[HN Gopher] The Matrix Awakens: Unreal Engine 5 Techdemo [video]
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The Matrix Awakens: Unreal Engine 5 Techdemo [video]
Author : WithinReason
Score : 236 points
Date : 2021-12-10 09:53 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| There is something really weird and psychotic about, here's this
| technology that lets you render anything you can imagine in any
| way you can imagine, and what we keep trying to do is copy the
| way we already perceive the world as closely as possible. I
| wonder if this urge to copy reality is borne out of our
| biological urge to reproduce. Otherwise why would we find
| something as boring and unimaginative as photorealism so
| pleasing?
| lostgame wrote:
| ...'The Matrix' is based off a real-life movie.
|
| If they are trying to make a game based off that universe, with
| the same actors/actresses, why would they not aim for the most
| realistic possible portrayal possible?
|
| Your statement also ignores phenomenal games like Flower,
| Journey, NiGHTS Into Dreams - your statement even excludes the
| _Mario_ series. Even 'Halo' has imaginative worlds that can
| benefit from photorealism.
|
| Photorealism does not remove creativity. It's also a standard,
| a boundary to which digital artists have aspired to since the
| beginning of the medium.
|
| You might as well ask why realist painting is a thing?
| libertine wrote:
| Because it's familiar and uses references, contexts and symbols
| we understand.
|
| I also wonder if it's cheaper.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Indeed, that is the answer. People need something that they
| can relate to, otherwise they will just shrug and move on.
| This is why in all sci-fi movies about the far future, that
| future in many ways always looks suspiciously like today; it
| is not for the lack of imagination on the part of the author,
| the goal here is precisely to leave some points of reference
| and prevent the audience from losing interest. (Hidden
| advertisement and product placement plays not a small role
| here as well.)
| marstall wrote:
| even more psychotic: the real world but you get to kill anyone
| you want, and violence and death is basically the main focus of
| everything that happens in the world.
| mattstudio wrote:
| I totally agree. Any recommendations of games with great
| visuals that don't focus on killing? I'd love to experience
| amazing virtual worlds without gameplay involving weapons.
|
| All I can think of are sports games like FIFA, or side quests
| in Red Dead Redemption. Any other suggestions?
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| The Forgotten City, My Summer Car, Quantic Dream's games,
| Supermassive's games, Cloudpunks, Mind Scanners, Sable,
| Obduction, Superliminal, Eastward, Beautiful Desolation,
| Dropsy, If On A Winter's Night Four Travelers, Desert
| Child, Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, Legend of Hand,
| Draugen, Felix The Reaper, Firewatch, The Talos Principle,
| The Witness
|
| I am interepreting great visuals broadly to include great
| art direction, but there are some very nice looking
| realistic 3D games in that list
|
| Some other ones that I don't particularly care for but that
| many people love: Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Return of the
| Obra Dinn
|
| There are also many great games that feature combat as a
| core mechanic but are no more "about it" than The Odyssey
| or The Seven Samurai are. For example: Yakuza 0, Kenshi,
| INSOMNIA: The Ark, Vampyr, Valakas Story, Pathologic 2,
| Ghost of a Tale, A Plague Tale
| native_samples wrote:
| We don't - Fortnite and Minecraft are good examples of hit
| games that don't look photo real deliberately.
|
| The Matrix demo is set in a city because (a) that's where the
| Matrix is set, and (b) it's relatively "easy" to do photo-
| realism in a city because you can use actual photos, and
| because other than the people the objects are reflective shiny
| boxes or surfaces.
| yetihehe wrote:
| It's about pushing boundaries. Creative people see a boundary -
| they want to push it. Up until very recently it was about "how
| much polygons and textures you can put on screen". Now it's
| about "how real can you make it". Once we routinely get to the
| other side of uncannny valley and everything is real enough, we
| will see another boundary and creative people will push that
| instead.
| cardosof wrote:
| I guess that's because we're just using the benchmark we have.
| If it looks like what we see in the real world and it fools us,
| then it's good!
| marcodiego wrote:
| As is said in the demo, stay away from marketing people.
| hn8788 wrote:
| I think that may be a reference to Cyberpunk 2077, which Keanu
| also starred in, being a disappointment based on the marketing.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Seriously. This is just a shoot 'em up with nice graphics.
| ggambetta wrote:
| I'm not sure I should watch it. I've been actively avoiding
| trailers and any kind of spoiler of the movie. Does this contain
| spoilers? Or is it more like the Animatrix was to the sequels
| (e.g. provide valuable context before watching the movie)?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There are no spoilers of any kind. It is essentially completely
| disconnected from any of the actual films other than featuring
| avatars for two of the lead characters and revealing agent
| behavior that was made clear before the middle of the first
| Matrix film.
| imdsm wrote:
| Turns out we're now living in the future
| amai wrote:
| But game characters still walk as if they have a broken hip
| implant.
| souldragon wrote:
| While the technology is extremely impressive, I often find we
| over doing it to the point of un-canniness. For example, the
| dithering in the explosion/bullet effects appears to be confound
| with the over-sharping. As well, many of the effects are over
| done with the intensity of the particles and size of them. The
| gloss of the cars are extremely aggressive to show off the ray-
| tracing technology but it make the cars look goofy. I can see the
| de-noising failing with some surfaces because they are using ray-
| tracing as many places as possible.
