This still does not help a bunch of games that can't just cast a bunch of actors for their likeness into the various roles. Anything scifi, fantasy, non-photoreal will still need to develop tech that works without a living person lending looks and facial expressions and such.
I don't think caustics, facial animation, god rays, physical cloth/hair, etc. are going to make a game enjoyable; graphics are important, but there's something to be said for the days before 'realism' was such a focus.
There's nothing that says a developer can't use all of the above and still have an unrealistic art style.
I mean have you watched any Japanese Anime? Wildly flowing locks of hair not reacting to any real weather phenomena known to man? Clothing being whipped this way and that? I don't think anyone would confuse that with realism, but it adds a level of dynamism that doesn't exist if you have just a solid brick for hair. Or clothing that is stiff and non-reactive. Etc.
Just because an effect can be used to make something more realistic doesn't mean it has to be used to make something more realistic. It could just as well be used to add unrealistic effects that heighten the dramatic effect of what is happening.
God rays coming out of a ball of energy being formed in the hands that are outstretched from the body while hair and clothing are being whipped this way and that in an unnatural wind (Dragon Ball Z-ish) as an example. Definitely not realistic, but would be freaking awesome to see and is definitely highly stylistic. Throw in some facial animation showing the level of exertion the character is expending to make that one last desperate powerfull super ball of destruction...
Compare that to the past when you'd have a static facial expression for everything. Hair and clothing that doesn't move. The ball of energy radiating a uniform light and maybe some electric effects around it. The only thing that can be used to try to show dramatic effect is the animation of the body.
The potential for more "realistic" effects for unrealistic styling is immense.
Regards,
SB
Realistic animations and flowing hair wouldn't inherently make a game more enjoyable.
Play with this interactive demo to see Ira immersed in three different lighting environments. Adjust his skin rendering to see the effect of sub surface light transmission through his skin. And, see the realism of his facial motion as he stares you down with a myriad of lifelike expresssions.
• Launched with GeForce GTX 670 and above
• Released: 10 May 2013
• Features: CUDA DirectX 11
• Supported Platform(s) (OS): Windows 7
Face Works uses a face and motion capture technology developed at the University of Southern California’s Institute of Creative Technology (ICT). The Light Stage technology is able to capture data to within a tenth of a millimetre using photographic techniques that capture the geometry of an actor’s face as well as the light transmission through human skin and the reflections that come from the oils too. As well as the still images the Light Stage then uses video capturing to grab around thirty different facial expressions from the actor involved. Once all that information is captured it’s then compressed down to a set of meshes that can be used to recreate and animate a digitised version of that face.
Nvidia have worked with the ICT and managed to get this compressed data down from the 32GB it is in its raw form to around 400MB. At that size it is now possible to do the animation in real time and that is exactly what Jen-Hsun Huang has going on behind him on stage in the video below.