How close are we to photorealism?

The other day I was on youtube and I saw a picture of Miranda for a Mass Effect 2 review video. I could have swore it was an actress dressed up like her. It was only on close observation that I realized she was CGI.

Got me thinking:How close are we to photorealism? With graphics improving every generation we must be close. I know PC's can't be more than two generations away judging from the Battlefield 3 footage.

Is that Uncanny Valley nightmare fuel for anyone else?

edited 16th Jun '11 8:08:09 PM by MrShine

Too close.

inb4heavyrain

Actually, I thought that was pretty impressive. You could still tell it was digital, but it was pretty real looking to me.

The Uncanny Valley part would go away on a digital body. That face was kind of pasted on top of a real body, so it was a little creepy. On a digital body it wouldn't look so weird.

For me it was just because the mouth seems to move slightly too much, while the eyes seem dead because they move too little. I play very few current-gen games though, so maybe I'm just not used to it.

The eyes seem too far apart.

How would this work for non-human characters?

It won't. There would have to be other ways.

have you seen the raytraced Wolfenstein 3D?

I've recognized several actual live-action actors while playing L.A. Noire — Aaron Stanton and Greg Grunberg, for two. I'd say that game is a big step towards photorealism, but we're not quite there yet. We probably need another generation or two.

Would the PS 360 have the chops for it if the code was there?

They could do it,but at the sacrifice of more important things. PCs will be the first to have it, and will probably be the best at it.

Uncanny valley much.

Also fuck realsim, if I want realism I can step outside. Stop trying to believably recreate the world I can see, if you have enough technology to create greatest surrealism imaginable.

What about making the most surreal environments you can imagine feel like you're actually in them? Alien Geometries can't look worse with more polygons and higher res textures.

edited 17th Jun '11 2:26:23 AM by Recon5

I'd say we got quite a ways to go before we reach that level.

Immersion is subjective. I recall playing Quake III when it was new and I was quite immersed indeed.

I agree with this sentiment. It is also a question whether photorealism would be necessary and feasible. Better technology doesn't magically make graphics better, you know. You need to put in a lot of manhours and expertise for that, and high-end games are already (way too) expensive to produce. Pushing for more and more realistic graphics will only stump actual creativity.

To be honest, if the people at the big companies announced right now that this generation (and the Wii U) would be the very last, I would be pretty pleased.

I agree, I don't understand why people want games to be realistic

It is like a hill. when we reach the point where we have realistic wound depiction. we will head back to unrealism.

Where was the CGI in that video? I only noticed when they started changing the colours on her face...

Frankly I'm pretty happy with where graphics are now. Games can create realistic enough characters that you can focus on them as characters and not how blocky and ridiculous they look. You can evoke actual emotions with them. Games look amazing, etc. Rather than constantly pushing the graphical envelope how about focusing on gameplay and story for a change.

If anything making the games more photorealistic makes the "gamey" parts of them even more glaring and jarring.

Same here, I don't care much for realism. I like stylized graphics myself.

Unnecessarily close. Realistic graphics may be nice, but I don't see any need for photorealism. And there are enough times when stylized graphics are better.

Just imagine a realistic-looking Okami.