|
| I feel we already close to reality, but are in-human desire to
| over-crank things to justify the huge performance hits or showing
| off some these features is hurting us. Games that I see that
| don't jump largely from medium to ultra are often because they
| softly layer the effects to the point where it's not noticeable
| at first glance, but as time goes on it builds up immersion.
|
| Detail is amazing, the technology is insane, and the attention to
| detail is jaw-dropping, I don't want to undermine the impressive
| work both from a technology as well as hard work implementing it.
| new_guy wrote:
| This is incredible. It's actually better than some released
| games, I've been driving around the city for a while now and it's
| so real!
|
| What I would like not just for this but games in general is more
| interaction with the environment, you see a building, you can go
| into it. You see a bench you can sit down etc.
|
| The realism only lasts until you try to do something out of
| bounds then it's just a reminder that it's all pretty
| superficial.
|
| But yeah this will be a day one buy when the full game/experience
| is released!
| headmelted wrote:
| Just played through this on PS5 on a decent OLED. It does not
| look like this video.
|
| It's impressive, but I'm skeptical this video is real-time on a
| PS5, certainly I doubt this is at 4K - the jaggies when I ran
| this were everywhere.
|
| It was worse in the city demo after the action sequence.
| Certainly a lot going on, but in terms of the trade-off, it was
| visually quite obvious where the costs are side-by-side with
| Miles Morales on it's PRT mode and for a real game the later
| would almost certainly be better overall.
|
| Hopeful people will get more out of it in future, but wanted to
| temper expectations here from the video.
|
| EDIT: Just found the signpost to enable real-time night mode with
| Lumen. Wow. It's clearly still struggling to run on a PS5 but
| it's not _that_ far away from where it would need to be. And when
| it 's not struggling with jaggies/framerate it's pretty jaw-
| dropping.
| me_me_me wrote:
| Its possible that it was recorded on dev ps5, those machines
| are more powerful. And you can get away calling it 'runs on
| ps5'.
|
| Marketing people are at it again
| maybeOneDay wrote:
| Source on dev machines being more powerful?
|
| I wasn't aware that was common practice. I assume this is for
| ease of playtesting a game before any optimisation phases
| have happened? I wonder whether it has a setting to convert
| down to actual PS5 power levels.
|
| > And you can get away calling it 'runs on ps5'.
|
| Of course. Sigh...
| tapoxi wrote:
| Typically they aren't more powerful, but they have more RAM
| to assist with debugging
| me_me_me wrote:
| Dont have a direct source, but was told that few times by
| my gamedev friends who work on those.
|
| ...
|
| here i googled it for you
|
| https://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/ps5-dev-kit-vs-
| playstat...
| MikusR wrote:
| The video says that it was captured on Xbox series X and PS5.
| Series X is faster than ps5
| satysin wrote:
| I played with it for about an hour on an LG C8 55" OLED and was
| impressed.
|
| I think it is pretty clear there is a level of detail
| difference between the 'white room' scenes with Neo and the
| 'city'.
|
| I would be shocked if the 'white room' scenes where not fully
| motion captured and then transposed into 3D models to run in
| engine. A _bit_ unfair as while it may be real time rendered it
| is fully scripted. The player has no control. It is essentially
| a movie converted into a 3D environment then optimised to hell
| and back with pixel corrections where needed.
|
| However the 'city' environment is quite stunning with
| incredible level of detail and you can free roam either
| walking/driving around the street or fly by. Really quite
| something to play about with the real time rendering pipeline
| to see the triangle make up, etc of every object or adjust the
| position of the sun in the sky, etc.
|
| A lot of fun. Reminded me a lot of when I first got to play
| Spider-man on the PS4 and just swing around the city. Will be
| great to see where this leads in a year or two once devs have
| really had time to get a feel for how everything works.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > I would be shocked if the 'white room' scenes where not
| fully motion captured
|
| The animations don't look that good to me, nowhere near
| mocap. The weird arms movements alone scream "video game"
| darkteflon wrote:
| I also just played this through on a PS5 and an OLED and was
| blown away. Don't think I've ever been so impressed with a
| virtual world before.
|
| The moment that drove it home for me was flying up into the
| sky, striking out in a random direction, flying to the roof of
| a building and zooming right up to a cluster of pipes and
| seeing individual rivets accurately modelled. All of this, for
| a 10 minute demo.
|
| This is a staggering achievement, by all accounts made possible
| by some pretty amazing new tooling. Genuinely baffled that
| anyone could fail to be impressed by this.
|
| Edit: don't forget to open up the menu and play around with the
| lighting, crowd, AI settings, etc.
| ksec wrote:
| >Genuinely baffled that anyone could fail to be impressed by
| this.
|
| I was much more impressed by Battlefield 2042 graphics when I
| first saw it. So while this looks "good", may be I was
| expecting much more. But then again we are limited by
| Hardware so I guess I have too high of an expectation.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| Those rivets probably aren't modelled, they'll be
| reconstructed from volume information in the texture. Which
| is still impressive and a great way of dealing with that type
| of geometric detail, but it has limitations, and the engine
| isn't processing actual models at that level of detail.
