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Alright, maybe this has been done before - I don't remember it, but it probably has. Anyway, graphics technology has increased at an extremely rapid rate, especially over the last 10 years. In FPS games we've gone from Wolfenstein 3D's blocky corridors and sprite enemies to Doom 3. Technology is getting better and faster every day. In these times, a graphics card is obsolete as soon as it is put on the market. How long will it be before we reach the standard of graphics that can perfectly simulate real-life environments? I don't think that it'll be as long as many people imagine. When the day comes, how could graphics technology, in it's current guise, possibly go any further? Today we have our sights aimed at increasingly true to life environments - what happens when we truly have an exact simulation of the world outside? How could graphics improve upon the real world? There is no way that they could. You might mention 3 dimensions (as in a hologram) but that is still simulating real life - objects in our world are 3 dimensional (although it is believed there are as many as 11 dimensions, by some crazy scientist or another).
When graphics technology allows a perfect or near perfect reconstruction of reality, then designers will have to accept that the quality and originality of the worlds they represent with it are more important than the quality of the representation. If the game world is as boring as most these days, it wouldn't matter if you plugged it direct into your brain, it'd still be boring. Personally, I would hate it if all games looked the same - this is why I have my reservations for using pixel shaders in the water. It looks pretty, but Morrowind has the same water as the upcoming C&C generals, and I think that's just sloppy. Hopefully they could make up some new colours: I'd quite like to see the colour of magic in Discworld 7.
Graphics aren't the be all and end all of a totally realistic environment. You may think photo-realistic graphics make a world more believable, but the quality of graphics themselves can't reach that on it's own. At the moment the quality of graphics are increasing, but interactivity with a game-world isn't. I want games with the vision of Deus Ex and Red Faction, where environments don't just look the part but feel it. I think most of you would agree that it would be more satisfying to be able to blow a door down rather than stare at it's photo-realistic textures. When graphics reach their peak the game world will look out of place if it doesn't catch up, and that's what will have to be thought of next. Making the environment as believable in feel as it is visually. Of course the gameworld will always have limits, and the real trick is deceiving you to think that it doesn't...
You need to remember that there is much more to making a totally realistic computer simulation of a world than just graphics technology.
The real world is formed largely around fractal patterns which expand infinitely, very hard to simulate on a computer that doesnt have infinite memory. Imagine the amount of RAM that would be needed to simulate all the particles in the world, and the algorithms that would be needed to simulate their behaviour. Even if you had the most powerful graphics card imaginable that task still doesn't bare thinking of. You may be able to model grass down to a very detailed level, or to make a character model incredibly accurate but to actually make it exact to the real world would need technology pretty far in the future so I don't think we need to start worrying about hitting a graphics zenith quite yet. Soon, all games will be at the technological level animated films, such as Final Fantasy et al, brining reality to a near perfect level on the PC, making, say, Max Payne look like Wolfenstein looks today, but still not realistic enough.
LOD is meant to be used to reduce what needs to be drawn, but that's only once the computer has decided on what there is in the scene and whether it needs to be drawn or not, it still needs to simulate the actual objects in memory to do that. Does the real world decide what you can see and then draw it depending on whether or not you can? A simulation of the real world, with everything exactly as in real life is approaching impossible. Imagine how powerful a computer would have to be in order to run it? However, I'd like to know not really so much as how games would progress from there, improved physics etc, but how graphics on there own could possibly improve. Will they reach that stage at all? Will big companies like nVidia be rendered useless (no techno-pun intended)?
It's very hard to predict. No other medium is like computer games, with the exception of possibly animated films, and the same question could be posed at them now Final Fantasy has been released upon the world in all it's graphical splendour. I don't know whether real will reach a peak, but when you think about it, real is real, and computers will always be formed of numbers and may never be 100% real looking, but I don't know. And games need to retain their own style anyway, games may become "photo-realistic", but do we really want to emulate real life anyway? Wouldn't we rather emulate fictional space monsters after all?
