Will real-time ray tracing become the CG standard?

[jefferiestubes8]

Let's discuss real-time ray tracing for lighting for CG in videogames.
This kind of ray-tracing CGI work. Real-time photorealistic GPU path tracing.

Progressive rendering is becoming a popular alternative to precomputation approaches

from the above link.

Currently Ray-tracing is the rendering technique used by the film industry and is considered to complex for today's game systems.
Technically the film industry has to only render for 24fps and sometimes higher for slow-motion playback.
Though movies like The Hobbit are now shooting at 48fps. Games are higher than 30fps and often 60fps which is double the rendering.


At the moment I saw a youtube video where IBM Interactive Ray-tracer (iRT) was using three Sony Playstation3s (PS3) to render a model that is 75x more complex then those used in today's games.

When the PS4 and XBOX 720 "Durango" are released will they have this capability yet in 2013?

Is this still 6 years away from videogames using future PS5 hardware?

It's this kind of level of detail where things are going:watch this 7 minute video which has some comparisons which is amazing.
Unlimited Detail Real-Time Rendering Technology Preview 2011 [HD]]Euclideon

Will games like the original Quake (or Quake II) be able to be ported to these and upgrade the texture maps to allow new gaming engines with lighting and atmospheric effects and physics engines to remaster these old games? Essentially having a director of Photography light each map in Quake. How cool would that be? Sure the big question is are they worth it? since now physics engines are so much more important and lighting is pretty close with atmospheric effects. Not too mention the low sample rate and bit-rate audio sound FX in those old games. I think this could definitely work for sandbox interior-only games that could be remastered but what about a big sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)?

related is a blog on Ars Technical last month that got me thinking: How close are we to truly photorealistic, real-time games?

 

[Owain Taggart]

Interesting. I think we're definitely getting there and that it will be only a matter of time. But meanwhile, I think dynamic shadows and lighting have a lot to do in making things feel realistic. They can be rather subtle, but in doing so, they can really make a scene pop or feel like it's come to life. Skyrim makes great use of both of these, where without them, we'd feel like it were a dry landscape. Not to mention that it also sets the mood.

I'd also argue that good textures are more important than the rendering itself. If a game has good renderings, it's not going to mean very much if the textures are crap. But give your game good textures and your game can look realistic, even if your rendered scene is a little bit primitive.

Also, I find that one of the biggest illusion breakers are blurry textures. Like for instance, you walk right up to a wall, which looks good from afar, but on closeup, the textures actually don't contain very much detail and aren't very sharp. This still happens with modern games, no matter how good a game might look, likely due to memory limitations, but it nevertheless breaks the illusion of that world.

 

[Kelthaz]

I've never understood this push for photo realistic graphics. Spend a fortune to develop new technology, inflate game budgets way beyond a sustainable level in order to implement this new technology, and release overpriced consoles (or overpriced hardware) that gamers must buy in order to get access to this technology. All this for some fancy looking shadows. I don't get it.

I have nothing against better graphics or even realism in games (some games), but what's the rush? How about we wait until the technology is cheap and won't bankrupt companies in some foolish attempt to replicate Hollywood movies?

Angry Birds - $150,000 budget - Runs on a toaster
Over 1 billion in sales

Crysis - $22 million budget - Requires very expensive gaming PC
Over 3 million in sales

 

[Geckothan]

Currently Ray-tracing is the rendering technique used by the film industry and is considered to complex for today's game systems.
Technically the film industry has to only render for 24fps and sometimes higher for slow-motion playback.
Though movies like The Hobbit are now shooting at 48fps. Games are higher than 30fps and often 60fps which is double the rendering.

The ray traced CGI in films is not generated in realtime. Purely CGI-based films (e.g. from DreamWorks or Pixar) are rendered at a rate of up to several hours per frame, despite being distributed over clusters that are probably worth more than all of our houses and possessions combined.

 

[FordSVT]

They've been talking about real time ray tracing in games for literally decades now, since the dawn of the 32-bit era. Then as now, it takes an enormous amount of hardware power to do it properly. Not in the next generation I don't think, no, not when the latest engines like CryEngine and the most powerful gaming PCs are still incapable of doing it in any way beyond some simple reflection and lighting uses. But entire games that use ray traced engines? Not until the next console generation after the upcoming one, at least.

 

[zarkon]

When the PS4 and XBOX 720 "Durango" are released will they have this capability yet in 2013?

Impossible.

Is this still 6 years away from videogames using future PS5 hardware?

Highly unlikely. The last videogames console that was cutting edge was the N64, and that was 15 years ago.

Raytracing at acceptable FPS is likely more then 6 years ago for the top intel chip, let alone a console that will generally use older, proven, cheaper components - so the tech making it into two generations away is almost as unlikely as unlikely as it being in consoles released one generation away - which will likely be next year as sony & ms can't allow nintendo to get such a headstart.