An abandoned industrial building covered in graffiti is approached by the policeman. As he moves forward, his bodycam records the scene.
The sky is cloudy. In the outside, weeds push through paving cracks. There is a distant barking of a dog, but no one is visible.
It quickly becomes apparent that there are people hiding here inside the dim, debris-filled interior. individuals who would murder him.
The first comment on the YouTube video of Unrecord gameplay, an upcoming game from French indie game studio Drama, claims that it is the only game that "actually confuses my brain into thinking it's real.".
The video caused a sensation in the games industry and racked up millions of views in just a few weeks. On social media, some commenters questioned whether the experience was actually a game or whether it was just a little too real and raw.
Drama declined a BBC interview, stating that it was "currently busy with investors and publishers.". ".
The graphics in many different games, however, have become noticeably more advanced, perhaps even approaching the level of "photorealism," which is the ability to be mistaken for real-world images or videos.
Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at Ampere Analytics, attributes the Unrecord demo's realistic appearance in part to some clever techniques.
Mr. Harding-Rolls points to the shaky footage that mimics footage from actual crime scenes. The dull lighting, gritty atmosphere, and background noise of the city all contribute.
But might it make some people uneasy?
Mr. Harding-Rolls observes that the scene's setting "is quite reminiscent of some of the more horrifying footage you get out of real life.".
Drama claimed in a statement shared on Twitter that the game was not inspired by any particular real-life occurrences.
Additionally, if you carefully examine some of the still pictures from the video, you might notice some textures and objects that don't appear to be at all realistic. Even though this might not be significant, it casts doubt on the game's photorealistic claims.
General advances in graphics are important for the video game industry, Mr. Harding-Rolls notes: "Consumers definitely want that. They enjoy taking in the amazing appearance of objects. ".
Although she points out that some of the character animations in the Unrecord video are a little clumsy, Rachel McDonnell, professor of creative technologies at Trinity College Dublin, concurs that the video is impressive.
They have the same motion as other video games' characters who fall over and die in predetermined sequences.
She adds that crowds are particularly difficult to make lifelike in video games because "animation hasn't caught up with the rendering at all yet.".
"You'll still observe them exhibiting very odd behavior, such as running in circles and becoming stuck; this immediately removes you from the game. ".
She and her colleagues have conducted experiments that seem to indicate that a character's movement is much more crucial to a player's immersion in a game than how they look.
Today's most realistic content depends on meticulous 3D modeling of objects, according to Marc Whitten, president of Create Solutions at game software company Unity.
Unity displayed a computer-generated clip of a lion and its cub with two million individually rendered hairs last year.
If you don't, Mr. Whitten claims, it doesn't appear photorealistic. The company has also created very lifelike human models, with digital puppetry controlling their deft facial expressions.
He continues, "There's still room for improvement.". The appearance of other challenging-to-simulate objects in games, like clothing, is still far from being photorealistic.
Neural radiance fields, also known as NeRFs, are a significant emerging technology for video game graphics. The tech is already being used to create games, according to California-based Luma AI, which specializes in this.
An artificial intelligence (AI) system known as a NeRF can simulate scenery or objects that have been captured in real-world images or videos.
Amit Jain, co-founder of Luma AI, explains that when you show the network these images from various angles, it learns how light reflects off of everything. "It counts light and gains knowledge from light. ".
It is very difficult to simulate how light would reflect off the leather seat of a motorcycle as opposed to a headlamp in a game. Nerfs might assist with process automation.
Ray-tracing, which simulates how light interacts with surfaces to produce glowing effects around neon signs and other effects, is used in some of today's best video games.
According to Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning research at Nvidia, AI is enabling the creation of these effects in video games despite only modest improvements in chip performance.
He says, "We have to be smarter in how we construct and render the world.
The impact of this can be seen in Ray Tracing: Overdrive, a brand-new mode for the action-adventure game Cyberpunk 2077.
According to Nvidia, its Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology enables designers to use AI to produce high resolution, high frame-rate graphics with ray-tracing.
Mr. Catanzaro explains that the model has been "trained to know what things in the real-world look like.".
According to Epic Games Vice President of Engineering Nick Penwarden, games can sometimes be hard to distinguish from real life.
Nevertheless, he claims that it is still very difficult to depict some materials convincingly, such as an iridescent layer of oil on a pool of water.
We are unable to simulate those aspects in real time at this time, he claims.
It matters whether you do that on a home computer or a game console. It is possible to use powerful computers and have each frame render for a movie with computer-generated imagery take several minutes or longer.
Business technology has become more sophisticated.
It's possible that photorealistic games won't always be the most popular ones. Consider the immensely popular games Minecraft or Epic's own Fortnite, both of which are far from being photoreal.
However, Mr. Penwarden contends that enhanced lighting simulations and material effects benefit artists working on all types of video games. It can also add complexity and depth to stylized or cartoonish environments.
"One of the great advantages of being able to do photoreal images is that the technology can start to do a lot of the work for you," he claims.