We have to seperate graphics from physics. It's one thing to make a body look photo realistic but it takes alot more to make it react perfectly. To be honest I can't see how we can attain a computer game that has world-perect physics without changing the way we represnt objects. At the moment we create a frame and then stretch a skin over it. In my opinion you can't make perfect phyicis using this system. But don't look to me for solutions, I'm not getting paid for it. I remember one person suggest once having each atom simulated. I can't see this being possible for a long time, and unless we all have massive internet connections then it would be impossible using this sistem (as far as I understand it anyway). Physics are different to graphics, and should be adressed as much as graphics are. A photo-realistic environment is a lot less effective if you can't walk down individual stairs, you can't take advantages of the beautiful terrain, and your enemies death animations are akin to Deus Ex's. Take, Myst, for example. Although now looking dated, I'm sure you would all agree you'd prefer an interactive world rather than a beautiful one, because, as beautiful as Myst is, it's hardly a living, breathing world is it? And that's what we should be aiming for.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving computers graphical capabilities, but just think. What would be better, a game which has near perfect or even perfect (relish the thought) graphics but with an unplayable game, or a game with reasonable graphics and excellant gameplay? To fully maximise the enjoyment of the game, surely the developers need to concentrate most of their time to making the finished game as player-friendly as possible? Take a game such as, say, Empire Earth, although it is one of the first RTS's to have a fully 3D rendered enviroment, the gameplay is terrible (in my opinion, sorry if you don't agree) and this brings the enjoyment of the game to an all time low. So, surly it is as worth while concentrating on the gameplay and how much you can interact with the enviroment, than trying to use the most up to date graphics, but to poor effect?
It could be that graphics will ever reach photo-realism exactly just because of the randomness involved in the real world, chaos mathematics in computer games would have to become much more advanced for a start.
What it basically comes down to is that the real world is pretty much completly random whereas on some level, however low, computers have to have a preset program, so they can't feasibly model the real world totally accurately. Currently development emphasis is being placed on three things, graphics, AI, and physics. Once graphics reaches the level of photo-realism I reckon the tendency will shift to even more unorthodox game universes. Think about it, we currently have some amazing graphics engines, and hardware on the playing field, producing some brill graphics, and the amazing Doom 3 engine in the works. But large games stick to a select few paradigms, and one of the reason for this is technical limitations. My money says that once we reach the stage where graphics are that realistic, developers will then have the tools to do absolutely anything, literally, that they want to in games. We'll have games that're photo-realistic, but we'll also have games that are totally retro in their look and feel, but completely outside the box in their aesthetic and design.
By the same token, I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to produce these kinds of graphics will lead to all games becoming photo-realistic. Photo-realism kinda seems to limit the creativity of development teams, I don't see that happening, I see some teams going for it, but others using the technology to create a world as they think it should be seen. Look at movies, they're all photo-realistic, but no two are identical. In the same way that kind of graphics potential in games will lead to unexpected aesthetics within games. But I think I've strayed off the point. How could graphics technology go any further - we're assuming that the limit of graphics is photo-realism, once this is reached we'll just see developers developing new ways to show new things, that aren't possible with current technology. Remember that graphics and physics are different. So, a game COULD exist that looked like the real world, but didn't behave like it.
Just because you can have photo-realistic graphics doesn't mean you have emulate the real world with them. Look at games like Tron 2.0 and XIII, there is no limit to different styles and themes, and that is why there will never be a limit in graphics, even if we reach photo-realism. When photography became mainstream, artists like Picasso declared that there was no longer any point in painting pictures that were as real-looking as possible, because photography could do that. Instead, they explored new styles of art. Does anyone think that this will happen with game graphics? Or has it started already - after all, Jet Set Radio only recently introduced cell-shaded graphics; a new style?
Photo-realism truly could be seen in the very distant future. According to a recent article I read, there are one or two quantum computers around even today (they work by using some wierdy third state of some particles, where they can have both the value of 1 and 0 at the same time, the main thing that strikes me: how could anyone spot it?!) Once they have got round the interference problem they are having, it would give computers a shocking amount of power. Having put that down into words, I actually now feel rather uneasy about it. Frankstein and Terminator's Skynet are breaking down the door...Anyway, photo realism could be around the corner. Strictly speaking, I don't think it can change gaming all that much. State of the art 'pretty games' can still be rather rubbish. As if I'm telling anyone something they don't know! Still, it's true, isn't it?
