The Age of Realism, or Lack Thereof

[jdufault]

I am just taking the time to write this thread in to discuss something that bothers me every time I go to look at some new screenshots of new games.

I would like to discuss the idea/mindset of the game developers that are leading the industry today. What the game developers, such as ID, Epic, Valve, and EA are doing to make the games of the present and future more realistic graphically.

First of all lets take a step backwards a little ways, and take a look at last generation. The generation of the quake III engine, the unreal tournament engine, and the half-life engine. This is back in late 1998/1999. This seems a time for me, when developers where striving to make games realistic just as they are today, but in a different way. All three of those games pushed not shading, any sort of fine detail work. What they seemed to all be striving for was a higher polygon count, better looking textures, and more detailed looking objects. When I take a look back at the older generation engines, and go through them once more and play them, I really learn to feel, and really accept the fact that im in the game. Due to the way the engine looks and reacts, there is nothing that seems to stand out at me, or distract me, maybe make the game too realistic, making it unrealistic.

Now lets take a look at the engines of today. Doom 3.0, Source, COD2, etc... Impressive arent they? Indeed, they have accomplished some great things, but in my opinion have veered a little off the path of what they had been on the path to accomplish last generation. I might not have noticed, had they not made some bad choices that really detract from the experience I had while playing the games.

What I am talking about here, is in todays games, I go look at a screenshot of their "new technology", their "Brand New Realistic Engine", or their "Super Realistic Lighting" and what I see, is totally reverse. I want to know if anyone has taken the chance to look at some of these new advancements, or somet of these new techonologies, and analyzed their purpose, or realism?

Today, I stopped by gamespy.com, and checked out some of the Call of Duty 2 news that they had on their main page. While taking a peek, I decided to stop by the games screenshot section located at http://media.pc.gamespy.com/media/620/620769/imgs_1.html

What a mistake I had made, for such an awesome first game, that utilized a very nice engine, and made it look realistic without all this new tech, this game has ruined it all. I want you to take a look at those screenshots and notice the lighting, notice the bump mapping, notice the terrible and awefully unrealistic way the game is projecting the cloth/metal/sand.

To me the cloth in those screenshots looks like a shriveled up grape, that has been extremely glazed over, and has been cleared of all actuall texture. So you could say it looks "Plasticy". Why are these screenshots coming out to look like this? This is not very realistic, and for all that effort in coding those new lighting and shading technologies, it really looks like a heap of poop.

I am not just ganging up on Call of Duty 2 here, but most recent games have this ever so prominant "Glossy, Plasticy, Unrealistc" feel to them. Why is this? are the developers blind? Cant they see that this is not how something looks in real life?

Is it really worth it, to have a huge bloom effect, and blinding shininess, when all you want is a realistic looking game....I have seen screenshots where the hood of a car is reflecting so much light and blooming so much that its like.....dude, I dont want a bonanza of stupid glares. I want a normal looking realistic game... It is almost as if the gaming developers are using photoshop. Photoshop being a very good imagery suite. But instead of really doing some good stuff with their tech, and making some good looking additions to their games, they are using the every looked down upon "Filters" and overloading their "images" with stupid effects. But all we, or maybe just I, want is a good looking game...

Doom III is another example of this "plastic" technique, they seem to be failing to really capture the metal look, and the cloth look. THis really takes away from the gaming experience when you see these materials mis-represented. Especially when your runng through a dark dungeon trying to ignore the fact that the walls around you look like shiny peices of sticky paper, rather than the dripping wet walls of a rock cave.

Great you can claim to have all this "HDR", "Paralax Mapping", and such, but really, if you cant perfect it in your final product to make your game look good, why even bother?

I would be just as happy with a higher poly and higher res texture version of your old engine...


Does anyone else think that this new tech, if not implemented properly, which most of the new developers have done, shouldnt be mainstreamed or promoted so much?

Obviously some games have done great jobs implementing most of their tech, examplary half life 2 of course...although i must admit it did have afew occasions where I would find my hands/gun glowing or shining while i was in a dark room...

Well, discuss, tell me what you think...!

 

[Cole]

Well I have always seen this generation as a Phase.
Once we can get really nice shadows and lighting in every game then the phase is over, and we continue to a new phase. This phase is more in it's middle stages...we are adding it..but there are still some side effects. One is the plastic problem. Yes I absolutly hate that plastic looking crap, but hopefully it's problems will be fixed.

 

[Reginald]

The Lost Coast looks exceedingly guilty of this...

I am not too technically-literate so I shall not share my views. But you do pose a good point.

