'Separable Subsurface Scattering' shows off jaw-dropping character detail in real-time

DSOGaming writes: "Jorge Jimenez, a realtime graphics R&D programmer, has released a mind-blowing video that showcases the latest and final advances on real-time skin rendering (Separable Subsurface Scattering), which enable to quickly render skin in just two post-processing passes. What’s really important here is that everything you are about to see is written from scratch using DirectX 10 and rendered in real-time, from the skin to the film grain."

[facelike]

I wonder if we'll get a HD version of pimple popping games now.

[jaosobno]

Really? You see something incredible like this, a true revolution in display of digital characters in games, and first thing that comes to mind is a pimple popping game?

...

[ToonarmY]

He was just trying to be funny an failed

[frostypants]

What makes this amazing is the fact that we will be controlling models at this level of detail in REAL TIME GAMEPLAY. I hope it's in the next 5 years, but more realistically it could be 10+ years.

[soundslike]

Eh I don't really want anything this realistic as far as the enemies I'm shooting in the face

makes me not want to shoot them

[Convas]

How can you as a decent human being disagree with Soundslike? I do NOT want to feel like I'm killing actual human beings.

There is coming a point, and it's coming quickly, where we as an industry will have to draw the line on what we will and will not do in our video games.

Virtual murder simulation should not be on the list of things to do. Imagine a game like The Darkness II with this kind of graphics.

"BREAKING NEWS! ULTRA-VIOLENT HYPER-REALISTIC MURDER SIMULATOR CAUSING KIDS TO BECOME DEMONIC SERIAL-KILLING PSYCOPATHS - Story @ 9 only on FOX News"

The media already bastardizes us as lifeless basement dwellers. The last thing we want is for people to see us as a bunch of violent virtual killers.

Games have and still are about fun, about storytelling, about escape or at least distraction from reality. Realistic physics for bullets travelling through a virtual enemies head's is too far in the WRONG direction, especially with this level of graphics.

[kaveti6616]

Why would the progress of video game tech be halted just because you don't want things to be too real?

No matter how realistic the graphics look, shooting at a video game character is still just shooting at polygons.

[Machioto]

@clizzz I disagree with your statement because even though the character looks real doesn't mean your going to become a killer,I think there has to something more than the fact that the game character is perceived as being real.

[nirwanda]

So you must also beleave that every war film or horror film should be ban because they you real actors too.

[Kakihara]

But you're playing virtual murder simulators right now, many people would already consider games to be too far gone in that direction. There have been people worrying that violent games are 'too realistic' since the first days of gaming, that's why many games in the nineties were forced to use green blood rather than red even for human characters.

I wouldn't like to see this kind of technology just used for making people's heads explode realistically mainly because I'm sick of games about shooting people in the face. Whenever a game gives me the option of non-violence I take it. Mirror's edge, Metal gear solid 4 and Deus ex are all games that give you the choice of avoiding killing people and they're all games that I've only completed with a pacifist playthrough, not killing a single enemy I wasn't forced to.

See, I'm already uncomfortable playing as some douche who considers human life expendable, I'll play a game that involves killing but given the choice I'll always avoid it. What I won't do is draw some arbitrary line that considers it perfectly cool to enjoy tearing a guy's spine out of his asshole as long as he's only comprised of a certain number of pixels. That's the kind of thinking that gets us ridiculous censorship like green blooded pedestrians in street racing games.

Let the kneejerk Fox news watchers think what they will, I can tell the difference between reality and simulation. When I'm forced to I can understand a fictional character's motivation to kill and go with it, while fully knowing that I would not react the same way in my actual life. If I'm engrossed in a game that asks me to brutally kill an enemy, it doesn't matter how graphically detailed they are or aren't, I'm still vicariously experiencing the act of killing somebody.

