Epic: Photo-Realistic Graphics Will Exist Within Ten Years

[Fanghawk]

Epic: Photo-Realistic Graphics Will Exist Within Ten Years

Epic's Tim Sweeney says graphical advancements still follow Moore's Law, but true photo-realism will pose new challenges for the industry.

For most of gaming's history, graphics have been the driving force behind technological progress. Sure, the visual gains may appear smaller each generation, but we're still moving forward, even if we're not photo-realistic just yet. That said, we may not have long to wait. Epic's Tim Sweeney, speaking at this year's Develop Conference in Brighton, shared his belief that perfectly realized graphics will arrive sometime within the next ten years. Unfortunately, he also notes that advanced visuals have drawbacks: Animations and believable AI pose unique challenges for a photo-realistic industry, and will require far more time and research to counter than high-quality graphics.

"Things are going to get really interesting," Sweeney told the audience. "We'll be able to render environments that are absolutely photo-realistic within the next 10 years, like indistinguishable from reality level of graphics ... That just moves the challenge of graphics to the problems we don't know how to solve, like simulating human intelligence, animation, speech and lip-syncing. There are still lots of areas in graphics that require ongoing research for probably the rest of our lives before we come close to approaching reality."

As a co-founder of Epic, Sweeney knows a fair deal about technological progress. Since 2000, the company's Unreal Engine has become a reliable industry benchmark used by <a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games>a staggering number of professional developers. Even so, Sweeney is quick to add that there's no reason for all games to be photo-realistic. Even Epic has a few small-scale projects in the works that will forgo the Triple-A experience the company is known for.

"Last generation, most of the company was focused on building Gears of War 3, a massive project," Sweeney explained. "Gears of War 1 was a 60-person project at peak. Gears of War 3 was more than 100-people at peak. Now we're building several games at different scales. <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118590-Epics-Fortnite-May-Require-Always-On-Internet>We're building Fortnite, a PC online game which is a fun, sort of Minecraft meets Left 4 Dead. It's a 35-person team. It's not aiming to beat Call of Duty in terms of graphics. It's more of a Pixar art style and a limited project in scope, just aimed at fun as opposed to massive breakthroughs in scale."

While I'm sure the visuals of tomorrow will be a wonder to behold, Epic's diversity is probably the safer approach. It sidesteps the limitations inherent in photo-realistic graphics, and could even allow for some unique gameplay innovations along the way. "It's really cool," Sweeney says. "We're testing our development at all scales and learning it as we go. We're trying to master development at every scale."

Source: <a href=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-11-epics-tim-sweeney-predicts-photo-realistic-graphics-within-10-years>Eurogamer

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[dragongit]

Here is the thing, it may take 10 years to make Photo realistic in game stuff. but it could take another 10 years to make it affordable. If you know... there is even an economy in this world by that point. yes I'm a pessimist, so sue me.

 

[nathan-dts]

Sounds cool. However, like 3D printers, if we're able to do this, it'll be abused. Blackmail, framing for crimes, porn, fake terrorist attacks or presidential shootings will all be created using it.

Maybe not the best technology for society.

 

[Smooth Operator]

And to what end I wonder, you know if I wanted something as dull as reality I wouldn't be a gamer at all... I come for the cool shit reality can't do.

 

[00DUMB]

$5 says they still won't be able to replicate human eyes. Those damn eyes, curse them. I'd pay a pretty penny for that level of detail, though. Maybe a new line of dedicated eye cards to complement discrete graphics and physics?

 

[RogueportJack]

$5 says they still won't be able to replicate human eyes. Those damn eyes, curse them. I'd pay a pretty penny for that level of detail, though. Maybe a new line of dedicated eye cards to complement discrete graphics and physics?

Clearly the solution is to make games set in a world where people have no eyes. They could even make it a game mechanic where you could switch to first person and it'd be totally dark because your empty eye sockets can't process anything.

