Another Uber Geek Question: Why aren't video game graphics more realistic?
 

Video game graphics are good...really good...but still nowhere near movie-quality. So I am wondering why this is? Is it the software or the hardware? After seeing movies (like LOTR) made using CGI terchnology, I find it hard to imagine that we are lacking the software. And since CPU chips have gotten so cheap that you could (if you wanted to) build a video card with dual 64-bit pentium chips, then why are video games still so unrealistic? Anybody have any theories?

1) Polygon count. In a prescripted portion of gameplay (movie) the resolution is higher since the displayed environment is controlled. In gameplay the game engine has to render the entire environment inclusive of stuff that is "outside" of your peripheral vision so that it is available on demand. You are talking about a crapload of data to crunch and not lose framerate.

2) Framerate; see above.

3) Amount of time it takes to create detail. Simplest example is a face. You create one side and mirror (flip) it for the other side. Creates perfect symmetry which does not really exist in nature so it looks odd.

4) Installed base. You'd go broke creating a game that can only be played by the insignificant portion consumers who might actually have hardware capable of running the code. An "A" game can take 2 years and $2-5 M to bring to market.

The software/hardware tecchniques and technology to create video game graphics is essentially the same as an animated movie like Finding Nemo or Cars.

Difference is you have a rendering farm that creates content that is static, read not dynamically changing.

Consumer hardware is just not there, yet.

To add to the above. A rendering farm contains numerous computers, not to mention it takes those farms time (hours to days) to render scenes for movies.

you haven't seen some of our graphics lab work...

http://projects.ict.usc.edu/graphics/

but the above is correct...can't render all those polygons on the fly.

+1

To get the level of detail you seen in movies like The Matrix or LOTR, you have hundreds of servers working on creating every little detail. A scene that lasts 10 seconds may have taken 500 servers 10 hours to render.

Its simply an issue of CPU horsepower.

I think there is another issue.

Does realistic nessecarily mean fun? No. Look at the Nintendo Wii. Here is a system that does not try to compete with Playstation or Xbox on the graphics front, yet its selling like crazy because its FUN.

Heck, I've always turned the detail *down* in FPS games just to keep the framerate up and avoid hardware lag.... nothing quite like takin a rocket to the face when you are laggin tryin to draw a few more triangles...

I agree with all the above except it costs much more than $2-5 mil to create a top title these days.

Memory is also an issue.

Ahhhh...so in theory, one could build a PC cluster (aka Poor Man's Supercomputer) to provide mad number crunching. But you'd still need to spend huge dollars developing the game software since even the best movie quality CGI does not render images dynamically. Have I got that correct?

EDIT: Todd, that stuff is the shizzle!

That's a big point IMO.

The PS3 and XBox 360 went after the small segment of gamers who are hardcore about their graphics.

Nintendo went after the majority who simply see games as entertainment.

If you think about it, it's much like the different business models employed by Porsche and Honda.

JanusCole - basically. Even if you pre-rendered some things, the perspective/view/angle-o-dangle will change depending on where th eplayer is, so you'd need to re-render again... and again... and again.

For giggles, get a copy of the original Quake, load up the GL version, and crank your resolution up as high as it can go. With my dual amd 1.2ghz rig and a 128mb video card it is *sweet*, but woulda left your machine a smoking pile of plastic when Quake was new/current.

Bummer. I've got some motherboards and CPU's lying around from a decade of upgrades and I secretly want to find a reason to build a PC cluster. Problem is I can't think of what I'd do with a supercomputer if I had one. You don't exactly need teraflops of power to surf p0rn on the web. ;)

You can still do an "A" title for that, "AAA" no. And those would be direct dev costs, not including marketing, PR etc..

I'm working on 2 360, GFW's titles now. One will be less the other more. Really depends on the game.

Funny, back in the day we used to say Nintendo looked better but Sony played better.

Interesting how things changed.

The big issue is lighting. In order to get "photo realism" (which is a misnomer) you have to understand how a subject looks from all possible angles in all possible lighting. That's what the "Light Stage" project is about in our labs. But it ends up being an incredible amount of data you'd have to deal with on the fly.

Same concept with sampled musical instruments. To do a piano correctly, you really need every combination of notes played as the overtones vary. Then you need to throw them together seamlessly...hard to do. The approximations and cheats that we do now fool most people though...