If you didn't agree with any of that long rant just look at it this way. If the physics and graphics do get so realistic that any sane human being would feel really uncomfortable killing an NPC, maybe that's what gaming needs to fully mature as a medium. There was a time when movies were all about killing for fun, when Injuns would grab their chests and fall down when shot. It's only when they were able to show the real sick uncomfortable reality of killing a human being that the storylines began to take this into account and deal with the harsh reality of violence.

[wolokowoh]

It's M-rated for a reason. Kids shouldn't be playing it. On top of this I was playing God of War when I was 12 and it didn't affect me in the slightest. Blame parents, blame society, blame culture, blame the place you grew up and the people you were around, but blaming a game, movie, music, book, or anything designed specifically for your entertainment is just nonsense. I've listen to songs about or involving rape, necrophilia, killing people for various reasons, "fucking a dog in the ass", shooting corrupt cops, and slapping a bitch for disrespecting you among many other negative things, and I haven't done any of those things. All art should be enjoyed for what it is and shouldn't inspire any feelings that anyone else wouldn't also feel. I understand different human beings react differently to the same thing but there'd have to already be something seriously wrong with a person if he or she can't tell the difference between morality in entertainment and the different moralities based in reality.

I personally want the guy/thing I just killed to stay there with bullet holes in him as part of an infinitely manipulable open world environment that is always changing in subtle but sometimes noticeable ways but that's just me. This environment should have its own rules/laws that apply to this environment. Making it realistic isn't necessary but it should have its own style whether it emulates realism or goes for a far more stylized approach. It's all art and should embody what the creators or said art want to do with it not what it is misinterpreted as.

[MGRogue2017]

... Why not DirectX 11..? =/

[theeg]

The tech looks cool, but i like seeing amazing actual gameplay like those hawken videos......bad-ass mechs in a futuristic world, consider me sold, thought it was just vaporware but.....

it's actually coming....I'm so excited, the new Hawken Beta signup has started, that game looks amazing,

here is a beta signup link;

http://playhawken.com/?ref=...

[camel_toad]

That is definitely amazing. ps17 and xbox 2046 here i come!

[Reaper9937]

U mean PS4 and Xbox 720...don't underestimate what next gen will be capable of. This sort of graphics in-game will be the norm next gen at least from some developers, ND springs to mind.

[bozebo]

Only if the console costs £900+

[kaveti6616]

Naughty Dog makes huge concessions to have their games look as good as they do.

[iamgoatman]

"don't underestimate what next gen will be capable of."

I think you're overestimating what next gen consoles will be capable of. If they release next year, where do you think the hardware is coming from? They don't run on some sort on some super advanced alien tech, despite what some people on this site would have you believe.

[dj_drumc]

anyone else enjoy the music from that vid?

[chanmasta]

Indeed! Straight from Michael Bay's Transformers score :)

[Jdub895O]

believe it or not that was the cryengine 3 powering that.

[RevXM]

OI wonder if there is a reason they mayde this model without much hair.
Hair is really hard to do and power consuming.

Well Im quite impressed either way though. Just dont expect every next gen game to have characters just as detailed as this... but pretty real looking models or CGI like shouldnt be a prob, but zooming in and see perfectly smooth pimples and such tiny things being so detailed etc... ahh no dont think so.

[nirwanda]

It may be possible if every character was bald. Ha ha.

[rattletop]

holy sh*t!! this is what i have been waiting for!! proper textures for the face. most games today have characters with skin and cloth having same textures but since the cloth is a layer on top and differs in color it isn't immediately noticeable. this+ la noire mo-cap = Jaw-dropping experience. but i think it will take a couple of years to make it to the PC and then consoles. maybe during the 2nd part of next-gen

[john2]

yeah. Sadly it won't be coming to our games anytime soon but here is hoping

[Throwaway2020]

I got sick in my mouth a little when I realised he had no eyelashes. Jesus, this technology is too powerful for any one man/or ladyperson to wield! We must destroy in the fires of fire....Literally...any fire. Now make haste!