[HN Gopher] The Matrix Is Unreal
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The Matrix Is Unreal
Author : vblanco
Score : 85 points
Date : 2021-12-12 21:14 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fxguide.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fxguide.com)
| dash2 wrote:
| Meh, these guys are still stuck in the uncanny valley.
|
| Objects are often absolutely beautiful and realistic, but
| interactions between objects are ridiculous. Some of this is
| probably just "not enough processing power", but it is also due
| to where the rendering bumps up against the primitive controls.
| For example, you have a very realistic human. But then the human
| walks against an object, and she does this standard video game 0
| mph duck-walk. Part of the problem here is that real humans don't
| bash into walls. So how do you realistically represent that, when
| in fact it's just Johnny pressing forward on his controller?
| agumonkey wrote:
| To be fair, old~ Keanu Reeves made my brain hurt .. because I
| was lost and not sure if there was a shift between model and
| live footage at some point. Only the gait gave it a too
| unnatural aspect.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > the human walks against an object, and she does this standard
| video game 0 mph duck-walk
|
| Is that really part of what uncanny valley represents now? I
| feel like we're moving the goal posts. Fifteen years ago the
| characters really could be uncanny and disturbing. I don't get
| that anymore. I feel like it's very close to real, but not
| real. However, it's in no way off-putting or weirdly creepy.
| gmadsen wrote:
| uncanny valley naturally changes goal posts. It has for the
| past 60 years
| 3np wrote:
| I get the uncanney-valley feel just from the face stills.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| There's not a whole lot of good physics libraries to run on
| GPUs just yet, and lots of the physics you would want can
| absolutely eat up 16-64 cores of a CPU to get a somewhat decent
| frame rate with high realism.
|
| Similar to ray-tracing, where you get great realism, but it is
| just an absolute resource hog. The number of vertices in soft-
| body physics animations come to mind. The real world has curves
| and deformations, and hair, with millions of strands, that each
| need tens or hundreds of physics-enabled vertices to look ultra
| realistic. Walking through a city, you might have 100 NPCs on
| the screen at once, who all have hair.
|
| You simply need so much freaking compute power to pull this
| stuff off, I can't wait to see what it looks like in 10-20
| years.
| Stevvo wrote:
| Movement is usually more in service to game design goals than
| realism but it's a solved problem with many different
| approaches from _Mirror 's Edge_ to _Death Stranding_
| ardit33 wrote:
| The city feel is perfect though. It is just the
| interactions/movements of some of the characters.
|
| Also the acceleration of people and cars feels still too
| artificial. It is not the looks, but the physics that are still
| full on the uncanny valley.
|
| I think as graphics get more and more realistic looks wise,
| game designers need to slow down the game, and make it feel
| more real.
|
| One of my favorite car chases is from the movie Ronin. It feels
| extremely real, like you are there, as they didn't use any
| outlandish effects, but kept it grounded on how a real car
| chase would feel.
|
| https://youtu.be/2m-ofGDLNlM?t=61
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0_UqwsYoGY
| sosborn wrote:
| Spot on about the physics. For me, the thing that really
| gives it away in the white room is Keanu's hair. The way it
| moves it just off.
|
| Super impressive demo though.
| e12e wrote:
| Also body language. Especially Keanu's right hand/arm.
| l33tman wrote:
| To be fair, the Ronin car chases (and a lot of similar)
| exploit camera angles and FOVs to make a slow moving car feel
| fast. So they are not as realistic as you think either..
| i_like_apis wrote:
| Watching the demo I thought the biggest part of the uncanny
| valley aspect of the characters was the lack of spine flexion.
| Every character walks like they're having lumbar spine spasms.
|
| Aside from the motion though they look incredible.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > Part of the problem here is that real humans don't bash into
| walls. So how do you realistically represent that, when in fact
| it's just Johnny pressing forward on his controller?
|
| You could animate that as hugging the wall, leaning against it
| or something, instead of a 0mph walk.
| dTal wrote:
| > Part of the problem here is that real humans don't bash into
| walls. So how do you realistically represent that, when in fact
| it's just Johnny pressing forward on his controller?
|
| That doesn't seem like much of a theoretical obstacle to me.
