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Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

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Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#3
It's going to be a while before there's another console generation. (In a sense, the Kinect and PS Move were an attempt to refresh the consoles without changing the base hardware) I haven't even heard rumors of new console development yet, so I'd guess they're at least 2-3 years out.

Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#5
Realtime graphics are finally blurring into stylized film. I expect in another ten years or so we will, for all intents and purposes, have the horsepower to render photorealistic scenes. The bigger problem may be finding ways to create this content without insane amounts of work. Cloth mechanics, particle/hair systems, realtime physics, constrained IK/semirigid body solvers, fractal elaboration, fluid dynamics, procedural character/animation generation... all of these problems are going to be really interesting as we start hitting the limits of what humans can imagine and express to a computer.

Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#6
post #4

I would like to know more about this "Core i9" of which they speak.

They probably mean the 6-core i7-9* series, distinguished from "regular old i7" by their Gulftown architecture and 50% higher transistor count. But yeah, I thought that term died a while back.

Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#7
Problem is how to handle worst-case scenarios. With pre-rendered movies that might or might not be a problem, and even if it is - it's production one (e.g. you can't predict how many well for how many days you would render your movie)

But for a game - this means dropping the frame rate, making it visually unappealing.

That's why Ray-casting would never pick up for real-time games (Unreal most definitely is not doing any ray-casting, I'm just giving it as a an extreme example).

The other problem is content creation. Current games are 7-15gb of compressed data - half of them textures, rest models, animations, etc. and fitting that in memory (and loading it in memory).

Even with the fastest drives, you end up spending a lot of time loading (or streaming).

Then if that thing looks so real, you start feeling that something ain't right if your gun can't really destroy every piece of a building... And later allowing that in the engine, makes it worse as not much pre-processed data can be reused (static lighting, bsp geometry, etc.). Or you do it (somehow) real-time.

Also this complicates the game "AI" - there is no real AI in an FPS shooter - it's simply too god damn hard. Just think about the cover system, and how laughable it would be if you have destructible surfaces, and you can see the "AI" guy trying to hide behind thinking it was a fine cover point.

Less realism, more constrained world, and better gameplay are the key components to good gaming... Not fancy graphics all the way :)

Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#8
post #3

It's going to be a while before there's another console generation. (In a sense, the Kinect and PS Move were an attempt to refresh the consoles without changing the base hardware) I haven't even heard rumors of new console development yet, so I'd guess they're at least 2-3 years out.

Not sure if this means anything but Sony has been releasing a new generation every 6 years (1994, 2000, 2006, 2012?).

Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#9
post #7

Problem is how to handle worst-case scenarios. With pre-rendered movies that might or might not be a problem, and even if it is - it's production one (e.g. you can't predict how many well for how many days you would render your movie) But for a game - this means dropping the frame rate, making it visually unappealing. That's why Ray-casting would never pick up for real-time games (Unreal most definitely is not doing…

Content will have to be increasingly procedurally generated. I worry less about the practical size of the content - to be frank, I think games will likely trend towards being rendered in whole or in part remotely, with consoles being dumb clients - than the manpower and budget required to create it.

I lament constriction - I haven't bought any of the latter games in the Call of Duty series owing to how constrained and linear they are. Games like Far Cry or Just Cause 2 are more my style; but these sandbox games tend to gain from more freedom, rather than lose.

Re cover: "all" the AI needs to do is have a desired target location such that the AI's bounding box is fully or partially contained in volumes that are not in the player's line of sight (i.e. in shadow imagining the character's head as a light source). I don't think that's an insurmountable problem.

Re: Epic Games shows jaw-dropping graphics for next-generation consoles

#10
post #3

It's going to be a while before there's another console generation. (In a sense, the Kinect and PS Move were an attempt to refresh the consoles without changing the base hardware) I haven't even heard rumors of new console development yet, so I'd guess they're at least 2-3 years out.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/microsoft-seeking-staff-fo...

Might not mean anything.

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