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One of the things I hate about modern games is that while the environment gets closer to realism, humans (face, skin) still look like corpses. I prefer cartooni

by jeswin 8y ago

One of the things I hate about modern games is that while the environment gets closer to realism, humans (face, skin) still look like corpses. I prefer cartoonish characters instead of being in uncanny valley. The woman in the demo looked somewhat real; if this is real time and reproducible in games then it's a huge step forward.

worldsayshi 8y ago
This is real time. It's a bit annoying that the article doesn't lift that point since that is the most impressive point. Then again, I guess unless you don't include interactive aspects there's no telling what is actually real time and what is "baked".
- bcaulfield 8y ago
  You're right, we've updated the post to reflect this.
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  there's no telling what is actually real time and what is "baked". Yea, that distinction is... fuzzy, and a little frustrating. Artistically, this demo is wonderful! Technically, it's somewhere between "yawn" and game-changing, depending on how much of the lighting and animation is pre-baked. Are the deformations of her skin, clothing, the water, etc. being calculated in real time, or was all the hard stuff precalculated and baked in? Reason why this matters is because the more dynamic this is, the closer we are to creating actual emergent/interactive experiences with this kind of technology, rather than just a way to render static cutscenes better.
  - worldsayshi 8y ago
    Well put.
dragontamer 8y ago
> One of the things I hate about modern games is that while the environment gets closer to realism, humans (face, skin) still look like corpses. I prefer cartoonish characters instead of being in uncanny valley. Subsurface scattering is necessary for face / skin to work with light. You get good subsurface scattering in movies these days, but not really in video games yet. Its far too costly to make realistic skin renders. Skin is partially transparent: you can see the veins, blood, and even muscles through people's skin. Blushing is simply the act of blood rushing to the face, its immediately visible and instantly causes a reddish hue to due the skin's transparency. Simulating that outside of movie settings is going to take far more GPU power than what is available even in the next 5 years. We're still working on basic raytracing for video games, not even the advanced stuff yet. ------------ In effect, the "location" of where light is reflected on skin is "inside" the skin. Light penetrates into your skin and illuminates the stuff underneath. But traditional raytracing assumes that the reflection occurs on the "surface" of skin, resulting on a "waxy" look. The reflection is subtly in the wrong place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering Without subsurface scattering, you get the "barbie doll" look, even in raytracing. "Barbie Doll" works fine for cartoons, but its always a killer for me personally when I'm playing video games. EDIT: Example image with SSS (SubSurface Scattering): http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ahUMngIOPqU/T85dlEU9I7I/AAAAAAAAA5w/R6Wp2LqNDOM/s1600/SSS_caseStudy_02.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ahUMngIOPqU/T85dlEU9I7I/AAAAAAAAA5... ------------ Gems, Marble, etc. etc. are also partially translucent, and look awful in traditional video games. Subsurface Scattering makes these partially transparent rocks look more correct.
JohnBooty 8y ago
Street Fighter IV and V have my favorite implementation so far. The characters, to me, look like realistic physical objects with a good sense of weight to them. But instead of resembling humans and therefore falling into the uncanny valley, they look like realistic lifesize action figures like the ones I played with as a kid. Like my childhood play scenes come to life. (I'm not sure if the creators intentionally wanted the characters to look like action figures per se, but clearly they made the choice to go for a stylized rather than photorealistic look and I love what they achieved) https://www.pcmag.com/review/341914/street-fighter-v-for-pc https://www.pcmag.com/review/341914/street-fighter-v-for-pc
- dragontamer 8y ago
  The stylized "comic book" feel of Marvel vs Capcom 3, and the "DBZ Feel" of Dragonball FighterZ are the looks that I personally like the most. Dragonball FighterZ is nothing close to reality, but whatever they did to that game makes it look just like hand-drawn 2d anime. Here is some random tournament footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOBrRhgv0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOBrRhgv0I -------- Whatever Blue Sky did for the "Peanuts" 3d movie was utterly amazing too. It was the first major 3d movie I've seen that faithfully captured the comic style. Its not a video game, but its a similar "art-form translation" issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQpUQPrAfQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQpUQPrAfQM
  - JohnBooty 8y ago
    Yeah, FighterZ is just incredible! The Cyber Connect 2-developed games, mostly in the Naruto universe, have been making great progress along those lines for years. But DB FighterZ takes the cake. One thing that's "special" about Capcom's recent SF games is that I find the art style unique! FighterZ is an absolutely incredible technical artistic achievement, probably moreso than SF IV/V. I would call FighterZ the more impressive achievement. On the other hand, FighterZ replicates an existing look, whereas SF IV/V veers into some new territory IMO so I give it credit there.
tracker1 8y ago
I have no knowledge of what's considered state of the art... but I'm curious if we are at a point were we could get "good enough" animation real time. From south park to toy story level. I know there's a lot of time that goes into building sets/worlds and other models, but would love to see the option become more common. Local TV stations with animation shows, much like local entertainment used to be, but animated instead of fully acted live.
_bxg1 8y ago
The parts of our brains that identify human forms have been finely honed over thousands of years; humans have always been the hardest subject to get right in any artistic medium. I think we're getting close here, though.
ksec 8y ago
>The woman in the demo looked somewhat real; if this is real time and reproducible in games then it's a huge step forward. Agree, this is the first time ever, for a few seconds I have a question in my mind, was this really animated or some graphics overlay on actual human face. I think we are still far away, say at least another 10 years from technically possible replacing human actors. Not saying it will just the technicality of it. But I do wish games be more cartoonish, or Animation, Cel Shading. The recent Naruto and Dragon Ball Z made those games as if they were OVA quality Animation. I am not sure if market wasn't buying it, or if those technique and level of quality are still hard / expensive to achieve.

