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Mm, this isn't meant to be a personal remark: careful not to let yourself get too prejudiced against the idea. This test is the one metric we have for precisely

Mm, this isn't meant to be a personal remark: careful not to let yourself get too prejudiced against the idea. This test is the one metric we have for precisely judging whether we're capable of making fully-simulated footage that can be classified as real. If you reject it, we fall back to subjective "Well, it looks pretty good to me" type evaluations. If we can't fool viewers, we haven't achieved realism. And the only way to check is to put some nature videos side by side with our simulations and ask "Which one is real?" https://youtu.be/Bey4XXJAqS8?t=1089 https://youtu.be/Bey4XXJAqS8?t=1089 will kick the crap out of any simulated video. No contest. I agree that it's not a happy thought, but it is objective truth. On the other hand, the moment we reach that goal, the world will notice. Or at least Hollywood.

dahart 9y ago
No worries, I don't take that as a personal remark at all. I agree with all of that. I agree (and I agreed when we discussed this before) that we have not achieved unconstrained realism yet. I'm objecting to your claims that it's not possible. We can't check whether it's not possible. We can only verify that it has been done, after it's been done. Nobody has done the experiment you've laid out. Not having examples that contradict you is not evidence that it can't be done. The criteria and claims you made are yours to defend. I also counter that light transport, and specifically color multiplication, are not the problems getting in the way of realism. It seems like you're intentionally discounting and ignoring progress in constrained realism. We have achieved some CG video that is indistinguishable from realty. Not hours of alligators in Thailand, or of people talking, but short videos of fruit bowls and architecture for sure. The dominos are falling, one by one.
dahart 9y ago
> If we can't fool viewers, we haven't achieved realism. And the only way to check is to put some nature videos side by side with our simulations and ask "Which one is real?" I think you are making a classic fallacy of 'argument from ignorance'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance Your proposed experiment cannot tell us whether current techniques fall short. The experiment can only demonstrate when we are there, after the fact. It cannot demonstrate that we won't get there on our current heading, and it can't even demonstrate that we're not already there.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  it can't even demonstrate that we're not already there. This is simply false. That's the whole point of the test.
  - dahart 9y ago
    I realize it's the intended point of your test, that doesn't mean it will work. Your test cannot do what you claim just because you want it to. Read the article about argument from ignorance. For your test to work, you'd have to guarantee it had the best CG that's possible. You can't guarantee that. You can never prove we're not already there because no matter what CG you make for the test, someone else can always try harder, take more time, use better artists and bigger computers, spend more money. Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. Your logic is faulty, your argument is suffering from a fallacy. You can speculate that your idea of realism isn't possible yet, but no test can prove it.
jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
> This test is the one metric we have for precisely judging whether we're capable of making fully-simulated footage that can be classified as real. You are completely misunderstanding this topic area. We already know how to compute ground truth references based on the real physics. I suggest starting with the book Physically Based Rendering. The question now is, how close can we get a real time approximation to match unbiased path tracing? The OP's link is a pretty definitive step along this direction. But even if that whole research agenda fails, so long as we keep getting more computation at a cheaper price, even unbiased renderers will become real time.

dahart 9y ago

No worries, I don't take that as a personal remark at all. I agree with all of that. I agree (and I agreed when we discussed this before) that we have not achieved unconstrained realism yet. I'm objecting to your claims that it's not possible. We can't check whether it's not possible. We can only verify that it has been done, after it's been done. Nobody has done the experiment you've laid out. Not having examples that contradict you is not evidence that it can't be done. The criteria and claims you made are yours to defend. I also counter that light transport, and specifically color multiplication, are not the problems getting in the way of realism. It seems like you're intentionally discounting and ignoring progress in constrained realism. We have achieved some CG video that is indistinguishable from realty. Not hours of alligators in Thailand, or of people talking, but short videos of fruit bowls and architecture for sure. The dominos are falling, one by one.

dahart 9y ago

> If we can't fool viewers, we haven't achieved realism. And the only way to check is to put some nature videos side by side with our simulations and ask "Which one is real?" I think you are making a classic fallacy of 'argument from ignorance'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance Your proposed experiment cannot tell us whether current techniques fall short. The experiment can only demonstrate when we are there, after the fact. It cannot demonstrate that we won't get there on our current heading, and it can't even demonstrate that we're not already there.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
it can't even demonstrate that we're not already there. This is simply false. That's the whole point of the test.
- dahart 9y ago
  I realize it's the intended point of your test, that doesn't mean it will work. Your test cannot do what you claim just because you want it to. Read the article about argument from ignorance. For your test to work, you'd have to guarantee it had the best CG that's possible. You can't guarantee that. You can never prove we're not already there because no matter what CG you make for the test, someone else can always try harder, take more time, use better artists and bigger computers, spend more money. Abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. Your logic is faulty, your argument is suffering from a fallacy. You can speculate that your idea of realism isn't possible yet, but no test can prove it.

jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago

> This test is the one metric we have for precisely judging whether we're capable of making fully-simulated footage that can be classified as real. You are completely misunderstanding this topic area. We already know how to compute ground truth references based on the real physics. I suggest starting with the book Physically Based Rendering. The question now is, how close can we get a real time approximation to match unbiased path tracing? The OP's link is a pretty definitive step along this direction. But even if that whole research agenda fails, so long as we keep getting more computation at a cheaper price, even unbiased renderers will become real time.