The romance of 'Next-Gen': Where is it?
polycounter lvl 19
This is a notion that is still fresh in my head, so I apologize now if its all over the place.
I can remember being an eager developer 'wannabe' during the Playstation 2 & Xbox days when the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 were on the horizon.
Before their release I had landed my first in-house position at a small company and the anticipation for the new consoles was high. There was a lot of new techniques and technologies I, and my fellow artist developers, were going to have to learn: High poly modeling, DX9 shader capabilities, normal map creation (anyone remember the nVidia Normal map plug-in for Photoshop?), parallax maps, coloured specular, cubemaps, environment maps, refraction maps, working in texture resolutions higher than 1024x1024 pixels. The list went on and on.
In a way, it felt like I was in a golden age of development growth.
I can't help but feel there is none of that with this current generation meeting the next generation: Playstation 4 and "Durango" (Xbox 720?).
Right now, in conversation, when I say 'the next gen' I am literally saying "PS4 and Xbox 720". I am not saying, "New technology that we're all going to have to learn and learn together. New techniques that we've not seen plenty of just yet. New approaches to solving new problems." And while some of those statements will in fact actually be true, it doesn't feel like much of a generation progression as the previous generation did and therefor the romantic element of this kind of jump is lost.
From where I sit, it feels like the improvements are happening in the tools themselves rather than the capabilities of the hardware and the artist that uses them. Level creation is getting a little faster. Hair creation is getting more efficient and believable. We're seeing stronger cloth simulation and faster light calculations. Animation systems are becoming more capable and by virtue more complex. And even with those advances in streamlined processes it still doesn't feel like the same type of grow we saw 7 or so years ago.
If in the old days we learned new techniques, now it feels like we're learning how to do those techniques faster, save a small handful of brand new techniques introduced to the next generation of console development.
Where I see these "new techniques" happening is out side of the art production of games: Connectivity, social interactions, media feeding, transactions, online presence, developer-to-consumer relations.
Now, I am not really complaining. I'm all for tools that make my job easier. Going forward, as far as art is concerned, "next-gen" games are going to be larger with more complex geometry and complex shaders coupled together. We're going to need a faster way of creating those if we're to keep our bottom line in a healthy position.
For now, and maybe its because I'm older, have a lot of titles under my belt and am 'jaded' to these types of advances, when it comes to art development it doesn't have that 'golden age' or romantic feeling the previous generation jump had.
/2 cents
I can remember being an eager developer 'wannabe' during the Playstation 2 & Xbox days when the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 were on the horizon.
Before their release I had landed my first in-house position at a small company and the anticipation for the new consoles was high. There was a lot of new techniques and technologies I, and my fellow artist developers, were going to have to learn: High poly modeling, DX9 shader capabilities, normal map creation (anyone remember the nVidia Normal map plug-in for Photoshop?), parallax maps, coloured specular, cubemaps, environment maps, refraction maps, working in texture resolutions higher than 1024x1024 pixels. The list went on and on.
In a way, it felt like I was in a golden age of development growth.
I can't help but feel there is none of that with this current generation meeting the next generation: Playstation 4 and "Durango" (Xbox 720?).
Right now, in conversation, when I say 'the next gen' I am literally saying "PS4 and Xbox 720". I am not saying, "New technology that we're all going to have to learn and learn together. New techniques that we've not seen plenty of just yet. New approaches to solving new problems." And while some of those statements will in fact actually be true, it doesn't feel like much of a generation progression as the previous generation did and therefor the romantic element of this kind of jump is lost.
From where I sit, it feels like the improvements are happening in the tools themselves rather than the capabilities of the hardware and the artist that uses them. Level creation is getting a little faster. Hair creation is getting more efficient and believable. We're seeing stronger cloth simulation and faster light calculations. Animation systems are becoming more capable and by virtue more complex. And even with those advances in streamlined processes it still doesn't feel like the same type of grow we saw 7 or so years ago.
If in the old days we learned new techniques, now it feels like we're learning how to do those techniques faster, save a small handful of brand new techniques introduced to the next generation of console development.
