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Gears of War studio: true photorealistic game graphics could be 'only 10-15 years' away

• By Sean Mirkovich
• May 26, 2009 13:02 PM PST
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In an interview released today on Gamasutra, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney estimates that we are are only "10-15 years" away from achieving perfectly realistic game graphics. Achieving perfect human intelligence and behavior however, will still be a much bigger challenge.

Recently, Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, the computer game programmer behind ZZT and the Unreal Engine, was asked in an interview by Gamasutra how long away we are before "real-time computer graphics are 100% realistic like in a movie?" Sweeney responded by stating that we will see those kind of graphics in our lifetime, yet achieving realistic human behavior will probably take many more decades to figure out.

"We're only about a factor of a thousand off from achieving all that in real-time without sacrifices. So we'll certainly see that happen in our lifetimes; it's just a result of Moore's Law. Probably 10-15 years for that stuff, which isn't far at all. Which is scary -- we'll be able to saturate our visual systems with realistic graphics at that point.

But there's another problem in graphics that's not as easily solvable. It's anything that requires simulating human intelligence or behavior: animation, character movement, interaction with characters, and conversations with characters. They're really cheesy in games now." - Tim Sweeney

Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games which developed the Gears of War series, stated in an interview that we are '10-15 years' away from perfectly realized graphics.

Even with state-of-the-art games such as Half-Life 2 or Gears of War, Sweeney states that character's in games are still "extraordinarily unrealistic compared to a human actor in a human movie." As Sweeney explains, the human condition is just too complex to simulate perfectly. Even with the fastest running computers today, we still wouldn't have the power and understanding to bring a truly realistic character to the video game screen, as we're light-years away from understanding how the brain works, let alone trying to simulate it.

All the same, Sweeney provides hope in the quest of achieving perfectly realistic gaming. Even if we are somehow able to achieve "perfect" graphics, Sweeney believes their work will never be done, as technology and the artists who use it are constantly changing and evolving, bringing bigger and better games for us to play and experience.

Check out the full original interview here at Gamasutra.

THE VERDICT by Sean Mirkovich Graphics are getting pretty ridiculous these days. I can still recall myself in 1997 playing Goldeneye for the first time and exclaiming, "Oh my God! That looks so real! It looks just like Pierce Brosnan!" Of course looking at it now, I only see a polygon with a couple of slits for eyes, but all the same, it's a great game that holds up in playability, if not in graphics. And, really, I think that should be the point. Even if we can achieve "perfect" graphics, great graphics don't make a great game. But, I can't wait to see what the future holds and what companies are going to release that perfect combo of graphics and gameplay. Which reminds me, Valve! Where is Episode 3????

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