Incidentially, if anyone has read Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett... Could a photo realistic game actually look more 'real' than reality? Could a real London be a disappointment to a distilled version that someone has only experienced in a game? "Narrow alleys were narrower, tall building taller." etc. A game with real-life graphics would require a behemoth of a PC to run. Designers would do well to stay away from this target, as it is alienating a large portion of the gaming world, who cannot afford a new PC every few hours. Programmers should not spend millions of dollars on realistic wallpaper if only the six richest people in the world can play the game
So what will happen to the technological arms race? Will it be like the space race - when the ultimate goal of landing on the moon was attained, people lost interest? Discuss.
Thanks for reading,
LF.
When graphics technology allows a perfect or near perfect reconstruction of reality, then designers will have to accept that the quality and originality of the worlds they represent with it are more important than the quality of the representation. If the game world is as boring as most these days, it wouldn't matter if you plugged it direct into your brain, it'd still be boring. Personally, I would hate it if all games looked the same - this is why I have my reservations for using pixel shaders in the water. It looks pretty, but Morrowind has the same water as the upcoming C&C generals, and I think that's just sloppy. Hopefully they could make up some new colours: I'd quite like to see the colour of magic in Discworld 7.
Graphics aren't the be all and end all of a totally realistic environment. You may think photo-realistic graphics make a world more believable, but the quality of graphics themselves can't reach that on it's own. At the moment the quality of graphics are increasing, but interactivity with a game-world isn't. I want games with the vision of Deus Ex and Red Faction, where environments don't just look the part but feel it. I think most of you would agree that it would be more satisfying to be able to blow a door down rather than stare at it's photo-realistic textures. When graphics reach their peak the game world will look out of place if it doesn't catch up, and that's what will have to be thought of next. Making the environment as believable in feel as it is visually. Of course the gameworld will always have limits, and the real trick is deceiving you to think that it doesn't...
You need to remember that there is much more to making a totally realistic computer simulation of a world than just graphics technology.
The real world is formed largely around fractal patterns which expand infinitely, very hard to simulate on a computer that doesnt have infinite memory. Imagine the amount of RAM that would be needed to simulate all the particles in the world, and the algorithms that would be needed to simulate their behaviour. Even if you had the most powerful graphics card imaginable that task still doesn't bare thinking of. You may be able to model grass down to a very detailed level, or to make a character model incredibly accurate but to actually make it exact to the real world would need technology pretty far in the future so I don't think we need to start worrying about hitting a graphics zenith quite yet. Soon, all games will be at the technological level animated films, such as Final Fantasy et al, brining reality to a near perfect level on the PC, making, say, Max Payne look like Wolfenstein looks today, but still not realistic enough.
LOD is meant to be used to reduce what needs to be drawn, but that's only once the computer has decided on what there is in the scene and whether it needs to be drawn or not, it still needs to simulate the actual objects in memory to do that. Does the real world decide what you can see and then draw it depending on whether or not you can? A simulation of the real world, with everything exactly as in real life is approaching impossible. Imagine how powerful a computer would have to be in order to run it? However, I'd like to know not really so much as how games would progress from there, improved physics etc, but how graphics on there own could possibly improve. Will they reach that stage at all? Will big companies like nVidia be rendered useless (no techno-pun intended)?
It's very hard to predict. No other medium is like computer games, with the exception of possibly animated films, and the same question could be posed at them now Final Fantasy has been released upon the world in all it's graphical splendour. I don't know whether real will reach a peak, but when you think about it, real is real, and computers will always be formed of numbers and may never be 100% real looking, but I don't know. And games need to retain their own style anyway, games may become "photo-realistic", but do we really want to emulate real life anyway? Wouldn't we rather emulate fictional space monsters after all?