Where I see these "new techniques" happening is out side of the art production of games: Connectivity, social interactions, media feeding, transactions, online presence, developer-to-consumer relations.
Now, I am not really complaining. I'm all for tools that make my job easier. Going forward, as far as art is concerned, "next-gen" games are going to be larger with more complex geometry and complex shaders coupled together. We're going to need a faster way of creating those if we're to keep our bottom line in a healthy position.
For now, and maybe its because I'm older, have a lot of titles under my belt and am 'jaded' to these types of advances, when it comes to art development it doesn't have that 'golden age' or romantic feeling the previous generation jump had.
/2 cents
Replies
I might be rambling on completely randomly now, but I've been thinking about doing a little experiment where I try to mimick a small pre-rendered environment in an game engine. What I mean by that is, I find an image somwhere that is rendered using something like mental ray and try and get as close to that in an game engine. The scene needs to be very basic so that its not my artistic skill that's holding back the quality, but rather the rendering/shading/lighting. I personally think its these areas that are interesting to explore and improve in the coming generation.
As an example, take this image:
If you ignore the background matte painting, how close can you get to this in current gen and how close can you get in next gen? The assets in the scene are farily basic, its mostly the lighting, shading, rendering, reflections, AA quality, etc etc that's making it look so nice. Should be a fun experiment/learning experience.
I think the last decade has been about us perfecting our tools and skills as technicians...and for once the coming generation DOESN'T involve rewriting the playbook...so maybe now we can focus on artistry more.
I'm excited to see that more and more mainstream publishers and developers are reaching beyond 'realism' and 'MOAR detail' into different realms of style choices. Hopefully the gamer will see a HUGE variety in looks, rendering methods, texture choices, stylish modeling, (alongside the realistic stuff, since I'm sure that's not going anywhere).
Will visual distinction be more important now, as opposed to the last generation which was about the arm's race towards 'better'?
It's gonna be fun.
The fracturing of the market between the three major consoles has had a dramatic effect on the way games are developed and published. This shift toward increased competition has actually been great for lowering the cost of games for consumers. At present, games are more affordable than they've ever been. But the development side of the equation has been paying the price for most of these changes.
I believe that a lot of developers are concerned that this trend is going to extend into the next generation. They don't see any end to the near 3-way split in console competition. Nintendo's conservative approach to hardware combined with their stable of first-party IP and development will keep them kicking no matter what. Sony's early announcements for the PS3 indicate a leaner, more competitive box with a greater emphasis on developer support, which should help improve their standing. And the XBox brand will be able to coast on dude-bro support for another three or four years.
The charm is completely lost on me. I'm yet to be truly excited by a next gen project.
And I just generally think you're right - no new stuff, it's just more of the same. Bigger polycounts and fully dynamic lighting (if it indeed does happen) don't make things prettier - just rounder and....emmm...more dynamic
It is exciting on the other hand 'cause this just might be the first generation that is going to be about Art rather then Technology. But it will take a while and a lot of effort for this industry to grow and mature to this level of understanding. Especially big companies.
But it's happening, I hear more and more people talking about it. Even some dude with a show on game trailers was like "next gen? - meh, not excited, same old same old..."
Still think were quite a way away from seeing stuff like this done in realtime.
Simple scene to model and texture, but the soft lighting and variable-penumbra soft shadows, along with glossy reflections and the global illumination are still not on the same level as offline renderers.
I think retracing is the next step when we'll see bigger differences.
We're asking consumers to pay for a new console, for graphical improvements they can't see.
1) Once bitten twice shy?
Next gen was also kicked off with heavy investment by the publishers, most are faltering and having trouble paying their bills much less make their shareholders happy enough to want to invest heavily like they once did. Personally I think publishers did a lot to hurt the industry and the industry did a lot to hurt the publishers. Companies where create and sold to publishers and then drained of talent so the process could be repeated. That leaves them talent poor and cash hungry, not a good position to be in to invest heavily in risky new things.
