Welcome to the Future of Gaming

[Keno]

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/19/gdc08 ... -unreal-e/

Looks as real as anything I've ever seen rendered. And they say that their capture device is so powerful that no current gen system can even fully utilize its resolution.

This video sums it up: http://www.vimeo.com/707292/

[pirahna1]

Wow. That's really, really amazing. And the pre-rendered video is even BETTER than the real-time footage which is better than anything I've ever seen.

Can't wait to see this applied to actual games. Even CG movies would be a site to watch with this tech.

[Correction]

Welcome to the future of cutscenes? First 10 games that use this will all be FPS and JRPGs, nothing 'future' about that.

[Kaisha]

That thing scares me......there's just something subtle wrong about it that makes the thing fall right into the uncanny valley for me.
(it's either the eyes or the way the upper lip moves, can't pinpoint)

Regardless, going to be awhile before we see games using something like that ingame; I mean, if they needed dual 880 8800GTX SLI'd......yeah.

Will be nice to see something graphically that puts Crysis to shame.



On a random note, the future of gaming is going to get boring once they hit photo-realistic graphics.

[Seditedi]

Welcome to the future of cutscenes? First 10 games that use this will all be FPS and JRPGs, nothing 'future' about that.

You're a complete moron.
The possibilities for a new level of realism for many game genres will exist as a result of this technology. Sports games with player models that move exactly like the real players and so forth.

[Reality]

Will be nice to see something graphically that puts Crysis to shame.

and the funny part about that, is this was on the UE3 engine. if it were done on CE2, it'd look vastly superior.

[Lockecole7]

Will be nice to see something graphically that puts Crysis to shame.

and the funny part about that, is this was on the UE3 engine. if it were done on CE2, it'd look vastly superior.

They've already stated that this is even a toned down version of it, that there are higher resolutions available of it stored away, because the current engines/technology can't even handle it. Which makes this breakthrough even that much more impressive. The days of mindblowingly huge resolutions is upon us I believe, now that the technology of movement is pretty much catching up to being near perfect.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Welcome to the future of cutscenes? First 10 games that use this will all be FPS and JRPGs, nothing 'future' about that.

You're a complete moron.
The possibilities for a new level of realism for many game genres will exist as a result of this technology. Sports games with player models that move exactly like the real players and so forth.

Realism isn't graphics

[Correction]

Welcome to the future of cutscenes? First 10 games that use this will all be FPS and JRPGs, nothing 'future' about that.

You're a complete moron.
The possibilities for a new level of realism for many game genres will exist as a result of this technology. Sports games with player models that move exactly like the real players and so forth.

Oh hi we haven't met, I see you think I'm a complete moron when you have a minor disagreement about the difference between realistic facial models and gameplay.

http://www.sonicteam.com/rez/e/news/index.html

http://katamari.namco.com/

http://www.animal-crossing.com/wildworld/

http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html

Graphics have never and will never represent the next frontier in gaming, which is what the OP was implying, and what I was trying to call attention away from. Cutscenes and lip-synch do not progress gaming as a form of entertainment in the same way that good design and tight gameplay have in the last 10 years. I thought that anybody who's played video games for more than 10 years and has at least half a brain could have figured it out by now.

But I guess it's more fun to call someone a moron and pretend like you know how much better Madden 2025 will be thanks to this technology.

Asshole

[pirahna1]

Welcome to the future of cutscenes? First 10 games that use this will all be FPS and JRPGs, nothing 'future' about that.

You're a complete moron.
The possibilities for a new level of realism for many game genres will exist as a result of this technology. Sports games with player models that move exactly like the real players and so forth.

Oh hi we haven't met, I see you think I'm a complete moron when you have a minor disagreement about the difference between realistic facial models and gameplay.

http://www.sonicteam.com/rez/e/news/index.html

http://katamari.namco.com/

http://www.animal-crossing.com/wildworld/

http://orange.half-life2.com/portal.html

Graphics have never and will never represent the next frontier in gaming, which is what the OP was implying, and what I was trying to call attention away from. Cutscenes and lip-synch do not progress gaming as a form of entertainment in the same way that good design and tight gameplay have in the last 10 years. I thought that anybody who's played video games for more than 10 years and has at least half a brain could have figured it out by now.

