Posted February 10, 2022
Possibly old news to some of you, but I couldn't find a dedicated thread for this.
• The OneyPlays video from a couple of days ago is where I came across it.
• The Unreal Engine video for those of you who don't want three jokesters commenting over it.
I think the bit in the beginning with Keanu Reeves in the white void looks... well, unreal. But then it quickly goes into uncanny valley territory when Carrie-Anne Moss shows up. After that, it just looks like any other video game. I'm sure it features a bunch of graphical bells and whistles with acronyms I haven't kept track of. But there's no point where it makes me wonder if it's a video game or video footage.
I'm excited about the possibility of video game characters that are indistinguishable from real people, but that's probably a long way off. At least one developer put a damper on another tech demo, this time from Unity. I'm fairly sure the Unreal one also uses some trickery, especially considering the choppy framerate in the later part of the OneyPlays video.
What I'm not excited about is how this sort of technology will likely end up used. It will probably lead to more graphically stunning games with very limited interactivity. At the same time, we're going to see more movies with CGI dead actors (e.g. Carrie Fisher), or even a computer-generated voice replacing a living actor (e.g. Mark Hamill). This was all predicted by sci-fi authors and the like, but it's still unsettling to see it unfold.
• The OneyPlays video from a couple of days ago is where I came across it.
• The Unreal Engine video for those of you who don't want three jokesters commenting over it.
I think the bit in the beginning with Keanu Reeves in the white void looks... well, unreal. But then it quickly goes into uncanny valley territory when Carrie-Anne Moss shows up. After that, it just looks like any other video game. I'm sure it features a bunch of graphical bells and whistles with acronyms I haven't kept track of. But there's no point where it makes me wonder if it's a video game or video footage.
I'm excited about the possibility of video game characters that are indistinguishable from real people, but that's probably a long way off. At least one developer put a damper on another tech demo, this time from Unity. I'm fairly sure the Unreal one also uses some trickery, especially considering the choppy framerate in the later part of the OneyPlays video.
What I'm not excited about is how this sort of technology will likely end up used. It will probably lead to more graphically stunning games with very limited interactivity. At the same time, we're going to see more movies with CGI dead actors (e.g. Carrie Fisher), or even a computer-generated voice replacing a living actor (e.g. Mark Hamill). This was all predicted by sci-fi authors and the like, but it's still unsettling to see it unfold.