Epic expects photo-realism in a decade

By Games Industry.biz Published 26 May, 2009

Boss Tim Sweeney says it's "inevitable".

Epic's Tim Sweeney reckons games achieving graphical realism is not only "inevitable", but will happen in the next 10 to 15 years.

"We're only about a factor of a thousand off from achieving all that in real-time without sacrifices," Sweeney told Gamasutra. "So we'll certainly see that happen in our lifetimes; it's just a result of Moore's Law. Probably 10-15 years for that stuff, which isn't far at all."

To Sweeney, graphical realism consists of "completely realistic lighting with real-time radiosity, perfectly anti-aliased graphics, and movie-quality static scenes and motion". That paltry task can be tackled simply by sheer brute force computing power, said Sweeney. The real challenge, he argued, will be replicating realistic human intelligence and behaviour.

"A state-of-the-art game like the latest Half-Life expansion from Valve, Gears of War, or Bungie's stuff is extraordinarily unrealistic compared to a human actor in a human movie, just because of the really fine nuances of human behavior," he said.

"We simulate character facial animation using tens of bones and facial controls, but in the body, you have thousands. It turns out we've evolved to recognise those things with extraordinary detail, so we're far short of being able to simulate that."

Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 continues to power the majority of this generation's games, and the studio has been equally successful with the Gears of War series on PC and Xbox 360.

Head over to our Gears of War 2 review to see what it's all about.

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Comments (51) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • agparrot #1 3 years ago

    Yay! It's photo-realistic!

    Oh No! It's still running at 20 fps!

    Fluidity > Detail.

  • Les #2 3 years ago

    Personally, I don't see realism as a pre. It will make games look alike even more.

    "The real challenge, he argued, will be replicating realistic human intelligence and behaviour."

    Exactly. And that won't happen so fast if ever.

  • woodnotes #3 3 years ago

    FAO Epic:

    Earth is not grey.

  • miiiguel #4 3 years ago

    "It will make games look alike even more. "
    That would be awesome, maybe by then we can drop the "oooh it looks so good" dated shit, and focus on the gameplay/plot. It's something like the movie industry, up until a dacade or two ago ppl used special effects and tech thresholds to measure movies, now, it's a given... nobody cares about that. So, it will be good. The next step.

  • Toothball #5 3 years ago

    Photo-realism is a nice enough target, but I still like it when my games look like something you don't see in the real world. Good luck to them though.

  • BiscuitBase #6 3 years ago

    Give me fun over photorealism anyday

  • Golgo #7 3 years ago

    Will Epic games run in a decade? Still waiting for my gears of War PC unlock, you thieving 'tards!

  • RedSparrows #8 3 years ago

    I hope not, I don't cope well with ultra realistic gore. I don't wanna play a WW2 game and see if 'photorealistic' wounds ;(

  • space_ace #9 3 years ago

    photo-realism is so 1992

  • skillian #10 3 years ago

    Why all the hate for photo-realism? I've been waiting for this moment since I first started playing.

  • robg #11 3 years ago

    Unfortunately by then all but 3 companies in the world will be unable to afford to make games.

  • timpig #12 3 years ago

    To Sweeney, graphical realism consists of "completely realistic lighting with real-time radiosity, perfectly anti-aliased graphics, and movie-quality static scenes and motion". That paltry task can be tackled simply by sheer brute force computing power, said Sweeney. The real challenge, he argued, will be replicating realistic human intelligence and behaviour.


    Nope, the real challenge will be securing investment to pay for the army of already underpaid artists you'll need, whilst trying not to forget about the actual gameplay.
    Edited by 2 at 26/05/09 @ 12:01

  • ChrisOTR #13 3 years ago

    Graphics are no longer the important part of a game to me - nowadays I'm much more interested in innovation/experimentation in control systems, online features and physics/environments...

    As Nintendo have shown, winning the graphics arms race doesn't automatically mean your console will sell best.

    (Having said all that I do lurrrrrve playing Crysis because it's so damn pretty...)
    Edited by 2 at 26/05/09 @ 12:09

  • butler` #14 3 years ago

    ye +1 to fluidity and fun.

    I'd rather have a good game that runs at a solid 60fps than a photo realistic one that runs at variable/messy sub 30 rates and is poo!

