Will we get "Toy Story" quality graphics with PS3

[Anthony1]

I have heard repeatedly, over and over, that one day we would be playing games with "Toy Story" graphics.

Although some of the best PS2 and XBOX and GameCube games can look pretty damn incredible, they are no where near the "Toy Story" level of quality.

Do you think we will actually get to "Toy Story" quality visuals in the next generation?

Or do you think that it's still several more generations away?

[omnedon]

current gen looks pretty close to me. Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime. Not much diff in my eyes.

Photo realistic renders, that is the next (and final) frontier. Once that wall is hit, they will be forced to address AI, plot, and gameplay, as that is all that will be left to tweak.

[tholly]

I don't think the next generation of systems will have it yet. Maybe the one after that will, I dunno, but it will happen in the future, just not yet.

[Trellisaze]

It's not too big of a stretch of the imagination in terms of cutscenes and perhaps still shots.

For the soul of the gameplay in action, I'll have to see it to believe it. I'm just not sure that the finer but crucial aspects of the graphics, like facial and body expressions and such, will be dynamic enough to make us think we're really controlling a virtual Buzz Lightyear.

[MaRiNe]

Its very possible, although I think Shrek looked better than Toy Story... although I liked toy story a hell of a lot more.

[Oobgarm]

Cutscenes/FMV? We're there and possibly beyond.

Core gameplay/Gameplay engine? Long time off, IMO. We'd be dropping "buku" bucks on a system if it was capable of rendering stuff like that in real-time.

[Zubiac666]

nah....not yet imo!
take a closer look at "Toy Story"!
The amount of detail is incredible:
The outdoor scences are best example.I doubt that any of the next-gen consoles can even create one of the "Toy story"-trees(thousands of bump-mapping leaves with hundrets of different textures).
NO WAY the next-gen consoles can handle dozens of these+houses,streets etc etc in real-time.

N-O W-A-Y!!!!!!!

[MoreEbolaForYou]

for pre rendered cut-scenes? sure.

for real time rendering? no, not even close at all.


concering toy story:
"The RenderFarm is one of the most powerful rendering engines ever assembled, comprising 87 dual-processor and 30 four-processor SPARCstation 20s and an 8-processor SPARCserver 1000. The RenderFarm has the aggregate performance of 16 billion instructions per second -- its total of 300 processors represents the equivalent of approximately 300 Cray 1 supercomputers."

of course this is a little dated, but do you think your next gen system is going to have that much processing power? think about it.

[kevincure]

The next generation of systems, assuming an increase in power similar to the difference between PS1 and PS2, will certainly have the *power* to do Toy Story quality graphics. The bottleneck will no longer be the computing power, but the talent of the developer. It clearly takes quite a bit longer for the 3d designer to create models of 100,000 polygons than of 1000 polygons. Many developers simply won't be able to do that level of graphics.

I wrote an article for Gaming Age a few years ago that suggested that, as processing power increased, you're going to see more "non-realistic" rendering, such as cel-shading, Viewtiful Joe-style 2d and Matsuura's new game (the "sequel" to Vib Ribbon). Smaller developers will find it easier to make a good-looking game with this type of graphic rendering that by trying to compete with Square and Nintendo on pure realism.

[tholly]

for pre rendered cut-scenes? sure.

for real time rendering? no, not even close at all.


concering toy story:
"The RenderFarm is one of the most powerful rendering engines ever assembled, comprising 87 dual-processor and 30 four-processor SPARCstation 20s and an 8-processor SPARCserver 1000. The RenderFarm has the aggregate performance of 16 billion instructions per second -- its total of 300 processors represents the equivalent of approximately 300 Cray 1 supercomputers."

of course this is a little dated, but do you think your next gen system is going to have that much processing power? think about it.

Wow...that shit about the Render Farm is amazing...I never heard that before...thats a lot of power...

[Captain Wrong]

No. Considering Toy Story quality animation still takes a long time to render even on Silicone Graphics workstations, there's no way a $300 console in the next few years is going to be able to do it on the fly.

[Slipdeath]

nope not yet...soon tho...the toy story animations if u look at the detail

[maxlords]

We'll be LUCKY to have em by 2020. That's WAY more advanced than anything we can get realt time currently. Makes even upcoming graphics hogs like Doom 3 and Half-Flie 2 look like jokes.

