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Empress Amarox · May 29, 2009, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Just something I was randomly thinking...

When do you think games will be the quality of the full CG movies that are prevalent now? Meaning, in both the graphics, and fluidity.

I think they'll come eventually, but probably somewhere like 20 years from now. The highest engine right now I think is the Cry engine, right? Most computers have trouble running that at full settings, and even that fails heavily in comparison to the CG animations we're used to seeing.

So, what are we waiting for before this is possible? I think that we have the technical knowledge how to make games like that, but our hardware just hasn't caught up yet. It takes ages to render the CG movies, where as games are meant to be realtime.

I suppose when things like SSDs become affordable and the standard, that'll start paving the way for game developers to making more hardware intense games...

What do you guys think will really be the thing that brings CG-quality games to reality?

FlamingMetroid · May 29, 2009, 01:39 AM // 01:39

5-20 year imo

There's no way to predict the future, and the way technology seems to progress sometimes, it could become possible tomorrow. By the time games look like CG movies from today, we'll be asking ourselves when games will look like the CG movies of that time, so its really an endless cycle. Processors, RAM, Hard Drives, ect, will inevitably get cheaper,faster, bigger, ect, but we can never guess what someone might come up with that would turn everything we do now on its head. Maybe a new method of creating images in games, that will be to polygons what polygons were to sprites, could arise and make today's CG quality graphics cheap and simple. As to what will make it a reality, there's really no telling.

A11Eur0 · May 29, 2009, 01:51 AM // 01:51

When the computers of modern day can rival the human mind in real-time image rendering. I give it 50 years minimum until we can real-time render life-like images. Imagine what supercomputers of that time can do when they don't have to render real-time.

Kerwyn Nasilan · May 29, 2009, 02:05 AM // 02:05

GW2 will be in CGI quality.

FlamingMetroid · May 29, 2009, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerwyn Nasilan

GW2 will be in CGI quality.

DNF will be in CGI quality

A11Eur0 · May 29, 2009, 02:16 AM // 02:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerwyn Nasilan

GW2 will be in CGI quality.

So I'll be jogging around with a character that resembles Cloud from FFVII: Advent Children in real-time? You mean my computer will be able to do real-time something that Pixar supercomputers require days to do? Awesome!

awesome sauce · May 29, 2009, 03:38 AM // 03:38

I think they're already pretty close... at least with character models

Crysis

Polar express

Also consider that this was CGI not too long ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYzfrfReu0U

But yeah, it will be a while before games are up to cgi quality

Mr. G · May 29, 2009, 01:18 PM // 13:18

Polar express isnt realistic CGI though. It supposed to have a cartoony feel.

The main problem with trying to get games to the standard of CGi is while the game improve, so does the CGI.

Winterclaw · May 29, 2009, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Most game characters now days use about 5k or so polys. CGI movie characters can use 50k-100k or more. Another problem you have to deal with is lighting and textures. How you set up your lighting and what you need to do with it can have a big hit on FPS.

Lord Sojar · May 29, 2009, 03:41 PM // 15:41

It might not be as long as you think. Graphics will be taking a major leap when ray trace technology goes mainstream (next 2-5 years) At that point, you will see games with CGI quality. However, CGI quality will also go up.

This is an active engine (aka not CGI) render of Joker from Dark Knight using DirectX 11 technology:

awesome sauce · May 29, 2009, 04:48 PM // 16:48

So this is how they're going to put the joker in future batman movies without actually having to hire a new actor...

Elder III · May 31, 2009, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Some games out now have individual areas, generally character models, that are extremely realistic, but having a character that looks super good and even "life like" when perfectly still takes allot of pixels/polygons and can cause great stress on most computers. Factor in that character moving and currently at least, the realism drops a fair bit.. that is improving, but the day of fully realistic animated (aka - moving about etc) character models is still in the future, let alone the performance power it would take to render just 1 character that way if it was in a " appears as real as the world outside my window right now" setting. It will probably happen, but not just yet...

Pistachio · Jun 01, 2009, 01:03 AM // 01:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by awesome sauce

Also consider that this was CGI not too long ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYzfrfReu0U

The animation is incredible!

haggus71 · Jun 01, 2009, 03:33 AM // 03:33

[email protected] Love that 80's dance background music.

pumpkin pie · Jun 02, 2009, 04:02 AM // 04:02

I was randomly thinking too, after I watch this teaser on Heroes of Telara's webpage.

I've notice lately that a lot of games that are currently in development have good CG quality. For instant Heroes of Telara and many others mmorpg I've tested the last few months. At first my determining factor for wanting to download the game was, I check out any screenshots they have to provide on their webpage, if they look good, they I will decide if I would download them. But after so many disappointment gameplay not being able to have the same standard as the beautiful screenshots they have shown you on their webpage, has made me realize that CG quality is not a determining factor weather the game is popular or not. For instant, whe I first saw the screenshots on Requiem Bloodymare, to be honest some of them look terrible. but the game when loaded has much better CG quality, and becasue of the more interesting gameplay I've not un-install it from my computer.

What I want to say is, I think the CG quality is pretty good at this moment, the question is can the consumer spend enough money to upgrade their computer to get those high quality to display on their computer? Or same question to another party, will graphic card developer sell cheap good quality graphic card?

So far, what we lack in mmorpg are "emotions" which many players, infact, I wouldn't be exerating if I say 99% or players would want their character to have "facial movement" and better expression of "emotions" that can make our character more life like. Ever wander why players like to emote so much?

I think the next step in better CG quality is emotions both facial and body language type of emotions.

I hope that is understandable.

Empress Amarox · Jun 02, 2009, 07:09 AM // 07:09

There has had facial & social emotions (auto) for nearly a decade now.

Aion also has facial movement, expressions and emotions based on what you type.

I don't remember if AoC and WoW did or not, I know L2 didn't.

MirkoTeran · Jun 02, 2009, 07:32 AM // 07:32

For simple CGI image quality, I'd say 5-10 years. But for actual animations, expressions (both facial and body language), physics and all else that adds to 'realism' we'll have to wait a bit more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A11Eur0

So I'll be jogging around with a character that resembles Cloud from FFVII: Advent Children in real-time? You mean my computer will be able to do real-time something that Pixar supercomputers require days to do? Awesome!

Cutting a few corners here and there you can render that now. But tbh, the whole FFVII looks as realistic as pokemon.