Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic and co-creator of the Unreal game engine has predicted that the next decade will bring computer graphics which are "indistinguishable from reality".
Sweeney made the comments as part of a talk given at the Develop conference in Brighton. "We'll be able to render environments that are absolutely photorealistic within the next ten years, like indistinguishable from reality level of graphics."
For anyone who has listened to the rhetoric which traditionally accompanies game launches and new console announcements this might sound like the industry's holy grail -- after all, games marketing tends to offer "graphicsability" as a yardstick by which to measure a game's quality. But being able to build a realistic-looking object and being able to interact with that object realistically are two very different things.
It's a problem best exemplified when that object is an in-game character. Here you encounter the uncanny valley -- the sudden dip into creepiness when something built to approximate a human being is ever so slightly off. Perhaps the lip-synching is out of time, or the eye focus is wrong and the character is looking at a point two feet behind your head, or the responses given don't make quite make sense.
As Sweeney puts it: "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."
Having beautiful or believable graphics makes for stunning trailers and screenshots so it's no surprise marketing departments continue to tout them with such fervour. However, it doesn't actually mean anything in terms of the quality of the playing experience because that hinges around interaction. Spectacular graphics also cannot paper over a thin plot, bad dialogue, lack of creativity or poor play mechanisms.
All of which sounds like we're on a massive downer about photorealism. That's not the case. Advances in graphics technology are fascinating and can be used to spectacular effect whether the results are faithful to the real world or veering into the creatively surreal. Being able to create photorealistic environments will also no doubt have applications beyond the gaming industry.
Plus, y'know, there's the fact that if you're able to successfully convince people that your game footage was actually shot with a physical camera there might be some justification for a fraction of the lensflare cropping up with JJ Abrams-esque frequency all over gaming.
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