We have to seperate graphics from physics. It's one thing to make a body look photo realistic but it takes alot more to make it react perfectly. To be honest I can't see how we can attain a computer game that has world-perect physics without changing the way we represnt objects. At the moment we create a frame and then stretch a skin over it. In my opinion you can't make perfect phyicis using this system. But don't look to me for solutions, I'm not getting paid for it. I remember one person suggest once having each atom simulated. I can't see this being possible for a long time, and unless we all have massive internet connections then it would be impossible using this sistem (as far as I understand it anyway). Physics are different to graphics, and should be adressed as much as graphics are. A photo-realistic environment is a lot less effective if you can't walk down individual stairs, you can't take advantages of the beautiful terrain, and your enemies death animations are akin to Deus Ex's. Take, Myst, for example. Although now looking dated, I'm sure you would all agree you'd prefer an interactive world rather than a beautiful one, because, as beautiful as Myst is, it's hardly a living, breathing world is it? And that's what we should be aiming for.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving computers graphical capabilities, but just think. What would be better, a game which has near perfect or even perfect (relish the thought) graphics but with an unplayable game, or a game with reasonable graphics and excellant gameplay? To fully maximise the enjoyment of the game, surely the developers need to concentrate most of their time to making the finished game as player-friendly as possible? Take a game such as, say, Empire Earth, although it is one of the first RTS's to have a fully 3D rendered enviroment, the gameplay is terrible (in my opinion, sorry if you don't agree) and this brings the enjoyment of the game to an all time low. So, surly it is as worth while concentrating on the gameplay and how much you can interact with the enviroment, than trying to use the most up to date graphics, but to poor effect?
It could be that graphics will ever reach photo-realism exactly just because of the randomness involved in the real world, chaos mathematics in computer games would have to become much more advanced for a start.
What it basically comes down to is that the real world is pretty much completly random whereas on some level, however low, computers have to have a preset program, so they can't feasibly model the real world totally accurately. Currently development emphasis is being placed on three things, graphics, AI, and physics. Once graphics reaches the level of photo-realism I reckon the tendency will shift to even more unorthodox game universes. Think about it, we currently have some amazing graphics engines, and hardware on the playing field, producing some brill graphics, and the amazing Doom 3 engine in the works. But large games stick to a select few paradigms, and one of the reason for this is technical limitations. My money says that once we reach the stage where graphics are that realistic, developers will then have the tools to do absolutely anything, literally, that they want to in games. We'll have games that're photo-realistic, but we'll also have games that are totally retro in their look and feel, but completely outside the box in their aesthetic and design.
By the same token, I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to produce these kinds of graphics will lead to all games becoming photo-realistic. Photo-realism kinda seems to limit the creativity of development teams, I don't see that happening, I see some teams going for it, but others using the technology to create a world as they think it should be seen. Look at movies, they're all photo-realistic, but no two are identical. In the same way that kind of graphics potential in games will lead to unexpected aesthetics within games. But I think I've strayed off the point. How could graphics technology go any further - we're assuming that the limit of graphics is photo-realism, once this is reached we'll just see developers developing new ways to show new things, that aren't possible with current technology. Remember that graphics and physics are different. So, a game COULD exist that looked like the real world, but didn't behave like it.
Just because you can have photo-realistic graphics doesn't mean you have emulate the real world with them. Look at games like Tron 2.0 and XIII, there is no limit to different styles and themes, and that is why there will never be a limit in graphics, even if we reach photo-realism. When photography became mainstream, artists like Picasso declared that there was no longer any point in painting pictures that were as real-looking as possible, because photography could do that. Instead, they explored new styles of art. Does anyone think that this will happen with game graphics? Or has it started already - after all, Jet Set Radio only recently introduced cell-shaded graphics; a new style?
Photo-realism truly could be seen in the very distant future. According to a recent article I read, there are one or two quantum computers around even today (they work by using some wierdy third state of some particles, where they can have both the value of 1 and 0 at the same time, the main thing that strikes me: how could anyone spot it?!) Once they have got round the interference problem they are having, it would give computers a shocking amount of power. Having put that down into words, I actually now feel rather uneasy about it. Frankstein and Terminator's Skynet are breaking down the door...Anyway, photo realism could be around the corner. Strictly speaking, I don't think it can change gaming all that much. State of the art 'pretty games' can still be rather rubbish. As if I'm telling anyone something they don't know! Still, it's true, isn't it?
Incidentially, if anyone has read Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett... Could a photo realistic game actually look more 'real' than reality? Could a real London be a disappointment to a distilled version that someone has only experienced in a game? "Narrow alleys were narrower, tall building taller." etc. A game with real-life graphics would require a behemoth of a PC to run. Designers would do well to stay away from this target, as it is alienating a large portion of the gaming world, who cannot afford a new PC every few hours. Programmers should not spend millions of dollars on realistic wallpaper if only the six richest people in the world can play the game
So what will happen to the technological arms race? Will it be like the space race - when the ultimate goal of landing on the moon was attained, people lost interest? Discuss.
