Next Gen character models – too realistic? (contains nudity)

The recent showcase of the Unity Engine presents some ultra realistic character models, but are they too realistic for gaming?

[GribbleGrunger]

How realistic does a character have to be before the morality of killing in games finds legitimacy? Throw in realistic reactions and emotions and suddenly you have a very interesting discussion IMO. I had this discussion many years ago about GTA. If a mother is pushing a pram with a baby in it and they look real, is there a case to be made 'morally' that hurting them is reprehensible? Some of you may remember me bringing it up and it's one of the reasons I'm not entirely against the thought, even though religious groups and politicians have abused the conversation for their own ends.

I feel we DO have to face up to this idea and ask ourselves how much a video game can effect a persons view of mortality. We need to stop immediately seeing it as a threat to our beloved hobby and start asking the difficult questions. Definitely amazing tech, but developers are going to have to start justifying violence, as Naughty Dog so brilliantly demonstrated in The Last Of Us.

[RytGear]

That is an incredibly interesting idea, are we going to see harsher censors or restrictions on things like gore? Or perhaps we will start seeing less conceptually violent games to avoid this all together.

[kneon]

I hope it doesn't lead to censorship. But I do hope it will make your actions in any game much more meaningful.

I think that when the characters achieve a sufficient level of realism and believability that you will see less casual killing in games. The developers will have to put you in situations where murder is the only way out, not just the easy way out.

[crxss]

I don't think video games can be "too" realistic. That makes it sound like they should tone it down or put some censorship on it. I welcome games to be as realistic as possible!

[GribbleGrunger]

No, they need to give it context.

[ded1020]

@Gribblegrunger

Absolutely! I think that's the main reason GTAIV (and soon to be V) went more realistic compared to 3. I don't think gore will go away either, but it could become a genre much like horror or thriller movies today. "Kill shit and stuff" might become a thing of the past. Imagine if Diablo 3 looked like that (or just looked like its FMVs).

[Dee_91]

i came for the nudity
However theres alot of points to make when talking about too much realism in games.But I think it all boils down to the person playing the game.If he or she is influenced by it,they should seek help,if they are disgusted by it, they should play another game.Another point is how realistic are the deaths.If the model is super realistic but the death is cartoony or slightly gory then there shouldn't be a problem, but me personally if the deaths are too realistic... ie squirming around,bleeding out etc,I think thats a bit too far, and unnecessary.

[EXVirtual]

Couldn't agree more.
Some people think it'll make the mainstream take gaming more seriously as well as directly opposing movies as the visual experience is the same, but what you said hits the nail on the head. Gaming get's blamed for a lot of stuff as it is, but if we had something like GTA9 with photo realistic graphics... don't even wanna know.
I personally prefer something like KH3 (which looks like Star Ocean last hope in terms of visuals) realistic mixed with cel-shaded or completely cel-shaded. Don't get me wrong games with realistc graphics are cool, especially when they throw in some unrealistic stuff. Like FFXV. Them behemoths lol.

[starchild]

I disagree. We separate fantasy from reality all the time. Just because something looks even more real doesn't suddenly change that.

We've seen thousands of people killed in movies, yet healthy, sane people do not go out and replicate that in the real world.

[tubers]

Some don't and they have to be taken care of medically.

I really hope people find these early symptoms and the caretakers take good responsibility.

[Aces17]

My thoughts exactly. It all is to an extent stimulated death. If someone is not smart enough separate reality and fantasy than that is their fault.

[MoreRPG]

Yes but unlike movies in a game you decide whether to kill or not

[cyguration]

MoreRPG makes a valid point:

In movies we're not the ones pulling the trigger. In a game it's our avatar, our choice and our consequence to deal with what happens with what follows killing someone in that interactive world.

It's not really the same thing by a long shot (depending on the game and the context of the way it's handled and reacted to).

[Bathyj]

This why even this gen its already to late to get another manhunt game

[Thatguy-310]

At the end of the day a video game is a video game no matter how realistic it looks. I mean in most karma based games I for one always try doing the right thing before playing around with my bad decisions because of the ability of having a choice. But I agree that video games need to start taking violence more serious and actually have it be a purpose to push the narrative forward.

