Solution to Flat Surfaces?

[Laa-Yosh]

Mostly true. There are some smaller technical issues down the road, and of course polygon counts are another question, but it's the way to do it in movie VFX and other kinds of CG.

 

[ultragpu]

Mostly true. There are some smaller technical issues down the road, and of course polygon counts are another question, but it's the way to do it in movie VFX and other kinds of CG.

I see, would be cool if this can become mainstreamed sooner than later especially on nextgen consoles where developers can really focus on the optimization. This gen is all about Normalmap and POM and it would make sense if tessellation and displacement map replace them.

 

[V3]

I'm not sure id is going to go the voxel path, though. HW advancements aren't geared that way, it doesn't solve characters, or proper dynamic lighting, or destruction and such. Just look at Battlefield 3 to see how well it manages without voxels; if high quality tessellation or some other displacement based tech becomes available, it'll get even better.

There is this vid on how to animate SVO, it seems very promising. The method is rather simple too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnvr0hxyDvk

 

[Deadly Towers]

Forget the art will ya... The guy's demonstrating his graphics rendering technique, not the actual graphics. He even says this in the video linked in the OP.

He's trying to sell us on recursive detail; compared with some techniques that just improve performance it's more of an artistic approach or a gameplay concept.

Just look at Battlefield 3 to see how well it manages without voxels; if high quality tessellation or some other displacement based tech becomes available, it'll get even better.

Right, but of course part of the reason any game looks good is because the art suits the technical limitations. In nature you can find stuff like spanish moss that looks solid up close and partially transparent from a distance - how should that be handled in real time?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

With the proper cheat, of course, the same way everything else is handled. Assuming that there'll ever come a need to build a game world with spanish moss, that is.