Thanks for reading,
LF.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Alright, maybe this has been done before - I don't remember it, but it probably has. Anyway, graphics technology has increased at an extremely rapid rate, especially over the last 10 years. In FPS games we've gone from Wolfenstein 3D's blocky corridors and sprite enemies to Doom 3. Technology is getting better and faster every day. In these times, a graphics card is obsolete as soon as it is put on the market. How long will it be before we reach the standard of graphics that can perfectly simulate real-life environments? I don't think that it'll be as long as many people imagine. When the day comes, how could graphics technology, in it's current guise, possibly go any further? Today we have our sights aimed at increasingly true to life environments - what happens when we truly have an exact simulation of the world outside? How could graphics improve upon the real world? There is no way that they could. You might mention 3 dimensions (as in a hologram) but that is still simulating real life - objects in our world are 3 dimensional (although it is believed there are as many as 11 dimensions, by some crazy scientist or another).
When graphics technology allows a perfect or near perfect reconstruction of reality, then designers will have to accept that the quality and originality of the worlds they represent with it are more important than the quality of the representation. If the game world is as boring as most these days, it wouldn't matter if you plugged it direct into your brain, it'd still be boring. Personally, I would hate it if all games looked the same - this is why I have my reservations for using pixel shaders in the water. It looks pretty, but Morrowind has the same water as the upcoming C&C generals, and I think that's just sloppy. Hopefully they could make up some new colours: I'd quite like to see the colour of magic in Discworld 7.
Graphics aren't the be all and end all of a totally realistic environment. You may think photo-realistic graphics make a world more believable, but the quality of graphics themselves can't reach that on it's own. At the moment the quality of graphics are increasing, but interactivity with a game-world isn't. I want games with the vision of Deus Ex and Red Faction, where environments don't just look the part but feel it. I think most of you would agree that it would be more satisfying to be able to blow a door down rather than stare at it's photo-realistic textures. When graphics reach their peak the game world will look out of place if it doesn't catch up, and that's what will have to be thought of next. Making the environment as believable in feel as it is visually. Of course the gameworld will always have limits, and the real trick is deceiving you to think that it doesn't...
You need to remember that there is much more to making a totally realistic computer simulation of a world than just graphics technology.
The real world is formed largely around fractal patterns which expand infinitely, very hard to simulate on a computer that doesnt have infinite memory. Imagine the amount of RAM that would be needed to simulate all the particles in the world, and the algorithms that would be needed to simulate their behaviour. Even if you had the most powerful graphics card imaginable that task still doesn't bare thinking of. You may be able to model grass down to a very detailed level, or to make a character model incredibly accurate but to actually make it exact to the real world would need technology pretty far in the future so I don't think we need to start worrying about hitting a graphics zenith quite yet. Soon, all games will be at the technological level animated films, such as Final Fantasy et al, brining reality to a near perfect level on the PC, making, say, Max Payne look like Wolfenstein looks today, but still not realistic enough.
LOD is meant to be used to reduce what needs to be drawn, but that's only once the computer has decided on what there is in the scene and whether it needs to be drawn or not, it still needs to simulate the actual objects in memory to do that. Does the real world decide what you can see and then draw it depending on whether or not you can? A simulation of the real world, with everything exactly as in real life is approaching impossible. Imagine how powerful a computer would have to be in order to run it? However, I'd like to know not really so much as how games would progress from there, improved physics etc, but how graphics on there own could possibly improve. Will they reach that stage at all? Will big companies like nVidia be rendered useless (no techno-pun intended)?
It's very hard to predict. No other medium is like computer games, with the exception of possibly animated films, and the same question could be posed at them now Final Fantasy has been released upon the world in all it's graphical splendour. I don't know whether real will reach a peak, but when you think about it, real is real, and computers will always be formed of numbers and may never be 100% real looking, but I don't know. And games need to retain their own style anyway, games may become "photo-realistic", but do we really want to emulate real life anyway? Wouldn't we rather emulate fictional space monsters after all?
