Activision shows off next-gen visuals

Today during a GDC panel, Activision technical director Jorge Jimenez offered a glimpse into what next-generation characters could look like.

The developer's technical talk focused on the the processes of creating realistic-looking characters without reaching the uncanny valley. Jimenez explained that the product of better visuals will be the capacity to tell stories with greater emotional impact.

[Gamer-40]

This true next-gen quality, awesome.

[iGAM3R-VIII]

This definetly looks like an amazing engine, what ever it is

[NewMonday]

what is it with tech demonstrations and old/ugly men?

[Cupid_Viper_3]

I just hope that all those people who ridiculed David Cage's presentation of an "Old Man's Head" will ridicule Activision and Nvidia as well.

But we all know that won't happen, it's only a problem because Cage makes game exclusively for PlayStation platforms.

On Topic.... I really like all this focus on more real to life characters that we're now seeing. Hopefully this will allows for games this gen to have actual story driven games, with really engaging characters that can convey all sorts of emotions. Especially with more and more holywood stars warming up to gaming. Defoe, Ellen, Michael Williams (Omar), and Sutherland to name a few.

[M-M]

@newmonday, I think it has to do with shadows, lighting, and detail. Yound people generally have smooth faces with little detail, while with old people they can showcase wrinkles(it also shows how their engine uses shadows). Those wrinkles can also help further express the person's facial expressions.

[LightofDarkness]

Yes, this also happened at the start of this generation with black faces. The new specular and diffuse lighting on characters allowed them to finally create believable looking dark skinned characters, so almost every tech demo featured someone with dark skin.

[Good_Guy_Jamal]

@cupid viper. It's a problem because David Cage believes all gaming that isn't done his way isn't mature or is holding gaming back.
David Cage is just a pretentious oaf who believes his farts are gold in gas state.

[Muerte2494]

I don't believe he's pretentious. I think he's has a different point of view when it comes to mature gaming. Also your comment failed to address Cupid_Viper's statement. People were misconstruing his presentation saying that he was all about graphics. When, in fact, he said that it add to the authenticity of a character's performance.

[ijust2good]

Why is it they always show these tech demos with heads only and mostly of bald people? Im guessing most of the hardware power is being used to render the face only in real time and incapable of rendering entire body let alone the ingame world. These stupid tech demos need to stop. Its been done back in 2008. Nothing new. Its obvious these tech demos are not capable in real world scenarios in real time. This will never be done in a game unless its a game that only has faces. Bald faces. Its takes entire resources to run it, hardwares of today wouldnt have enough power to render the world and physics ect. What a joke. Tech demos to promote video games should be banned.

[CGI-Quality]

No what's obvious is your lack of understanding in this field. As tech improves, a DEMO of an engine is where things start. If you don't "like" these, avoid them. But they are hardly "stupid".

[ijust2good]

@CGI-Quality

yes, i know tech demos are usually used as near target for devs but come on...they shouldn't show an entire hardware rendered on head which in game is something devs will never do.

Do u realize that type of rendering has been done before. It uses entire computation power to render the head. It is NOT practical to use in a game. You have no more power to render the entire body, let alone the game world such as landscape, physics & AI.

Crysis 3 couldn't handle this, neither could BF4 & Killzone SF. This is just to showoff what a machine can do when it uses entire hardware power to render the face. A pointless showcase to show off to consumers and very misleading.

Even the new Assasins creed 4 trailer showed CGI, it looked nothing good as this tech demo in the facial department but it certainly looked better than the actual Real time AC4 gameplay they showcases resonantly.

So yes, im well aware of this type of rendering back in 2008. It won't happen next gen console or a high end PC of today or tommorow. The realistic modelling of Avatar movie to render the face, body and the world required thousands of powerful computers in a farm sized area and it was CGI. No way a next gen console let alone the most powerful consumer PC on the market will render that face with the body, physics, AI and the game world in real time. Making this face tech demo pointless to show the world.

[cannon8800]

I'm having a hard time believing that the last video has to do with activision at all, because I saw this at the nvidia press conference a few days ago. The demo was running on a geforce gtx titan. Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watc...

From what I understand that last video is about a tech demo called digital ira

this is bullcrap gamespot! Fooling people into thinking that the video is actual gameplay footage from a next gen cod game. Remove this crap asap.

[cannon8800]

crap never mind I guess this might have to do with activision. I watched the rolling credits after the video.

[Snookies12]

The mouth is a little odd when he opens it, but other than that, this tech is absolutely amazing! I don't like the way Activision handles Call of Duty, but honestly... They deserve props for this.

[freezola75]

Hey look David Cage, we got our own old dude too! LOL

looks cool I guess. Peace

[DwightOwen]

Looks fantastic, much better than the boring old man demo. I'm anxious to see how it carries over to an actual game. Will there be any loss of detail or fidelity? I hope not. If nothing else, cutscenes are going to be hella fun to watch over the next several years.

