Hollywood Video Games

The original demo they shot for this video game was so lightweight they could run it on a PS3. Quantic Dreams is a video game developer that has been around for a long time and specializes in overcoming the "Uncanny Valley" effect, where video game characters tend to creep people out because they simultaneously look real and unreal. This video game they are working on illustrates not only their expertise in full body motion capture, but also in reducing that data to the minimum required for rendering, without creeping people out. That their facial expressions can be done more realistically goes without saying, but this engine is designed to run on minimalistic hardware and still look great. Combining a lightweight animation system like this with next generation hardware means you could add things like more realistic physics for explosions or whatever, and things like AI that require more resources.

That makes the engine perfect for things like virtual reality applications that require more hardware to run and perfect for Hollywood's continuing move into virtual reality and high definition media. The ability of the characters to convey a minimum amount of expressions is critical, with the latest VR hardware commonly including eye-tracking, gestures, and expressions. Although this might look like a movie, there is no reason you could not interact with any of the characters you want at almost any time.

 

They can make the graphics photo realistic for all I care but if the game play isn't right.... It's not worth it.

 

The entire industry is about as corrupt as the Mafia, but Hollywood moving into the industry means they can bring their writers, actors, and directors to ensure a more consistent quality. These days, if you like comic books, you can be pretty much assured Hollywood does them justice and they'll bring that same level of attention to artistic detail to video games. Professional camera men know what looks good better than any geek staring at a monitor and, obviously, many current video games are inspired by the work of Hollywood.

In the mid 2000s the major developers began to streamline the entire production process to make it faster, cheaper, and easier to do than ever before, knowing the next generation of hardware coming out would make it even easier to program any video game for. That includes organizing their engines so they can easily use the same high definition footage from films. Just as importantly, many games these days are crowd funded and developed in the public domain, with the newest Unity 3 engine supporting developing a video game in virtual reality, while you are inside of the engine, as if you were merely playing with theater props. Content is King, and it is the artistic content, rather than all the digital magic, that determines whether anyone has a winner, and we are about to see the public and Hollywood dive into the action making their own artistic contributions like never before.

 

Of course, Hollywood cranks out more than its share of crap,
But, at least, they've learned how to make the really good stuff as well,
And have turned even their crap films into a business and art-form.
This one video game, I believe, uses hundreds of actors to play different roles,
But, this is becoming something anyone can do from their living room,
And the AI being invented will make it all that much easier.
The ultimate video game engine would be entirely ray traced,
Allowing anyone to easily program anything they want,
Without having to know the first thing about the subject.
That might sound far fetched, but you can already do it in Unity Engine.