Gaming Graphics

[Calin]

Those are fractal images, and it can create quite a "changing" environment. I remember there was once a mars.exe program, 4KB in size, that created "mars landscape". You could move in it with the mouse

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: jb
there's a real vs game comparison quiz on the Gran Turismo 4 site. i'd say they're almost there but not quite yet.
http://www.us.playstation.com/Content/OGS/SCUS-97328/Site/ Environment Element > Real vs In-Game

not one of those images fooled me

 

[icejunkie]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: jb
there's a real vs game comparison quiz on the Gran Turismo 4 site. i'd say they're almost there but not quite yet.
http://www.us.playstation.com/Content/OGS/SCUS-97328/Site/ Environment Element > Real vs In-Game

not one of those images fooled me

Yea, it was pretty obvious by the bends and lack of texture which ones were in-game...

 

[ribbon13]

Yep, still good ol 'sprite's are your limitation. I bet with 2048x2048 textures you couldn't have noticed a difference.

 

[icejunkie]

As the texture size increases, wouldn't the amount of detail put into it need to be greater to equal a texture at say 1024x1024? If not, why?

 

[Gamingphreek]

I think a good question which sort of ties in is when will every blade of grass and dirt have texture. If you look at the grass it is obvious which one is which because in game it is just blocky and a bunch of sprites. In real life they have depth and what not.

-Kevin

 

[Sabbathian]

I am in 3D modeling and animation for a long time and I can say that I think that we will
not live to see photo-realistic games ..... look at this model of mine:
http://free-zg.t-com.hr/BozoKauric/Slike/Ring1.jpg
OK, it is a simple 3D model, modeled in 15 minutes, and rendered in about an hour ! And
that is just one frame ! You can say that it looks realistic, but, if you have some kind of
ring, look at it closely ... look at all the details .....

One bigger scene in 3D can render for even few days on personal comupters, and again, it is
just one single frame ! and broadcast video has 25 frames per second and even those
rendered images may look "realistic", but they cannot fool you when you see it in motion ....
And that is only the look, what is about the feel part ? character animation ? movement,
muscles, faces ... etc ....etc ......

 

[Calin]

Modelling and generating shiny surfaces is quite easy from an computational standpoint. However, some things are quite a bit harder - like modelling skin lighting not with surface reflections but with translucent reflection (skin is somewhat transparent to light, and as such the light reflects from deep within the skin also).
You could check this using a flashlight in pitch dark - and cover it with your fingers.

 

[ChaosPhoenix]

Your comparison between the time your computer takes to render an image, and the amount of time a game takes to render the players view isn't that way I see it (I've been in working in 3d for a couple years, this is just my observation). Games are never going to be rendered using Mental Ray, or Renderman, but rather their own specialized engines. If I was to create a complex mesh object (say 5k polys) in a 3D program, it would take seconds to render the image. Put the same mesh into a game (via a mod) and it gets rendered in realtime. Obviously, when moving beyond the mesh, is where we run into problems (textures and complex shaders).

Secondly, although not picture perfect, here is the closest to real organic form I have ever seen.
http://www.blackmountain.de/new/projects/photos/cgi2.jpg

A full size image of that render can be found on Renderosity.

 

[Calin]

Now, if I had to choose if that image is CG or real, I would have some doubts. (however, the depth of field seems somehow unnatural)

 

[ChaosPhoenix]

The most intensive part of the rendering process is shaders (obviously you can argue complex geometry can be hard to render on a massive scale, but considering the fact that textures/shaders can play a larger role in the realism of objects rather than complex geometry, I think it's a valid point).
Sub Surface Scattering is starting to become more mainstream (A shader which always light scattering under the surface of the texture, very useful for skin, and shining light on translucent objects), the amount of time SSS takes to render is incredible. My guess would be at least 15 years before we can get realtime rendering of the images people are creating today (like that face).

 

[Azsen]

I have seen a game that uses photo realistic quality. It's called Myst 4 Revelation. Though they cheat a bit and have a mpeg type movie clip playing whenever you interact with something. It looks quite good though, like you can look around while the actor is talking to you etc.

So what about this idea? I'll use Counter-Strike as an example. You use human actors and you photograph/video them in every position posible. Like aiming in one direction, crouching in another, running etc all the various positions you might see a SWAT officer in - full 360 degrees and from all directions, top and bottom. You could use various other equipment to get the exact shape of the body so you can use that data to make a proportionally correct player model. Then use those pictures/video data to somehow map that detail onto a player model. Then you've got a fully 3D real life looking player model that looks like real life whichever way you are looking at it even when moving because you've pre-captured what they will look like in those positions. Perhaps something similiar to what they did with Gollum in LOTR movies. You could do the same with buildings, terrain etc - just go out and take lots of photos with your high res camera and map them onto the objects in the computer. ©

 

[ChaosPhoenix]

Many games do use motion capture already for animations.
There is a large problem with taking high-res photos in the real world and applying them to 3d meshes. First off, this only works with texture maps and not shaders (like flowing water, realtime reflections, slime, lava, etc.). And even then the thing that makes a surface look the way it does is from light reflections and refractions, which will have to be simulated in real time. Plus, texture maps that look real will be enormous in size, and require much more memory on a video card to handle.
There are still many textures that require intense mathmatical calculations to make appear real (Skin, or any translucent material is a good example).

It's still a long way away.

 

[thunderroller]

imagination is endless. so as people dream they mke new games with new images and graphic

 

[dkozloski]

Can't the problem be attacked from the other direction? Drugs or booze ought to dumb down your percertion of reality until darn near anything will do the job.

 

[mhillary]

I think graphics=great games