2) The advances in technology aren't all that jaw dropping as it was in the last cycle?
We went from using hundreds of polys for an entire cast of characters to thousands for one. Players have been getting high quality cut scenes for a long time and as the hardware improves that line has been blurred, more and more games are looking like the cut scenes, but its not really all that new and the impression it makes doesn't last as long.
3) Developers have been milked of their talent and not compensated for it.
There are a lot of people who can and would make games but don't have the funds to do so. The truly driven ones go indie, live off of kickstarter and credit cards and then ultimately the vast majority of them barely scrape by or fold up and go do something else. So lots of ideas, lots of people who can make them happen but very little incentive to actually make it happen because the pay off just isn't there.
4)Game prices rose and stayed high and the economy tanked.
Higher priced games make for choosy customers. The last console cycle sold hardware at a loss and sold software at a higher premium than what most people are willing to spend on entertainment. They need to widen the customer base, and lower prices.
5) A lot of dick moves done by industry leaders.
Have left a lot of customers disillusioned and because they don't have a lot of disposable cash they walk away.
6) Lack of innovation due to risk management has lead to franchise fatigue
...and to hardware fatigue in general. Shitty interfaces that have tried to grow into a media center have worked in some regards but held back by other limitations due to hardware and can't be fixed. Bottom line customers could have a much better experience and they aren't getting it.
7) The motion controler craze was dead when Sony and MS jumped on board.
It mostly fell flat on its face with their base customers, in other regards it did kick off some pretty cool innovative things, just not in the way they wanted. Too many misfires with the base shows the customers that they are out of touch. Stop understanding your customers and you lose them.
8) Structural socioeconomic issues (in the US).
The lack of a social safety net and the raising overhead of operating in the US doesn't encourage risk or growth. If starting up a new business means giving up healthcare it discourages people from doing it. They are more likely to keep working their dead end job and never strike out and innovate. It also makes it harder for new businesses to pull talent away from established companies that have robust benefits. If you're the Yankees and you can lock up up all of the talent you really like that deal, until other clubs figure out they can dump their over priced talent on you for incredible deals, but no one trades artists like ball players so that won't happen, ha.
Has anyone stopped to think that the cynical artist within you is secretly hating this development? The better the technology the more work per asset, more maps and detail, the longer development process of the game. The more expensive the programs and technology, ?less profit? Worsening of crunch times due to lack of foresight or experience within the new gen cycle.
If you really think about it, newer generations are a double edged sword hanging above your hands haha.
However past the cynical idjit in me, i can't wait for the newest generation to be released and have the challenge of catching up again haha.
Although it's not as critical to be honest right now. And won't be for a few years. The way everyone produced their stuff in previous gen was either highpoly or double resolution, so scaling up for a while will just mean, no scaling down. No exponential production cost jump.
I've been struggling to communicate my thoughts on this sort of next-gen not really feeling next gen thing. As a consumer I could care less about graphical improvements, some of my favorite all time games do not have the highest end graphics(TF2, Journey). But I do enjoy games like BF3, but honestly like JacqueChoi pointed out, the differences in screenshots is not mind blowing, and behind it, is the same game-play of 8 years ago.
Carmack has stated it, and i tend to agree, a lot of the computer graphics problems are "solved problems" which will only get tweaked and tuned to run better and better. Until some kind of really disruptive tech comes into the space, like images beamed directly into your brain or something crazy, were not going to see huge leaps in graphics. I think our industry still has a lot of growing to do in animation and AI though. I think we'll see some very cool stuff in that field soon.
The idea of a "Generation" is kind of dying, which might be what your seeing. I don't like to compare Games and Film too much, but the Film industry doesn't have "Gens". I think the PS2/Xbox to PS3/Xbox360 transition was the equivalent of the silent films to "talkies" in the 30's or maybe more so the transition of Black and White to Color, its nice, but it doesn't fundamentally change the medium anymore. Our cameras have been made we need to start mastering the use of them.
My hope is that if anything our "Next Gen" is the generation of gameplay. TRULY innovative gameplay. That word gets thrown around way too much.