|
| You can still do stuff like that in UE4. Have a look at
| what's possible with Quixel Mixer, you can create detail like
| that surprisingly quickly. I'd tentatively argue that
| modelling tools are the real MVP when it comes to increased
| geometric LOD in modern engines. They allow you to add that
| kind of detail quickly enough that it becomes economical to
| actually detail rivets.
|
| Either way, it's very cool. The crowd simulation stuff is
| going to be useful, current tooling there absolutely sucks
| outside of a few very expensive dedicated products.
| darkteflon wrote:
| It's very cool. I bet Digital Foundry takes an in-depth
| look - can't wait.
|
| After reading your comment I went back in to the demo to
| have another look at the rivets up close. In the options
| menu, you can switch the viewport so that it shows you the
| triangles that make up object geometry under the "Nanite"
| system. Would be interested to hear from anyone with access
| to the demo and the right background what they make of
| this.
|
| Edit: I took a couple of screenshots of default view vs
| Nanite triangles view but not sure what the convention is
| on HN for where to host them. Happy to put them up if
| someone can clue me in.
|
| Edit: I've just put the screenshots up
| [here](https://imgur.com/a/2FMpLJa) and a ~30 sec vid
| [here](https://youtu.be/s1PUCadh1TU), showing cycling
| through the viewport modes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Host them where ever you like, but hopefully something
| resilient to a hug of death.
|
| I hear tweet threads are really appreciated /s
| jameshart wrote:
| If this UE5 demo is using Nanite, then it really may well
| just be modeled geometry.
|
| Nanite really blurs the line between geometry and texture -
| in a sense it's a shader that uses triangle mesh data as if
| it were a texture source.
|
| This siggraph session will expand your mind:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eviSykqSUUw
| MillenialMan wrote:
| I stand corrected! Thanks for the link, that's very cool.
| tapoxi wrote:
| I'm impressed but I think Spider-Man/Miles Morales on the PS5
| handle it better. What I gather from this demo is that UE has
| made these AAA features easily accessible to more developers,
| and that Nanite means that artists will need to worry less
| about LOD for the assets they create.
|
| Some downsides, the "metahuman" face modeling isn't great, it
| seems very uncanny valley compared to titles like The Last of
| Us II. There's some obvious framerate issues during the car
| chase scene where I wouldn't be surprised if it dipped into
| the 20s.
| cma wrote:
| > Some downsides, the "metahuman" face modeling isn't
| great, it seems very uncanny valley compared to titles like
| The Last of Us II.
|
| I think each character in last of us 2 is a custom scan and
| artist creation. Metahumans is made from an amalgam of
| scans and lets you parameterize the face (adjust everything
| with sliders) so it is a much harder problem.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > the jaggies when I ran this were everywhere.
|
| Unfortunately if you watch it on something other than the
| rendering device you are very likely to be seeing through a
| video compression/decompression cycle. Providers like YouTube
| are notorious for rescaling the compression to match the
| current qualities of the channel. Just a big caveat when
| looking for rendering artifacts because they may be
| indistinguishable from compression artifacts.
|
| Note that "playing it on a PS5" is meaningless unless you had
| demo software. The PS5 has a YouTube player and it's not
| representative of your in-game experience.
| boardwaalk wrote:
| There is an actual demo out you can download:
| https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10004087/
|
| I do not think they were talking about watching the video on
| their PS5...
| vmception wrote:
| Glad you got the settings to work to improve your experience,
| now also imagine waiting 5 years for developers to really
| optimize and innovate how they use this engine and the PS5's
| resources.
|
| Going to be funny listening to elitist PC gamers talk about how
| inferior everything still looks by then, even though they just
| play nostalgic pixel art games on Steam all day.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Considering the diff between a pc and ps5 is fairly minimal
| other than the storage i/o. PCs are already 1-2 gens ahead in
| CPU and GPU. Any sort of optimizations/tweaks they make for
| the PS5 are going to be on the PC very quickly as the archs
| are basically the same. Now I own a lot of different consoles
| and have in the past built my own PC. However, these days the
| difference between gaming on a console and PC is so 'same' I
| have not bothered to buy this generation of consoles (I
| usually get 30-50 games for each console and generation). The
| switch is probably the most innovative for this generation.
| With the xbox and ps5 being hardware locked PC's and some
| interesting exclusives. But it looks like I am going to be
| buying uncharted 4 again :)
| gmadsen wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the value proposition is that for $500 you
| can play state of the art games, compared to $1500 for a pc
| to do the same. Also not sure what unique benefits the PS5
| ssd i/o will have. This is currently not something you can
| do with consumer pc components
| sumtechguy wrote:
| A PS5 and a PC of the same specs is comparable in price.
| Also a PS5 is currently 1000-1200 depending on bundle.