We have to seperate graphics from physics. It's one thing to make a body look photo realistic but it takes alot more to make it react perfectly. To be honest I can't see how we can attain a computer game that has world-perect physics without changing the way we represnt objects. At the moment we create a frame and then stretch a skin over it. In my opinion you can't make perfect phyicis using this system. But don't look to me for solutions, I'm not getting paid for it. I remember one person suggest once having each atom simulated. I can't see this being possible for a long time, and unless we all have massive internet connections then it would be impossible using this sistem (as far as I understand it anyway). Physics are different to graphics, and should be adressed as much as graphics are. A photo-realistic environment is a lot less effective if you can't walk down individual stairs, you can't take advantages of the beautiful terrain, and your enemies death animations are akin to Deus Ex's. Take, Myst, for example. Although now looking dated, I'm sure you would all agree you'd prefer an interactive world rather than a beautiful one, because, as beautiful as Myst is, it's hardly a living, breathing world is it? And that's what we should be aiming for.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving computers graphical capabilities, but just think. What would be better, a game which has near perfect or even perfect (relish the thought) graphics but with an unplayable game, or a game with reasonable graphics and excellant gameplay? To fully maximise the enjoyment of the game, surely the developers need to concentrate most of their time to making the finished game as player-friendly as possible? Take a game such as, say, Empire Earth, although it is one of the first RTS's to have a fully 3D rendered enviroment, the gameplay is terrible (in my opinion, sorry if you don't agree) and this brings the enjoyment of the game to an all time low. So, surly it is as worth while concentrating on the gameplay and how much you can interact with the enviroment, than trying to use the most up to date graphics, but to poor effect?
It could be that graphics will ever reach photo-realism exactly just because of the randomness involved in the real world, chaos mathematics in computer games would have to become much more advanced for a start.
What it basically comes down to is that the real world is pretty much completly random whereas on some level, however low, computers have to have a preset program, so they can't feasibly model the real world totally accurately. Currently development emphasis is being placed on three things, graphics, AI, and physics. Once graphics reaches the level of photo-realism I reckon the tendency will shift to even more unorthodox game universes. Think about it, we currently have some amazing graphics engines, and hardware on the playing field, producing some brill graphics, and the amazing Doom 3 engine in the works. But large games stick to a select few paradigms, and one of the reason for this is technical limitations. My money says that once we reach the stage where graphics are that realistic, developers will then have the tools to do absolutely anything, literally, that they want to in games. We'll have games that're photo-realistic, but we'll also have games that are totally retro in their look and feel, but completely outside the box in their aesthetic and design.
By the same token, I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to produce these kinds of graphics will lead to all games becoming photo-realistic. Photo-realism kinda seems to limit the creativity of development teams, I don't see that happening, I see some teams going for it, but others using the technology to create a world as they think it should be seen. Look at movies, they're all photo-realistic, but no two are identical. In the same way that kind of graphics potential in games will lead to unexpected aesthetics within games. But I think I've strayed off the point. How could graphics technology go any further - we're assuming that the limit of graphics is photo-realism, once this is reached we'll just see developers developing new ways to show new things, that aren't possible with current technology. Remember that graphics and physics are different. So, a game COULD exist that looked like the real world, but didn't behave like it.
Just because you can have photo-realistic graphics doesn't mean you have emulate the real world with them. Look at games like Tron 2.0 and XIII, there is no limit to different styles and themes, and that is why there will never be a limit in graphics, even if we reach photo-realism. When photography became mainstream, artists like Picasso declared that there was no longer any point in painting pictures that were as real-looking as possible, because photography could do that. Instead, they explored new styles of art. Does anyone think that this will happen with game graphics? Or has it started already - after all, Jet Set Radio only recently introduced cell-shaded graphics; a new style?
Photo-realism truly could be seen in the very distant future. According to a recent article I read, there are one or two quantum computers around even today (they work by using some wierdy third state of some particles, where they can have both the value of 1 and 0 at the same time, the main thing that strikes me: how could anyone spot it?!) Once they have got round the interference problem they are having, it would give computers a shocking amount of power. Having put that down into words, I actually now feel rather uneasy about it. Frankstein and Terminator's Skynet are breaking down the door...Anyway, photo realism could be around the corner. Strictly speaking, I don't think it can change gaming all that much. State of the art 'pretty games' can still be rather rubbish. As if I'm telling anyone something they don't know! Still, it's true, isn't it?
