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Gamasutra
July 24, 1998
Vol. 2: Issue 29
| Attn: Gama Readers. This is a biweekly column. If you have any points to raise, whether anonymously or openly, please [email] the writer your thoughts. Gamasutra is a great forum for raising industry awareness. I'd like some of that to come from your input. |
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So my laptop broke on the way here. So, I am a little mad at the world. So, what? It's hot and humid. This was meant to be a happy trip, with happy thoughts and happy meetings. But, my laptop, that life-draining piece of crap silicon and plastic, broke. Did I say it's hot and humid here?
Is it any wonder that I am taking the time to sound the death knell of motion capture for gaming? No time to be postiive. My laptop, that worthless piece of two thousand dollar bird droppings, broke. It used to be that motion capture demonstrations involved somewhat attractive people of a female persuasion in spandex and wires doing weird movement type thingies on a stage for an assembled throng of salivating, portly gentlemen with bad hairstyles. Now, the gentlemen are still the same portly bad hair types, but the spandex beauties ain't so beautiful. Either the motion capture industry is strapped for cash, or they are taking this whole thing way too seriously.
Not that there is anything wrong with non-attractive people. I ain't no beauty myself, and I have limited my self-loathing considerably, but no one comes to a computer graphics show for a jolt of reality.
Nope. No reality needed. That should be the mantra of gaming. For those of you who may have missed out on the concept of computer games as non-real experiences I suggest a heavy dose of artillery fire at your local shooting range, followed by a quick check of your health levels. My guess is, in a game you can always pick up one of those cute health kits (what the hell is in those things), but in real life, you'd die. QED. Sure, there's room for realism in simulations and simulators. Sure, some people can't handle games that hold some serious portend. Sure, maniacal 3D rage is making everyone a little realism-happy. But, what's so great about reality? Yup. My hotel sucks too. Had a cockroach in the bathroom, and no remote for the television. And, the bed pulled down from the wall.
Life is, let's be honest now, nowhere near as fun as fantasy. Where else can you get three horses and the Spice Girls together in one bowl of jello? Not in life, pal. Believe you me, it cannot be done for real. So, why take all the wonder and joy of fantasy and turn it into a Ralph Bakshi animation (go watch the Lord of the Rings and you'll see what I mean). Motion captured movement is predictable, and rather lame. Okay, it will get better. Okay, it is kinda cool when you're the one performing the spinning hook kick. It's just too early to tell how much longevity motion capture can have for gaming. For now it's the results of present day motion capture that concern me, and I don't see much difference between motion captured effects in some games, and the awful predictability of character movement in video-based games like Phantasmagoria, or the Daedulus Encounter.
"Hello, I am Tia Carrere in a small green screen studio, but I will pretend to move and act as if I am in a big space ship. Do I not look real? Am I not moving fluidly as the director asks me to go left two steps, and then right one step?"
So, while everyone is going to talk about 3D at Siggraph, I got a chance to sneak a peak at a handful of image processing applications that might be of interest. There's a lot you can do with simple 2D video and photography to create compelling 3D models. Techimage can take a video of an actor's face, creates a 3D model without wires, and markers, and then export the motion data to a third party application for rendering. It's pretty cool. Character acting in games can make the difference between a good and great game. There are only so many ways you can blow something up, but give people a character they can laugh at or identify with and you have a hook.
Real3D has a great setup, RealScan 3D, that uses a laser scanner to capture complex texture and geometric data from any real world object. They did my head at one demonstration, and every distortion was perfectly replicated. I didn't know there was an algorithm that could do a curve like that, but there is. And it was quick. Instantaneous.
3D Construction Company can build 3D models from photos. It's more suitable for buildings, and solid objects then flesh based characters, but that's okay. Maybe game characters are better off avoiding reality, but setting them within a familiar environment, such as a well known city, will give a title the familiarity that drives some players adrenaline. It's not a novel idea, nothing I say is, but it's difficult to do from the ground up so, if this makes it simpler than so much the better.
Outside of this show, a company called Orad from Israel is making a name for itself in the image processing community because of some of the amazing things they are doing with motion capture of video images. Orad provides a system that recreates a VR simulation of a sporting event by tracking and processing a video of the game. It was used by European broadcasters to get virtual reality representations of goals and action from the World Cup in France. In the future, Orad hopes to be able to place microsensors in players' uniforms to provide real-time virtual representations of games. So, the technology to accurately track and record in a 3D environment movement based on 2D images is there.
It's just a matter of processing. And that's going to get better. More CPU horsepower, and better software algorithms will eventually remove the need to rig up a human being with markers and sensors for a motion capture session. Maybe EA won't have to pay all those sports stars extra bucks for a motion capture session either. They'll just analyze their game films.
However, rather than wish ill on motion capture, which still has a role to play in the gaming industry, I do want to advocate better AI, physics, and behaviors for motion effects in games. We can't predict how intelligent games will get. Maybe they don't have to be that smart, but in action games developers should certainly want to create unique characteristics, and physics. Things that challenge the player beyond the conventions of reality.
Bending reality to your will is the true power of games programming, even in 3D. I certainly hope that photorealistic rendering in real-time never happens. I would hope that more innovation goes into ensuring that the computer graphics environment of computer games remain aesthetically diverse from trends in the cinema, and science. Reality sucks. Did I mention my laptop broke?
Omid is the principal wordsmith at Doodah, a business name that only he may find amusing, and his wife believes will lead them to Penury (a small retirement resort off the coast of Madagascar). Omid provides all manner of writing services for those in the computer industry willing to overcome their reluctance to associate themselves with a business called Doodah. He writes for numerous trade publications, as well as doing private market analysis for companies willing to pay him exorbitant amounts of money or make promises of same. In addition, he flexes his funny bone writing copy for Web sites, packaging, brochures, advertising and PR campaigns. Wherever words of wisdom and wit are required, Doodah is there. You can reach Omid at omid@compuserve.com.