5 ms·

Is there any more room for improvement in the video game graphics? Are we going to need more John Carmacks and Sweenys?

by z3phyr 12y ago

mortenjorck 12y ago
In terms of static scenes, I'd say the industry is at the end of an S-curve right now. In terms of motion, character animation, and physical interactions between objects, there's still a long way to go. You need a AAA budget just to get a character's hand to realistically pick up an object in a scene without it jumping; I think these sorts of problems are next in line for graphics engines to solve.
bluedino 12y ago
Someone go find Ken Silverman!
corysama 12y ago
Carmack and Sweeny are perhaps the most famous game graphics programmers, but they are far from the only knee pushing the state of the art. In fact, they've both been rather quiet lately. Carmack has been nose-down in VR lately and Sweeny has hired an excellent team that has been doing most of the talking for Epic. Meanwhile, check out The Order:1886 and Beyond:Two Souls for examples of the most technically impressive game graphics from studios most people haven't heard of. Game graphics have taken big leaps in the past few years. I attribute that to amazing advances in GPU tech coupled with quite a lot of open discussion and sharing of research in the game graphics community. But, we're still far from where we want to be.
- z3phyr 12y ago
  Is fully destructible in any way and dynamic virtual environment one of the targets?
- Arelius 12y ago
  To add to that, Sweeney hasn't really been a graphics programmer since the late 90's. He's always been much more focused on engine infrastructure, leaving graphics to other very competent programmers at Epic.
Arelius 12y ago
There is indeed a lot more to do. While there is clearly diminishing returns, secondary rays for instance are computationally very difficult, and contribute significantly to the final perception of the scene. While we're able to take all sorts of shortcuts for special instances a general and global solution is still an unsolved problem.

Is there any more room for improvement in the video game graphics? Are we going to need more John Carmacks and Sweenys?

by z3phyr 12y ago

Is there any more room for improvement in the video game graphics? Are we going to need more John Carmacks and Sweenys?

In terms of static scenes, I'd say the industry is at the end of an S-curve right now. In terms of motion, character animation, and physical interactions between objects, there's still a long way to go. You need a AAA budget just to get a character's hand to realistically pick up an object in a scene without it jumping; I think these sorts of problems are next in line for graphics engines to solve.

bluedino 12y ago

Someone go find Ken Silverman!

corysama 12y ago

Carmack and Sweeny are perhaps the most famous game graphics programmers, but they are far from the only knee pushing the state of the art. In fact, they've both been rather quiet lately. Carmack has been nose-down in VR lately and Sweeny has hired an excellent team that has been doing most of the talking for Epic. Meanwhile, check out The Order:1886 and Beyond:Two Souls for examples of the most technically impressive game graphics from studios most people haven't heard of. Game graphics have taken big leaps in the past few years. I attribute that to amazing advances in GPU tech coupled with quite a lot of open discussion and sharing of research in the game graphics community. But, we're still far from where we want to be.

z3phyr 12y ago
Is fully destructible in any way and dynamic virtual environment one of the targets?
Arelius 12y ago
To add to that, Sweeney hasn't really been a graphics programmer since the late 90's. He's always been much more focused on engine infrastructure, leaving graphics to other very competent programmers at Epic.

Arelius 12y ago

There is indeed a lot more to do. While there is clearly diminishing returns, secondary rays for instance are computationally very difficult, and contribute significantly to the final perception of the scene. While we're able to take all sorts of shortcuts for special instances a general and global solution is still an unsolved problem.