Graphic imagery

I was listening to last week's episode of The Hotspot, Gamespot's podcast, when a listener wrote in with an interesting question. They asked if, now that graphics in games are getting almost photo-realistic, developers would have to start focusing more on gameplay innovations to drive the medium forward.
First of all, I don't like the insinuation that developers are simply focusing on graphics. There has been progress in many other areas such as physics, AI, and online functionality in recent years. However, this isn't really the part of the question that I want to discuss; I'm more interested in the notion that games are getting as good as they can be, visually.

A title that certainly sticks in my mind, when discussing graphics, is Gears of War. The first major console release that used Epic's Unreal 3 engine, this title blew people away with it's amazing looking character models and environments. As good as it's graphics are, however, they are still a long way from "photo-realism".
Now, when I say "photo-realism", I mean looking at a computer generated image, and not being able to tell that it's CG. More that just that though, it still has to look real even when in motion, so physics are a part too. This is something that people are getting better at, but it's still going to be a while before they perfect it. Lets have a look at cinema for a moment. CG has become a huge part in movie making, with traditional models and special effects being gradually replaced as computers become more powerful. One could argue that this isn't a good thing, as it's usually obvious in films when CG is being used. A recent example is the new Indiana Jones movie, where computer graphics are used a lot, and just don't have the same feel as the old methods of special effects. In a scene where the characters are being chased by (CG) ants, I couldn't help but feel that it just didn't have the same impact as the insect scene in Temple of Doom, which came out 24 years beforehand.
The closest to photo-realistic graphics I think I've seen so far was in the 2007 film Beowulf. Although I never actually saw the movie, the imagery in the trailer blew me away; there is a computer generated Angelina Jolie that's really hard to tell from the real thing. This is the most impressive I've seen, but this is only in a movie; it's going to be a while before we see these kind of graphics in a video game.

An obstacle people are trying really hard to overcome is the phenomenon known as the uncanny valley. When talking about graphics, this simply states that the more realistic a character looks, the more we see the faults. For instance, back on the original Playstation, nothing looked realistic. Blocky, low definition characters and environments ensured that there was no mistaking anything for real life. However, graphics these days are a lot better but still not quite good enough, so characters can end up looking dead, or non-human. Eyes are a really difficult thing to get right (maybe because they really are a window to the soul), and this problem can make people look creepy. Just look at the 2004 movie The Polar Express to see a perfect example of this. It almost looks as though the film stars a bunch of re-animated corpses, or something like that. Instead, animators seem to be having much better luck when not trying for photo-realism, and instead just going for style, like in the 2006 film Monster House. This movie had exaggerated caricatures, instead of real looking people, and ended up looking a lot better because of it. This is the direction I think we may see game developers going to in coming years, with more cartoony styles replacing the gray and brown "realistic" graphics we're seeing a lot of these days.

The point is, graphics are long way from being as good as they can be. Even when they manage to make photo-realistic CG movies, it's still going to be a long time before we see those graphics in games. After all, there is so much more processing power involved when you have to worry about all the other aspects that go into a game, such as physics and AI. With every new console generation we are going to see improvements, but it's going to be less and less each time. I think there will come a day when graphics get about as good as they can, but this is when people have to start thinking about how they want to use those graphics. I mean, realism isn't always the right way to go. Look at some of the cell-shaded games from recent years such as Zelda: The Windwaker, or Okami to see how developers are using their graphical skills to make great looking titles in other ways. They still have many other areas to improve upon as well, before games could be mistaken for real life.

While this is a discussion that's going to continue to come up every time there is a new leap in technology, I think for now we should just enjoy games as they are because, photo-realistic or not, they're still a hell of a lot of fun!