Photorealism in video games has arrived. It's arrived at least 6-7 times, depending on how you count console generations. Even 16-bit consoles were called photorealistic in their day, and then their successors were, and then THEIR successors were, and so on. It's almost as though we're asymptotically approaching a carefully-chosen marketing-driven goal that can never actually be reached, but towards which we can continually make (ever-tinier) steps.
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Photorealism in video games has arrived. It's arrived at least 6-7 times, depending on how you count console generations.
That's a very good point. Seems to me that it applies equally well to movies: the first 3D animated movies were thought photorealistic in their day, but nowadays they look pretty dated.
Up until the PS2 things were so far from any sort of realism, this thing was an emotional appeal for the virtual reality desire in our brains. But yes, the PR argument is shallow pornographic tease for the consumer brains. I may be too jaded but realism has almost no appeal since long ago, I now 'drool' on limitations and how old games with so many crippling constraints were able to give you timeless memories. The only value of more rendering capabilities is the equivalent of video games magazine centerfold.
ps: I remember first time I ran Half Life, my computer was so slow I had to run in 320x200 with zero option, it was a pixel soup yet it sucked my soul. Rainbow 6 managed to lock me down for hours too. I understand the desire for more possibilities, but we've reached this level long ago, I'd say with the 2nd massive-city GTA.
What you say may be true, but there's a difference between 16-bit photorealism and the photorealism possible today, and the difference is that it's possible to find rendered images that are hard to distinguish from real life today. In the 16-bit era? Not so much.
To give some examples, take a look at these images created in Blender:
Most of those are pretty evidently distinguishable from real life...
The issue here - and the point being made - is that we are already at the stage where many CG images can fool even close observers, and we've been here for some time.
We've been passing around these "CGI OR REAL?!!!!" images for a few years at least, and when they are first created people really can't tell the difference, but yet somehow when people get used to the tech and revisit these images a few years down the line they look obviously synthesized.
Ditto older movies like Jurassic Park, whose cutting edge CGI of the time were convincing even when viewing frame-by-frame, but to savvy eyes appears downright obvious today.
So clearly "photoreal" is something we haven't reached yet. IMO the indicator that we've reached "true photoreal" is when an image rendered 5 years ago still holds up to fresh eyes.
its important to remember that path tracing for photorealism is considerably more expensive than raytracing. its like raytracing every pixel hundreds, thousands or even more times, and doing some extra work on-top.
I've experienced photorealism in games, even on last-generation hardware - but only in certain scenes. The PS3 / Xbox 360 open-world crime-drama game Sleeping Dogs, for instance, genuinely looks like a movie in certain areas, on foot, at night, when the weather cycle has gone to rain. On the other hand, driving, during the daytime, in the Central district looks more like a Dreamcast title.
The big challenge I see is not photorealism, but consistent photorealism. In the Sleeping Dogs example, the game's engine is optimized for its iconic scenes of rain-slicked Hong Kong backstreets, but the tricks it uses don't hold up well in other contexts.
I think you're right, that the question isn't "is this game photorealistic?", it's "in what contexts can this game achieve photorealism?"
For a long time, the game industry focused on higher resolution, more polygons, and higher framerates. I think now maybe there's more emphasis on textures, lighting, and physics. The trouble is, if you don't have a physically-accurate global illumination solution or physically-correct reflection, refraction, and shadows, there are many contexts in which "photorealism" is unattainable. For instance: shining a flashlight around a dark room, seeing your reflection in a shiny car, turning lights on and off and opening and closing doors in a dark building at night.
Well the thing is, photorealism actually can be least - or at least we can imagine what reaching it would look like. A Start Trek-style holodeck, completely indistinguishable from real life, would be true photorealism. I highly doubt we'll reach that point in any of our lifetimes, but that's where we'll eventually end up, if gaming technology continues to improve indefinitely.