 

[jdufault]

The Plastic problem I would think could be easily solved, just tone it down. There is shadow, there are highlights, just tone them down. The reason it looks like plastic is because it goes from white, to black. Real Materials dont...

Once we can get really nice shadows and lighting in every game then the phase is over, and we continue to a new phase. This phase is more in it's middle stages...we are adding it..but there are still some side effects. One is the plastic problem. Yes I absolutly hate that plastic looking crap, but hopefully it's problems will be fixed.

True, as most of the problems I discussed, happen to be not so distinct in the newest announced generation of engines, including Unreal 3.0. I do find it hard to beleive though, just why developers are pushing the tech, if they cant really achive it. It might pave the way for what games are going to fully include later, but it doesnt do a good job making the "midway" or "mid phase" game you described, look good.

 

[Takashi Shimura]

Now lets take a look at the engines of today. Doom 3.0, Source, COD2, etc... Impressive arent they?

They are a step or two above the previous generation engines, naturally, but I do not find them impressive per se. Maybe I am just a spoiled brat though.

 

[Prince of China]

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is also guilty of this. The lighting itself is impressive but not realistic. I shot out one light and the graphics where fine but it became extremely dark. One light did that. The guys at Ubisoft seem to be missing something. One lamp was still lit but the rest of the area was dark. Wouldn't the little lamp still give off a bit of light radiating to the otherside of the room? The entire room was dark except for the little radius around the lamp. Again, the graphics and lighting looked great and I see where you are going with this. It seems developers can't seem to simulate realistic lighting conditions. For games such as Splinter Cell, Ubisoft would probably have to take real pictures and then develop the games accordingly to it.

 

[OCybrManO]

Do you see the water splashing all around the boats? In the pics where they're storming the beach, their clothes are soaking wet... and when cloth is wet it gets shiny. I don't see this same "problem" in the pictures where they are in dry settings. IMO, their execution of wet clothing is one of the strong points of those pictures.

If you're troubled by publishers latching onto the new feature of the moment to advertise a game... you're just going to have to get over it. It has been happening since the beginning of time (well, the beginning of advertising)... and it's not going to stop any time soon. Buzzwords and exotic-sounding features get people's attention.

Also, when a new feature is implemented it's usually not going to be perfected in its first implementation. There's going to have to be a game like Trespasser that tries to implement the feature (in that case, physics) albeit not as well as it could have been done... but it paves the way for the use and further development of that feature in later games (such as Half-Life 2 and UE3).

You're sounding like one of the people that bitched back when games first made a transition from 2D to 3D just because 2D games looked more detailed (as the 3D technology was in its infancy)...

 

[Tr0n]

Ray-Tracing is the next huge step toward realism in my opinion.

 

[Styloid]

I agree with the "phase" idea. Why should devs bother? Because it leads to the next level in technology. There always has to be a transition period and I think devs like Id and Valve have done really well with what they had available.

 

[sinkoman]

Concerning the "plastic" effect.

THANK GOD! I've always thought of the newer games comming out of looking EXACTLY how you described it! It's like they're trying too hard. I thought for a few seconds, maybe i'm just dumb and can't see how realistic it was, but i'm glad i'm wrong. Have you seen the HDR lost coast video? I thought the sand and gravel looked like somebody painted over it with a glossy coat of paint. I've never seen sand shine like that!

I think that we were lucky that HL2 wasn't guilty of this. Of course, the Combine uniforms look like that, but they're supposed to, since they're space aged futurisit plastic. But the textures don't look too shiny (although i've seen a few areas where they did), they look grity and dirty. Like they should. Not like he CoD 2 helmets. Did you notice how nice and shiny and brand new they looked? God, it's like one of those bond movies. The chick comes out of an explosion and her hair isn't even frazed.

 

[GhostBoi]

I agree to a certain extent, that game developer's are doing some things right to move towards realism while also taking a few steps backwards at the same time.

 

[jondy]

THANK GOD! I've always thought of the newer games comming out of looking EXACTLY how you described it! It's like they're trying too hard. I thought for a few seconds, maybe i'm just dumb and can't see how realistic it was, but i'm glad i'm wrong. Have you seen the HDR lost coast video? I thought the sand and gravel looked like somebody painted over it with a glossy coat of paint. I've never seen sand shine like that!

A glossy coat of water. Have a look next time you go down to the beach, I surf every week, and when you're facing the sun, stuff does look like that.

What you guys are wanting is the sub-surface scattering that absorbs and diffuses light on surfaces to make them less 'shiny'. http://www.projectoffset.com/technology.html is a good example of an approximation of subsurface scattering using shaders.

