Next Gen -- Near Photo-realistic Graphics, or Not?

[babcat]

(I wonder how long this topic will stay up.)

There is only one thing that matters to me when it comes to video game consoles. That is their ability to push past the "uncanny valley" and produce near photo-realistic graphics. Now, I need to specify what I mean by near photo-realistic, before some person complains that I'm an ignorant idiot and this thread should be closed. I recognize that true photo realistic graphics cannot be reached without systems that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, I think it is possible for near photo realistic graphics to be produced at a far lower cost. I mean graphics that are not perfect, have clear differences from reality, but to the human eye look 99.9% as good as a photograph.

What I am curious about, is how close the next generation consoles will come to producing such a graphics. Because if they can't produce such graphics, I'm honestly not interested in them. I'll just go into hybernation for a few more years, and rarely visit this forum until the PS5 and the XBox 1440 come out.

There are a few things I see that are working in favor of the PS4 and the XBox 720.

- They will have far more RAM than today's consoles.
- They will have more bandwidth than today's consoles.
- They will use better technology than today's consoles.

However, they both seem to have one major downfall. They both seem to have a weak GPU, about half as powerful as a high end card.

My calculations show that the GPUs in the PS4 and the XBox 720 may be around 6 to 10 times as powerful as the last generation. In my opinion, this is not a huge leap.

Now, I know that there will be angry people screaming at me saying that 6 to 10 times the power is a HUGE leap.

I will admit it's not tiny.
I will admit it's a bigger leap than the WiiU.

However, due to the law of diminishing returns, it is taking more and more GPU power to produce significant improvements in graphics. I do not know if a 6 to 10 time increase will make a game like Heavy Rain go from looking creepy, to looking like a movie.

So what do all of you think?

I think it is possible, but not likely, the increased RAM of these systems combined with things like tessellation may allow for game characters that look close to realistic.

Now I know what all of you are going to say. You are going to want this thread closed. You are about to scream....

"Photorealistic characters are not what matter! What needs improvement are the animations, physics, and AI!

Well, that is not what this thread is about. Personally, if I could "play through" an episode of Star Trek Voyager I would be thrilled. It would not matter if 7 of 9 had perfect animations or not.

So what do you think?

Do you think the PS4 and XBox 720 will be able to produce near photorealistic graphics?

 

[AlphaWolf]

Not.

 

[BRiT]

Enjoy your hibernation.

 

[itsmydamnation]

why would you want photorealistic anyway, GO OUTSIDE!?!?!?!11@!@!!!#@!@$%@

i want creative detail in emersive worlds, i want a heavy modded oblivion taken to the extreme. not photorealistic.

 

[MBDF]

Maybe in a racing game.

Or a next-gen Quantic dream game like you said... Beyond is looking pretty close to photorealistic.

 

[Sonic]

Nah. I think as we get used to next gen visuals we will end up coming away that while a substantial leap from the current gen it will still have a ways to go to getting near photo realistic. The reason I say this is because we can watch a CG movie, and even with super realistic models and coloring we still end up thinking of it was a cartoon and not indicative of reality. And one thing we have in reality are subtleties that even CG movies haven't been able to take on just yet. Some hand drawn art is still more photo realistic in many ways compared to today's games.

Next gen will be fine in terms of visuals and I doubt many of those games will come close to uncanny valley.

 

[Jugix]

Just give me image quality of *this* or *this* with 20 cars on track and I'll be a happy racer.

 

[Grall]

Do you think the PS4 and XBox 720 will be able to produce near photorealistic graphics?

No.

Of course not, don't be silly.

 

[dagamer]

My guess is it probably won't even begin to approach photorealism, however a much larger emphasis will be placed on dynamic environments where everything is computed on the fly, especially in regards to lighting, rather than being pre-programmed via scripted events.

As such, I think people looking for super-realistic graphics are going to be disappointed, because a ton of power is going to go into generating visuals that won't be as huge a leap as people really want.

However, games that totally eschew aiming for photorealism and instead develop unique art styles are going to have a blast with the amount of power they are given. I am still stunned and amazed at even a game like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword which has to deal with a dinky CPU, GPU, and tiny amount of RAM, but even just rendered at 1080p with an emulator looks beautiful. And even back in its day, though not appreciated when it was released, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker looked amazing (and the HD graphical update is simply stunning).