With the PS4 having multitudes more power than the PS3, to me this means...
1/ >30 cars on track in the PS4 Gran Turismo, full field of cars and looking glorious (16 in GT5 is a sorta low for some races). Fairly straightforward here, power = more things.
2/ Potentially, greater use of middlewares and off-the-shelf solutions. I imagine the Euphoria NPC movement AI and physics (GTA4, SW:TFU) was probably a nice drain on performance; with massive increases in power and current experience in trimming that middleware down to run on the PS360, it could be much easier to integrate into a game without those performance concerns (ie, PS4). I expect the same thing with AI, destruction, etc. It's like discovering someone has added an extra 0 to your salary, suddenly you can DO ALL THE THINGS.
3/ In general, if should be a nice bit of a boost to basically everyone except artists, who will probably, generally, be finding new ways to do the same-ish things. Sure you're going to see people crying out for >2k textures on everything (understandable), fancy-er SSAO and bloom (OK, fine) and voxel lighting (nope), but Mirrors Edge, Shattered Horizon and Journey all really made enough of a visual impact that it seems like 90% of the work left to do is nail down incrementally small gains in quality.
Maybe the artists are past the point of best efficiency, where double the work with double the power gets you something looking twice as good.
In the PS2 age, everyone heard the word "Multi Core" and went ape shit, with words like "Emotion Engine", and no one knew how games were made, they just thought of it as magic, especially with the younger generation they were aimed at.
Now that people are more educated in this area, and your average hipster with a memory necklace knows what a Ram is, alot of the magic is lost in sale pitches, not to mention, in terms of society-function, kids have IPads as early as the age of 7, I know I didn't have any 'hardcore' console gaming until I was much older.
So again, easy access to technology, loss of interest of something else.
It also doesn't help that people are too busy being offended, with the PS4 being announced, people on Twitter and most 'journalistic' sites were more interested on why there wasn't a female CEO in the Key speech, then what the Key speech was about for the PS4.
All of that tends to rub off on people, if the people around you aren't excited about the new generation, then why should a developer be? It ends up feeling like a slurry sludge of disinterest, when your friends aren't talking with a glint in their eye, and are more on the level of "Yeah, I guess I will buy it eventually, maybe".
I think Joss Whedon said it best; "I would rather have 100 people who must watch my show, then a 1000 who just glance at it".
That's probably one of the worst comparison pictures I even seen. What one looks better with water directly in front of my face, and the only close object is the gun?
Here's a better comparison,
http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/the-witcher-2-enhanced-360-vs-non-enhanced-pc-video
People will notice 2x-8x increased texture density, better materials, more effects, less shadow artifacts, etc. And ultimately, games that will be ported are designed around their lowest end platform, we wont see any true next gen games until next gen, unless theirs some PC exclusive with a focus on graphics I'm forgetting about.
And good riddance. The obsession with "generational" shifts came out of the console game industry gaining dominance. While there is certainly a place for console development, the big-budget shift in that diretion has had ruinous consequences for the game industry at large. It's a source of a lot of the problems that continue to plague game development.
Some lament the proliferation of new platforms, such as smartphones, tablets, and the upcoming Android consoles. I say "bring them on!" The more competition there is on the hardware side of things, the farther we'll shift away from this outdated console model.
The future of game development is not in consoles, it's in middleware and tool development. Improving the overall ease and efficiency of the game development process will drive the industry in the next decade. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft will not be calling the shots soon. It will be companies like Epic, ID, and Unity.
That's because the 360 version has a higher contrast ratio, which makes the image look less realistic, but clearer and sharper. Just one more example where chasing after realistic rendering is self-destructive to the final product.
Chasing realistic rendering is not self-destructive, it's a direction just like many valid directions you can possibly take. Also, what is realistic rendering exactly? Contrast pays a important role obviously, but it's not the most important, imo. Specially since all monitors are different.
Also people wrongly mistake contrast for detail, because they can see a wider range / spectrum of brightness, they assume it's better, but it's not.