[Kejoriv]

I think consumers will not have the quality in video games intil 2020. There is so much detail in Toy Story and Shrek. I think they could make these games before then, but then they will have to pass down the huge cost to comsumers something companies will never do.
~Kejoriv

[RCM]

I don't think we will be able to get Toy Story quality graphics for the most demanding titles. I don't know, but don't think that it would be possible even for the least demanding graphic engines. I remember hearing that the T-Rex model in Jurassic Park was comprised of 90,000 polygons. While that is impressive, it doesn't seem so far out. But when you factor in the huge differences between Prerendered and real-time graphics you run into some snags in getting the same image quality. I remember reading that to get the same image quality you would have to have either a T-Rex model that was comprised of 500,000 million polygons or was it a graphic engine that ran at 500,000 million polygons per second ( I assume with 60fps and all graphic bells and whistles tunred on)? This was a couple years ago and I don't remember the article well so if anyone knows what I am talking about please correct me if I am wrong (chances are I am somwhere with those figures). Regardless, I don't think we would be able to get a free-roaming platformer like Mario to look like Toy Story in the coming generation. I think we will be closer then ever beforfe obviously. I think the next consoles are going to blow the doors off the current PC cards that are running DOOM 3 and Half Life 2. What I am hoping for in the next generation of consoles are to have even the "worst" looking titles blow the doors off of graphic powerhouses like Panzer Dragoon Orta and Halo 2. It's possible.

THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM

[Ed Oscuro]

I think consumers will not have the quality in video games intil 2020. There is so much detail in Toy Story and Shrek. I think they could make these games before then, but then they will have to pass down the huge cost to comsumers something companies will never do.
~Kejoriv

Detail (as I define it -- number of objects) isn't the issue here. We have as many objects being worked on in games right now as are in the movies. Much of what you see in Toy Story are truly extraneous details for realism (1.2 million leaves on Andy's block, 12K hairs on the characters' heads, etc) and video games would rather concern themselves with substance.

Can developers impart as much character to game entities as Toy Story does, except taking into account every possible movement and scenario? Eventually, yes, but it will always be expensive! Right now we can't put as much character into stuff or do cloth effects quite like in Toy Story (128 control points on a bookbag!), but would you notice on a TV screen? Maybe an HDTV...

I always shudder when somebody tries to compare video games to movie CGI -- here's a quote:

Pixar used Sun workstations at 1536 x 925 pixel resolution to produce Toy
Story 2 for Disney--totally digital.

Lucas Films is using Electrohome projectors for screening, editing, and
post-production work. Lucas Films originate in digital at 1920 x 1080
resolution.

...

1280 x 1024 pixels at 10,000 lumens seems to be the minimum acceptable for
digital projection.

It seems to me that's what the movie's resolution is at, too. PC games can run at this level of resolution, but console games have the benefit of not needing to run that high (though everybody's pushing progressive scan, heh).

[8-bitNesMan]

I was bored and looking through some old threads. This one caught my eye. So what do ya'll think? Are we getting closer?

[kedawa]

We won't quite get that quality of render out of the PS3. Its GPU is basically a last-gen pc gpu, afterall.
I doubt we'll get real-time ray-tracing anytime soon, either, but after seeing some screens from Crysis, I'd say next year's high-end gaming pc will be able to render images that are equivalent to those in Toy Story.

[Oobgarm]

Cutscenes/FMV? We're there and possibly beyond.

Core gameplay/Gameplay engine? Long time off, IMO. We'd be dropping "buku" bucks on a system if it was capable of rendering stuff like that in real-time.

I stand by my original post.

We still aren't close. The bump-mapping and other visual trickery does make things look better, the fluidity of animation and overall poly count isn't even close. Devs are just finding ways to push those shortcomings into the background, so most gamers focus on other graphics-related things.

[veronica_marsfan]

FMVs are pre-recorded videos. No different than playing a DVD, and they have nothing to do with the console or its CPU/GPU.

I have heard repeatedly, over and over, that one day we would be playing games with "Toy Story" graphics.

Kingdom Hearts is pretty darn close to Toy Story. Port KH to a PS3, and give programmers 4 years of practice with the new hardware, and we'll see graphics indistinguishable from a VHS copy of Toy Story.

Won't be easy but it will be doable.