In a podcast, Epic founder Tim Sweeney spoke about future technological advancements in gaming. He is particularly impressed by new, photorealistic graphics.
What does Sweeney report? Tim Sweeney was a guest on the podcast “AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook,” where he discussed new technologies in the gaming sector. He shared some behind-the-scenes insights and talked about current developments at Epic Games.
His company is already very close to achieving photorealistic graphics, but primarily struggles with the representation of humans. Although the effort and costs are high, Sweeney believes it is possible to implement the technology within the next 10 years.
To that end, Epic even bought a company in 2019 that focuses solely on human representation.
Money, Faces, and Emotions are the Big Issues
What is Epic struggling with in graphics? A major problem lies, according to Sweeney, primarily in money. Because it would be possible to set high graphical standards even now, but it would not be economically viable:
Even if we can achieve all these things, we have not succeeded in implementation because it is incredibly expensive to build a truly photorealistic game.
Therefore, we have made enormous efforts in exploring the possibilities for synthetic content creation and for scanning objects from the real world.
What is the biggest problem? The major problem with photorealistic representation in video games, according to Sweeney, mainly involves humans, as our brains react strongly to emotions and facial expressions:
We have a very… sophisticated system in our brains for recognizing faces, intentions, and emotions. So, it will be a great challenge to realistically implement this in games.
To implement this, motion capture, meaning the recording of real movement patterns, plays an important role. At this point, the acquired company 3Lateral Studio, which specializes in creating “digital humans,” is expected to assist.
According to Sweeney, it is supposed to focus on generating humans of extremely high quality, both in facial expressions and in animation.
Epic Games seems to be interested in taking a pioneering role in graphics, even though its own games like Fortnite or Battle Breakers are not known for their realistic graphics.
Will we soon be unable to distinguish games from reality?
When could games become so realistic? The host of the podcast, Price, asked Sweeney at the end of the topic whether he thought it was realistic that we would see such good graphics within this decade.
Sweeney considers this entirely possible:
I think that’s within the realm of possibility. It’s unclear if we can achieve it. But I feel that with the current pace of innovation, it can happen within this timeframe.
Graphics leap with the new console generation? According to the current state, the new consoles PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are supposed to be released in 2020.
Both should offer 8K resolution, which theoretically allows for more detailed graphics. Ultimately, however, it lies with the game developers what is made of it and whether the graphics become more realistic.
