I made a video about photorealism. Really, I’m somewhat surprised how strong the response to this as been – I felt the stance I took in the episode was rather milquetoast/middle of the road, not really outright condemning photorealism nor singing its praises. *shrug*
Campster
25 Comments
Infinitron
Oct 10, 2012
I would say this video isn’t really about photorealism as such. It’s about “photo”-realistic, life-like 3D environments.
HBOrrgg
Oct 10, 2012
Maybe I’m just to used to the “representative” nature of most games, but I’ve never really encountered much of an “uncanny valley” feeling from most “realistic looking” games. Whenever I see things getting crisper or interacting with each other in a more realistic way it’s almost always come across as a positive. “Wow! What a nice little touch!” never “Ugh, this dog looks too realistic and now it’s breaking my immersion!”
Games like the Total War series, Battlefield, even the Elder Scrolls (while not without problems of their own) really have benefited from improved graphics and really do feel way more alive then their predecessors just on visuals alone.
But if you’re talking about “metaphorical representation” vs “actual depiction” then I agree that graphics will probably never fully get away from metaphor unless we get some sort of full-body, virtual reality device. A jump animation preceded by a long wind-up might look better than the “toe flick/sudden levitation” games normally use, but in practice when your only input is a single jump button the delay would be atrocious and probably wouldn’t even feel too realistic in the first place.
If everything is metaphor then, I think the big question then when it comes to realistic graphics has to be “Does this add to the one we are presenting?” The games I mentioned above do a pretty good job at this. A bad example might be some issues with the Civ series. I know a lot of people really hated how cavemen with axes could occasionally destroy a tank but even back in Civ III that never really bothered me. It was easy enough to rationalize that seeing a “warrior” unit in the 21st century didn’t really mean a caveman in a loincloth but rather some sort of cheap, ill-trained and ill-equipped militia like the taliban. But in Civ V the mechanics combined with the visuals meant that every two fights you had to watch those guys destroy one of your tanks with a spectacular explosion, even if the game treated the damage as entirely superficial and you had the capability to get it “healed” within a single turn. There was just no purpose there.
Paul Spooner
Oct 10, 2012
Hmm, see, I get this feeling all the time. The thing is, it's not immediate.
The great (and terrible) thing about graphics is that it has an immediate effect. This is why good graphics sells games. Like you said, the impact is “Wow! What a nice little touch!”
But that's just at first. Have you ever been playing Skyrim and wanted to just settle down and have a good conversation with one of the characters? You can't. They look like they might be able to do that, but the mechanics don't support it. Ever longed to just drop the main quest in Dragon Age, build a castle on a hill with your vast wealth and become the local Lord? Can't do that either. How about just chopping down a tree with your massive sword. The world LOOKS like you could do this kind of thing (I mean, there are castle and hills and vast wealth and trees right?) but it doesn't support it. The visuals bring up possibilities that are not supported by the engine.
This is why Minecraft is such a great example of visuals supporting gameplay, and also one of the reasons it is so immersive. Have you ever wanted to have a good conversation with a Testificate? Probably not, they don't really look like people, and conversations aren't really a part of Minecraft. Ever want to engage in court intrigue in Minecraft? Eh, probably not. The visuals don't promise anything (or very much) that the game can't deliver.
So, I'd say the point is very well taken that high fidelity visuals are fun to look at, but can be dissapointing if the game can't deliver on the presented world.
Digibro
Oct 10, 2012
Excellent video as usual. I think that when you talked about all the games from the early 2000s, though, there were some major oversights in games that came out here which did treat games more as animation. Those would be the PS3 exclusive trio of Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and Sly Cooper.
Obviously the use of animal characters has a lot to do with the visuals feeling cartoony, and just like most cartoony games, they’ve aged exceedingly well for early PS2 games.