But I guess it's more fun to call someone a moron and pretend like you know how much better Madden 2025 will be thanks to this technology.

Asshole

Not to nitpick, but these are not cutscenes (well one vid is, but that's not the impressive part of the demo), they're done in real-time. Albeit with dual 8800GTX's, but still rendered in real-time, with poly-counts higher than current gen systems could ever hope to process.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Not to nitpick, but these are not cutscenes (well one vid is, but that's not the impressive part of the demo), they're done in real-time. Albeit with dual 8800GTX's, but still rendered in real-time, with poly-counts higher than current gen systems could ever hope to process.

...way to miss the point

[aurik]

Saw this, was pretty cool. But a lot of people are doing mo-cap. So they're not terribly ahead of the curve. Seemed like mo-cap was the theme du jour.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Impressive and lulzy.

[Fallso]

http://www.ambx.com/

The real future of gaming experience

[Fhqwghads]

http://www.ambx.com/

The real future of gaming experience

Just ordered the pro gamer. I'm a sucker for gimmicky stuff like that...

As for the OP, that is freakin' awesome. Yes, gaming isn't 100% graphics, but suspension of disbelief is pretty high on the list of making the gaming experience more exciting, and near photo-realistic graphics and incredibly detailed motion capture will help make a game better. That is of course, all things being equal (compelling/original content, gameplay that is fun, etc.)

[miokomioko]

Motion capture, meh, it's a step, but not a very big one. Too bad no one is ahead of Valve in the lighting realism department. HDR rendering = nom nom nom nom

Realism = Resolution + Texture + Movement + Lighting + Physics + etc.

[BRP]

Wait, Western RPGs don't attempt to have realistic graphics? What was Oblivion then?

[Senoska]

Wait, Western RPGs don't attempt to have realistic graphics? What was Oblivion then?

http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/5...rowind6kj1.jpg
+
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/6...368g20lur2.jpg
=
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/1...n762892de1.jpg

[Shade]

Watched the video. It's not.. as bad as I had been thinking it might be, after hearing "motion capture" in the thread. But if mo-cap is the next step up in graphics, that sure explains why Polar Express and Beowulf were so awesome, right? ... right?

In animation, its kind of weird, because you often have to exaggerate an action to make it feel real. More bounce on a walk, exaggerated facial movement when talking, that kind of thing... If you move something almost like it really would, you judge it on the standard of -being- real - which means it falls short.

I think it's still going to be awhile before super-realistic graphics are actually going to feel "real". The demo vid for this feels a little closer to the other side of the uncanny valley than say, Polar Express or FF: Spirits Within, but it's still in there.

The OTHER problem is that no matter how much you upgrade the tech, there's still human beings making the concept art/models/animation. Just because you "upgrade" from pencil crayons to oil paints, doesnt mean your artists are going to do work like Rembrandt. They still need to have been trained up to that level. There are a lot of games on the market -now- that aren't using the technology we already have to its full potential. And the more hyper-real you try to get, the bigger budget you need to hire good artists and give them the time to do all the detail. Big budget realistic games are ridiculously expensive to make, and its only going to get moreso if you go along that path.

I think the industry should focus more on making games with interesting visual styles and new gameplay ideas instead of Madden2025 with "realistic" face-tackling action... but what do I know.

[Khamsin]

Welcome to the future of cutscenes? First 10 games that use this will all be FPS and JRPGs, nothing 'future' about that.

The 'future' was referring to presentation, not new innovative gameplay.

Yes, I read your stance on graphics, but the 'future' is any advancement in any aspect of a game, and does not have to involve changing the way you play games or opening new genres or styles of gameplay.

Throughout gaming history, there have been games that have simply been rehashes of older games with better graphics and new levels. There have also been games that have completely changed the way we look at games, and set new standards in gaming. Some have even opened entirely new genres, or spawned hundreds of clones due to popularity. In the console/handheld world, we have advancements like the DS or Wii that change how you interact with games and open up new possibilities with the stylus and wiimote.

They're all advancements, and are all the 'future' of gaming compared to their predecessors. If superficial things like graphics didn't count as the 'future', we'd have had Crysis graphics on the NES. Why didn't we? Because technology hadn't advanced that far yet, and those sort of graphics were... in the future.