| The primitive controls only signal intent - you don't have to
| animate the human shuffling against the wall, you can just not
| move. The controller should be like whispering into the
| avatar's ear, not QWOP.
|
| Or if you _do_ want to grant the player lower-level physical
| control, you can have the human actually collide realistically
| with the wall. After all, people _do_ bash into walls, just not
| commonly. You can even make them bump their head, and take
| damage.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| Yeah having actually played it you run into this immediately.
| NPC cars will deform in a crash, but a street lamp will bring
| your car to an immediate stop.
|
| That's far from an unsolvable problem though, and this is a
| graphical tech demo, not a full game with the associated staff,
| budget, time, etc.
|
| The Demon's Souls remake (which I think actually looks nicer)
| has tons of destructible boxes, tables, stone work, etc (the
| original had much of this as well). I'm more interested high
| graphical fidelity being used in these smaller, authored spaces
| than in massive, often empty open worlds.
| l33tman wrote:
| I'm a game dev and I spent a lot of time trying to merge the
| physics system with the player character (PC) control. You
| basically have the options of letting the player controls try
| to physically manipulate the PC by inserting forces, or
| skipping physics entirely for the PC and implement something
| separate ad hoc.
|
| I spent a lot of time on both and read a lot about the issue,
| and most end up skipping physics on the PC, because it just
| feels worse controlling it realistically. This might be because
| we're used to that though. Anyway after all, you're making a
| game and games have to be fun to play.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I used to be a game dev, and the goal always was to create an
| illusion; physics and whatnot was actually used primarily in
| order to save the effort, and I, too, thought that quality
| suffered and things would come out less fun that way.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Yeah, they look to much like mannequins in the YouTube trailer
| video.
| [deleted]
| gentleman11 wrote:
| A lot of newer, fancier cg in movies and games is deep in the
| uncanny valley for me. I can't watch/play for more than 15
| minutes without realizing I'm in a game that doesn't look
| right, it's distracting.
|
| I suppose the tech can't get across the valley without first
| passing through it
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > A lot of newer, fancier cg in movies and games is deep in
| the uncanny valley for me.
|
| There's a lot of uncanny CGI in modern movies. There's also a
| lot of CGI that is so perfectly realistic you have no idea it
| isn't real. This is usually more environmental and less
| characters.
|
| If the tech gets past the uncanny valley then you'll never
| know. This is basically true by definition. :)
| nix23 wrote:
| No they are just getting cheaper with their CGI...not better,
| i would bet that if someone would invest the money and time
| as they did in the 90-00 we would be absolutely astonished.
| [deleted]
| flohofwoe wrote:
| I think it's mostly about where the team puts their attention
| and how to make the best use of the finite production time and
| budget. Such demos (or games in general) are like fractals, an
| infinite amount of people can spend an infinite amount of time
| getting every little detail right and still not cover
| everything.
|
| E.g. the goal was probably to show off the new Nanite and Lumen
| rendering features, and probably MetaHuman for the main
| character faces and facial animations. At some point you have
| to say "ok, we focus on this stuff, and accept compromises for
| other things". If the team's goal would have been to create the
| best crowd simulation or environment interaction ever, they
| would probably have achieved this, but at the cost of other
| things.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The model for Keanu looks spot on.
|
| Carrie Anne Moss, who on-camera looks stunning for her
| age....looks like she aged at least twenty years and her head
| was stretched, almost like they got the aspect ratio settings
| wrong. She's almost unrecognizable.
|
| When they're in the car and the camera pans back to "IO" in the
| back seat, I felt like I was watching Who Framed Neo Rabbit.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I feel like you could probably realistically represent "people
| don't just walk into walls" by having invisible walls around
| everything, at a sensible offset, and do some other tweaking -
| if I guide a character down a corridor at a weird angle, they
| should just sort of casually turn to mostly align with the
| direction of the corridor. There are probably many, many
| special cases that need to be exceptions to this and figuring
| out the Right Thing to do in each of them may be an insanely
| complex task.
|
| I seem to recall the game "Bound", where you guided a low-poly
| ballerina through fairly abstract levels, had a really nice
| solution to "people don't bash into walls": if you tried to
| guide your character into a wall, she'd just start doing some
| stretches against it, which feels pretty accurate given how I
| tend to behave when I'm attending dance classes regularly. :)
|
| Other characters might do different things; a mopey teen might
| slouch against the wall, a gun-haver might press against it and
| peer to the side, looking for cover, etc.
