I was flipping through the May issue of Arcadia last night and found the article about the new Lindbergh-based Power Smash 3 (ie: Virtua Tennis) to be somewhat interesting. While the graphics do look decent, I'm a bit concerned by the player models. To put it frankly, they look kind of disturbing. They possess sort of a zombie-like/plastic mannequin appearance in the closeups (see below). Granted, Virtua Fighter 5 has this same kind of modelling going on, but they don't look anywhere near as surreal as the Power Smash characters. Is this an intentional look or is the Lindbergh hardware just not quite there in terms of visual power... The ones with the blue eyes are pretty freaky. And that guy in the top left corner is something else...lol!
That's a general representation issue with 3D modelling nowadays. The more advanced the models get, the less tolerant the human eye becomes to imperfections, which ultimately makes them look kind of scary, and statue-like. Even the best bone/muscle system of animation can't make your 3D model not look zombie-like.
They look like low-poly versions of the FF movie models. Maybe they're using id tools? there's something about them that reminds me of Quake4. Indeed, back in the day I couldn't believe toy story was entirely CG made, while today some games look better than that (in some aspects)
I'm not sure it is. I'd rather a game was well-stylised with few polygons, than a game that tries to look realistic with huge amounts of polygons, but fails.
unless you 3d capture a face (like sony did on a tech demo with some japaneze lady), this will remain a problem.
I'm a big arcade fan but I'm rather disapointed with the Lindbergh so far. I really dont see a huge improvement on VF5 over VF4 (for was extreamly stunning for it's time).
Clarity of the visuals is immediately apparent in VF5 over VF4, to me. The level of detail in the bodies, clothing and lighting is pretty huge if you ask me. Of course, I'm basing this off of pics and articles that I'm seeing...I've yet to see this game in action in an arcade setting for real.
Give the world another 10-15 years to come pretty darn close to real life CG. Stuntmen will then be out of a job :crying:
It has less to do with the 3d models these days and more to do with the rendering technology employed: (Pictured: random test model using sub-surface scattering from up comming PC game Crysis)
But if u turn of that lighting then all you get is a model that looks like a game from half-life era. What you guys see is called normal mapping, or something like that. It makes flat textures look like they have groves, bumps, etc. I really don't know if normal mapping is what you call it though but I've seen Unreal 3 demo without the lighting effects and was amazed at how different it looks.
Yeah, it's normal mapping. That's when flat textures look like they're in 3D, problem is the illusion is destroyed if the texture is seen from an off angle.
As far as I see trends, models are making "plastic people". They just aren't believable. You have to wait for the hardware to quadruple or more before you can build in the effects needed for photo realistic. Simulation of hairs, skin texture. the key to being believable is defects. The models look too perfect, that is the problem. The crysis model has realistic skin defects and scars, so it seems more believable. The crysis texture is not representive of the game as a whole. That texture is probably hundreds of megs.