Of those, Jak and Daxter moved closer, weirdly, towards photorealism, before Naughty Dog up and made Uncharted, which is one of the biggest try-hards in the industry now at achieving photorealism. Sucker Punch went onto make the more realistic Infamous games, though now they’re apparently finally making Sly 4.
Then there’s Insomniac who recently made the realistic Resistance games while still making Ratchet and Clank games. My friend told me at one point that they’d announced they were going to stop making games at 60FPS and go back to 30, because the cost was not worth the effect or something. I say good for them.
Paul Spooner
Oct 10, 2012
They are also good examples of the widely held "animation is for kids" mindset. Coupled with the (apparent) deep desire of game designers to be "taken seriously" you can easily imagine why designers of "serious games" flee from such concepts. They are mistaken of course, but still.
Narratorway
Oct 10, 2012
Man this was a disappointing video to watch.
Most disappointing was the topic of photorealism’s impact on game mechanics if only for how much of a missed opportunity it was. Frankly, the entire video should have revolved around this as it offered a lot of meat to chew on that you only tease at. You mention how photorealism would require altering mechanics in order remove abstraction inappropriate to that level of fidelity, but don’t acknowledge how that’s exactly what videogames have BEEN doing since…EVAR. Hell, you can probably make an entire video that revolves exclusively around detailing both the history and design of balancing interactive abstraction against visual fidelity. What happens when it goes wrong (QTE’s) or right (uh…the analog stick I guess?) etc. Like I said, there’s meat there to chew on.
Instead you spent over five damn minutes pointing out that the sky is blue and I was just sitting there going, “No shit Sherlock!”
*le sigh*
Look, I get it. It’s frustrating to see people (or studios) approach the topic of visual fidelity in such a juvenile manner, but pretending that it’s not just hack-market pandering to the douche-bro gamer base; pretending that they’re being sincere; that people who make games as technically complicated as our AAA market demands don’t have a grasp of the most basic level of logic…that’s not going to solve the problem. I said it on Youtube and I’ll say it here, this is an issue of marketing and perspectives. Logic has no place in those dark waters…
Paul Spooner
Oct 10, 2012
Of course, assuming bad faith on everyone's part won't get you very far either. Sure, we could say that they're all out to get us... and build a bomb shelter... but where would you get your internet service?
Also, games have not historically been very good at exploding abstraction. The best merely re-induce from experience to a lesser height (I trust you perceive the difference).
You have a good point about the importance of matching and tightly coupling presentation, mechanics, interface, setting, and narrative. I'd be interested in a video (perhaps a blip?) elaborating this very topic.
Narratorway
Oct 10, 2012
"Of course, assuming bad faith on everyone's part won't get you very far either."
I don't WANT to be cynical about it, but it's the only logical explanation. The information he spent over half that video expositing is bread-dead level obvious to anyone with even the slightest understanding of computer graphics. To think that the modern day videogame studio lead designers/programmers/etc. that mouthed the 'photorealz fo life yo!" articles this video pointed to actually don't understand that is way beyond my threshold for suspension of disbelief.
This leaves two explanations in my mind:
1) They're shilling for cred with the aforementioned douche-bro market that's responsible for the brown-out in videogames or...
2) They are using the term 'photoreal' as a sort of catch all to refer a higher level of fidelity than modern videogames are currently capable of, but don't actually mean 'can't tell between real-life and simulation'. This is obviously the less inflammatory of the two options and may even be the more likely, but it IS still a level pandering to the modern gaming culture, if only less exploitative, because it's using an inappropriate term simply because it's what gamers respond to.
In either case, this is a problem that isn't going to be solved by saying, "This won't work." That part's obvious and Chris didn't need to waste half the video explaining why in every minute detail. Being succinct in this matter would have been entirely appropriate and would have allowed for more time to deal with material that was more substantive. But he didn't, so it was an opportunity lost in my eyes, hence my only-slightly-tweeked level of ire.
Good Graphics are Bad | Project Fledgeling
Oct 10, 2012
[...] An excellent video on this topic can be found here: http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/?p=399 This entry was posted in Game Philosophy by dudecon. Bookmark the [...]
