What’s keeping VR video games from being graphically indistinguishable from real life?
In: 92
A few different bits:
* VR games need to run at very high resolutions, and at high framerates. The hardware required to do this stuff is hard to shove into a small device that fits on your face, and even harder to make affordable. This means most of the VR headsets you’ll find these days are pretty weak, and basically just Android phones with a few extra straps on them.
* A lot of the tricks we’ve developed over the years to make non-VR video games look really good simply just don’t work in VR. A lot of post processing (dirt on lens, lens flairs, screen space ambiant occlusion, etc.) don’t work in VR due to having to deal with 2 separate eyes, and other tricks like normal maps don’t work due to the accurate depth perception that VR gives. This means that in order to get the same quality as existing games, more processing intensive tasks need to be used, therefore refer back to point #1.
* Same thing keeping non-VR games indistinguishable from real life. We’ve managed to fake a lot of things over the years to make games look good, but it’s only with modern day raytracing that we can actually get close to indistinguishable from photo realism. However, raytracing requires a lot of processing power, so it’s going to be a while before we can stick a device capable of doing that to your face, and even longer before the average person can actually afford it. Again, see point #1
* VR adoption is extremely low, and developing techniques to optimize for VR takes effort, time, and therefore money to accomplish. If there’s nobody playing VR (or at the very least “high end,” VR), then there’s not going to be many people developing for it either.
Source: I’m a 3D software developer and used to work for a company which was attempting to push the bounds of VR. I still don’t own a VR headset to this day.
A few different bits:
* VR games need to run at very high resolutions, and at high framerates. The hardware required to do this stuff is hard to shove into a small device that fits on your face, and even harder to make affordable. This means most of the VR headsets you’ll find these days are pretty weak, and basically just Android phones with a few extra straps on them.
* A lot of the tricks we’ve developed over the years to make non-VR video games look really good simply just don’t work in VR. A lot of post processing (dirt on lens, lens flairs, screen space ambiant occlusion, etc.) don’t work in VR due to having to deal with 2 separate eyes, and other tricks like normal maps don’t work due to the accurate depth perception that VR gives. This means that in order to get the same quality as existing games, more processing intensive tasks need to be used, therefore refer back to point #1.
* Same thing keeping non-VR games indistinguishable from real life. We’ve managed to fake a lot of things over the years to make games look good, but it’s only with modern day raytracing that we can actually get close to indistinguishable from photo realism. However, raytracing requires a lot of processing power, so it’s going to be a while before we can stick a device capable of doing that to your face, and even longer before the average person can actually afford it. Again, see point #1
* VR adoption is extremely low, and developing techniques to optimize for VR takes effort, time, and therefore money to accomplish. If there’s nobody playing VR (or at the very least “high end,” VR), then there’s not going to be many people developing for it either.
Source: I’m a 3D software developer and used to work for a company which was attempting to push the bounds of VR. I still don’t own a VR headset to this day.
The amount of pixels… it’s estimated that you need about 16k~32k for VR goggles to be indistinguishable from real life. Currently you only have about 4k~8k. And of course on top of that, you’d need extremely detailed and realistic graphics rendered with all the proper physics in 16k~32k.
The amount of pixels… it’s estimated that you need about 16k~32k for VR goggles to be indistinguishable from real life. Currently you only have about 4k~8k. And of course on top of that, you’d need extremely detailed and realistic graphics rendered with all the proper physics in 16k~32k.
Interestingly, there is an upcoming video game that, in some sections, looks almost indistinguishable from real life. Especially the first few seconds of outdoor footage:
https://youtu.be/IK76q13Aqt0.
This isn’t in VR and part of the realism comes from the body cam perspective, as it’s made to resemble footage, not the human eye. However, it’s clear that with advancements such as unreal engine 5 we will start to see near indistinguishable from reality games coming within the next ten years, and I believe that will apply to VR.
Interestingly, there is an upcoming video game that, in some sections, looks almost indistinguishable from real life. Especially the first few seconds of outdoor footage:
https://youtu.be/IK76q13Aqt0.
This isn’t in VR and part of the realism comes from the body cam perspective, as it’s made to resemble footage, not the human eye. However, it’s clear that with advancements such as unreal engine 5 we will start to see near indistinguishable from reality games coming within the next ten years, and I believe that will apply to VR.
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