| The I/O bit with ps5 is interesting for loadtimes and
| open world games, though it is getting tougher to buy a
| PC without nvme. The current xbox looks interesting, but
| MS is basically pushing 'also release on PC'. Like I said
| I have owned many generations of consoles. However, this
| gen I am finding it tough to justify also getting one in
| addition to my PC. Even the PS4 before it I bought only
| because of one silly unique game that was not on PC but
| on every console. Something like the n64 when it came out
| vs the PC it was a no brainer and 'here take my money'. I
| am not getting that with this gen of consoles. If you
| want a console over a PC go for it, seriously. I
| personally am finding the distinction hard to justify
| with the current gen of consoles.
| gmadsen wrote:
| Obviously use the pc if you have it. My point is entirely
| for the case of having neither. It is patently untrue you
| can get a full pc capable of running ps5 quality games in
| the price range of a ps5
| kahrl wrote:
| "A PS5 and a PC of the same specs is comparable in
| price." What?. No. A PlayStation 5 digital edition
| retails for $399.99. What Celeron powered hunk of junk
| are you able to put together for $399.99?
| rvnx wrote:
| On which planet this pricing applies ? In Estonia (north-
| east of Europe) it's 1000 to 1200 USD in the shops.
|
| https://www.hinnavaatlus.ee/1891263/sony-
| playstation-5-digit...
| cma wrote:
| Pci-e 4 + directsorage hardware decompression can do
| similar rates. What you can't get is integrated CPU/GPU
| memory on GPUs this fast, but you can get way faster GPUs
| and CPUs.
| somebee wrote:
| I played through it myself and tbh I think the video doesn't do
| it justice. I haven't been this blown away in years. Until I
| got to take over the controls I was utterly convinced there had
| to be pre-rendered video thrown into the mix.
|
| If you have a compatible console I'd really recommend checking
| it out!
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Agreed. I was really hoping they'd release this sort of product
| on PCs with a "here's what we want in 5 years" level of power.
| Only high end machines would even be able to run it, but i want
| to see their vision for future fidelity.
|
| The textures looked super flat to me in this, the world looked
| decent, but all together i _hoped_ the PS5 was holding their
| tech down.. because i expected more. Nanite (codename for high
| model density rendering) examples previously were _much_ better
| in my view. Eg: https://youtu.be/U-dRBjqAGgI
| lm28469 wrote:
| > It does not look like this video.
|
| It's always been like that for demos and promo videos. Sometime
| they straight up run the demo on a PC with crazy specs while
| pretending it's running a console.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/cagcr
| robbedpeter wrote:
| The Uncanny Valley effect is very apparent with Carrie-Ann Moss,
| but virtually nonexistent with Keanu Reeves. For some reason this
| is hilarious to me.
| gigatexal wrote:
| A video I saw for this looked like it was using an Xbox
| controller.
|
| Perhaps the video I saw was on a PC with a 3090 or something
| insane like that.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Cool, but the problem is people ( marketing department included )
| extrapolate this tech demo into something more, and we all know
| how that ends..
|
| Maybe the most recent one is Cyberpunk 2077 and there were many
| reasons for that disaster other than the "tech", but it always
| ends with a couple million angry people robed and a few hundred
| burned-out employees with long lasting mental issues.
|
| Cool demo, but nothing more.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I might have been lucky (decent system) but I got through
| Cyberpunk 2077 fine, was not bug free but I enjoyed it, put
| like 100hrs into it over Dec 2020.
| smusamashah wrote:
| I think the first part with Long Haired Keanu is all filmed. He
| has all the details on his face and his face wobbles the way it
| does in real life. Same goes for the wrinkles on his shirt when
| he is touching the sofa.
|
| The neo that wakes up in front of computer didn't look real. Also
| when he transformed to his young self, that immediately looked
| bad and definitely CGI.
|
| The statement at start of video is not fair (a lie).
| quincunx wrote:
| The tech is pretty, not sure it works as a demonstration of
| gameplay though.
|
| For some reason this strongly reminds me of The typing of the
| Dead. A "Typing of the Matrix" would fit the theme quite nicely!
| M4v3R wrote:
| I don't think the gameplay was what they focused on here, this
| demo was meant to be a showcase of graphical/physics features
| that Unreal Engine 5 has.
| tscherno wrote:
| 3DMark 2001 Lobby Sequence:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E14Kt1ynvic
| croes wrote:
| Hall Of Mirrors | Equilibrium mod for Max Payne 2
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvvkmfVPppY
| zigzag312 wrote:
| It would be awesome, if 3DMark would remake the Lobby Sequence
| with the latest tech :D
| dntrkv wrote:
| Oh wow that brought back some memories. Overclocking my Pentium
| 4 Northwood paired with a 6800gt then running that benchmark,
| followed by Super PI, and then making sure it's stable with
| Prime 95. Spent so much time running those benchmarks.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| I love this trend of PS5/Unreal engine flexing for movies/music.
|
| The Radiohead art exhibit was amazing. They do an interactive art
| piece with "How to Disappear Completely", "Pyramid Song" and "You
| and whose Army".
|
| Serious amount of work goes into these, I'm sure and it's great
| to use the console for something other than FIFA.
| bullen wrote:
| Realism is not the goal. Freedom is the goal.
|
| The hero movies hollywood keeps churning out make no sense in a
| meatspace world where you can build, own and be god; in your own
| virtual world.
|
| The goal is to build the real matrix (or oasis, the name hardly
| matters), and you cannot build it with high polycount or large
| textures.
