True Photorealistic Graphics - when to expect? Maybe never?

[mjtdevries]

No comments about the ATI toy shop demo I mentioned?

In what regards do you guys think it is lacking in realisme?
What areas should be improved and which parts are already good enough?


Btw I don't think SSS are essential for humanoids. Yes if you make a still shot with special lighting it can create beautiful effects. But none of the images I mentioned earlier use SSS and they still look very good.
I don't think SSS was used in the Final Fantasy movie either.

 

[Kaotik]

No comments about the ATI toy shop demo I mentioned?

In what regards do you guys think it is lacking in realisme?
What areas should be improved and which parts are already good enough?


Btw I don't think SSS are essential for humanoids. Yes if you make a still shot with special lighting it can create beautiful effects. But none of the images I mentioned earlier use SSS and they still look very good.
I don't think SSS was used in the Final Fantasy movie either.

And Final Fantasy movie didn't look quite realistic either (IMO)

for most realistic faces, which will at least supposedly be used as they are in a game too, are imo in Crysis - http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots/crysis/crysis8_small.jpg

 

[AlexV]

Hmm, those shots are renders, and my assumption(which may be wrong) is that they`re hand-tweaked to look like that. You really can`t do that in a game, not in a feasible way. You need some general approach, not to mention that an ingame character has to move, and lighting has to be somewhat coherent for all chars, making hand-tweaking them even more difficult.

To see why SSS is needed, try holding your hand in front of a lightsource, see that light hits it, goes through, scatters etc. That`s an easy example and it`s easily visible because there are thin skin portions where this can be actually noticed. But that happens to the entire body. Now whilst we won`t have true SSS calculus in real-time for a long time, as I`ve already asserted above, implementing a shader-based hack that provides a somewhat similar effect seems to give quite an improvement:check-out Crysis, BIA3, other UE3 titles where chars look far more realistic. And I`d assume that these hacks will improve with time, to provide an even closer approximation.

 

[Moloch]

And so, again and in less words, if you think real life looks boring and if we had the hardware that actually gave us this boring-real-life-look, would you be disappointed? As an example : Have you played the console game "Shadow of The Colossus"? How much nearer or further to "real life" is it compared to, say, the best that the PC platform has to offer (pick one PC title)? What are the distinguishing traits (I can give my opinion if you wish it so)? IMO, "Shadow of The Colossus", with DX7-style graphics on a PS2, approaches "realism" far more than any title I have witnessed regardless of platform.

yes I would and no I haven't played that game since I'm not a console gamer.

 

[Mariner]

Real life doesn't look boring. Normal everyday life looks boring because we're used to it.

At present pre-rendered CGI is just about at the stage where it can create effects which look like real life but obviously aren't. On TV here in the UK over the past couple of days they have shown the Matrix trilogy and some of the better CGI in that created impossible scenarios which still looked pretty realistic.

Imagine how much better and immersive games might be once realtime graphics reach a similar level? Imagine playing an Aliens game which looked like the movies. Imagine a horror game which is actually like being involved in a Resident Evil film. Actually, bad example there but you get my drift!

Only problem is that once this technology is around they'll probably not use it fully because of the risk of people with dodgy hearts pegging out!

 

[alexsok]

How is it exactly that the characters on that Crytek shot are not feasible on next or even *this* generation hardware? (moreover, remember one title from the distant past called Shemnue on the Dreamcast? Well... the faces there were almost identical to these). They don't seem to be more realistic than anything i've seen on Oblivion, so I think these characters are quite feasible.

p.s
You might want to look through this article:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/704/704648p1.html

 

[Nom De Guerre]

yes I would

I guessed as well. Like many of the public and industry figures, I would like to see hardware (not just 3D but the entire PC hardware industry... most notably the 3D chips, the CPU, the memory technology and probably most importantly, the monitor display technology) that actually realizes that Real Life Graphics Dream.

But I'm not sure I want to see games looking like real life. Would probably be too frightening, resulting in major setbacks to the gaming industry ("far too realistic violence") we don't want.

and no I haven't played that game since I'm not a console gamer.

I haven't played that game either (I don't have a PS2) but I had spent some time looking at the game, either in shops or at my friend's place, and I have never seen a game (regardless of platform) that looks as close to Real as this game looks while also looking quite "boring" (hey, your favourite word!) in terms of my pet peeve about games in general (absolute color intensities). I don't think the pseudo HDR is good in specific instances (your comment about overdone bloom comes immediately to mind but this game's pseudo HDR isn't bloom) but overall this effect has a great and realistic impact. If you had the chance, visit some shops and have a look at the game.

 

[hughJ]

How is it exactly that the characters on that Crytek shot are not feasible on next or even *this* generation hardware? (moreover, remember one title from the distant past called Shemnue on the Dreamcast? Well... the faces there were almost identical to these). They don't seem to be more realistic than anything i've seen on Oblivion, so I think these characters are quite feasible.

