The Art of Realism
Ever pay the ridiculously outrageous ticket price to watch a much anticipated movie only to walk-away shaking your head…it just wasn’t realistic enough. The plane crash and automobile accident just didn’t seem real. With all of the technology advances out there today, virtual worlds and simulations have come a long way since their respective introductions. Virtual landscapes are becoming more and more realistic; complete with images blurring the line between reality and virtual. This greater realism adds to more believability, especially for those skeptics out there. When looking back just a few years the overall quality has largely, dramatically improved – making even 2008 era productions look outdated. Even Google Earth has come a long way since its ‘early days’ with its 2005 release. Simulations and a host of other training applications are all evolving to more realistic representations and sceneries as well, thus making things appear so real that you feel like you are there, great for those of us that tend not to leave the office much.
Most of us non-graphic types of people never take a moment to think about how much time is really invested into generating realistic graphics (no matter the context – from TV commercials to real-time rendered computer simulations). Yet if you were to enter a synthetic environment complete with real-time rendered imagery, you may find certain things amiss when you see a water fall with water but no water flowing. It’s the realism factor. When watching a NPC speak and the mouth movement is not in sync with the audio one giggles to oneself at how unrealistic the scenario seems simply for the animation being off. While modeling human behavior (i.e. hand gestures) takes a talented hand it is possible to be lifelike. Think for a moment how complex a single environment can be. So the question becomes: How real is too real? I say it needs to be so real it hurts!
