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Much of what makes this appealing has nothing to do with the render engine. What I saw was some really excellent character animation / motion capture. The ren

by valine 11y ago

Much of what makes this appealing has nothing to do with the render engine. What I saw was some really excellent character animation / motion capture. The rendering itself wasn't particularly jaw dropping. And that's not a critique of unity. Rather it's a critique of their chosen subject. Metal, walls, and artificial objects in general are all very easy to render convincingly. Show me some trees, grass, translucency, or volumetrics and then I'll be impressed.

ekianjo 11y ago
Even properly done human models are very challenging. You can spot a fake 3d actor in no time, even in movies.
- sound_of_basker 11y ago
  This was the worst part of Martrix II.
  - sago 11y ago
    Matrix Reloaded was 13 years ago. That's a bit unfair. You can still tell, I think, especially if you know where to look, but I don't think most people would notice, in Fast and the Furious 7, for example.
    - amag 11y ago
      Nah, it was shoddy work. Compare Terminator 2 which was 25 years ago.
      - TrevorJ 11y ago
        Terminator 2 used far, far more practical effects than one is likely to assume these days. The iconic shot of the t-1000 blown in half and sewing it self back up? Practical effect. Really amazing stuff over all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQMfT6nsQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQMfT6nsQs
JoshTriplett 11y ago
Or skin, hair, and clothes. I still found the motion capture and the crisp rendering quite impressive, though.
zevets 11y ago
Even then, I'm unconvinced that the ability to do realistic graphics in real time will actually manifest itself in vediogames/VR experiences we can interact with. So much of what makes this look good is the excellent art direction, and as you stated, excellent textures and animations of an artificial thing. But animation students have been producing similar quality visuals for their show-reels for ages. All that has changed is the ability to render faster, but the creation of this content is still being done by the same processes. For videogames/vr to break the photorealistic barrier, there needs to be some order of magnitude reduction in art development costs for these experiences to be affordable. Not all videogames can be star wars battlefront, where probably $150M ($330M overall cost to develop and market [1]) was spent making the best damn textures videogames have ever seen, but produced a simple, limited game. Photorealism is a dead end for videogames unless art costs come down. [1] http://fortune.com/2015/12/30/star-wars-video-game-sales/ http://fortune.com/2015/12/30/star-wars-video-game-sales/
- rboyd 11y ago
  Those methods (not texturing, but animation at least) seem to be evolving with the introduction of accessible mocap and 6dof controllers. http://blog.leapmotion.com/vr-transform-world-3d-animation/ http://blog.leapmotion.com/vr-transform-world-3d-animation/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/08/animating-in-vr-with-oculus http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/08/animating-in-...
  - zevets 11y ago
    That sounds like the step forward these things need. VR to really get a good look at your stuff, and the ability to mocap while sitting at your pc. Cool stuff.
- huuu 11y ago
  Well, John Carmack was impressed by the results of Brigade. And I think Otoy is a company to watch when it comes to VR and 3D. https://home.otoy.com/render/brigade/ https://home.otoy.com/render/brigade/
mortenjorck 11y ago
A valid point, but even realistic metal isn't necessarily easy. The volumetrically diffuse reflections (that actually get sharper as geometry approaches them) you see of the robot prisoner's arms on some of the walls haven't been possible in real-time until only very recently, and is clearly a new feature Unity is showing off here. What's most interesting to me, though, is the Unity logo at the end, which I assume must be showing off engine capabilities as well. It makes heavy use of sub-surface scattering, which is of critical importance to lifelike skin and faces.
scotty79 11y ago
I'd much prefer if more people tried to improve animation, because state of the art motion captured movements still look like crap in modern AAA games. Graphics is good enough for now.
monk_e_boy 11y ago
I always find the it's the physics that break the feel of the game, not the visuals.

by valine 11y ago

ekianjo 11y ago

Even properly done human models are very challenging. You can spot a fake 3d actor in no time, even in movies.

sound_of_basker 11y ago
This was the worst part of Martrix II.
- sago 11y ago
  Matrix Reloaded was 13 years ago. That's a bit unfair. You can still tell, I think, especially if you know where to look, but I don't think most people would notice, in Fast and the Furious 7, for example.
  - amag 11y ago
    Nah, it was shoddy work. Compare Terminator 2 which was 25 years ago.
    - TrevorJ 11y ago
      Terminator 2 used far, far more practical effects than one is likely to assume these days. The iconic shot of the t-1000 blown in half and sewing it self back up? Practical effect. Really amazing stuff over all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQMfT6nsQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQMfT6nsQs

JoshTriplett 11y ago

Or skin, hair, and clothes. I still found the motion capture and the crisp rendering quite impressive, though.

zevets 11y ago

Even then, I'm unconvinced that the ability to do realistic graphics in real time will actually manifest itself in vediogames/VR experiences we can interact with. So much of what makes this look good is the excellent art direction, and as you stated, excellent textures and animations of an artificial thing. But animation students have been producing similar quality visuals for their show-reels for ages. All that has changed is the ability to render faster, but the creation of this content is still being done by the same processes. For videogames/vr to break the photorealistic barrier, there needs to be some order of magnitude reduction in art development costs for these experiences to be affordable. Not all videogames can be star wars battlefront, where probably $150M ($330M overall cost to develop and market [1]) was spent making the best damn textures videogames have ever seen, but produced a simple, limited game. Photorealism is a dead end for videogames unless art costs come down. [1] http://fortune.com/2015/12/30/star-wars-video-game-sales/ http://fortune.com/2015/12/30/star-wars-video-game-sales/

rboyd 11y ago
Those methods (not texturing, but animation at least) seem to be evolving with the introduction of accessible mocap and 6dof controllers. http://blog.leapmotion.com/vr-transform-world-3d-animation/ http://blog.leapmotion.com/vr-transform-world-3d-animation/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a_M9VsZ6Lk http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/08/animating-in-vr-with-oculus http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-05/08/animating-in-...
- zevets 11y ago
  That sounds like the step forward these things need. VR to really get a good look at your stuff, and the ability to mocap while sitting at your pc. Cool stuff.
huuu 11y ago
Well, John Carmack was impressed by the results of Brigade. And I think Otoy is a company to watch when it comes to VR and 3D. https://home.otoy.com/render/brigade/ https://home.otoy.com/render/brigade/

mortenjorck 11y ago

A valid point, but even realistic metal isn't necessarily easy. The volumetrically diffuse reflections (that actually get sharper as geometry approaches them) you see of the robot prisoner's arms on some of the walls haven't been possible in real-time until only very recently, and is clearly a new feature Unity is showing off here. What's most interesting to me, though, is the Unity logo at the end, which I assume must be showing off engine capabilities as well. It makes heavy use of sub-surface scattering, which is of critical importance to lifelike skin and faces.

scotty79 11y ago

I'd much prefer if more people tried to improve animation, because state of the art motion captured movements still look like crap in modern AAA games. Graphics is good enough for now.

monk_e_boy 11y ago

I always find the it's the physics that break the feel of the game, not the visuals.