I wonder what will happen to graphics in the near future…
First of all, you might say wow cool video and impressive video, then you can close Youtube.
Actually I downloaded the Unity3D example and run it on my Windows PC, no lie to say that I was completely shocked with the quality of the demo. I thought that there was an actual person in front of me, I think a dude there almost tried to animate his arms (though they are static models). Now that my blood pressure falls a bit, I recommend download the Unity version to anyone enthusiastic about computer graphics because video is “sort of fake experience” in comparison to a game.
One year ago I was very pessimistic about computer graphics because the “Next Gen” did not blew the audience as usual. If you are like me, you might saw a bit of dullness and dust in the new gen consoles. It’s true that the hardware has reached it’s Apex and now the road is shortening to provide rich experience to the users.
Now the good news is that out of nowhere 3DScanning has finally proven worthy to provide life-likeness to the viewers in a snap! Also keep in mind for the benefits of using forward path tracing to provide amazing lighting in your scene and you will have a mind blowing realism right in front of you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evfXAUm8D6k This is a classical example of human innovation outperforming hardware specifications, because with these two new technologies the blank will be filled and we can enjoy new graphics with the same hardware.
Some things that bother me though:
I am a hardcore gamer for more than 10 years and I have never had a problem with violence in video games, Duke Nukem, Serious Sam, Carmageddon, Quake… These were games you know, silly graphics, fantasy, fun gameplay. Not one in a million I could blame video games for youth violence. Now I reconsider, I think that playing a game so realistic will be scary as hell and then I don’t know what impact will have on the society.
Either way or another, Blender developers are geniuses and years ahead from the rest of us. I understand why there is ongoing plan to glue the game engine with Blender, no more no less, if interactive rendering seems to be gaining interest, with it also comes interactive code execution (games - simulations - movies). If you imagine how long Cycles goes on to render an image similar to the “Brigade Engine” you can see it’s very good to trade a bit of accuracy for speed. So interactive movie making, might be the key for the new era of movie making and Valve has many things to teach us. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG02JftoiLU
Who knows what will happen in the future… Stay tuned!!!