You're saying that the faces/heads in the crysis vid/pics are comparable to oblivion, and shenmue from dreamcast?

 

[AlexV]

I certainly hope he isn`t...faces in oblivion are absolutely horrid, and they illustrate my point:realistic light interaction is necessary in order to give the impression that you`re talking to a person instead of a slab of something. And Shenmue I haven`t seen, so I can`t talk about that.

The best faces I`ve witnessed in-game until now were the G-Man in the opening of HL2, the PC in Doom3, and Lara in TR:L(the last not necessarily as an approximation of a human char, but more as an example of how important subtle detail is). All of the above are quite far from what I would consider a good approximation of reality should look, but still better then anything else I`ve seen.

 

[alexsok]

What I was trying to say guys is that the characters shown on those pics are *NOT* impressive and I wouldn't even go so far as calling them "next-gen", they're closer to what we have available right now. The faces in Oblivion indeed, upon further inspection, proved to be horrid, but that can mostly be written off for the overblown lighting (which btw pervades the whole fucking game, that pisses me off too) but without it, they're just that, passable.

Here are the faces in Shenmue (remember this is a 1998 game), all checked out by me btw so it's all real-time (oh and by the way, most of the faces in the whole game (and there's a shitload of them), even of the characters that happen to casually populate the gameworld are never really identical, which is unheard of, especially of a game back in it's day)

 

[mjtdevries]

I certainly hope he isn`t...faces in oblivion are absolutely horrid, and they illustrate my point:realistic light interaction is necessary in order to give the impression that you`re talking to a person instead of a slab of something.

I don't see how that illustrates your point at all.

The faces in morrowind are horrible because of several reasons that have nothing to do with light interaction:
1. ugly mesh. But there are lots of options to tinker with, and with skill, experience and time you can make a very nice mesh
2. low resolution texture, and bumpmap. (and a bumpmap that will make everyone old and wrinkled). Somebody already made a mod to replace it with a high res texture and that makes a huge difference.
3. generic texture. Use a photorealistic texture instead and you will get faces with the quality of crysis.


I have already shown renders that looks at least as good as those crysis renders, which don't use SSS at all.

Some extra examples:
http://www.e-frontier.com/imagecatalogue/customimageview/5087/?sbss=503
http://www.e-frontier.com/imagecatalogue/customimageview/5100/?sbss=503
http://www.e-frontier.com/imagecatalogue/customimageview/5246/?sbss=503
http://www.e-frontier.com/imagecatalogue/customimageview/5433/?sbss=503

 

[warham]

@alexsok

i owned both shenmue on dc and shenmue 2 on xbox..the faces looked really great, especially for 1998 on "inferior" hardware..

but the pic you posted is souped up of course, it never looked THAT good ingame...maybe in hd+32x AA but not on dc or xbox

the head-screens in crysis are clearly another league compared to shen mue,imho

 

[alexsok]

On a related note guys, what do you think of these in-game shots of MGS 4 on PS3:

 

[Moloch]

second one is much much more impressive imo.
first doesnt look " next gen"

 

[hughJ]

They're (MGS) a bit more stylistic than the Crysis shots. The skin still has that chiselled from stone/plastic look to it. (I guess a lack of SSS?)

this still to me looks like a better step towards the 'realism' goal.

 

[Kanyamagufa]

They're (MGS) a bit more stylistic than the Crysis shots. The skin still has that chiselled from stone/plastic look to it. (I guess a lack of SSS?)

::CRYSIS IMAGE::

this still to me looks like a better step towards the 'realism' goal.

I think those look pretty damn incredible compared to what we've seen in other games.

 

[alexsok]

Can't say for sure, but there is something missing in that middle face complexion for instance... can't pinpoint what...

p.s
What's SSS again guys? sorry missed that part

 

[Kaotik]

Can't say for sure, but there is something missing in that middle face complexion for instance... can't pinpoint what...

p.s
What's SSS again guys? sorry missed that part

SubSurface Scattering

 

[mjtdevries]

That second MGS shot looks very good.
The reason it doesn't look as realistic as the crysis shots is because of the artificial lighting.

Nobody works in an office with green light. So that looks weird.
The crysis shots use lights that looks a lot what you get if you are outside around noon.

If convinced that if you take the MGS model and change the colour of the light to normal sunlights that the results will be equal to the crysis heads.


Btw they really should add eyelashes to those models

 

[Blacklash]

I think the obsession with realism in rendering has ruined quite a few fantasy games. Many times the heroic is the fantastic and when you reduce the hero to "realism" you are often left with mundane instead.

I am not saying realistic characters can not appear heroic. I am simply making the observation that among some artists it seems the obsession with realism has had a negative impact on their imagination and creative expression.

I'd rather outlandish characters made with stylistic tasteful choices, than perfectly realistic characters that look like they would have trouble working a 7-11 or a gas station.

Ideally I'd like to see both choices available in a given game. That way folks could fashion what appeals to them.

Pardon the slightly off topic reply. These changes in gaming art have been bothering me for a time.