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[Black_Stride]

If you saw a human who looks like TLOU in real life you would freak the fuck out.

Thats far from photoreal.
But photorealism was never the goal, TLOU and Uncharted are basically hyper real or stylized realism.

 

[Rick Dangerous]

The chase of realistic graphics is something game industry should avoid.

The role of an artist is to interpret nature, to make some synthesis so that beauty of worlds pops out. Copying is not art. It will never be art.
Most games are ugly, like real ugly. Going to super details miss the point entirely.

So developers: hire some good artists not some mindless morons that produce 3d assets.

 

[Lasha]

HFW doesn't look real. HFW looks like a really good game. Faces and character models are more detailed than the environments. Aloy still stumbles against small hills and rocks unless they are specifically designed to traverse. Underbrush is mostly static save for the red grass.

GT7 and FH5 are similar. Both are excellent looking racing racing games. Neither captures the view from my race car. The graphics are too clean. Light looks like it is being shone through a vacuum. There is practically no dust or debris to be seen. Cars don't impact the track. FH series has the goofy quirk of cross country circuit races where stone fences, buildings, and signs are rebuilt between laps.

PC and Consoles don't have the power to render in real time what good CGI takes hours to accomplish. A clever screenshot taken in photo mode and compressed online will occasionally fool viewers but the illusion seldom holds up to longer inspection.

My follow up to you is why do you care about Photorealism? Games look great now regardless of visual style. Graphical development probably needs to rest a bit to give physics time to catch up.

 

[64bitmodels]

My follow up to you is why do you care about Photorealism?

it's that i dont care about it
i want us to 'reach the endgame' so we can focus all of the time devoted to making photorealistic assets into making more unique stuff that will change gaming forever

 

[June]

people legitimately said the same thing in the ps4 generation. it's always been bogus.

the photos in this thread are not even photorealistic.

"really impressive for a video game" does not equate to photorealism and never has

 

[PSYGN]

Not once did I mistake anything for looking real in that video. The physics are unbelievably ass, there’s literally nothing moving in the frames, straight claydoh in motion.

You're trying too hard. What does physics have to do with photorealism? That's just called realism.

 

[Fbh]

Nothing in games right now looks photorealistic. There's maybe some screenshots of some car games which you might mistake for a real photo at a first glance but on closer inspection you can still tell and in motion the whole illusion falls apart.

 

[Rubicaant]

Even the most photo realistic game still doesn't look real in motion. We still have a bit to go in shadows, lighting, atmosphere, and animation imo.

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

Metallics and the like etc sure they're approaching it these days with some specific setups and tricks.

Organics with animation like humans or interactions with objects and lighting etc? Nah, we have eons of evolutionary instincts that still make this uncanny valley territory and will for a very long time still.

 

[ReBurn]

I remember being impressed by the character models in Mass Effect back in the day. I felt like that was the closest to photorealism we'd come in a video game. Looking back it's kind of funny but it was one of the wow moments of the HD generation for me. I think models have come a long way but in-game photorealism hasn't really been done yet. The closest I think we have at the moment is what we can see in photo mode when all of the system resources are going toward rendering one scene.

I'm not really all that excited for photorealism in games. I mind of like the hint of fantasy we have in the current state of gaming. I think it keeps things grounded.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

We reached photo realism with flight sim. Also that anesterdam level in COD. Some other games can be photo realistic in moments. Photo realism shouldn’t be the goal but scale and scope. Let’s get a game that looks like TLOU2 with the scope of Skyrim…that’s a bigger feat than games that look better and better without growing scope.

 

[MasterDerico]

The first image and the forest are great, then go downhill!

 

[Haggard]

it's quite subjective what is or isn't photorealistic.

Nonsense ²
We all live in the same physical reality. The only thing subjective here is ignoring the actual definition of photorealistic or not....

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

You're trying too hard. What does physics have to do with photorealism? That's just called realism.

What's happening in motion is equally as important; That's why in film they hire animators.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I think this is getting there

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Lol OP.

Aside form the stuff that isn't actually in game, the other stuff you posted falls apart as soon as there is any movement.