[Upbeat]

WOW THEY DID SOMTHING TO ADVANCE THEIR GAMES ! JESUS I never thought id live to see the day.

Id happily bet this engine will be all they advance until the ps5 lol

[Knightofelemia]

Wow their so life like and the detail looks great. You couldn't tell they were done with a computer. That does it I want the next gen consoles now.

[Bathyj]

What is it with tech demos and old men? Is it the wrinkles?

[ironfist92]

You see more detail and more movement, its basically showing more off what the engine can do.

[Bathyj]

Yeah, I know. But you wanna impress me, do a demo of 20 year old Jessica alba

[NateCole]

lol! or a kate upton.

[LondonMediaOS]

Guess we know where all that COD money went towards.

[madara0sama]

With the billions of dollars they made you'd hope so that they made a new engine. We are only 2-3 generations away from real life quality image. Can't wait for E3 this year.

[Genuine-User]

This a tech demo. I don't think it represents their next game.

[ooquis]

NEXT GEN IS HERE BABY!!

[dangerousjo33]

if mw4 looks like thell be runing next gen 2

[1nsomniac]

This is awesome an all but nothing really to much new than what has been around for many years now. Well I suppose it's new for Activision. About time too!!

All that's actually new here is that they've added tension to certain pin points which is the most impressive part as its also applied to the mask image, creating dynamic wrinkles on the mask based on the mesh.

I think people get carried away though, lets just see how much makes it into actual games because we've already seen all of this before. It means absolutely nothing at the moment until you see it in game with other objects in real-time. I'll still be happy if 50% of that gets applied in-game.

[Ninjamonkey82]

Aye new engine still peer to peer mark my words -_-.

[josephayal]

jaw-dropping

[isarai]

LOOKS great, but isn't that just the face from the Nvidia tech demo? and while it does look good, i doubt it'd be viable in a fully functional game, at least not your typical action game, maybe something like David Cages games, but when you have shitloads of other things to worry about, faces like these are just a waste of resources

[greenpowerz]

I can see as games become this real one day will spark controversy in more mature game subject matters. They won't be seen as simply game characters but fictional characters in a film sense.

Most people wouldn't know that is CGI(video)

[KaBaW]

This may be so, and rightly looks awesome, but I don't think we'll see it from Activision.
I'm pretty sure we'll never get anywhere near the quality of visuals from Call of Duty!

[Mookie]

It seems like new gen is all about graphics. I hope it's about gameplay and storytelling as well.

[PAYNEinc85]

Actual gameplay won't look like this though.

[PersonMan]

PC Gamers: "But PC has been doing this for years!!!"

Where are all the PC elitists that claim that PC has been next gen for a while now.

Haha. Stupid PC gamers. They know nothing. The hardware doesn't define next gen, the developers do.

[DwightOwen]

From the article:

"The video (below) is rendered in real-time on current video card hardware."

Translation: running on a high-end PC.

ALSO from the article:

"The images are the result of years of work, Jimenez explained..."

Translation: don't expect to see in-game visuals approaching this level of quality for years.

By the way, you really should think before calling anybody stupid (let alone your betters), your comment about hardware not mattering being Exhibit A.

[PersonMan]

Next gen starts when developers develop next gen visuals. It doesn't matter if PC has had powerful video cards for a long time, the PC games generally weren't taking advantage of all that power due to console ports for the most part.

I've never seen a PC game that looks like a next gen game. Nope, not even Battlefield 3 or Crysis 3.

Sorry, but I still believe what I said is true. I'm a console and PC gamer and to tell you the truth, there's not much of a difference between the two.

Once the next gen consoles hit, you'll start seeing better looking games on PC, but until then, you'll continue to see HD ports of console games.

[Nilemonitors13]

Does anyone know if the roumored dual gpu of the 720 will beat the ps4, because im buying the ps4, i would like to know if its possible that the ps4s hardware still has some secrets like another gpu or something like that, and if the xbox does have the dual gpu, is it going to be a lot stronger than the ps4?

[dangerousjo33]

these images are just ground breaking for all next gen consoles i cant wait to buy both MW4 & BF4 their both number one for wat they bring n do good JOB next gen consoles

[DivineAssault]

The eyes & teeth are the only way you can tell its CG.. I would like to see an action demo with this engine being used though.. Theyre all about 60FPS so character models & backgrounds cant look this realistic with chaos going on everywhere..

[dangerousjo33]

but just to add these images are still ground breaking as i said b4 but at the sametime that old man pic also wins da tittle 4 being the most uglyist old white man in da history of gaming lol looks like the leader witch from that old withes moive from bac n da 90s lol