|
| The future looks more like Minecraft or Roblox, like it or not.
| shakow wrote:
| I disagree: video games do not have to converge on a single
| genre. Sometimes I feel energetic and ready for a brain
| challenge and I fire up Factorio, sometimes I want to play
| super-chess and I launch a Gary Grigsby game; sometimes I want
| to just immerse myself in another world and/or culture and I
| play Blackbook/Witcher/ACS, sometimes I'm ready for some fun
| with friends and it's CS:GO or R6, or Il-2 when I want the
| flying version of it; finally, when I want to just enjoy a good
| story, then it's time for Witcher or Metro.
|
| I don't see why this diversity should disappear.
| bullen wrote:
| Diversity will still exist, but the internets native content
| will be open action 3D MMO.
|
| Apply that to all the examples you mentioned and imagine what
| that means!
|
| And you can still make a fire and send smoke signals if you
| wish!
|
| Lots of (old) people enjoy old pass times.
| dgritsko wrote:
| > the internets native content will be open action 3D MMO
|
| Citation needed. What do you think will make this an
| inevitability?
| bullen wrote:
| Because that's what we see evolve?
|
| From Everquest to PUBG which are the two only adult
| evolvers.
|
| You can tell by looking at what they changed by how
| copied they became.
|
| And Minecraft and Roblox which are the young evolvers.
|
| Nobody has managed to copy Minecraft and Roblox
| successfully yet and the AAA studios are stuck in a grind
| making meaningless sequels.
|
| But then if you look at the technology, you see that
| theres an obvious combination that is missing: Everquest
| - RPG + physical action gameplay like mario/zelda +
| modability of Roblox/Minecraft.
|
| The final game (engine).
| krastanov wrote:
| Single player cinematic games (without much freedom, not open
| world) are lovely experiences. Sure, I enjoy unwinding in
| Minecraft, but you seem weirdly dismissive of single player
| games with good writing. Some such games are cartoonist and
| wonderful, some are photorealistic and wonderful, and some are
| going beyond realism into something completely new (also
| wonderful).
|
| As long as we still enjoy reading good books, we probably will
| continue enjoying watching good movies and playing good single
| player games.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Realism is not the goal. Freedom is the goal.
|
| Says who? There is place out there for both Minecraft and for
| extremely high detail one-off experiences, we aren't destined
| to all move into the Oasis.
|
| >>The goal is to build the real matrix
|
| Again - says who? Who has that goal?
| bullen wrote:
| It's the natural evolution of the internet as a medium.
| Technology is always born without content and leeches off
| older technologies content.
|
| Theater -> Books
|
| Music -> Radio
|
| Books + Radio -> Movies
|
| Movies + Books -> TV
|
| Movies + TV -> Games
|
| So far we have used books and movies as content, but the
| internets native content is an open action 3D MMO, it just
| takes time for new mediums to develop their own content type.
|
| Why have a linear hardcoded storyline when the users can live
| out their own stories in the game?
|
| I know it might be hard to see now, but we don't have the
| energy to not build it.
|
| Also kids lead the way, and TV does not exist in their world,
| they call that YouTube and Twitch.
|
| And while movies might be fun for them, the time spent in
| Movies vs. Minecraft + Roblox is an approximation error.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>Why have a linear hardcoded storyline when the users can
| live out their own stories in the game?
|
| Because a lot of people seem to enjoy exactly this - 10-30
| hours of a very linear, hand crafted experience, not
| sandbox "you can do anything" kind of experience.
|
| >>I know it might be hard to see now, but we don't have the
| energy to not build it.
|
| I don't even understand what that sentence means, to be
| honest with you. I work for one of the largest video games
| companies in the world and we somehow still build both
| sandbox as well as single-player focused games.
|
| >>Also kids lead the way, and TV does not exist in their
| world, they call that YouTube and Twitch.
|
| Kids have zero purchasing power, and it's the money which
| decides what to make. Your "average" gamer, by industry's
| own stats, is a 20-30 year old male, who owns a console,
| and buys exactly 3 games a year - latest Fifa, latest CoD,
| and one other game(and companies spend hundreds of millions
| of dollars on marketing to occupy that 3rd spot).
|
| Minecraft and Roblox are as big as they are not only
| because they are good games, but also because they are
| fantastic at extracting money from parents _through_
| children. Trying to figure out the future of gaming by
| looking at those two is like saying that future of movie
| making and holywood is animated cartoon short stories,
| since Peppa The Pig is unbelivably popular with kids.
| bullen wrote:
| The PS5 is basically a paper weight with these
| electricity prices.
|
| So what happens when these kids grow up and don't have to
| nag their parents?
| gambiting wrote:
| >>The PS5 is basically a paper weight with these
| electricity prices.
|
| Again, not sure what you mean - PS5 uses very very little
| power compared to a gaming PC, about 200W under load - my
| own GPU uses about 300W and that's without the rest of
| the system. An hour of gameplay on the PS5 costs about
| PS0.05, and that's if you hit the electricity cap and are
| not on a fixed tariff. At my prices it's more like a two
| pence per hour. If these expenses turn your PS5 into a
| paperweight, I have to question how were you able to
| afford one in the first place.