[The Great Melon]

"ask ourselves how much a video game can effect a persons view of mortality"

I think as we get closer and closer to true realism, this question will begin to cease to matter. I think the fact that this question continues to exists is simply because we have yet to achieve real photo-realism that really can alter the morality of the general public. To me the more interesting question is how much can our morality affect our choice of games.

Alarmists like to say that given the current generation's taste for Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto will cause all to be vicious psychopaths once we achieve photo-realism. However, this process towards more intelligent AI and higher fidelity graphics isn't instantaneous. As we inch closer to more convincing worlds, I believe our actions in these games will be altered.

Mowing down people with a gun in Call of Duty currently is not realistic in the least. For one you are playing the game through a window (TV) instead of actually assuming the role as in VR. I have already begun to hear accounts of people with the the Oculus Rift (lucky bast*rds =P) that it actually is a little unnerving to do such actions with it on. People much rather just explore world and look at stuff. These initial impressions already lead me to believe that the monolithic dominance that FPSs currently hold will begin to wane. This will allow things like to adventure genre to grow.

[omi25p]

We watch films with real people. Some films have extreme violence and horrific crimes.

Take the film Oldboy. The whole storyline is essentially about justification for violence. How often do you here people recreating the scenes from the film because they saw the film? You don't.

How often do you here of murders, assaults even gangways because of sports team rivals. In some countries it is a daily occurrence.

Football (soccer) Has absolutely no legal violence in the sport. Any player that is violent is punished. Yet look how many "fans" have died while fighting rival fans.

Its human nature to find the need to fight for something.

Some people are more deranged then others and will fight for anything.

I honestly believe there will never be a time when normal sane people will begin to believe that killing is normal simply because of video games.

[Bigpappy]

I never kill people in games for the heck of it. Those types of challenges put me off and I always skip them even if it means not finishing the game. Having said that, I know that what I am doing in the game is not real, so I don't believe in the notion that game desensitize gamers from violence. I think it actually makes you less likely to want to be violent.

[Ogygian]

It shouldn't.

18+ is the rule (well, in the UK)

Beyond that, censorship is indeed the worst affront to free speech.
There might have to, of course, be stricter measures in place to ensure that children do not gain access to these games.

[SatanSki]

There is nothing to debate, just keep all those hidden psychos and emmotionally unstable people far from games. Normal people wont start killimg anybody becouse of games. Besiedes there already were movie like games where you shoot real actors.

[Gardenia]

It can look realistic but the AI is more important. A character like in this video walking against walls or not shooting at enemies who are right in front of them look even more ridiculous

[DeadlyFire]

Morality will only be faced when the Matrix like gaming worlds come alive connected directly to your brain. :)

It could be as photo realistic as it wants to be. You will still be staring at a screen until you can touch, feel, hear, sense, and move inside of their world. When those barriers are gone then it will be questionable at some point in time. :)

[blennerville]

I think you havent a clue what you are talking about and should therefore shut up.

[assdan]

I agree with some of what you said. I think games should be able to progress to photo realism, including games that show death. But I do understand what you mean. Like in the Ryse demo when they said that person has facial animations so you can see the people that you kill in terror as you die. That makes me see where people are coming from on the other side. But I think he could say the same for movies too. And I completely agree that little kids shouldn't be seeing the depictions of death. in current games either.

[PersonMan]

You'll never be able to kill kids in video games. Have you ever noticed that there are never any kids in video games and if there are, you can't hurt or kill them?

[DarkBlood]

Its not something i can simply put on here in the comments for the short term so i will just say this

"at the end of the day its still a video game"

[Cyb3r]

If this is a dumb question I apologise but anyway what kind of hardware is this tech demo running on? can a nextgen console have the power to render something this realistic?

[JustPlay4]

It most likely a high end PC, but who knows unless they said not sure

[ginsunuva]

It's not hard to map an image of people onto a non-moving model.