Game consoles are behind consumer enthusiast amateur animator rigs that cost $3000 that can barely produce photo realistic graphics and they are much closer than a Series X or PS5.

Most likely in 20 years the first games to get close will be racing games because it will be the easiest to do, assuming they go for closed linear circuit tracks and not open exploration.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

But have we reached toy story graphics??? /s

I'm still waiting for my Nintendo 64 to be able to render the Terminator 2 movie graphics.

 

[Captain Toad]

I’m still waiting for a retail video game on the market to surpass the geometry in the original Toy Story, and this is from 1995.

Are you drunk?

 

[Rat Rage]

There is nothing more boring than photorealism in video games. I think a lot of people started playing video games as a form of escapism, so what's the point of realism? Where are people going to escape to if everything becomes photorealistic in videogames? They are going to escape from reality into... reality?
If photorealism is the ultimate goal of all graphical power, then graphical power and the striving for it is a huge failure, a huge waste of money and time, because I think it's destroying the essence of what videogames should be: a fun way of escapism and stimulation of one's imagination.

 

[rofif]

I’m still waiting for a retail video game on the market to surpass the geometry in the original Toy Story, and this is from 1995.

Even in a still photo without any motion retail videogames look fucking horrible compared to modern day cgi -

There is no retail videogame anywhere close to this man, and this just a single god damn frame; When this movie animates in motion forget it.

This 64 bit m’fer is just ridiculous. Our chances were better with closing the gap with offline CG when we had developers like Crytek actually pushing graphics technology on the PC, but now that we’re stuck with these shitty ass console developers, it’s going to be a long wait my man.

Lol you are nuts. Games looked way better than toy soy for years.

 

[rofif]

Doesn't look photorealistic to me...

It’s not trying to. Bad example

 

[thekillergreece]

This looks good, no?

Spoiler

 

[Mibu no ookami]

It’s not trying to. Bad example

This looks like shit compared to most of the other character models.

 

[adamsapple]

Doesn't look photorealistic to me...

Yeahhhh that was mediocre even by PS4 standards.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Also worth mentioning the concept of "realtime" rendering and "offline" rendering.

We may be able to get pretty accurate results offline, but realtime requires tons of hacks to get fast rendering.

 

[March Climber]

What I've discovered is that they could potentially look photorealistic today, but the issue is that everyone is aiming for perfection when most of the time we view real life through imperfections. All it takes is a simple tweak to how these games are viewed by us and it can make one of the biggest changes. Here are good examples:

 

[bender]

Immortality is indistinguishable from real life.

 

[light2x]

My mum would.

Your mum once mistook my member for a lollipop.

 

[Inanilmaz]

Little Big Planet in 2008 had photorealistic graphics.

 

[Drizzlehell]

Uncanny valley human characters is where it falls apart. Even movies still can't quite nail that aspect and you can almost always spot that it's a fake person. And video games aren't even anywhere close to what they do in the movies still.

 

[Lumpyoatmeal]

The same weirdo’s again? Yeah, both of y’all getting that ignore button.

Where the real ones at, holla at your boy for real, for real.

 

[K' Dash]

I’m just going to name once example, cause a lot of people have covered what I was going to say.

When we have characters that don’t look like lifeless mannequins out of cutscenes, I guess we’ll have moved one step forward.

Then again, same shit but prettier is what we have now, because people get uncomfortable when the creators challenge them with exciting new mechanics, people want to smash a button and look awesome, this is ruining the industry.

Fuck the visuals, give me innovation.

 

[Celcius]

We need ray tracing in more games for one thing. The average game still doesn't have it.

 

[KXVXII9X]

The chase of realistic graphics is something game industry should avoid.

The role of an artist is to interpret nature, to make some synthesis so that beauty of worlds pops out. Copying is not art. It will never be art.
Most games are ugly, like real ugly. Going to super details miss the point entirely.

So developers: hire some good artists not some mindless morons that produce 3d assets.