|
| And in addition - not sure what PS5 has to do with this?
|
| >>So what happens when these kids grow up and don't have
| to nag their parents?
|
| They buy whatever they like, not sure what you are trying
| to suggest here.
| throwaway17_17 wrote:
| I have seen the 'gamers buy 3 games' stated by various
| people before. Do you happen to know off hand what
| percentage of gamers that applies too. I am trying to
| figure out if I am just a rounding error when publishers
| and devs are trying to pitch and develop new games.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well, so few extra things:
|
| 1) it's an industry average, so some people will only buy
| a console to play Fifa with their mates and literally
| never buy anything else, some people buy loads of games,
| but the average across the the industry is 3 games per
| year, and those games are extremely likely to be the ones
| listed above(in fact the 3rd one is usually, more often
| than not, a copy of GTA 5, as crazy as this is)
|
| 2) It only applies to people spending money. So if you
| just play WoW and nothing else, and never buy any new
| games, you aren't even counted.
|
| 3) Not all gamers are equally interested in all games. So
| of course a developer of a small indie game probably
| isn't aiming for the same crowd of Fifa/CoD buyers. Just
| like a small film director isn't making a decision on
| whether to make a movie based on whether they can compete
| with Marvel - they usually have different crowds. So yes,
| if you are predominantly interested in short, single
| player experiences in the PS20 range, then probably no
| one at EA or Activision is pitching games for your crowd
| - but there will be other developers who do, and for whom
| you are the #1 target audience.
| andrepd wrote:
| > Kids have zero purchasing power
|
| This is obviously absurd, or else there wouldn't be
| billions of dollars in advertising toys and kids games
| every Christmas season. They might not directly have
| purchasing power but they have it indirectly by
| convincing parents to buy stuff.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yes, and these two aren't the same. (Young) kids have
| zero purchasing power, but like I said, Minecraft and
| Roblox are the behemoths they are because they are good
| at making kids convince their parents to spend money -
| that's the exact same point you just made, right?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Listen it doesn't work out great in either Snow Crash or the
| Matrix; I don't think I want that goal.
| svantana wrote:
| You can have low-bandwidth realism with a heavy client, for
| example you can enumerate all people on earth with 33 bits.
|
| But to me, video games with fancy CGI is like a chessboard with
| ornate gold pieces. Impressive, but in the end it's still just
| chess.
| bullen wrote:
| My 3D MMO engine can now have 2000 non-instanced animated
| characters each with an interchangeable item equipped at 60
| FPS without a world on a 1050Ti (80W GPU).
|
| My target is to keep that number above 1000 when the world +
| physics is in.
|
| On Jetson Nano (1/2 Nintendo Switch at 5W GPU) that number is
| 300 and I hope 150 on release!
|
| The server can handle 10.000 action players (no
| spraying/headshot but mario/zelda mechanics/physics) at an
| avererage of 50 players in view on a large AWS machine.
|
| Nobody has ever played an action MMO (with fun gameplay and
| physics) that plays like mario but scales to 10.000 players
| yet. When they do, they won't play anything else ever again
| (or do anything else in meatspace) is my prediction.
|
| You are spot on; gameplay is more important than surface.
| ikrenji wrote:
| you can have a good game that plays well and you can have a
| good game that looks pretty. but the truly great games both
| play well and look pretty...
| bullen wrote:
| Yes, but my game will have real modeled characters with
| silky smooth AAA animations, and still scale!
|
| Roblox and Minecraft could only build the future by
| spending less time on fidelity, hence the awkward
| animations and "ugly" characters.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Are you doing your own engine or what scaffolding are you
| using? I'm assuming something that is pretty close to end
| vulkan? This is a topic close to my heart, lots of
| questions about how to scale, where to put the seams (node
| based loading has issues, have to be careful about loading
| screens, etc), how to keep player state backend access
| super fast once attributes bloat, how to keep low-lag
| player interaction when you want to force as close to a
| pure server-dominant state decision layer.
|
| I think the tech itself is there just about, but there are
| some real technical limitations to why it hasn't been done
| (well) before. I'd love to hear how you are addressing
| these things.
|
| As for the conversation about the matrix and the metaverse,
| my conclusion a long time ago was that the real
| matrix/metaverse will be FOSS. Thats why all these big
| companies (Meta, Epic, etc) dipping their toe into this
| admittedly juicy arena are going to fail in their vision.
| (also one of the reasons why I still have hope for a hacker
| culture of freedom in the future)
|
| be warned though: with all this censorship they are coming
| for your game worlds next
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Is this all rendered models? I honestly thought much of it was
| just filmed humans. I mean, once they get in the car, it's pretty
| obvious it's a game, but before that, there were a lot of shots
| that looked filmed.
| udbhavs wrote:
| Keanu switches to a CG model at 1:39, then the one in the
| mirror at 1:56 is real again.
| pacifika wrote:
| > The demo has two parts. The first is a narrative sequence
| that doesn't respond to button taps, and it opens with a
| digital facsimile of actor Keanu Reeves--not playing a
| character, just Keanu being Keanu--remarking on The Matrix. He
| strolls through moments from the first film while pondering the
| original trilogy's questions about what is and isn't real.