It's sort of like taking a photo with a camera and using it as a texture in a game.

[Bigpappy]

M$ is working with this engine on Xbox One.

[FragMnTagM]

I have pretty decent hardware, but I run it at the highest settings possible on my computer.

If anyone wants to run it for themselves, here is the link to download it: http://ir-ltd.net/multi-sky...

Scroll down to the bottom for the download button.

[Bolts]

What they were running on is completely irrelevant. This is a lighting demo based on static high definition textures. There is nothing impressive about this. It is about as pointless as MGS5 conference room render.

[Enemy]

They're just body scans, and there's no such thing as too realistic. It's called progress. We're not going backwards, are we?

[ape007]

it's all about the art style, "realistic real life" art style with powerful tech is sure ugly and suck life out of gaming

Edit: @Enemy below, absolutely agree

[Enemy]

I'm all for art direction over photorealism. But this is progress, and it expands to more than just gaming.

[PSjesus]

It's seems Mortal Kombat digitize models all over again but in 2013

[jhoward585]

@Enemy
Agreed, it's definitely called progress. Its something that no one in this world can't ignore.

Today games graphics/character models will eventually look like Atari 2600 decades from now.

So yeah progression in computer graphics is important.

[Ninjamonkey82]

Go to the last two characters over on the right well on the back row the girl one in and the fella on the end off the right front row you will find they are both breathing. Hence movement and not just scans.

[ape007]

in niko bellic's voice........"Not F****** Funny"

[RE_L_MAYER]

where can I buy this game?

[rodiabloalmeida]

The lightning is very good for the engine. The skin shaders need a little workout (look closer and you'll see). But still impressive.

[NioRide]

The lighting will probably make it to next gen consoles, those models, no no they won't.

[Kratos_Thy_God]

how about on ps4 with its huma capabilities and high bandwidth? (I'm talking about those character models)

[NioRide]

We've already seen what the ps4 is capable of with games still locking to 30fps. Models like these are pushing higher end PC's, there is a reason that all the backgrounds are flat low quality images in this video.

[rodiabloalmeida]

Not enough memory, for a start. Believe. 3D models like that requires lots of RAM.

[Theendgame]

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

6 years ago I could never dream of a game like Gta v, The last of us, Gears of war3 running on Ps3/360. With there 500ish gflop Gpus and 512 mb of ram.

Now have you seen Mgs V ? Stunning game with character models that look very close to this graphically.This is only the beginning of this new gen. Imagine 3yrs down the line. Now imagine 5yrs down the line.
You're not giving these consoles enough credit.

[rodiabloalmeida]

Do you realise that 3D models like that eats up to 32GB of RAM, if not more? Its not a matter of faith. If you ever did some 3D rendering with highpoly models like the ones in that video, you would know that a system with just 7GB-ish of RAM can't handle such thing. And comparing these highpoly 3d models with the lowpoly models in the games you've mentioned is kinda nonsense, if you ask me. Google bump mapping and you'll have a clue.;)

[FragMnTagM]

@Rodia,

You are correct that rendering while doing 3D modeling does eat up RAM, but that type of rendering is when you are building the game. Real time rendering has to cut back the quality from the original 3D renders.

I can render photo-realistic shots in 3DS Max, but it takes several minutes and the scene has very high resolution textures in it. This eats up a lot of RAM like you said.

When a game is running a scene that was created in 3DS Max, or any game engine, it is optimized for the platform it is going to be running on. On the PC, it has to be scalable as there are lot of different hardware configurations.

I am running this same tech demo on my computer and it is a bit more powerful than the new consoles coming out. Even though I would consider my computer to be a gaming computer, it uses RAM for quite a few other things than just rendering or running games. Consoles are optimized for gaming and can use nearly all their resources for just that.

So the new consoles should be able to run games at nearly the same level as my computer can.

This demo only eats up about 1gb of RAM and just over 1gb of VRAM.