I think from looks alone, Fortnite looks stunning while still being stylistic. The added technological improvements just enhanced the art direction. I still shudder at super realistic looking characters and worlds, and they are so stiff and lifeless. A lot of these games don't put as much focus into animations, physics, A.I., and art and sound direction. I do think a lot of stuff being made recently has less artistic touch than it used to. Callisto Protocol looks mostly photorealistic but looks so boring. Signalis is more interesting artistically.

 

[March Climber]

We need ray tracing in more games for one thing. The average game still doesn't have it.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

There is way too much focus on pushing polygon count, textures, etc when what matters 100x more for realism is things like environmental interaction, removing gamified artificial barriers and paths, having weighty are real physics for all objects and items, killing the constant clipping of cloth and hair, making characters and enemies move naturally rather than on obvious tracks or just hanging around waiting like they're in a video game world, and so on.

I always laugh when some calls a game semi-photorealistic or amazing, and then you watch 30 seconds of footage and see that the player's legs pass through foliage like it isn't there, invisible barriers make a caged path, items don't interact physically, etc. BOTW did environmental interaction better than most games that pushed high-end graphics, and it still feels better as a consequence.

Probably the most "real" game I've played is Alyx, by far. I was playing through some mod levels just yesterday for the first time in a while and was simply mesmerized by how real objects feel when they interact, even the little bump of your gun against any and all surfaces.

 

[jigglet]

OP what are you smoking.

That star wars movie where they had a full recreation of general tarkin is probably some of the best our tech has been able to push it yet it's still clearly CG.

If you can't tell the difference between a game and live action you are blind. And no that doesn't include static photos of cars in GT or whatever.

The difference is still stark as hell. We're ages away from not being able to tell the difference.

 

[March Climber]

OP what are you smoking.

That star wars movie where they had a full recreation of general tarkin is probably some of the best our tech has been able to push it yet it's still clearly CG.

If you can't tell the difference between a game and live action you are blind. And no that doesn't include static photos of cars in GT or whatever.

The difference is still stark as hell. We're ages away from not being able to tell the difference.

I thought they did a decent job more recently with young Luke.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

If you saw a human who looks like TLOU in real life you would freak the fuck out.

Thats far from photoreal.
But photorealism was never the goal, TLOU and Uncharted are basically hyper real or stylized realism.

In fact, it scares me, just look at Tess from the remake... She looks like a wrinkled witch from Snow White.

 

[Syphon Filter]

photorealism is boring, I prefer if gaming isnt that.

 

[coffinbirth]

Not to be a dick, but if that stuff looks like real life to you, you need to get out more.

 

[Shift!]

Photorealism is a visually distinct style that depicts life the way our eyes perceive it.

Realism is a style that depicts life in a way that we understand it.

Games haven't reached photorealism yet because the way we perceive life is too fine and complex to separate into polygons. We can only create shades or small versions of what photorealism describes.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

guess we need to wait for AAAAA games

 

[Knightime_X]

Personally, I think it's awesome how we reached FMV quality graphics and then surpassed that.
Can't really give 2 shits about hyper photorealism.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I’ve never really been that impressed by racing games. For years the paper crowds looked kinda tacky, but I’ve never been super impressed by the game. It’s metal and then the road looks like a solid texture at times. Unless sometime pointed it out, they’d all look the same.

 

[Balducci30]

Nothing has looked photo real to me, maybe with full on pathtraced lighting we’ll get there? But even film cgi doesn’t look photoreal sometimes

 

[levyjl1988]

We are far from photo realism, I mean developers are still struggling with Pop in issues in modern video games at the moment.

 

[geary]

 

[ChoosableOne]

Who wants photorealism in games? The graphics of the games are better, the colors are more vivid. Facial animations could be better though.

 

[RCU005]

There is a video comparing the physics from GTA4 and GTA5. GTA4 being a PS3 is far superior, and that’s something Onwould want mucho more from PS5 than photorealism.

Horizon, The Last of Us and God of War May look amazing, but the graphics are like static. It’s like a painting because you can’t interact with almost anything.

We should go back to emphasize physics and AI as it was with PS3.