OT: Yup. Pretty much what everyone else is saying. Not cost effective, stupid, etc. etc. etc.

CAPTCHAL face the music. Why yes, I certainly think the triple A industry needs to do that.

 

[Miss G.]

But I play games to get AWAY from real life. If it all looks the same... I seriously just want art direction and style that fits my game and works with the mechanics. Realistic graphics would've sucked in Okami and I'm glad they couldn't afford to do it and the product is much better and more creative for it. 'Specially now that you can get it in HD on PSN though it just makes the sumi-e painting style looked freshly inked - 's nice.

This was PS2 era. Guess which one would've looked outdated by now:

 

[Grabehn]

And therefore, everything will be BROWN! I don't really see the fascination with photo realism in games, do you really want more people saying "it's t-t-training people for violent stuff" as an addition to whatever it is that they say now about games?

I got a headache after watching God of War 3 on the Ps3 the first time, I don't want my head to split because of this shit. The more "realistic" something looks, the more "backyard film" feel things give. Those "Look how HD this TV is" films they put on department stores are already annoying, I don't want games to look like that.

 

[Nurb]

That's what they said 10 years ago.

 

[Evil Smurf]

That's going to be so expensive though. Not to mention my graphics card is awful.

 

[Something Amyss]

Amaranth: What's the ETA on games that have solid gameplay mechanic, depth greater than a teaspoon and plots that are equal to or better than those found in porn?

Because those are things I actually give a crap about.

POLYGONS IS EMOTIONS!

 

[william12123]

Ya no. How about they work on making people in videogames ACT a bit me realistically first? "Here are your beautiful photorealistic graphics, with characters that walk weirdly, clip into other objects, and repeat the same sentence at each interaction (if you can interact with them at all)". Sigh... Even more uncanny valley, here we come.

 

[Strazdas]

I remember when crytek boasted that their cryengine 3 will rendfer photorealistic graphics. remmeber, back in 2007? yeah, just like with moon base, the clsoer we get the mroe it gets delayed.
Photorealistic will come one day when the hardware will be able to remder it easily and thus we wouldnt need to think about programming game in a way where graphics will slow it down. till then, it will remain a problem. and with consoles holding the processing speed down...

 

[harryhenry]

This video explains why photorealism isn't the best direction to shoot for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRTsl1jCqq8

 

[Monsterfurby]

Missed the point by such a large margin that their argument accidentally curved out of our solar system and hit some poor bloke on Betelgeuze III in the head. Good job.

Photorealism isn't desirable. It's not nice to look at. FMV games could be argued to have had literally "photorealistic" graphics, and were those any good? Mostly not.

Graphics are NOT all about technology. They are about style and presentation, about proper design most of all. Even though I am not a huge Blizztivision fan, I have to bring up Warcraft here. Both Warcraft 3 and WoW were way behind their times in strictly technological terms, but still both games were extremely pleasant and interesting to look at. Why? Because the graphic design was done REALLY damn well. Take the Zelda games, too, or the contrast between the newly announced Dead Rising and the old ones - which one is better to look at? Hint: it's not the photorealistic one.

PS: Half Life 2 could be argued to have been driven by its graphics engine, but that's not too true. When you get down to it, Source was an advanced engine for its time, but that's mostly due to physics and light effects, NOT because of its general graphic fidelity. Even though it tried to achieve a sense of photorealism, Half Life 2 also hat great art direction and a sense of everything fitting together. A lesser engine COULD have pulled that off, as well. Visually, the game still works fine on the lowest possible settings.

 

[Daedrin]

Uhm....you guys all realize he's pointing out in this very same set of quotes that Epic realizes that being diverse and focusing on things other than AAA omgphotorealism is the way to go?

Yes, we'll get photorealism in real time on consumer hardware in the next ten years. But this is just the start of a new revolution. Look at all the games not afraid to be made out of voxels that are becoming popular.
Heck. Gunpoint was the best selling game on steam for awhile and it was made in Game Maker with 2d sprite art.