So it really is all about stretching the power given to developers to a new level.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No in most cases, although some like racers or puzzlers will probably achieve it in some scenarios. Something like LBP may look pretty photorealistic thanks to the art style, and a snapshot from Crysis 4's jungle will quite possibly look like a photo to many, especially with a few post effects to destroy the artificial cleanliness of computer graphics. People are still too hard to do, so even something simple like a 2 person tennis game throwing all your resources at two characters likely won't look photorealistic. Best you can hope for is older CG quality like Final Fantasy stuff in realtime.

 

[Rodéric]

There's no hope for photorealism without GI IMHO.
That said I prefer art to photorealism.

 

[trinibwoy]

Yeah photorealism isn't necessarily the holy grail. There's a lot to be said for art styles that don't try to mimic the real world.

Having said that, we are nowhere close to photorealism on consoles or PC hardware. I haven't even seen convincing CG.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's no hope for photorealism without GI IMHO.
That said I prefer art to photorealism.

Depends on the game. LBP in photorealism would look amazing IMO. GI should be doable to some level. Again, LBP2 uses an approximation already with its irradiance slices. Next gen can take that to the next level, add a bit of post effect including tilt-and-shift still DOF, plenty of IQ enhancements, and it'll look gorgeous.

 

[babcat]

A few comments.

First, I think some racing games already look somewhat near photorealistic. However, I'm not interested in them. I think they will probably almost all look near photorealistic on next gen systems.

Secondly, I am not interested in stylized games. I want to see a game that looks realistic. For example, if I go out and buy a zombie game, I want it to look like an episode of "The Walking Dead." I do not want it to look like a cartoon.

Third, I'm looking forward to see how photorealistic crysis 4 can look on Orbis and Durango. My guess is that it will look somewhat near photorealistic. I've seen a few Crysis mods that can make foilage that I cannot distinguish from a photograph. However, to achieve such results you need high end GPUs and lots of RAM. The next gen consoles will have lots of RAM 4 or 8 gigs, but their GPU is weak. I'm hoping that because they will only be using low resolutions (1080P Max), be closed systems, and have lots of RAM that it will compensate for the weak GPUs.

4) I would like to see just how close they can come to making photorealistic characters in next gen games. I don't care if the game is about two sisters cooking in a kitchen, I want to see if they can be made to look like a TV show.

5) I wonder what a game specifically designed for 480P on a next gen system would look like.

 

[(((interference)))]

I think the next gen racers could look pretty photorealistic, those shots from GT5's photo mode above certainly look near photo real.

These too:

I'm also thinking of the city track environments in PGR3/4 and how realistic they looked at the time.

 

[babcat]

Yes, I find it somewhat difficult to determine which of the above images is a photo and which is a render.

My guess is that the image on the right is a photo.

What I'm waiting for is to be able to see two images -- one a photo and one a screenshot -- of a character like 7 of 9 and not being able to tell which one is real.

 

[(((interference)))]

The castle environment looks pretty photoreal:

This reminds me of car magazine photography:

 

[(((interference)))]

Yes, I find it somewhat difficult to determine which of the above images is a photo and which is a render.

What I'm waiting for is to be able to see two images -- one a photo and one a screenshot -- of a character like 7 of 9 and not being able to tell which one is real.

Ah but see, that's moving the goalposts:

However, I think it is possible for near photo realistic graphics to be produced at a far lower cost. I mean graphics that are not perfect, have clear differences from reality, but to the human eye look 99.9% as good as a photograph.

What I am curious about, is how close the next generation consoles will come to producing such a graphics. Because if they can't produce such graphics, I'm honestly not interested in them. I'll just go into hybernation for a few more years, and rarely visit this forum until the PS5 and the XBox 1440 come out.

As I'm sure we'll see this kind of near photorealism in certain genres next gen (given how close we are with stuff like GT5), however if you want near photorealistic characters - then that it wholly unrealistic to expect - since to date, not even a single film, has near photorealistic human characters - and you're asking this to be done in real time, of cheap consumer hardware.

 

[ERP]

I'm not sure the issue with characters and uncanny valley has very much to do with flops, polygons or shaders.
Much of the issue is animation, and driving that in a realistic way. Too much of the human brain is dedicated to recognizing subtleties in facial expression to make this an easy problem.
I suspect most here have seen the demos where it's relatively easy to make a line and a couple of circles express what appear to be various emotions, but the same thing on a rendered face looks completely wrong.

 

[dagamer]

The castle environment looks pretty photoreal:

This reminds me of car magazine photography:

The way I can tell is reminding myself that real life is not that shiny. They need to not overdo the HDR so much.