As for ray-tracing tr0n, it's neat, but simply a waste of time in real-time applications, as there are far easier ways to fake it with little or no discernable difference, and until we have the processing power to spare, it's not going to happen.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

As for ray-tracing tr0n, it's neat, but simply a waste of time in real-time applications, as there are far easier ways to fake it with little or no discernable difference, and until we have the processing power to spare, it's not going to happen.

People won'tbe satisfied though, and I simply don't understand why. I was dealing with the some shinemap textures for another game and sent my friend one. He was very dissapointed that it's already set up for how the light should shine on it, etc, rather than dynamic lighting. He then said this quote that will stick with me forever abut gaming.

"It just makes it appear to look good"

I asked him if he thought it was great before and he said yes, but not now, since he knew it wasn't "real." Some people are stupid ;[

edit: Maybe the fact that it was deathseeker but yeah. He's an elitist :/

 

[Kangy]

I don't care about realistic grass or whatever, I want human enemies who act like people instead of machines. Unless they are machines, then they should probably act more like machines rather than something in between. When I kill Generic Nazi #1, I want #2 to notice and try and do something to stop him from dying. I want #3 to start panicking, and #4 to try to run away. I don't want 4 little moving targets just happily accepting their fates as I blast them away.

 

[sinkoman]

A glossy coat of water. Have a look next time you go down to the beach, I surf every week, and when you're facing the sun, stuff does look like that.

What you guys are wanting is the sub-surface scattering that absorbs and diffuses light on surfaces to make them less 'shiny'. http://www.projectoffset.com/technology.html is a good example of an approximation of subsurface scattering using shaders.

As for ray-tracing tr0n, it's neat, but simply a waste of time in real-time applications, as there are far easier ways to fake it with little or no discernable difference, and until we have the processing power to spare, it's not going to happen.

I go surfing like every week also. You live Hawaii?

Anyway, yes, the WATER looks like that, but I noticed I nice heap of mud on the beach and it looked like there was some sortof shiny mucus on it, or like it was a piece of plastic made to look like mud. Like those novelty fake rocks, except buffed to the max.

Buffed as in shined.

 

[PickledGecko]

I am not just ganging up on Call of Duty 2 here, but most recent games have this ever so prominant "Glossy, Plasticy, Unrealistc" feel to them. Why is this? are the developers blind? Cant they see that this is not how something looks in real life?

First thing I noticed on CSS was how shiny the rock textures looked. I've gotten used to it now so I don't notice it much but it really pissed me off back then. It just makes it look like plastic, which is far from realistic.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

First of all lets take a step backwards a little ways, and take a look at last generation. The generation of the quake III engine, the unreal tournament engine, and the half-life engine.

Actually, Half Life uses the original Quake engine (with a couple small additions in code from the Quake 2 engine), which makes it 2 generations behind the last generation...

 

[Tr0n]

As for ray-tracing tr0n, it's neat, but simply a waste of time in real-time applications, as there are far easier ways to fake it with little or no discernable difference, and until we have the processing power to spare, it's not going to happen.

Well...I dunno about the processing power part.You're talking about software based ray-tracing....having the cpu figure out all the algorithms.You do know they have ray-tracing cards don't you?

http://www.artvps.com/

Now of course there comes the problem with the speed of the ray tracing cores, but things take time.

 

[jdufault]

Do you see the water splashing all around the boats? In the pics where they're storming the beach, their clothes are soaking wet... and when cloth is wet it gets shiny. I don't see this same "problem" in the pictures where they are in dry settings. IMO, their execution of wet clothing is one of the strong points of those pictures.

Yes, before I made this thread I was looking at that, and it seemed kind of like a good thing that we wont have to bear it through the entire game...

But, look at the level.

http://www.3dgamers.com/screenshots/games/callofduty2/413705/

That does a better job at explaining the reason for the plastic effect. They did a better job at it, since there is actually rain there making the effect. I dont see though, how there is so much sun in this level on a rainy, cloudy day...to make those packs on the side of the soldiers have a huge shiny glow...

The shadows are off, just to test this theory, go watch the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan, and you will fail to see such lighting..

I go surfing like every week also. You live Hawaii?

Anyway, yes, the WATER looks like that, but I noticed I nice heap of mud on the beach and it looked like there was some sortof shiny mucus on it, or like it was a piece of plastic made to look like mud. Like those novelty fake rocks, except buffed to the max.

Buffed as in shined.

What I said above explains why there shouldnt be deep shine, you said you surf in hawaii, I think the weather conditions in hawaii are a little bit more shiny/sunny/clear than on that muddy, cloudy, raining beach.

Actually, Half Life uses the original Quake engine (with a couple small additions in code from the Quake 2 engine), which makes it 2 generations behind the last generation...