Incidentially, if anyone has read Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett... Could a photo realistic game actually look more 'real' than reality? Could a real London be a disappointment to a distilled version that someone has only experienced in a game? "Narrow alleys were narrower, tall building taller." etc. A game with real-life graphics would require a behemoth of a PC to run. Designers would do well to stay away from this target, as it is alienating a large portion of the gaming world, who cannot afford a new PC every few hours. Programmers should not spend millions of dollars on realistic wallpaper if only the six richest people in the world can play the game
So what will happen to the technological arms race? Will it be like the space race - when the ultimate goal of landing on the moon was attained, people lost interest? Discuss.
Thanks for reading,
LF.
When graphics technology allows a perfect or near perfect reconstruction of reality, then designers will have to accept that the quality and originality of the worlds they represent with it are more important than the quality of the representation. If the game world is as boring as most these days, it wouldn't matter if you plugged it direct into your brain, it'd still be boring. Personally, I would hate it if all games looked the same - this is why I have my reservations for using pixel shaders in the water. It looks pretty, but Morrowind has the same water as the upcoming C&C generals, and I think that's just sloppy. Hopefully they could make up some new colours: I'd quite like to see the colour of magic in Discworld 7.
Graphics aren't the be all and end all of a totally realistic environment. You may think photo-realistic graphics make a world more believable, but the quality of graphics themselves can't reach that on it's own. At the moment the quality of graphics are increasing, but interactivity with a game-world isn't. I want games with the vision of Deus Ex and Red Faction, where environments don't just look the part but feel it. I think most of you would agree that it would be more satisfying to be able to blow a door down rather than stare at it's photo-realistic textures. When graphics reach their peak the game world will look out of place if it doesn't catch up, and that's what will have to be thought of next. Making the environment as believable in feel as it is visually. Of course the gameworld will always have limits, and the real trick is deceiving you to think that it doesn't...
You need to remember that there is much more to making a totally realistic computer simulation of a world than just graphics technology.
The real world is formed largely around fractal patterns which expand infinitely, very hard to simulate on a computer that doesnt have infinite memory. Imagine the amount of RAM that would be needed to simulate all the particles in the world, and the algorithms that would be needed to simulate their behaviour. Even if you had the most powerful graphics card imaginable that task still doesn't bare thinking of. You may be able to model grass down to a very detailed level, or to make a character model incredibly accurate but to actually make it exact to the real world would need technology pretty far in the future so I don't think we need to start worrying about hitting a graphics zenith quite yet. Soon, all games will be at the technological level animated films, such as Final Fantasy et al, brining reality to a near perfect level on the PC, making, say, Max Payne look like Wolfenstein looks today, but still not realistic enough.
LOD is meant to be used to reduce what needs to be drawn, but that's only once the computer has decided on what there is in the scene and whether it needs to be drawn or not, it still needs to simulate the actual objects in memory to do that. Does the real world decide what you can see and then draw it depending on whether or not you can? A simulation of the real world, with everything exactly as in real life is approaching impossible. Imagine how powerful a computer would have to be in order to run it? However, I'd like to know not really so much as how games would progress from there, improved physics etc, but how graphics on there own could possibly improve. Will they reach that stage at all? Will big companies like nVidia be rendered useless (no techno-pun intended)?
It's very hard to predict. No other medium is like computer games, with the exception of possibly animated films, and the same question could be posed at them now Final Fantasy has been released upon the world in all it's graphical splendour. I don't know whether real will reach a peak, but when you think about it, real is real, and computers will always be formed of numbers and may never be 100% real looking, but I don't know. And games need to retain their own style anyway, games may become "photo-realistic", but do we really want to emulate real life anyway? Wouldn't we rather emulate fictional space monsters after all?
