Star Wars Dev Foresees Photorealistic Graphics Within 10 Years

[Marshall Honorof]

Star Wars Dev Foresees Photorealistic Graphics Within 10 Years

The next decade may make game visuals "indistinguishable from reality."

Industrial Light & Magic is one of those rare companies that sets a lofty goal with its name, and then lives up to it. ILM has produced visuals for some of the Star Wars 1313 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/], ensuring that one of the most creative Star Wars games in recent memory will also be one of the best-looking. As good as the visuals for the game may be, though, ILM believes that within a decade, videogame graphics will take another leap forward, this time straight into the realm of photorealism.

Kim Libreri, an ILM visual effects supervisor working lending his expertise to Star Wars 1313, believes that the next ten years will bring graphics that are "indistinguishable from reality." Libreri explains that the last decade moved videogames from a somewhat rough visual paradigm to one that can match big-budget animated features. "The way it's going," he says, "it's gonna be pretty hard to tell the difference between something that is interactive and rendered in real time, and something that was done for an animated TV show, or even a live-action thing."

Libreri is not the only gaming personality interested in photorealistic graphics [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118839-2K-New-Genres-Impossible-Without-Photorealism] lately, although unlike 2K Games, he does not pass a value judgment on this potential advancement. Photorealistic graphics may not be necessary to reach the zenith of emotional gaming experiences, but they could certainly prove to be a useful tool, and ten years seems like a reasonable timeframe. When the time comes, though, be sure to set some money aside; you're probably going to have to shell out some serious dough for a new console or a hefty PC upgrade. No one ever said graphical fidelity came cheap.

Source: GameSpot [http://www.gamespot.com/news/graphics-indistinguishable-from-reality-in-10-years-star-wars-dev-6390719]

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[mattttherman3]

So a 2000$ computer or console and probably 100-200$ games. Just the first generation though, then they will be about half that eventually. And to top this? Holodeck

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

He's probably right, really. Look at the jump from 1992 to 2002, and then the jump from 2002 to 2012. 2002 was the year of the original Halo, GTA 3, and Neverwinter Nights. Compare that to, say, Crysis 2 and the difference is startling. Right now we sit at one end of the Uncanny Valley, and I'd be stunned if we didn't cross it during the 2010s.

 

[willplayforfun]

Games will take a lot longer than 10 years to get out of the uncanny valley, if only because developers are lazy. Just look at Crysis 2. That game looked like ass compared to the first game.

 

[Rainboq]

The gigiantic problem with graphics like that is that without a large development cycle, you're going to be draining resources away from the actual game play. Bastion had me break down into tears after I decided to

Spoiler

save Zulf

, and that was an extremely stylized game that didn't have the greatest fidelity, but had a really great sense of aesthetics.

Graphics and gameplay are in a pendulm, as what we can do what one seems to peek, the pendulm seems to swing towards the other. One day, maybe, we'll find some balance, but right now, not gonna happen.

capatcha: magical realism.

Yeah, pretty much captures what 'realistic' games are like now. In some way's its realistic, and in other ways, its not...

 

[snakeb0t]

I would like to point out that the Xbox 720 is supposed to last 10 years. This means that, if this prediction is true, photorealistic games are in the console generation after next, right on the dot.

 

[RJ Dalton]

And not a single shit was given by me today.

 

[DragonStorm247]

Hopefully with the right tools the cost of producing such graphical wizardry will go down, freeing up time and money for actual gameplay.

 

[Snotnarok]

I'm not sure why they're so dead set on getting realism down when most want to escape reality with games.
Pretty sure TF2 will age better than the games in the next 10 years because they chose not to do ULTRA 10xAA realism.

 

[octafish]

Ten years time huh?, Why is it always ten years? Anyway that puts it right in line with the end of Moore's Law. [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/30/moores_law_ends/]

Games will take a lot longer than 10 years to get out of the uncanny valley, if only because developers are lazy. Just look at Crysis 2. That game looked like ass compared to the first game.

Hardware limitations FTW!

 

[surg3n]

The very best CG out there falls very far short of photorealism, and game engines fall very far short of CG, so I'm not sure why people think that photorealism is even possible.

I don't think videogames will ever be truly photorealistic, all the shaders, high res textures, and lighting still will not be enough.