| (Every time he passes a mirror, the bearded, long-haired Reeves
| who appears in it is video footage; otherwise, he's all
| digital. This article doesn't include any real-life Keanu.)
| Soon after, a digital facsimile of his Matrix co-star Carrie-
| Anne Moss appears--she only appears as a digital avatar, never
| as filmed footage--and their conversation eventually warps into
| a car chase.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/12/the-matrix-awakens-is...
| byproxy wrote:
| This seems to bolster the theory that _The Matrix:
| Resurrections_ will be pretty meta and about Keanu Reeves
| "being in" (i.e. acting in) _The Matrix_.
| alexhjones wrote:
| I think until it has the Xbox/PS5 logo at the bottom it looks
| filmed as an intro to the actual demo.
| [deleted]
| lm28469 wrote:
| Probably not, the body animations from 1:40 look very
| unnatural to me, the scene at 2:05 looks worse than in the
| original movie and more like a ps4 game
| hnbad wrote:
| In the sequences prior to the car I think it's most obvious by
| looking at the eyes. Especially the wrinkles have an odd "glow"
| to them. I think they may have recreated all the sequences that
| look like they were taken out of the movie but it's hard to
| tell because many of them are shown on screens with a filter.
|
| Honestly, after reading that supposedly some of the shots of
| current age Keanu are not rendered but real, I'm wondering if
| that's even true though. Maybe the odd appearance of the eyes
| is an artefact of the lighting of the all white room.
| po1nter wrote:
| Any reason the demo isn't available on PC?
| MikusR wrote:
| Epic is a tiny indy company. They don't have the resources. Or
| parts of the demo are prerendered and on PC it's easier to
| discover that.
| tempoponet wrote:
| Epic is worth almost $30b. They make the largest 3d engine
| and own Fortnite, a franchise worth billions on its own. They
| have their own game marketplace. Their legal team is squaring
| against Apple. They've got more resources than a tiny indy
| shop these days.
| libertine wrote:
| Probably for Marketing reasons.
| brundolf wrote:
| Probably also makes for a more predictable experience; you
| don't want to show off your shiny new engine and have a
| subset of people getting a poor experience because of their
| varied hardware (which I guess is also a marketing reason)
| kingcharles wrote:
| Just to show how far we've come, here is Spacewar (1963) running
| on a PDP-1:
|
| https://youtu.be/1EWQYAfuMYw?t=780
| WithinReason wrote:
| At this point the main thing I see missing to achieve more
| realism are better physics, global illumination and better facial
| animations. Models/textures are already there.
| Tajnymag wrote:
| Facial animations seemed fine for me. What got me off was
| surprisingly the body animations. When Keanu and Carrie-Anne
| were walking and doing hand gestures, it felt really strange.
| Too smooth.
| mrweasel wrote:
| A little later in the video where another character is
| walking, the butt motion is really weird. It's like someone
| decided that "her butt will wiggle, regardless of realism".
| drcongo wrote:
| That bit jumped out at me too.
| dsign wrote:
| Yes, hers is in fact the only one wiggling.
| dkdbejwi383 wrote:
| It's the small imperfections that give things away. Before,
| it was textures that were too perfectly smooth. These days we
| can make things look a bit more realistically imperfect.
|
| Now, it's animations that are too perfect, as you've pointed
| out. Even a perfectly trained athlete or ballet dancer still
| moves in slightly irregular and imperfect ways.
| ddnb wrote:
| People gliding over the ground is a huge giveaway as well,
| when you walk past someone else your feet don't slide to
| the right while you are still walking straight ahead, your
| movement changes.
| jjcm wrote:
| One thing I find missing with facial animations often is blood
| flow under the skin. Skin often looks plastic because it
| doesn't change hue with pressure changes. An example of this
| would be firmly pressing your lips together - they'll go a
| shade lighter due to the pressure causing the blood to flow out
| of the lips. These things are almost imperceptible, but they go
| a long way to making something look alive.
| lostgame wrote:
| Animation is the next frontier.
|
| In this demo, most still frames could often easily be confused
| with a still frame from one of the films. Blown away, there.
| You're so right about the lighting, models and textures being
| virtually indistinguishable.
|
| However - in motion, the effect is completely broken - only
| every few seconds - but enough to push it into uncanny valley
| territory.
|
| I notice Nirobi (? sic, the Jada-Pinkett Smith's character) in
| the backseat seemed to be the most offensive in terms of
| unnatural animation.
|
| I'm guessing - I'm hoping - ML models could be of tremendous
| use in terms of improving animation in video games? The problem
| is always that it is too unnaturally smooth. People just don't
| move like that.
|
| Just as we got texture detail to the point of perfection of the
| unnatural - pores on the face, etc - we need to get animation
| to the perfection of the unnatural.
|
| Even freaking same with the camera. After getting used to VR,
| the weirdly static, linear, unnatural camera movements in
| regular console games have aged like milk. Not sure why we are
| still treating cameras in 3D like it's 2001.
| majani wrote:
| At some point we're gonna need some type of non-profit, open
| source company that develops massive asset packs for game
| engines in order to move the industry forward significantly.
| Companies are wasting a lot of money re-inventing assets from
| the ground up for every triple A game.
