What's The Next Step to Realistic Gaming?

[bicostp]

I think they have to work on the art of imperfection. Think about it: in racing games, for example, the roads are always perfect, the cars are always perfect, the sky is always perfect... they're all perfectly perfect in every way.

They need to make things look battered and worn. In the racing game example (I'm drawing on Gran Turismo 4), the cars should recieve damage and keep it from race to race. Not just caved-in quarterpanels, either. With the newer graphics and storage capabilities, they should be able to take paint scrapes, scratches, dings, stuck-on dirt, you name it. Roadways should have crack sealer on them, some spots where the road looks like it was patched after pipe work was done, you know normal road stuff. When you think about it, road cracks and clouds and stuff can always be created by a fractal equation or something. Some of these values, such as the cracks in the road, could be stored on the hard drive or memory card or what have you.

What do you guys think the game companies have to do to make games look more like reality?

[Dr. KillGood]

Just because a game looks good manes crap.

The worst looking game can be the most fun!

PONG FTW!

[bicostp]

Obviously!

But that's not why this thread is here.

[ganonbanned]

Just because a game looks good manes crap.

The worst looking game can be the most fun!

PONG FTW!

or mortal kombat ?

PONG KOMBAT!!!!!

but I think that we have to make things look more beat-up, like bic said.

[Reaperman@home]

car games, especially rally games, have been doing a pretty good job of dirty/imperfect lately.

I'm not a big "realism" fan, but I think the best next step is getting rid of polygons and switching to something with interior data, like voxels. Nowadays game systems have the power to handle them--unlike in the late 1990's when systems really didn't. Physics is the other obvious 'next step' and now that we have usable physics hardware and engines, it's time to start using them.

but I live in a real world so I like when video games are unreal.

[timmeh87]

nfs carbon (for PC and probably 360) has real nice graphics. the roads are all cracked and stuff and. well. everything looks nice - esp. if you crank up the AA a bit.

your car only takes minor damage though, and cant be destroyed

[XPCportables]

I think they have to work on the art of imperfection. Think about it: in racing games, for example, the roads are always perfect, the cars are always perfect, the sky is always perfect... they're all perfectly perfect in every way.

They need to make things look battered and worn. In the racing game example (I'm drawing on Gran Turismo 4), the cars should recieve damage and keep it from race to race. Not just caved-in quarterpanels, either. With the newer graphics and storage capabilities, they should be able to take paint scrapes, scratches, dings, stuck-on dirt, you name it. Roadways should have crack sealer on them, some spots where the road looks like it was patched after pipe work was done, you know normal road stuff. When you think about it, road cracks and clouds and stuff can always be created by a fractal equation or something. Some of these values, such as the cracks in the road, could be stored on the hard drive or memory card or what have you.

What do you guys think the game companies have to do to make games look more like reality?

Have you seen Motorstorm. Nuff said.

[vb_master]

Half-Life 3

[Sir Games-A-Lot]

Fully interactive/destructible environments, no more just passing through those bushes, or having those AP machine gun rounds just leave little dings in Sheetrock.

[Sparkfist]

Funny VB.

Well for now Bicostp you're asking them to do the impossibe. You want GT3 graphics with crash damage. That's adding a lot more code. The only games I know of that invest that much time are GTA3 and GTA VC. If you drive around you car can take damage, not really as realistic as possible, but more so then your car bursing into flames and it still looks new. Also if you run up and down the streets while it's raining or after it is you'll see that the reflections in the puddles change with your chacter's position and you see ripples in them when he walks through them or a car drives through them.

At the momemt I don't think you can get better then that. It's just too much time and code to invest in. The only system right now that can do that is the PS3, and simply because of the game size allouded by the Blue-Ray standard disc.

[Super Cameraman]

I think racing games should be LESS realistic. The whole point of a video game is to get AWAY from the real world. Real cars take forever to go fast. Now video game cars do the same thing. I think I'm going to like Excite Truck only because it's so unrealistic, it looks really fun.

-Super

[Metroid fan]

I found excite truck to be extremely fun but you crash far too easily

[limpport]

Have you seen Motorstorm. Nuff said.

Well, no need to worry about crack sealer.


Adding imperfections probally takes way more time than the makers want to spend on them, so they skip that part.

[teraflop122]

I think a scale of perception needs to be set. That is, err, from what frame of reference are you judging the realism of an object? Beleive it or not, the landscape of Oblivion is rather exagerated, but I like it that way. Games are supposed to be fantastic! On the other hand, the trees need to look weather-worn and old, or new and fragile; the rivers should shift courses over years as different banks are eroded away; and etc.

I think the game industry needs to apply more physics to game engines. A car should not be a shape constructed of polygons, it should be constructed of hundreds of mechanical components, each with physics and traights such as stress handling actively computed by the system, and each rendered as individual components in a game engine.

It would be nice to see some good PPU's (physics processing units) break into the market, along with widespread implementation.

[Reaperman@home]

I know I've already chimed in on this one, but I've been thinking and the most immediate upgrade in video game realism will be multiple paths to an objective. I'm not talking about some plotless wonder like a GTA game or an MMORPG, those don't create enough of an experience. And a lot of games these days are starting to give you two ways to solve a problem, the "good" way and the "evil" way. Improved, but not far enough.

I'm talking about giving you a problem, and the solution to it will become incredibly obvious depending on what type of person you are. For example in Deus EX: invisible war, you have rather vague objectives with a *wide* variety of paths to get there. you need to get on the train? that's your objective but thugs have taken over the ticket window in the terminal. you can pay them off, talk your way around them, get the janitor-robot to kill them, knock on the door and charge in when they answer it, climb through a vent and drug them, or my answer, just say screw the whole situation and chuck a garbage can from the common area in front of the lasers blocking the train door and leave the thugs in the ticket area alone. And in truth, you don't really even *have* to take the train at all, that's just the easiest way to farther the plot from the last move you made. Seriously, I don't think you even have to kill a single person to beat that FPS.

most games are either too linear, or too open-ended. and I'd like to think our next jump forward would be to meet them in the middle. nothing is worse than a video game where I'm expected to "help" somebody and my only thought is "why ever would I do this?" Can't I just be on my way? The other half of video games drop you in a completely open world with no goals and you're wondering why you can't just be a drifter taking odd jobs in real life, instead of pretending to be one on the TV.