But the bottom line is that we shouldn't be so keen to spend so much more on game development, at least not for an impossible goal. I'd rather see 3D mature a bit and improve, I'd rather see advances in AI and physics, bringing more realism. We don't need photorealism for games to absorb us. Running through the woods in DayZ, the graphics are fairly low-fi compared to new games, but that doesn't detract the atmosphere. Been playing throught Half Life 2 again, with a joypad and a 3D headset, and it's awesome... really I don't think that gamers are this bunch of graphics snobs that publishers assume we are.

I can't even remember the last time I considered graphics as good or bad, atmosphere makes all the difference, but that could be achieved in a number of ways. Battlefield3 I think has pretty decent visuals, but it's the little touches that go the extra mile, like the welder flashes in those in-progress skyscrapers, that effect adds realism, and for most people it's about the size of a postage stamp on their screen. It's not the graphics that people look at in GTA4, it's the dudes walking around drinking coffee, or the authentic drunken swagger, or some mad shit that a cop is trying to do. I just think that games would benefit more from advances in gameplay mechanics than advances in visual quality.

I mean, if photorealism was possible, and it's going to be a proper thing in games within 10 years, shouldn't we already be seeing it emerge in movies by now?

 

[nodlimax]

10 Years? What the hell? We could already have this kind of graphics.

Remember that one game from >>>2007<<< with these beautifull graphics?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DafUVb6EoA0

Do you know why we're still stuck on the same level of graphics design for the last 5 years? Ask the console gamers......

Oh and yes, graphics aren't everything. Gameplay is more important. But gameplay got worse and worse or in other words more and more dumbed down over the last 10 years. You know why? Ask the console gamers..... ehm correction - ask the idiots from the "broader audiences"......mostly found among consoles gamers

 

[Evil Smurf]

Oh look, Star Wars going for style over substance
A-GAIN

And George Lucas just got a FXgasm.

10 Years? What the hell? We could already have this kind of graphics.

Remember that one game from >>>2007<<< with these beautiful graphics?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DafUVb6EoA0

Do you know why we're still stuck on the same level of graphics design for the last 5 years? Ask the console gamers......

Oh and yes, graphics aren't everything. Game play is more important. But game play got worse and worse or in other words more and more dumbed down over the last 10 years. You know why? Ask the console gamers..... ehm correction - ask the idiots from the "broader audiences"......mostly found among consoles gamers

Do we need the prettiest graphics? I find that prettier graphics are just an excuse to ignore the story

 

[Bernzz]

Just as long as we still see other graphical styles, I'm fine with this. I loved Crysis' graphics, and I love how good Metro 2033 looks. But I still go back and play The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and the cel-shaded style still looks amazing.

 

[nodlimax]

Well, have you ever played Crysis? I really liked the gameplay and the story in the first game and it looked amazing. Look at the second game (crysis 2) which was made to approach a broader audience and to work on consoles as well.

What did we get?
- worse graphics than in Crysis 1
- environment couldn't be changed as much as in the previous game
- the story in crysis 2 sucked and barely had any relation to crysis 1
- gameplay was dumbed down
- open and wide areas were gone and replaced by lots of cutscenes and narrow corridor levels
- less vehicles and vehicle sections than in the previous game

What an advancement that game was.......NOT! You could've named that game "CoD:Crysis".

And as I said graphics aren't anything. Great graphics combined with great gameplay and story make for an awesome game. Great gameplay with great story and poor but bugfree graphics make for great games too (look at minecraft - look at classic games like civilization, C&C, Master of Orion 2, Settlers 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, the older resident evil games or even half-life). But look at games with good graphics but poor gameplay and story (Max Payne 3 comes to mind as a recent release or TERA online) and you'll get a shitty game, because graphics alone can't save a game.

 

[Smooth Operator]

games are going to cost an astronomical amount of money to make when they take that next step forward

Prototypes always do.
However where all art assets now haveto be done by a very skilled hand the future holds many automations, many bright minds are working vigorously on fully featured procedural generation that can grow entire worlds and feel completely natural (as if it took the world millions of years of to mold the terrain and grow the flora and fauna).

Those things are mostly still exclusive to simulations but 10 years is heck of a long time in the computing world.

 

[Ukomba]

I'd rather have Chrono Trigger style graphics to be honest. I don't need to count the hairs on the back of my characters neck.