual gameplay".

Let's think about it for a moment.

 

[babcat]

Of course that was not gameplay. It was a highly unoptimized tech demo running in real time years ago on less than high end hardware.

Now, years later, with optimization, I think the NEO and other future consoles could have that level of detail.

 

[BRiT]

I don't even know where to start. I think I'll just eject myself from this thread before I get started.

 

[milk]

Of course that was not gameplay. It was a highly unoptimized tech demo running in real time years ago on less than high end hardware.

And at a horrendously high resolution to boot. Imagine how great that would look at glorious 300x240!

Sorry, I had to be sarcastic at one point or another.

 

[MrFox]

I don't even know where to start. I think I'll just eject myself from this thread before I get started.

Yeah, don't worry I'll behave.

 

[babcat]

And at a horrendously high resolution to boot. Imagine how great that would look at glorious 300x240!

Sorry, I had to be sarcastic at one point or another.

I've watched the same television program and the same episode at 1080P, 720P, and 480P on an old laptap of mine. At all resolutions, the characters looked equally realistic. Lowering the resolution reasonably doesn't make them look less realistic, and increasing the resolution doesn't make them look more realistic. Resolution only enhances the detail and has relatively little impact on realism which is combination of MANY factors including lighting, shadowing, sub surface scattering, etc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why do you discount the blur factor? Do you refuse to acknowledge that the vast, vast majority of people want their games to look as sharp as real life does before they want their games to look like real life through defective eyes?

 

[Cyan]

Beware: photorealism != real life (realism).

What do you want: Video games where the world is depicted like on a picture or videogames that look like what you are seeing with your own eyes?

Will we ever see something like the old man in Silent Hill 3? I remember the heated discussions I had about it at the time, and we concluded nothing was close to the old man of Silent Hill.





That's real 3D, unbeaten. Although if we want realism, there is always the FMV games.

 

[eastmen]

Will we ever see something like the old man in Silent Hill 3? I remember the heated discussions I had about it at the time, and we concluded nothing was close to the old man of Silent Hill.

View attachment 1570

View attachment 1569

That's real 3D, unbeaten. Although if we want realism, there is always the FMV games.

we have a new old man trailer

or Gary oldman

Anyway photo realism is secondary to immersion. I rather they push 4k and then 8k and VR over just prettier graphics at 1080p because those things immerse me more than just nicer graphics at 1080p .

Take a high end pc and run it on a 4k monitor or tv and then run the same game with the same hardware on a 1080p screen and you will quickly go back to 4k .

 

[babcat]

The detail that comes out in high resolution is a good thing, but does little to make a character look "real."

When I watch an episode of Star Trek at 480P, for example, it doesn't look "fuzzy" at all. It does lack some detail, but it also looks much more realistic than any current game at 4K.

To me, immersion is all about photorealism. A game that has stylized characters instantly looks fake to me.

 

[milk]

The detail that comes out in high resolution is a good thing, but does little to make a character look "real." (...)
To me, immersion is all about photorealism. A game that has stylized characters instantly looks fake to me.

What eastman means is that VR adds much more tonimmersion than graphics slightly closer to photorealism would, and high resolutions and framerates are required for VR to work properly.
Of course you are gonna say that to you realistic graphics are much more immersive than VR, even though its all speculative since no game has ever met the criteria you demand, and maybe you also haven't experienced VR either, so spare us please.