4 ms·

> In 5 to 10 years we may get to the point where graphics are no longer indistinguishable from reality as we know it I feel like I've been hearing this stateme

> In 5 to 10 years we may get to the point where graphics are no longer indistinguishable from reality as we know it I feel like I've been hearing this statement for decades now. The human brain is remarkably good at pattern separation, and given enough time and exposure to a stimulus it will work out what is real and what isn't. Until we have a simulated reality that is as information rich as reality we'll always be able to tell the two apart

Razengan 10y ago
Multiply the placeholder times with the estimates of your choice, of course :)
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
This. Does your game have a river? If so, humans observing the river will veeery easily be able to spot it's a fake. Because an actual realistic simulation of turbulent river flow is way beyond the largest supercomputers today, and Moore's law has run out of the steam that has made todays consoles have the computing power of your fathers supercomputer. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that even twenty years from now, by far the cheapest way of creating a completely photorealistic VR river scene is to build the actual river and record video of it. Then you "only" run into the problem of storing and distributing the petabytes of data you record.
- adwf 10y ago
  Yeah, Witcher 3 is one of the best games I've ever played and has some of the best graphics too. The characters are simply amazing and the general look and feel is superb. But... look at the ground and you'll just see a flat greenish noise texture. They try to cover it with clumps of grass and vegetation, which works to a degree, but not completely. Look at the water flowing - particularly on any kind of whitewater rapids/waterfall - compared to the character textures and the buildings, it's really quite disappointing. You need a fairly complete simulation to really fool the human eye and we're a long way from that.
- e12e 10y ago
  Game (world) design (and art in general) is about accommodating and working with the constraints of the medium. Make a realistic (or fantastic) desert game today, if you can't get the water right. Make a great simulator for the oculus (eg: Elite: Dangerous) rather than trying to make a roller-coaster simulator if your user won't be able to get multi-million-dollar 360-degree rotating simulation chairs (think NASA style stuff). As for a "VR" river, there's nothing wrong with filming a real river with a 360 degree camera, and then augment that scene, rather than "building a river". A real river on a virtual Mars, might look better than a virtual river on a virtual world. Of course you can dream up a game that hard to bring to life exactly as you envision it using current technology. That doesn't mean new technology doesn't open up a few new possibilities. If you run into problems thinking big and complicated, try thinking smaller and simpler. I'm sure a Populus style game would be a lot of fun with the DK2 (isometric sandbox god simulator game with slightly cartoony graphics). Why does it have to be realistic?
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Technically true, but I don't think it matters. Sure, the brain can easily tell reality from our electronic media apart, but very frequently it choses not to. We don't need super photorealistic graphics for that - I've personally been sucked into games and movies with anime characters, and my brain didn't care. As long as the virtual reality is somewhat consistent and doesn't mix with the "real reality"[0], the brain can accept it as real - especially if you distract the player with a good story. [0] - keeping out the "real reality" from showing up involves obvious points like keeping distractions (especially other people) away, but also some meta-points; if your product has glitches or even simply keeps "breaking the fourth wall", it may be just enough to prevent any kind of immersion from happening
- lijason 10y ago
  I actually think the games/virtual environments that avoid attempting to recreate reality will be more immersive initially. Being in a cartoon world would probably avoid distractions about something not looking "realistic" because as long as it seems consistent to the world you're in, I'm guessing it'd be very immersive. If I'm in a Toy Story world (or watching the movie), I'm not really bothered that the physics of how a character moves doesn't seem to match any reasonable muscle structure because I have no expectation that it should.
e12e 10y ago
One one hand I agree with you. On the other hand, looking at how far movie/tv FX has come, like http://nerdist.com/amazing-game-of-thrones-battle-of-the-bastards-vfx-reel-features-skeleton-horses/ http://nerdist.com/amazing-game-of-thrones-battle-of-the-bas... - I'm not so sure. 10 years ago, the state of the art was something like Nvidia 8800 gtx - it looks like the recently launched 1080 is a handwavy 4-10x in terms of performance[b]. ~10x the RAM, but not bandwidth etc. Having recently(ish) upgraded from early 2000s system to an i7 with an AMD R9 -- I would anecdotally claim that we've come quite a long ways in ~10 years. Even if part of that is "just" making 2k-4k gaming a reality. I think it is a little bit like optimization of performance. Small changes in aliasing, changes in resolution, refresh rate -- they all add up to move us closer to "the real". And I think one shouldn't ignore the work done on the modelling, skeleton, animation and physics side either. It all helps make artificial worlds feel "more real". With all that, I don't really see why "realistic" is such an interesting goal. For simulation (be that virtual tourism, or a driving simulator helping people become better real world drivers) - sure. The tourist want beautiful scenery, the driver wants real physics (and neither would mind getting both). But for gaming -- chess isn't very realistic, go is rather abstract and tabletop roleplaying games have the best graphics engine - shared with literature - the human imagination. https://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=1701&gid2=879&compare=geforce-gtx-1080-vs-geforce-gtx-785 https://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=1701&gid2=879&...

