Is that the barometer?

You guys.... some of you who are looking forward to next gen primarily for the graphics sure do your best to avoid watching, talking about or reading about next gen graphics.

This week I posted a couple of videos, a next gen lighting engine said to be running on a machine comparable to PS4 specs. And a video from Nvidia on their next gen face rendering tech. Skip to about 8 minutes to see the video. Considering it requires 2 teraflops (more power than the PS4) just for THE FACE it seems pretty infeasible for anything other than their high end PC GPU which is like 4.6 teraflops.

What struck me about the lighting engine environment video was that it featured an Unreal Engine 4 demo like environment. The detail was great and it was obviously a bump over what our current consoles could do. Yet after probably less than 20 seconds my wide eyed optimism was tempered and I was left with the feeling that it looked good, but similar to what we already have, but a bit better. Now we keep seeing technology from developers about recreating human like characters in games. The video I have linked above is the latest, then we had PS4's Old man video and Square Enix Luminous engine demo whose most impressive thing was the old geezers face. Kojima trying to wow us with Ground Zero's and Fox Engine, PES trying to do the same.

So is that how we are going to ultimately judge next generation graphics? On how well it can recreate the human face and emotional responses? From what I have seen extensive mo-cap has to be used and that makes the biggest difference, the animation of the characters. Nvidia's tech needs 132 cameras that captures mocap data which is 30gb larger than will fit onto a Bluray - their breakthrough was compressing it to 300mb. This week we also got new screens of Quantic Dreams' Beyond game. And it already does the realistic animation and facial pores up close thing.

So next gen, is it all about the faces?

Posted by gamingeek Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:25:30 (comments: 19)
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Sat, 23 Mar 2013 02:04:07

What are you talking about? It's already happened.

http://thatdamnpixel.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/original.gif

 
Sat, 23 Mar 2013 22:37:32

I expect next gen consoles to be about as good as my new mid-level PC.

Photo-realism is not a benchmark worth pursuing except for game directors like Cage who want to provide a cinematic experience in their games.

 
Sun, 24 Mar 2013 01:45:47

Games have the potential to pass photo realism in many areas. Aiming for photorealism in any form of media that isn't photography is utter stupidity. Why would you want to copy lens distortion, poor colour recreation, and all the other problems that present themselves with photography when aiming for realism just so idiots can say "that's photo realistic!" as if that means it's realistic.

See camera obscura perspective and distortion in painting pre-photography for reference. Admittedly it did popularise some realistic interpretations of perspective.. Yet during the same period the chemistry of oil paint was used to create more realistic light (to the point where the painted light actually appears to be a genuine light source) than is possible (as far as I'm aware) in any other medium.

 
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:45:32
Question, did anyone watch the videos before commenting in the blog?

Good point Godmode, to make a large scale game with graphics so intensive with a free camera, with the new consoles it won't neccesarily be tech holding it back but budgets and team sizes and how long they get to make it.
 
Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:47:45
gamingeek said:
Question, did anyone watch the videos before commenting in the blog?


Good point Godmode, to make a large scale game with graphics so intensive with a free camera, with the new consoles it won't neccesarily be tech holding it back but budgets and team sizes and how long they get to make it.

I think we have begun to reach the glass ceiling to be honest. We already have team sizes of 600-800 people (INSANE) and budjets of $100 million dollars.

I think back to the old days when Mortal Kombat was made by two guys and a dream and it's like fuck y'know, Just fuck.

 
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:32:38
I remember when Square almost went bust from making the FF movie. Pixar takes 4 years to make a movie allegedly. It's alot of work.
 
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:08:26

Tomorrow we find out if Kojima has unlocked the future or not. Is Jokaim real or not.

BTW I don't want photo realism in games outside of human acting. I saw act of valor and it had many sections where hey went into FPS view so it was basically exactly what a photorealistic FPS would look like, I don't know it's not compelling. I think I would have flashbacks to games with sprites of real humans like Area 51.

 
Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:56:50

But.......... that was awesome. cool

 
Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:09:15
Now it's Activisions turn to show off their next gen face tech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6R6N4Vy0nE&feature=player_embedded

Isn't this the same bald dude from the Nvidia video?
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