There were so many additions/changes/enhancements to that engine, really, you cant put it on the same level as quake 1... It did come out in 1998, and it did compete fairly well with q3 and ut, so I decided I would throw it in...


One compliment in that screenshot I have is the way the metal on those guns look, especially the one on the soldier closest to you..

BTW -

 

[TheSomeone]

The "glossy" effect is only noticeable in still-screens. When the cloth is moving around, the light moves around on it so much that it doesn't look glossy.

Watch the 13 minute COD2 video and you will see, it looks EXTREMELY realistic. Keep in mind, these are wet clothes.

What you need to understand about the direction game tech is doing today is that artists now almost have an unlimited pallette: models will look as good as they want them to be. The only way to advance now is to use different technology for realistic lighting.

By the way, the "HDR" shot of the car, if you're talking about the same thing I'm thinking of, it was a bloom shot, not HDR. HDR doesn't do glares like that.

 

[jondy]

I go surfing like every week also. You live Hawaii?

Anyway, yes, the WATER looks like that, but I noticed I nice heap of mud on the beach and it looked like there was some sortof shiny mucus on it, or like it was a piece of plastic made to look like mud. Like those novelty fake rocks, except buffed to the max.

Buffed as in shined.

Heh, not buffed as in ripped

No, I don't live in Hawaii, I live in Devon, England, but with a good knowledge of local banks and swell/wind direction there's rarely a period of a week or more when there's no surfable waves. I'm getting more and more into surf photography, might host some pics in the artwork section soon

I always find that you don't notice the 'shine' on rocks by the sea in glare-y sunlight as much as ingame, mainly because the lighting ingame isn't natural (ie there's no accompanying bloom) but with the advent of HDR this should be less of a problem.

EDIT: tr0n, yeah I know but task-specific card or not, it takes a fair amount of grunt is my point

 

[Jintor]

I've never really cared about how plastic a game sorta looks and how glossy and shiney the water is...

...because inevitably they don't run on my machine. HL2 is more or less the only recent (debateable) game that runs on my machine.

 

[Sober]

If you don't like the gloss effect, turn of specular lighting. That's what I do. I really don't care about all the schnazzy effects. The only good effects that've caught my attention may be the new water effects, refraction, reflection, etc and how it works with light, like a sun rising/setting by a coastal setting.

Otherwise, it's really hard to notice alot of the paralax lighting, normal mapping, bump mapping (well, you sort of notice those two), soft shadows, blended shadows, or any of that mumbo-jumbo to produce fanboys.

Games are just made to attract mainstream gamers now. It doesn't have to play well, but as long as it looks good, not-caring average joes fork money over to companies like EA that just pump out games on newer graphics and crappy everything else.

 

[Asuka]

Actually, Half Life uses the original Quake engine (with a couple small additions in code from the Quake 2 engine), which makes it 2 generations behind the last generation...

They were originally using the Quake engine. They scraped most of it and added a lot. You got it backwards. Not that much of the quake engine is left in the hl engine.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Yup - if the Quake engine was a car, then the only parts they kept are the wheels and the furry dice.

Personally I think those CoD 2 screenshots look great, especially this one.

I do know what you mean about the 'plastic effect' but I don't think it's a major problem with these CoD 2 pics.

 

[sinkoman]

The "glossy" effect is only noticeable in still-screens. When the cloth is moving around, the light moves around on it so much that it doesn't look glossy.

Watch the 13 minute COD2 video and you will see, it looks EXTREMELY realistic. Keep in mind, these are wet clothes.

Yeah, but dump a bucket of water on your shirt and it looks a darker, fuzzier tinge of your shirts original color. Not like you let a glass blower have his way with it

 

[operative x]

Do you see the water splashing all around the boats? In the pics where they're storming the beach, their clothes are soaking wet... and when cloth is wet it gets shiny. I don't see this same "problem" in the pictures where they are in dry settings. IMO, their execution of wet clothing is one of the strong points of those pictures..

Exactly...
Those D-Day screen shots look INSANE.

 

[venturon]

The mercenaries in Farcry are a much better example than those CoD2 screenshots. They look like they've been coated in baby oil or something.

 

[jondy]

The mercenaries in Farcry are a much better example than those CoD2 screenshots. They look like they've been coated in baby oil or something.

It keeps their skin supple in the blazing midday heat.

 

[f0rked]

Speaking of cars and realistic graphics... Check out the screens here and here.
At first I thought these were some sort of manipulated photos, until I saw the wireframes. Project Gotham 3 is sure shaping up pretty. It makes me want an xbox 360 already I just hope the car graphics and core gameplay is as well designed as this background scenery is.