  • Negotiator #15 3 years ago

    oh yes, bring it on its all about the graphics, bring it on!!!!!!

  • Spekingur #16 3 years ago

    @woodnotes:

    What are you on about? Earth is brown, everyone knows that.

  • Beek4257 #17 3 years ago

    @woodnotes

    I don't think Gears was actually set on earth.

    Aside: I think the big challenge is finding people to program all this in a commercially sound way. Dev teams are huge as it is. Unless someone comes up with totally kick-ass middleware.

  • sneetch #18 3 years ago

    @woodnotes
    FAO Epic:

    Earth is not grey.

    The parts in cities tend to be. The other bits tend to be brown, grey or green.

  • dr_faulk #19 3 years ago

    In the next decade? That means we'll see photo realism on the next generation of consoles. I don't think the hardware's going to be up to scratch for that. maybe in 20 years, or less on a PC.

  • dr_faulk #20 3 years ago

    lolz, photo realistic Bloomblox

  • makeamazing #21 3 years ago

    If you just look at games 10-20 years ago, the move forward has been amazing. So even though I dont want to accelerate to my old age, I cant wait to see what computers can do in that time.

  • Freek #22 3 years ago

    Do all films look the same? No. It's all photo realistic, but art direction sets them apart.
    Same with games, and just because it is possible won't automatically mean you'll see more stylized approaches disappear.

  • ZuluHero #23 3 years ago

    @Freek

    Well said. People seem to be confusing "photo-realism" with 'realism'. You can still have 'photo-realistic' aliens :)

  • moggsy #24 3 years ago

    Sony have already done photo realism on the PS3 back in 2005.

  • anomagnus #25 3 years ago

    @woodnotes

    As i look out my window, i see a massive grey building, a grey road, grey curbs, mostly grey sky.

    Depends what you look at. But if you went into a town, i can bet the prominent colur would be grey

  • robg #26 3 years ago

    @Freek

    I haven't yet seen a photorealistic Miyazaki film :)

  • UncleLou #27 3 years ago

    Do all films look the same? No. It's all photo realistic, but art direction sets them apart.
    Same with games, and just because it is possible won't automatically mean you'll see more stylized approaches disappear.

    Exactly. Nothing wrong with photo-realism as such. Realistic graphics don't mean a game can't have artistic value, just as stylisation per se doesn't mean anything one way or the other. Complaining about photo-realism as one goal in graphics technology is rather narrow-minded - apart from the fact that, artistic debate aside, it's technically fascinating.

    Although I agree that I wish we'd make similarly quick progress in other areas like NPC interaction.

  • kangarootoo #28 3 years ago

    "Nope, the real challenge will be securing investment to pay for the army of already underpaid artists you'll need, whilst trying not to forget about the actual gameplay."

    Hehehe, spot on.


    He never actually mention photo-realistic in the entire interview. He was referring to visual fidelity, including things like lighting but also referring to realism in animation. EG just boiled that down to "photo-realism", resulting in understandable posts like;

    "Yay! It's photo-realistic!
    Oh No! It's still running at 20 fps!"

    and

    "Photo-realism is a nice enough target, but I still like it when my games look like something you don't see in the real world. Good luck to them though."

    I'm sure Tim is aware of those sorts of issues. The full gamasutra interview is ten large pages long.

  • BadBoyBonner #29 3 years ago

    After looking at these images

    [link url= http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/6751/00114se5.jpg
    ]http://im g402.imageshack.us/img402/6751/...[/link]

    [link url=http:// img4.imageshack.us/img4/1004/00045.jpg
    ]http://im g4.imageshack.us/img4/1004/0004...[/link]

    That come from a game engine that came out in 2007 IMO its more than reasonable to expect photo realism isn't more than 15 years away.

    Arguably at times Cryengine2 already looks photo-realistic (depending on how you have your brightness/contrast/gama set) with everything else set to max.

    More so if you're running the CCC 2.21 tweaks - so what you'll be able to run on a PC in 10 years time is mind boggling.



  • Les #30 3 years ago

    "He was referring to visual fidelity, including things like lighting but also referring to realism in animation."

    Still overrated IMO... ;)

    Can't be bothered to read the full interview but I hope he realizes that the least important part of achieving visual fidelity is the screen resolution...

  • PearOfAnguish #31 3 years ago

    The full gamasutra interview is ten large pages long.