A trained eye will tell you the bottom picture is much better because you have areas of rest, it's much cleaner and actually sharper. Top one is a much poor rendered image, noisy and overly contrasty.
Same mentality could be applied to texturing, a noisy texture is commonly interpreted as detail and better as it's more refined. But really good art uses the whole range of big chunky and high frequency detail readings.
God damn.. i ramble a lot
The bottom image has text that is harder to read, and a mini-map that is harder to discern. While all of the rendering techniques might be superior, and the shaders and lighting are no doubt much better, and there may be far more actual detail that can be perceived, it is not necessarily better.
From a purely functional standpoint, the bottom image is worse, because it does not do as good a job of communicating information to the player clearly. That's why some people might find the top image to be preferable from a gameplay perspective. Superior rendering does not make for superior game visuals. This is why aesthetics and careful thought as to the actual feedback will always be more important than rendering power or realism.
I think Brendan makes a good point
"In general, if should be a nice bit of a boost to basically everyone except artists, who will probably, generally, be finding new ways to do the same-ish things."
Which is probably why a lot of artists aren't super psyched about graphical improvements, there really isn't going to be huge pipeline changes, a lot of the graphical improvements being featured recently are global changes to game engines which in some cases don't directly effect artists.
I think the miniaturization of handheld consoles and their power is pretty exciting, the PS Vita is one hell of a portable console - shame about a huge lack of games. The short/medium term future of the industry for me will be a golden age of indie development that brings with it some new gameplay techniques and hardware tricks. Using game-engines creatively and differently to the standard would bring more variety - how though?
Tesselation seems pretty interesting, although not usable in a high quantity - hardware improvement will take care of that. Set frame rate, as said, would be good - also adding to the Gran Turismo 30+ cares, that would be interesting. The sandbox game environment would benefit from more immersion, but I think their environments are going to start to get more procedurally generated in terms of block outs, then again can you tell a story better doing it that way?
Say for GTA, if you could cross that game with the Sims, Sim City, Battlefield 3 (as well as 3rd person) and have a persistent multiplayer experience - wouldn't that be cool? Or, then again why try to get so close to real life in a game when you can just go and do real life?
You will still have to author content the same way you do now, you'll just be able to use a higher budget and you'll have fancier rendering.
Everything looks "pretty good" right now, so it's only getting to the point of who can make something more realistic via rendering, which is almost completely out of artists' hands.
What we need is more games like Journey and Bastion. You have to think out of the box when making something that is not mainstream graphics. That's where my interests lie.
most people I know outside of the game industry who play games are kinda the opposite of what the gamer/nerd stereotype is. they just play call of duty and madden, maybe NHL or need for speed sometimes and thats it. they dont care about games enough to deal with a big hassle. they just want to chill for a few hours a week playing games. I think the thing is the audience who is buying the games that sell a ton are a lot more casual like that than people give credit int terms of sheer volume that contributes to those sales.
Xbox
Xbox 360
I think there's a bigger improvement over the life of the 360 than the change between the xbox and xbox 360
I am excited for the next gen. There are other things we can use, tesselation, dx11, etc. Higher poly counts and larger textures.
Granted our game will most likely always strive for 60fps so that is always the challenge but having a much more powerful system to do it on opens a lot of doors.
On the artistic side of things, I don't see a huge change in the way assets are generated, we'll see the obvious: Higher Polycounts, Larger Textures, Displacement, Better cloth sim and physics etc
One of the things i'm quite excited by is, I believe we'll start to see the decline of the standard Spec maps and move towards more Physical based lighting systems and the associated maps(albedo, roughness, substance, AO, Normal) Some current gen games have already made this leap.
I also hope to see a greater support for indie devs on the online stores, whilst PSN and XBL had the foundations for this, this time round its something they really should push.
There also seems to be this push to remove texture painting all together which makes me a sad panda
That said, I do agree that maybe that huge spike in actual tech wont be there again ( Dude, nvidia photoshop normal map plugin - do you remember the dos based normal map generator Orb ?! ) That was some old school super random result shiat!