[rodiabloalmeida]

@FragMnTagM

I missjudged the video. I downloaded the demo and ran it on my rig. Its not highpoly like I thought it was just by watching the video. You're right about the RAM and vRAM usage. It may me possible to run it on the next-gen consoles with an equal or lower poly count. I deserve the disagrees^^'

[FragMnTagM]

I don't see why the character models could not be done. My graphics card in my computer (660ti 3gb) is slightly more powerful than the PS4 and XBOX One's GPU's and these machines are optimized for gaming.

That being said, my PC runs this demo with ease. I turned off VSYNC and had around 75ish frames per second. The new consoles should be able to pull that off on a small scale, like close up shots and then tone the detail down as the characters being rendered are further away.

Texture streaming should be a lot easier this time around as there is significantly more RAM for each console. That is what hurt open world games on the current consoles.

Also, people seem to forget that software optimization is equally important as better hardware. This demo is showing off improvements to their software. Further optimizing this new way of doing things will eventually lead to less requirements of the hardware.

Nvidia and ATI both release driver updates regularly and I get performance gains in my games, sometimes up to 20fps increases. Not too up on ATI lately, but Nvidia has massive gains regularly on their driver updates.

Sorry for rambling, but I wouldn't say that the new consoles will not be able to achieve that or better at some point.

[Dropdeadll]

I came here for the nudity

[FragMnTagM]

( o )( o )ies!

[CallDaCheeseBox]

Lol. They just kept going around the girl with really nice boobs. This is just an observation.

[modesign]

BEWBS

[inf3cted1]

tat virtual ass

[johny5]

this could be possible on next gen consoles but probably with a lower poly count "the resolution on the characters aren't very high" just check Hideo Kojoma's model of Quiet for MGS5 and that's just for ps3!

you could also check out sports games for the next gen consoles like NBA 2k14 and EA's UFC and those look close to this and may look even better in three years time.

and by the way is it me or is the black guy moving....??

[rodiabloalmeida]

Both the black man and the woman behind him (the one looking up) are moving.

[Monkeyonfire13]

This Ultra realistic character model Will actually be great for gaming. There will be games that take full advantage of it, but more importantly it will drive game design to the edge. Once devs and designers see whats possible, they'll go Backwards or use some combination of design to make games Amazing. Flawless character models are a dream at the moment, once its out gamming will continue to improve for the better. Not to mention the Porn!

[SSJBen]

Oh fuck you guys. Everyone is telling Nintendo to grow up with their franchise but now realistic models is wrong?

................

[SynestheticRoar]

OK. I saw a lot of flat a$$es in the video. Designers round those bottoms out. If you want your games to sell. Seriously.

[Leio]

Now its a different story to make that face and body moves like the real thing which is still one of the hardest challenge in 3d game.

Realistic looks with awkward animation is just even more creepy

[anticlimax]

So 54 comments and no one has pointed out that realism and ethic boundaries have less to do with how the models look, but how they behave and react.

If a game let's you get to know a character, that is complex like a human being, so that you build up some kind of bond with it and then makes you kill it to achieve a goal...

I mean, build me a real life puppet that looks just like a human being and I'll shoot it in the face for a dollar. Build me an ugly robot that talks like a human and that'll be a lot less straightforward.

[PrimeGrime]

Not saying this isn't amazing but people have to understand these are 3D scans of real people. So all and all this isn't just entirely computer generated.

Its basically a 3D picture. Far from being used in actual game play, you know how much work that would take, taking 3D scans of each persons movement just for a game.. not even sure if its possible yet honestly. That is why people still use motion capture instead, a lot more practical and lot less time consumed.

I mean I was blown away at first but then I watched all the videos showing how it was made on Vimeo, then learned its just 3D scans of real people. So yea its still a step forward but not anything that could be used that well in games anytime soon.

http://vimeo.com/46087137

http://vimeo.com/72370015

See, they just use a ton of cameras to take an entire 3D image of the person then render it. They used 70 DSLR's.

[rezzah]

That was amazing, but where are the naked men?

[devilhunterx]

Cavemen thoughts:

Violence good, Nudity bad.

[SanMarco]

Hot

[GeckoPutt]

I came here for the nudity.

[mysteryraz11]

looks like porn