Korolev
Oct 10, 2012
I wouldn’t say that photorealistic graphics will “never” happen. They might be (probably will be) impractical, but I do think that in 50 years time they will be technically possible, even if only for one or two incredibly expensive movies or simulations. Quantum computing is closer than you’d think.
Other than that, I agree with most of your points. Photorealism certainly shouldn’t be the focus of all graphical development – although it always will be A goal because humans love to challenge the limits of what they can do. I want Photorealistic graphics simply because it would be a spectacular technical achievement.
Photorealism In Video Games – A Worthy Goal « liveware.problem
Nov 11, 2012
[...] response to Errant Signal – [...]
Anonymous Poster
Nov 11, 2012
Narratorway:
“In either case, this is a problem that isn’t going to be solved by saying, “This won’t work.” That part’s obvious and Chris didn’t need to waste half the video explaining why in every minute detail.”
This is error. Chris didn’t waste his time with the description of the state of graphical fidelity available because there are many who have no idea what engines are capable of. NONE. You do understand that the vast majority of consumers of video games aren’t in software or hardware fields and have no particular insight into the trends of the same, correct? Good information needs to be repeated, over and over, especially in the face of a culture that ignores the truth for silly or self-interested reasons.
Narratorway
Nov 11, 2012
"You do understand that the vast majority of consumers of video games aren’t in software or hardware fields and have no particular insight into the trends of the same, correct?"
You do understand they're not who this video is directed towards, correct? Unless you believe the such people also know what a procedurally animated mesh or vertices are, Ignoring that, he never mentions consumers or their perspectives in the video (which MIGHT have made for interesting analysis, but I won't knock him for avoiding it) and any outside references are all developers/studios/publishers.
Regardless, it's still over half the time spent on the video that gets no closer to a solution to the stated problem than when it started. That's a waste no matter which way ya view it.
The Occupant
Nov 11, 2012
I don’t always agree with you, but this, by god this, this I agree with.
Seriously, the notion you mentioned early on that we won’t achieve emotional fidelity until we get visual fidelity is pretty ludicrous in my view. It’s a slap in the face of every film animator ever. Many of my most emotional reactions and connections to film and television were for animation.
Narratur
Nov 11, 2012
While I agree with your assessment of how this would affect gameplay, and how there are a lot of potentially great games that don’t need “realistic” graphics, I do think you’re clinging too much to the idea that current gameplay needs to be protected. While I’ll be happy if games like we have today are always made, I think you’re too quickly dismissing the “world simulation” aspect of striving for photorealism. Is something like that not just as worthy of being advanced toward than other games? It likely won’t be anywhere near close to happening for many, many, many years, but it’s still exciting. We may not call something like that a “video game”. Maybe virtual reality. Maybe something else. But just as at first we had a sequence of related pictures flashing on a screen, and we can now record and display our world and the events in it just as we seem them on that same screen, I think simulated photorealistic worlds would be just as great a breakthrough, if not much greater, and is definitely worth working toward.
Tank Made of Paint | Project Fledgeling
Dec 12, 2012
[...] high fidelity mechanics, interface, and characters. There’s a good overview of the problem over there. I’d like to add a few [...]
Travis Bickle
Jan 1, 2013
I don’t agree with what you said about how photorealism would limit the possible worlds in games.
That’s like saying we can’t have movies such as Narnia because Dragons don’t exist.
But yeah, I do agree what what you said about how there’s too much focus on photorealism instead of original games. My favorite game from this generation was Braid. An intelligent 2D indie game.
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Jul 7, 2013
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Photorealism in Games: Is Seeing Believing? | Games Archives
Aug 8, 2013
[...] Franklin spoke about the mass desire for photorealism on his blog Errant Signal, in a video called “Photorealism”. He points out that despite what some may think, photorealism is a pipe dream. Even if we managed [...]
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