Some shit that I will honestly not be sad to see dissapear alltogether and I really hope it does in this generation for artists?
Once ive sculpted a high polygon model - I would like a 1 button click solution that:
1) Retopos my model to a set triangle count.
2) Unwraps my model to a set texture budget.
3) Bakes my normal, AO and whatever else maps i need.
1 Button.
Perhaps with further integration with things like dDo or Knald.
It's technical whizbangery that is screaming for automisation imo. If your working in a typical next gen pipeline - the heavy hitting stuff that makes your game look different, and feel different artistically is not found in those steps above.
If I could focus all my energy on becoming a better sculptor & texture painter - and keep that flow on, I'd be a better artist, faster.
Occulus Rift / Google Glass present an interesting new way to experience things, maybe there will be some interesting things on the horizon yet
I remember when Doom 3 and Far Cry were first announced and people were having nerdgasms over the normal maps being used along with the extra maps being used as we were only just starting to use specular maps and maybe bump maps. It required a whole new skillset that a lot of artists didn't have at the time and the challenge was to shoehorn existing tools i.e. sub d modelling in max for organics, fine details etc.
And then the transition from using 3ds max to create the high poly meshes to using zbrush. Another skillset shift.
Then using zbrush to retopo meshes rather than having to swap between the 3d app and zbrush. The tools were starting to mature but there's still a lot of steps towards getting a game ready asset done.
Now that things are starting to slow down in terms of having to re-skill whenever we get another toy to play with, we can now look at those tools and actually make them work in our favour and not just to serve their basic purpose.
I have a feeling that within 5 years the automation that you've mentioned Haz will start happening once companies realise that they can't survive having 100s of artists pouring away time and a lot of effort in to assets that need a lot of back end fiddling.
It will mean that either we're going to either get richer looking games because those artists are freed up more or a reduction in art team sizes if the automation means that less bums are needed on seats to do the same output.
But as a whole, I'm kinda meh to the new consoles mainly because I'm now really struggling financially so even thinking about forking out for a new console is out of the question.
But if I were in a better financial position, I would be hoping that the new consoles will mean that games like Ni No Kuni would end up even more polished (lip synching done on the fly, all in engine cutscenes for instance) because the tech is good enough to deliver all this on the fly without some poor sod having to match the mouth shapes by hand.
In any case, I've not seen anything that really makes me want to go wow but it might just take one title that takes the Naruto/Ni No Kuni art style and pushes it towards looking like a full on animated production to actually make me take notice, or maybe a game where there's massive destruction going on i.e. like the video in the thread of awesomeness (destructor? ) but working in realtime.
My thoughts exactly. I prefer painting textures much more than fiddling with bakes.
ESPECIALLY when new AAA games take so much more effort to compete.
I have no excitement for most new console hardware, just their social features. I want to find new ways to bring people together with games.
They will mostly do more of the same.
It's the same story every new console transition.
It's an evolution process. Look at launch titles on the PS3 or Xbox 360 and compare them to stuff that has come out at the end of those system's lifespans. I got a real eye-opener yesterday when my son popped Halo 4 out of the Xbox360 and dropped in Chromehounds. Holy glaring difference, Batman.
I was mostly talking about gameplay wise.
We'll still have the same old corridor shooters with a hand full of enemies, etc.
So yeah, texture resolutions may go up a "notch" but poly budgets will more or less be the same and as everything else goes. At least practices can be more grounded in artists and designers and programmers can now focus what they are developing and artists can take more time to study and not rush the prettiest product.
But I could again be incorrect.
The big ones will for sure. Lets hope the console makers mean business when they say it's going to be easier for the little guy to get on there
I could not agree more with you good sir! I feel like aesthetics, along with a multiplayer mode is used more often now a days just to cross a checkbox in a list of todos for each IP. Think Crysis and similar IPs.
When a company focuses more on story, gameplay and optimization (to get push for most triangles while still maintining 60 or sometimes 30 FPS) they develop a stronger fan base. Think Uncharted and soon, think The Last of Us.
