Do you feel like 'solid geometry' for games has reached its limit?

ned_poreyra

Obviously graphics are getting better, especially in the lighting and VFX department. But there is one category that kind of reached its limit I think - solid geometry (from lack of a better word). Rocks, buildings, furniture, house accesories, hard surface objects, stuff like that. That is - most of the stuff. I mean, how much better can rocks get? Can they even get any better? Or furniture? It's not hair that still can improve in shading, density and simulation, it's not skin that could simulate how pores stretch and light scatters. It's a damn rock. Once you sculpt it photorealistically or photoscan it (or even lidar-scan), it's just going to be the same rock, forever and ever, from now on. Screens are not going to grow infinitely, so even texture resolutions will stop eventually.

thomasp

In my opinion next level for these should be fully destructable objects, built to crumble and shatter in a believable way.

FourtyNights

How can rocks be even better-looking in games?

It's all about lighting, video games go towards ray tracing nowadays, so rocks can get lit even more nicely. Not forgetting the extra material definition on top of them. Like them being covered with moss, snow, ice or being wet from the rain.

oglu

Rocks can get a lot better. In most games they look like zbrush rocks. You cant say which kind of sediment they are.

Scanned rocks are often placed in a rong way. Reused to often. Dont look integrated and do miss a lot of small to tiny rocks.

I worked a lot on rocks in different games and there is a lot missing to get realistic rocks. 

kanga

Or I didn't understand your post. From 1:25. This looks like a game changer to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5KtatMcUw

Alex_J

oglu said:

You cant say which kind of sediment they are.

This ^

The most convincing games made with the most money and biggest talent still aren't even getting close to 1/1,000,000,000th of the complexity you find in nature.

We seen lara croft climbing around on some spongy looking gray stuff but nobody who has played those games has felt the tension of hanging onto a single crystal of granite because no game has rendered realistic looking granite. Yet.