Razengan 10y ago

Multiply the placeholder times with the estimates of your choice, of course :)

semi-extrinsic 10y ago

This. Does your game have a river? If so, humans observing the river will veeery easily be able to spot it's a fake. Because an actual realistic simulation of turbulent river flow is way beyond the largest supercomputers today, and Moore's law has run out of the steam that has made todays consoles have the computing power of your fathers supercomputer. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that even twenty years from now, by far the cheapest way of creating a completely photorealistic VR river scene is to build the actual river and record video of it. Then you "only" run into the problem of storing and distributing the petabytes of data you record.

adwf 10y ago
Yeah, Witcher 3 is one of the best games I've ever played and has some of the best graphics too. The characters are simply amazing and the general look and feel is superb. But... look at the ground and you'll just see a flat greenish noise texture. They try to cover it with clumps of grass and vegetation, which works to a degree, but not completely. Look at the water flowing - particularly on any kind of whitewater rapids/waterfall - compared to the character textures and the buildings, it's really quite disappointing. You need a fairly complete simulation to really fool the human eye and we're a long way from that.
e12e 10y ago
Game (world) design (and art in general) is about accommodating and working with the constraints of the medium. Make a realistic (or fantastic) desert game today, if you can't get the water right. Make a great simulator for the oculus (eg: Elite: Dangerous) rather than trying to make a roller-coaster simulator if your user won't be able to get multi-million-dollar 360-degree rotating simulation chairs (think NASA style stuff). As for a "VR" river, there's nothing wrong with filming a real river with a 360 degree camera, and then augment that scene, rather than "building a river". A real river on a virtual Mars, might look better than a virtual river on a virtual world. Of course you can dream up a game that hard to bring to life exactly as you envision it using current technology. That doesn't mean new technology doesn't open up a few new possibilities. If you run into problems thinking big and complicated, try thinking smaller and simpler. I'm sure a Populus style game would be a lot of fun with the DK2 (isometric sandbox god simulator game with slightly cartoony graphics). Why does it have to be realistic?

TeMPOraL 10y ago

Technically true, but I don't think it matters. Sure, the brain can easily tell reality from our electronic media apart, but very frequently it choses not to. We don't need super photorealistic graphics for that - I've personally been sucked into games and movies with anime characters, and my brain didn't care. As long as the virtual reality is somewhat consistent and doesn't mix with the "real reality"[0], the brain can accept it as real - especially if you distract the player with a good story. [0] - keeping out the "real reality" from showing up involves obvious points like keeping distractions (especially other people) away, but also some meta-points; if your product has glitches or even simply keeps "breaking the fourth wall", it may be just enough to prevent any kind of immersion from happening

lijason 10y ago
I actually think the games/virtual environments that avoid attempting to recreate reality will be more immersive initially. Being in a cartoon world would probably avoid distractions about something not looking "realistic" because as long as it seems consistent to the world you're in, I'm guessing it'd be very immersive. If I'm in a Toy Story world (or watching the movie), I'm not really bothered that the physics of how a character moves doesn't seem to match any reasonable muscle structure because I have no expectation that it should.

e12e 10y ago

One one hand I agree with you. On the other hand, looking at how far movie/tv FX has come, like http://nerdist.com/amazing-game-of-thrones-battle-of-the-bastards-vfx-reel-features-skeleton-horses/ http://nerdist.com/amazing-game-of-thrones-battle-of-the-bas... - I'm not so sure. 10 years ago, the state of the art was something like Nvidia 8800 gtx - it looks like the recently launched 1080 is a handwavy 4-10x in terms of performance[b]. ~10x the RAM, but not bandwidth etc. Having recently(ish) upgraded from early 2000s system to an i7 with an AMD R9 -- I would anecdotally claim that we've come quite a long ways in ~10 years. Even if part of that is "just" making 2k-4k gaming a reality. I think it is a little bit like optimization of performance. Small changes in aliasing, changes in resolution, refresh rate -- they all add up to move us closer to "the real". And I think one shouldn't ignore the work done on the modelling, skeleton, animation and physics side either. It all helps make artificial worlds feel "more real". With all that, I don't really see why "realistic" is such an interesting goal. For simulation (be that virtual tourism, or a driving simulator helping people become better real world drivers) - sure. The tourist want beautiful scenery, the driver wants real physics (and neither would mind getting both). But for gaming -- chess isn't very realistic, go is rather abstract and tabletop roleplaying games have the best graphics engine - shared with literature - the human imagination. https://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=1701&gid2=879&compare=geforce-gtx-1080-vs-geforce-gtx-785 https://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=1701&gid2=879&...