    And really interesting, most of it is discussing the early days of Epic when they were making shareware.

  • kangarootoo #32 3 years ago

    "but I hope he realizes that the least important part of achieving visual fidelity is the screen resolution... "

    He certainly seems to.


    And BadBoyBonner, undeniably impressive as those screens are, moving human characters are far harder to make seem realistic than static environments.

  • Domovoi #33 3 years ago

    It's interesting how an ancient game like Prince of Persia managed to produce more convincingly animated humans 20 years ago than most modern games do now. With a three colour sprite.

  • BadBoyBonner #34 3 years ago

    Kanga

    In my defence they're not static and all vegetation can be moved - one of the the games USP's

    Obviously the more realistic a human/animal looks the more prominent any animation that's less than perfect is.

    The facial mo-cap in Heavy Rain will no doubt be industry standard within a few years - Heavenly Sword didn't do bad in that department either!

    Obviously building animations of such quality procedurally with perfect lip-synch is where we are heading.

    Like Tim said it's all about the tools - then all you need is a slider for angrier etc - heck - eventually it will be able to guess from the tone/volume/speed etc on how it should look 90~% of the time.

    Looking at what Valve managed with the facial animation in Source - I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't feverishly working on an update along those lines as we speak.

    EDIT - and for all those that are curious - only thing I could find with any decent amount of human animation in Crysis (don't forget to click the HQ button) Not too bad but the animation is some way short of the graphics.
    http://ww w.dailymotion.com/video/x3cozt_...

    And the person who filmed this seems to have brightness way too high as obviously when they jump out of the plane is the dead of night - I am sure moonlight would not provide that level of illumination - hence the game telling you to engage night vision.
    Edited by 2 at 26/05/09 @ 15:18

  • kangarootoo #35 3 years ago

    "Looking at what Valve managed with the facial animation in Source"

    Yeah, I was surprised to see Tim using HL2 as an example in the way he did, as I thought the facial nuances in HL2 were extraordinarily life life, and really it was the usual stuff like textures and polys that made it look less than real.

    I take your point on the trees and vegetation. It was clearly a stunning couple of scenes. I was just making specific ref to humanoid movement as that was the focus of Tim's comments.

    Whether humanoid realism is key to a great game experience is a different matter and on that we might agree. For example, I found the environments in Oblivion to be very immersive (not the most realistic pixel for pixel, but rich and vast). The awkward humanoids common in Bethesda's games by comparison look mildly ridiculous, but I find they have less of an effect on my overall absorbtion than the rolling hills and blue sky so on (same with STALKER as it happens).
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/09 @ 15:22

  • kangarootoo #36 3 years ago

    P.s. maybe that is why I found FO3 less absorbing, as the landscapes just weren't as appealing as those of OBl.

  • Les #37 3 years ago

    "It's interesting how an ancient game like Prince of Persia managed to produce more convincingly animated humans 20 years ago than most modern games do now. With a three colour sprite."

    Part of the secret is that PoP was in 2D and thus less complex.

    IMO technology can be considered at least as much of a hindrance to gaming's progress as a benefactor. Before developers had actually mastered to make convincing 2D worlds, they moved on to the even more complex 3D worlds. Leading amongst others to the camera issues that still haven't been solved today.

    Increased screen resolution is just such a hindrance. Developers couldn't make convincing SD graphics but moved on to HD resolutions anyway, leading to an excessive amount of the consoles' powers being directed to pushing lots of pixels while they aren't required for increased graphical fidelity at all.

    It's like an infant that's not even able to hold his balance while walking moving on to trying to ride a bicycle without the training wheels attached...

  • BadBoyBonner #38 3 years ago

    Domovoi

    Prince of Persia was Rotoscoped like a lot of early Disney footage (with exactly the same animation repeated in several Disney moves)

    For Prince of Persia "Fortunately, some white pajamas, a camcorder and a little brother who was willing to knock himself around a bit in the name of entertainment gave Mechner enough to create the game's ground-breaking animations through the process of "rotoscoping," which involves drawing over each frame of a live-action video sequence in order to create realistic animated movement. It may not look like much now, but 18 years ago that kind of smooth, flowing animation was absolutely jaw-dropping.