by jeswin 8y ago

worldsayshi 8y ago

This is real time. It's a bit annoying that the article doesn't lift that point since that is the most impressive point. Then again, I guess unless you don't include interactive aspects there's no telling what is actually real time and what is "baked".

bcaulfield 8y ago
You're right, we've updated the post to reflect this.
JohnBooty 8y ago
there's no telling what is actually real time and what is "baked". Yea, that distinction is... fuzzy, and a little frustrating. Artistically, this demo is wonderful! Technically, it's somewhere between "yawn" and game-changing, depending on how much of the lighting and animation is pre-baked. Are the deformations of her skin, clothing, the water, etc. being calculated in real time, or was all the hard stuff precalculated and baked in? Reason why this matters is because the more dynamic this is, the closer we are to creating actual emergent/interactive experiences with this kind of technology, rather than just a way to render static cutscenes better.
- worldsayshi 8y ago
  Well put.

dragontamer 8y ago

> One of the things I hate about modern games is that while the environment gets closer to realism, humans (face, skin) still look like corpses. I prefer cartoonish characters instead of being in uncanny valley. Subsurface scattering is necessary for face / skin to work with light. You get good subsurface scattering in movies these days, but not really in video games yet. Its far too costly to make realistic skin renders. Skin is partially transparent: you can see the veins, blood, and even muscles through people's skin. Blushing is simply the act of blood rushing to the face, its immediately visible and instantly causes a reddish hue to due the skin's transparency. Simulating that outside of movie settings is going to take far more GPU power than what is available even in the next 5 years. We're still working on basic raytracing for video games, not even the advanced stuff yet. ------------ In effect, the "location" of where light is reflected on skin is "inside" the skin. Light penetrates into your skin and illuminates the stuff underneath. But traditional raytracing assumes that the reflection occurs on the "surface" of skin, resulting on a "waxy" look. The reflection is subtly in the wrong place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsurface_scattering Without subsurface scattering, you get the "barbie doll" look, even in raytracing. "Barbie Doll" works fine for cartoons, but its always a killer for me personally when I'm playing video games. EDIT: Example image with SSS (SubSurface Scattering): http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ahUMngIOPqU/T85dlEU9I7I/AAAAAAAAA5w/R6Wp2LqNDOM/s1600/SSS_caseStudy_02.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ahUMngIOPqU/T85dlEU9I7I/AAAAAAAAA5... ------------ Gems, Marble, etc. etc. are also partially translucent, and look awful in traditional video games. Subsurface Scattering makes these partially transparent rocks look more correct.

JohnBooty 8y ago

Street Fighter IV and V have my favorite implementation so far. The characters, to me, look like realistic physical objects with a good sense of weight to them. But instead of resembling humans and therefore falling into the uncanny valley, they look like realistic lifesize action figures like the ones I played with as a kid. Like my childhood play scenes come to life. (I'm not sure if the creators intentionally wanted the characters to look like action figures per se, but clearly they made the choice to go for a stylized rather than photorealistic look and I love what they achieved) https://www.pcmag.com/review/341914/street-fighter-v-for-pc https://www.pcmag.com/review/341914/street-fighter-v-for-pc

dragontamer 8y ago
The stylized "comic book" feel of Marvel vs Capcom 3, and the "DBZ Feel" of Dragonball FighterZ are the looks that I personally like the most. Dragonball FighterZ is nothing close to reality, but whatever they did to that game makes it look just like hand-drawn 2d anime. Here is some random tournament footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOBrRhgv0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XOBrRhgv0I -------- Whatever Blue Sky did for the "Peanuts" 3d movie was utterly amazing too. It was the first major 3d movie I've seen that faithfully captured the comic style. Its not a video game, but its a similar "art-form translation" issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQpUQPrAfQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQpUQPrAfQM
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  Yeah, FighterZ is just incredible! The Cyber Connect 2-developed games, mostly in the Naruto universe, have been making great progress along those lines for years. But DB FighterZ takes the cake. One thing that's "special" about Capcom's recent SF games is that I find the art style unique! FighterZ is an absolutely incredible technical artistic achievement, probably moreso than SF IV/V. I would call FighterZ the more impressive achievement. On the other hand, FighterZ replicates an existing look, whereas SF IV/V veers into some new territory IMO so I give it credit there.

tracker1 8y ago

I have no knowledge of what's considered state of the art... but I'm curious if we are at a point were we could get "good enough" animation real time. From south park to toy story level. I know there's a lot of time that goes into building sets/worlds and other models, but would love to see the option become more common. Local TV stations with animation shows, much like local entertainment used to be, but animated instead of fully acted live.

_bxg1 8y ago

The parts of our brains that identify human forms have been finely honed over thousands of years; humans have always been the hardest subject to get right in any artistic medium. I think we're getting close here, though.

ksec 8y ago

>The woman in the demo looked somewhat real; if this is real time and reproducible in games then it's a huge step forward. Agree, this is the first time ever, for a few seconds I have a question in my mind, was this really animated or some graphics overlay on actual human face. I think we are still far away, say at least another 10 years from technically possible replacing human actors. Not saying it will just the technicality of it. But I do wish games be more cartoonish, or Animation, Cel Shading. The recent Naruto and Dragon Ball Z made those games as if they were OVA quality Animation. I am not sure if market wasn't buying it, or if those technique and level of quality are still hard / expensive to achieve.