We have to seperate graphics from physics. It's one thing to make a body look photo realistic but it takes alot more to make it react perfectly. To be honest I can't see how we can attain a computer game that has world-perect physics without changing the way we represnt objects. At the moment we create a frame and then stretch a skin over it. In my opinion you can't make perfect phyicis using this system. But don't look to me for solutions, I'm not getting paid for it. I remember one person suggest once having each atom simulated. I can't see this being possible for a long time, and unless we all have massive internet connections then it would be impossible using this sistem (as far as I understand it anyway). Physics are different to graphics, and should be adressed as much as graphics are. A photo-realistic environment is a lot less effective if you can't walk down individual stairs, you can't take advantages of the beautiful terrain, and your enemies death animations are akin to Deus Ex's. Take, Myst, for example. Although now looking dated, I'm sure you would all agree you'd prefer an interactive world rather than a beautiful one, because, as beautiful as Myst is, it's hardly a living, breathing world is it? And that's what we should be aiming for.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for improving computers graphical capabilities, but just think. What would be better, a game which has near perfect or even perfect (relish the thought) graphics but with an unplayable game, or a game with reasonable graphics and excellant gameplay? To fully maximise the enjoyment of the game, surely the developers need to concentrate most of their time to making the finished game as player-friendly as possible? Take a game such as, say, Empire Earth, although it is one of the first RTS's to have a fully 3D rendered enviroment, the gameplay is terrible (in my opinion, sorry if you don't agree) and this brings the enjoyment of the game to an all time low. So, surly it is as worth while concentrating on the gameplay and how much you can interact with the enviroment, than trying to use the most up to date graphics, but to poor effect?
It could be that graphics will ever reach photo-realism exactly just because of the randomness involved in the real world, chaos mathematics in computer games would have to become much more advanced for a start.
What it basically comes down to is that the real world is pretty much completly random whereas on some level, however low, computers have to have a preset program, so they can't feasibly model the real world totally accurately. Currently development emphasis is being placed on three things, graphics, AI, and physics. Once graphics reaches the level of photo-realism I reckon the tendency will shift to even more unorthodox game universes. Think about it, we currently have some amazing graphics engines, and hardware on the playing field, producing some brill graphics, and the amazing Doom 3 engine in the works. But large games stick to a select few paradigms, and one of the reason for this is technical limitations. My money says that once we reach the stage where graphics are that realistic, developers will then have the tools to do absolutely anything, literally, that they want to in games. We'll have games that're photo-realistic, but we'll also have games that are totally retro in their look and feel, but completely outside the box in their aesthetic and design.
By the same token, I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to produce these kinds of graphics will lead to all games becoming photo-realistic. Photo-realism kinda seems to limit the creativity of development teams, I don't see that happening, I see some teams going for it, but others using the technology to create a world as they think it should be seen. Look at movies, they're all photo-realistic, but no two are identical. In the same way that kind of graphics potential in games will lead to unexpected aesthetics within games. But I think I've strayed off the point. How could graphics technology go any further - we're assuming that the limit of graphics is photo-realism, once this is reached we'll just see developers developing new ways to show new things, that aren't possible with current technology. Remember that graphics and physics are different. So, a game COULD exist that looked like the real world, but didn't behave like it.
Just because you can have photo-realistic graphics doesn't mean you have emulate the real world with them. Look at games like Tron 2.0 and XIII, there is no limit to different styles and themes, and that is why there will never be a limit in graphics, even if we reach photo-realism. When photography became mainstream, artists like Picasso declared that there was no longer any point in painting pictures that were as real-looking as possible, because photography could do that. Instead, they explored new styles of art. Does anyone think that this will happen with game graphics? Or has it started already - after all, Jet Set Radio only recently introduced cell-shaded graphics; a new style?
Photo-realism truly could be seen in the very distant future. According to a recent article I read, there are one or two quantum computers around even today (they work by using some wierdy third state of some particles, where they can have both the value of 1 and 0 at the same time, the main thing that strikes me: how could anyone spot it?!) Once they have got round the interference problem they are having, it would give computers a shocking amount of power. Having put that down into words, I actually now feel rather uneasy about it. Frankstein and Terminator's Skynet are breaking down the door...Anyway, photo realism could be around the corner. Strictly speaking, I don't think it can change gaming all that much. State of the art 'pretty games' can still be rather rubbish. As if I'm telling anyone something they don't know! Still, it's true, isn't it?
Incidentially, if anyone has read Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett... Could a photo realistic game actually look more 'real' than reality? Could a real London be a disappointment to a distilled version that someone has only experienced in a game? "Narrow alleys were narrower, tall building taller." etc. A game with real-life graphics would require a behemoth of a PC to run. Designers would do well to stay away from this target, as it is alienating a large portion of the gaming world, who cannot afford a new PC every few hours. Programmers should not spend millions of dollars on realistic wallpaper if only the six richest people in the world can play the game
So what will happen to the technological arms race? Will it be like the space race - when the ultimate goal of landing on the moon was attained, people lost interest? Discuss.
Thanks for reading,
LF.