Duke 3D => Duke Forever - sucked
Final Fantasy classics - New final fantasys - no words for that....
Great Starwars games, battlefront, xwing etc => Kinect Starwars, ass kicking stupid dance mode, and kinect.
UT2003 and Quake => Gears of War (i dont like it, sry), ID software lack of getting things organized (RAGE, DOOM4)
And many other titles...
These things make me get sad and uninspired about the industry and the hype I had once before. I really want to work in a good project, story, art quality, animation, graphics and fun gameplay, I just still couldn't work on such miracle, and that makes me really upset and wanting to quit the game industry sometimes.
Pretty much this. Sony especially seems to be trying really hard to get more indies on their platform and they seem to be very proactive in reaching out to them. Hell, having The Witness shown during the PS4 presentation already shows that a shift is happening.
I think we'll see more and more of niche titles. Games like Bastion, or Binding of Isaac already sell more copies than some AAA games (1.7 mil and 2+ mil respectively) while costing a lot less to make. Also, with digital distribution becoming more popular, I can only see the market becoming more diversified than ever.
Totally agree on this. As an Artist I love hand painted more craftsman-like approach to art then using tech to do it all. That said I'm impressed as hell by the games that push the limits (Crysis 3, Rage, Halo 4, etc). They're just not my thing as an Artist.
The state of AAA is fine. It's how it was in the PS3 days. The big dogs survive and do well. The bad thing is that the middle has dropped out. There is no mid-tier developers. If your game doesn't get a 85% metacritic and sell north of 3.5 mill you're out of a job. And that stinks. The indie market is great for things, but it's the wild west. There's no rhyme or reason to things. Which is great cause it's survival of the fittest. But personally I know I miss some amazing indie games cause they have no marketing budget and I miss it. And I've made indie games! I'm very in tune with that community for the most part. So if I'm missing things then the general gaming public must.
Sony trotting out Jonathan Blow was great at their PS4 reveal. Bigger for me would be to trot out company x that has only sold 3 million units over 10 years or worked on mid-tier products and show that this company could survive (maybe not turn into a AAA dev just survive) in the next gen.
Either way the indie stuff should make things a bit more interesting. Steam is still where it's at for indie games and I imagine that will start to shift some with the efforts Sony is making. I know some indie places doing well with Vita sales actually. Which is pretty promising.
I feel that the problem of old mid end was that it tried to promise a similar experience to big budget games, without being able to offer the same level of production values. As cruel as it may sound, I don't really miss the old mid-end that much, because I always associated it with games of sub-par quality. This is where I think indie succeeds; rather than try to compete with AAA, it is something entirely different and is judged by a different set of criteria.
Both are independent studios, sure, but then so is Epic Games. The new 'indie scene' isn't really defined by these kinds of players.
Animating faces with blendshapes/morph targets will be possible.
When you we can run animated blendshapes in unity on an ipad, it better be in the next generation of console hardware. I really can't stand bone based facial animation systems, they take longer to set up, they take longer to animate and they are harder to script tools around and they are often the first bones to be cut when bone budgets get tight.
"I guess we don't need FULL cheek or eyelid control, never mind that the hands grip a gun 98% of the time, but we need all 20 bones in the freakin hands! Who cares if the face articulates like a deranged chimp who just had dental surgery? No you're right, lets focus on getting the shape of bokeh to be little hearts, that's way more important..."
Umm what were we talking about? oh right...
I would love to be able to use facial performance capture and not have to water it down and filter it through 2-3 systems to finally get some bone driven animation. I would love for tools like lBrush, lipservice and gDeform to be standard tools animators can use, if not in engine in Max or Maya. These aren't new tools they've been around for years but due to the locked nature of the last console cycle they were mostly out of reach for real time developers.
There also might be muscle systems, corrective shapes based on joint angles, dual quaternion skinning. Scaling bones might become more of a standard feature.
All interesting possibilities, we'll have to see how it goes and what gets used.