| urbdbdkxkd wrote:
| I think this idiot is saying artists should work for free so
| game publishers can make more money in the same way that
| thousands (millions?) of devs donate their time to make VCs
| richer by working on open source projects. No thanks. Need to
| eat. If you want to use my assets so you can make money
| selling your game then you can pay me.
| native_samples wrote:
| It exists already. UE5 is integrated with Quixel MegaScans.
| Quixel is a company Epic acquired that does photogrammetry
| i.e. scans of real objects to film-quality assets. Like
| everything UE you can use it for free. You only pay once you
| have >$1M of revenue.
| aasasd wrote:
| Doesn't UE have a history of showing capabilities in tech demos
| that turn out to not be or not be used in games?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yes... but I'm not sure if it's due to misuse of tech demos, or
| the misunderstanding of what they are (maybe both?).
|
| Tech demos are kind of like concept cars. They're a glimpse of
| what's possible, but not necessarily practical.
| mkoryak wrote:
| This is why I don't play video games, and it happens to be the
| same reason I have never tried cocaine.
|
| I don't know how kids these days can have access to games like
| these and still want to do anything else, like go outside, or do
| homework.
| RantyDave wrote:
| Because it's a technically impressive "dragons lair".
| Ultimately, the game is selecting which circle you're shooting
| at and pressing the button. I'm not saying that this is the
| only game you can write with this engine, but as art costs go
| up, so the experience necessarily becomes more prescribed.
| coolspot wrote:
| Cocaine actually makes you want to do something, so
| videogames/TikTok/Instagram are worse in this regard.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| Al that work to be realistic, and then these ridiculous one-
| linere like "I thought you'd never ask" and "you boys'll get a
| kick out of this". You'd think with all the money they're
| spending on visuals they could afford a screenwriter or two.
| gavinray wrote:
| I'm not sure why they don't just hire voice actors and ask them
| to naturally respond to the situation while watching the video,
| with a set of target phrases.
|
| _" Say something to the effect of this, when this thing
| happens on screen, but phrase it however you like."_
|
| Visually stunning, but no matter how realistic it is, you're
| killing the chance of enjoying it because you go "Nobody would
| say that", and it also doesn't sound natural.
|
| This is why I enjoyed the Fallout games so much. Even the
| earlier ones like 3 and New Vegas that weren't realistic
| looking had fantastic, believable dialogue.
| paxys wrote:
| This is a tech demo. They aren't getting A-list writers or
| voice actors to spend their time on it.
| donohoe wrote:
| Yeah. I thought the "you boys'll get a kick out of this" was a
| miss for any woman or trans gamer.
| Mandelmus wrote:
| It was directed at the all-male agents, no?
| gavinray wrote:
| I interpreted that line as directed towards the Agents, who
| are all men.
| [deleted]
| samsolomon wrote:
| There was a Half-Life mod called The Specialists that I played
| ages ago. It was a Matrix-inspired arena shooter. There was only
| one map, but it was well done and I got a tremendous amount of
| gameplay out of it. The bullet timing mechanic was wild. At the
| time I'd never seen something like that in a multiplayer game.
|
| https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-specialists
|
| I was kind of hoping this demo would include something similar,
| but this looks more like a cinematic than anything. Then again
| I'm too old to play games like that now. Civilization and Railway
| Empire are more my speed.
|
| EDIT: Here's a gameplay video if you're interested.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8V4IQlb0zc
| keraf wrote:
| This mod reminds me of Double Action: Boogalo [0]. Good fun
| with friends, especially at LAN parties.
|
| [0]
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/317360/Double_Action_Boog...
| DHPersonal wrote:
| There eventually were many maps in the game. The lobby one
| might be the best for role playing The Matrix, but the game
| also had Castor Troy as a player model so the theme was a bit
| more broad.
|
| This was one of my favorite games for a while. I was part of a
| "clan" and played tournament games -- even made my own website
| for the whole thing. It sucked up a lot of my time for a summer
| or two.
|
| https://youtu.be/adtMJly42hg
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Such great memories. I don't know if youth of today feel the
| same things when playing overwatch/minecraft/fortnite.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| They will most certainly feel the same nostalgia for those
| games, if that's what you mean.
|
| I can only find reference articles about music but I'm sure
| it's all the same.
| https://slate.com/technology/2014/08/musical-nostalgia-
| the-p...
| johnchristopher wrote:
| They will feel nostalgia but I don't think playing the
| specialists, a niche mod for a pastime at that time, is the
| same as playing fortnite, an heavily marketed locked-up
| game with a world audience.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Very cool, but will it run Geometry Wars 4?
| shireboy wrote:
| I mean, it's amazing and all, but "uncanny valley" is still there
| with facial expressions.
| icoder wrote:
| I agree it's still there, but to me this demo's nearing the end
| of the valley, way past the deepest point.
| sloucher wrote:
| Graphics look great, but gameplay looks dull. Same tired old
| stuff, shooting at prettier targets (none of which can shoot
| straight other than when the plot calls for it).
| pindab0ter wrote:
| It's a tech demo.
| greenail wrote:
| i think many will pick the blue pill and waste much time in the
| matrix.
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