|
| Obvious reasons not to do this start with "oh great, one more
| thing to add to the character state machine and debug" and "oh
| great, a few more animations to fit into the budget". Maybe
| also "it stops feeling like you're controlling the character".
| Someone whose day job is video games probably has at least a
| dozen more reasons, possibly even stories from when they tried
| it and abandoned it.
| draw_down wrote:
| It's interesting that there is apparently no effort to render or
| generate voice/audio, only optics.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I spent 30 minutes watching YouTube footage with my wife
| yesterday. It is absolutely incredible.
|
| I suspect they used this technology to make the movie, or parts
| of it. Why else would this be made?
| Arubis wrote:
| This writeup is unsubtle in being a puff piece. The demoed tech
| is very impressive! Individual stills taken from the video are
| pretty convincing.
|
| The motion version definitely still exhibits uncanny valley,
| though--lights that are too hard on flesh, tightness and
| sharpness where there should be softness. That I have to resort
| to hand-wavey descriptors is cool; they're getting close! But
| crossing uncanny valley is HARD.
|
| What this demo convinces me of is not that we're there; we are
| not. Claiming that we are is disingenuous, and makes me distrust
| the claimant. But it makes apparent that we will get there. And
| that's impressive.
| Severian wrote:
| Ok, I was under the impression that the white room scenes were a
| mix of filmed and digital assets, not 100% renders. In this
| context it is very impressive. The later scenes are very good,
| but in as others put it still in that uncanny valley area. We are
| on the up-slope however!
| thefourthchime wrote:
| That 3d Keanu in the white room had me fooled, the hair, the
| skin, the clothes are bang on. I read it did "4d scanning". So
| am I to assume the hair and clothes motion capture are part of
| the scan?
| twobitshifter wrote:
| It's notable that they mention the problems de-aging Keanu which
| really contrasts to the "Keanu is immortal" meme from a few years
| back. I guess age finally caught up to him.
| Taniwha wrote:
| At what level of reality does it become a warcrime to turn it
| off?
| Arubis wrote:
| Irrelevant in terms of appearances, I think? It's not a crime
| to delete a captured video of a person. That discussion is more
| about underlaying AI, which isn't involved in this demo.
| tejohnso wrote:
| Maybe when you have actual consciousnesses hooked up to it that
| would die without it.
| 2bitlobster wrote:
| "Actual consciousnesses" defined as...?
| d--b wrote:
| Well since the PS4, poor animation has been a way bigger problem
| than rendering...
| kasperni wrote:
| Here is a link to the demo on youtube
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU0gvPcc3jQ for those who haven't
| got a box PS5/Xbox
| zokier wrote:
| I think the demo could have been more effective if the non-
| realtime elements were indicated more clearly; as-is people got
| confused what was realtime and what was just pre-recorded. I
| suppose that was kinda the point, but without any sort of reveal
| the effect gets lost. I don't know if the console demo had the
| option to switch to "nanite view" at any point, or just in the
| "gameplay" section, if it does then I guess that would help with
| the situation.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I know there are companies using virtual models to showcase
| clothing. Is replacing actors and actresses next? In some ways I
| don't mind it, and decentralizing away from celebrity culture may
| even be a societal good. But I feel like some experiences are
| better off organic. Is there any point to appreciating - as an
| example - ballet performed by a virtual dancer with unrealistic
| athleticism? Will sports matter? Should they? I am not sure how
| things will play out but I expect all these norms to be
| challenged in the next 50 years.
| mantaraygun wrote:
| > _decentralizing away from celebrity culture may even be a
| societal good._
|
| I agree, but I don't think that's likely to happen. More
| likely, I think, is that established celebrities start
| licensing out their likenesses and remain celebrities for far
| longer than their natural lifespans would otherwise permit.
| Instead of celebrities aging out and making room for new
| celebrities, they'll stay in the game longer, maybe
| indefinitely, and continue to grow their personal brand.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Whatever... It's just you'll never be even expected to trust
| your own eyes anymore, unless you peer right into the _real_
| world.
| majkinetor wrote:
| Define real ...
| obblekk wrote:
| Deepfakes might not even be relevant soon.
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