    [link url=http://www.escapistmag azine.com/news/view/87080-Kickin-It-Old-School-With-Prince-O f-Persia
    ]http://ww w.escapistmagazine.com/news/vie...[/link]

    Here's part of the original reference video used to create the animations with the "actual prince" ! lol http://gamev ideos.1up.com/video/id/22330

  • Farfarer #39 3 years ago

    How about we get some gameplay in there rather than banging on about graphics?

    Or at least some sodding colours. Desaturation != realism.

    I'm sort of guessing the list of employee benefits for epic run as "health insurance, pension scheme, free dental care and 1 pair grey-lensed glasses mandatory clothing for all artists".

  • BadBoyBonner #40 3 years ago

    Disney recycled rotoscoped animations that appear in many different films

    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=WzyLZYYb2qk

    Edit and some comparison images http://ww w.hemmy.net/2006/04/26/disney-a...
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/09 @ 16:01

  • Domovoi #41 3 years ago

    I know how it was done. I'm just saying that it's more realistic than most modern animations.

  • BadBoyBonner #42 3 years ago

    I think you're looking through rose tinted glasses.

    PoP doesn't stand up very well - great for it's time - but hardly much to get excited about these days.

    I'd say the characters in many games such Heavy Rain and Heavenly Sword are much more impressive and fully 3D.

  • onyxbox #43 3 years ago

    Epic expects photo-realism in a decade... provided the world is covered in cling film first ;-)

  • neorapsta #44 3 years ago

    yeah, way to go Epic. Making games with the depth of your average puddle...but it will look awfully pretty.

  • Grayvern #45 3 years ago

    The thing with old games is that they are a lot further away from realistic therefore your imagination does much more work so it seems more realistic.

    At some point though unless middleware progresses massively were going to see generational splits with most companies producing games far from the top end in graphical terms, with only a couple of companies producing games that still stress or push the hardware.

  • hiddenranbir #46 3 years ago

    This is why games are shorter and with less 'stuff'. Too much time spent on TEXTURES.

    Why not use all this state of the art, high RAM, multi core time to make game worlds more fulfilling, perpetually going about its worldly grind.
    Edited by 1 at 26/05/09 @ 19:06

  • Les #47 3 years ago

    "The thing with old games is that they are a lot further away from realistic therefore your imagination does much more work so it seems more realistic."

    The paradox of increased realism: The more unreality approaches reality, the more it sticks out. On the one hand it's incredible that developers are stupid enough to keep trying to approach it (probably explained by the lack of creativity). On the other hand, apparently there's a huge market for those failed results.

  • AphoticCosmos #48 3 years ago

    Meh, now that we're approaching this kind of graphic realism, the question must be asked - is it actually wanted/needed? If we're basically just playing another iteration of real life, then we're losing some of the escape factor of videogames. Even with the best-looking graphics in games today, like Crysis Warhead, Gears of War and such, we can still distinguish it from reality subconsciously because it's on a whole different level of detail from the real world.

    That said, I'd love to see Half-life 3 or whatever be photo-realistic [if 2 took 7 years, and it's taking them bloody ages to do an episode, I can only guess at the horrible wait time for HL3 :( ]

  • nedgip #49 3 years ago

    I want virtual reality headsets and sensor gloves before photo realism.

  • UncleLou #50 3 years ago

    I just want someone to say "that's it, we can go no further" so that people can just stop caring about the technology and get back to making ART.

    It's a constant technological development, always been like that. And photo-realism and artistic design isn't mututally exclusive. One of the most visually impressive things I've seen in gaming in the last years is the citadel in Half-Life 2 - and it doesn'tlook great because of any stylisation, but because of the architecture. I want to see more of that, not just a slightly different approach to cel-shading.

  • drewman5150 #51 3 years ago

    Bit harsh on Steve Vai methinks! If you'd said Chris Impellitteri then I'd have agreed with you. Passion and Warfare still holds up as a classic guitar album, whereas the shredfests of his contemporaries sound very dated and shallow now (bringing the context of the debate back into focus!)
    Whilst I have no doubt that the techonology will be ready in 10-15 years, I don't think we'll be seeing that level for a while after, purely down to the amount of graphic data that will be required to produce such games.
    I'd be more interested in seeing things like real-time reflections and proper shadows which would actually enhance the gameplay in FPS's (having to watch out that you are not being reflected in a window / mirror / car) or using a mirror to peer over objects.