Predictions for increasing realism in CG gore

[Koko Ricky]

The following are predictions and ideas on how programmers and artists will increase the realism of computer generated blood and gore, preferably in real-time video and computer games. I would assume that these advanced would be possible within 10 to 15 years. I am not a CG expert.

==Fully modeled blood.==
Blood, in games, is generally a texture, sometimes an animated one, that splats on walls and ground. When video cards are able to render many billions of polygons per second, it will become feasible to have actual modeled blood. In order for it to be realistic, algorithms will have to be developed for simulating fluid. The character model will have to be treated like a barrel that can leak when holes are punched through it. This would allow for dynamic puncture wounds. The artists would likely have to study fluid, as well as projectile wounds, in order to appear believable.

==Fully dynamic skeletal, muscular and epidermal meshes.==
The possibilities of Endorphin (a powerful apparatus for simulating reaction to gravity and physics), combined with realistic simulation of injury and elasticity of the skin, will allow for total destruction of the human body. Broken bones, peeled skin, dismemberment, mutilation, disembowelment, decapitation, and other forms of injury, would be possible, or at least more detailed.

==Fully modeled organs.==
The intestines, liver, pancreas, brain, heart, lungs, gallbladder, spleen, kidney, bladder, etc., would all be modeled in detail, so that depending on the injury caused, one or more organs may be affected or exposed. Each organ would be segmented so that they can be completely obliterated.

==Emulation of velocity and destructive power in reference to weapons==
This would allow for all the anomalies that occur when a weapon is fired. All entry and exit wounds would occur according to the size of the projectile, its speed and angle, and the area it is puncturing. Blood spurts and actual wounds (as well as flapping or peeled skin) would become fully dynamic, instead of scripted. Extensive studying of the body's reaction to gunfire would be necessary.

==Destruction of the body from non projectile weapons==
Fire, acid, lava, high speed water, extreme winds, lightning strikes and other phenomena would be taken into consideration to allow for dynamic deaths. Each hazard would have to be programmed to cause certain reactions to the mesh, instead of just having the character model instantly die. This would force programmers to take into consideration how these hazards would affect the skin versus the muscles, bones, blood and organs. Proper emulation of complex reactions such as melting skin or burning skin, as well as body contortion, would be necessary.

[david_a]

Why would you want photo-realistic gore? I don't want to play Soldier of Fortune 4: Rotten.com

[exp(x)]

Yeah, no kidding.

[kristus]

I bet there's someone out there who wants to masturbate to it.

Anywya, I don't see polygon modeling as the future of computer graphics. It's way too limited. Voxels are starting to make a come back. And in the end you'll be able to perform your realistic gore. But really, why would you want to?

[Bank]

This is all cool for gibs and stuff but I shouldn't be able to make out a liver clearly when I shoot someone with a handgun.

[AndrewB]

This is what is wrong with gaming. It's a prime illustration of the industry's habit of wasting an incredible amount of computing power on completely unimportant details. Developers could instead be focusing on properly modeling intelligence and physics so that the gamer could trigger natural events in the game rather than scripted events. But as we all know, it's impossible to portray good gameplay on the back of a box.

The essence and body of the preceding post was perfection and any disagreement in part or in whole by any person living or dead is purely unintelligent.

[Bucket]

david_a said:

Why would you want photo-realistic gore? I don't want to play Soldier of Fortune 4: Rotten.com

Speak for yourself.
Bring on the murder simulators!

[Creaphis]

More realistic gore isn't something I want to see. Realism has had its day. Stylization is where it's at.

[Butts]

Bucket said:

Bring on the murder simulators!

agreed.

[geekmarine]

Even if the computer could handle it, do you realize how much effort it would take to design such a system? We're in an era where games are limited, not simply by processor power, but manpower. The more detail, the more people are needed on the design team, the more expensive the game is, the longer it takes to develop, etc. Even if you have access to some supercomputer that can handle all of this, it doesn't speed up the process of designing it one bit. The programming, the modeling, the texturing... Huge chunks of time that could be invested into gameplay, wasted on purely visual effects. It's just completely illogical.

[Patrick]

while I do admit that this sounds cool, for once I agree with AndrewB. More realistic gore is not necessary. I love to laugh at gore from old games like Doom, Blood and Quake because of the terrible polygons and hilarious looks. I'm sure that some people here have cringed when watching a movie (hannibal anyone?) where it is excessively gory or painful looking. Having that level of detail for gore might not make games fun anymore. While that's a long stretch to make, its ideas like these that the media picks up and crucifies. Ideas like these are sick and unnecessary. This level of violence and graphics only gives gaming a bad name and forces more restrictions on otherwise good games. This kind of detail should be left for anatomy simulations and kept away from games. In all, games should be fun, not anatomy class.

[VileSlay]

yeah, I don't need that much realism in a game. I'm actually perfectly happy with great 2d games that play well as opposed to super fully rendered stylized games with no gameplay value.

[Zaldron]

AndrewB said:

This is what is wrong with gaming. It's a prime illustration of the industry's habit of wasting an incredible amount of computing power on completely unimportant details. Developers could instead be focusing on properly modeling intelligence and physics so that the gamer could trigger natural events in the game rather than scripted events. But as we all know, it's impossible to portray good gameplay on the back of a box.

The essence and body of the preceding post was perfection and any disagreement in part or in whole by any person living or dead is purely unintelligent.

He's fantasizing, it's not like any programmer actually cares that much about gore. Or designer, for that matter. This is not what actually goes on in the mind of developers.

[GreyGhost]

Firstly - I'd be questioning the ethics and personal morality of developers who chose to go down that path.
Secondly - it would be cheaper to round up the hard-core gamers, have them sign vaivers and give them real guns.

[Shaviro]

david_a said:

Why would you want photo-realistic gore? I don't want to play Soldier of Fortune 4: Rotten.com

Agreed.
Gore shouldn't be realistic, it should be symbolic.
What you're describing is, well in lack of better words, sick.

Here are some things they should work on to bring back before gore:
Environmental Variation
Something none of the Triple A shooters have had for a while

Courage
Being trend setters rather than trend followers

Mission Objectives
....that aren't just watered down to "Go to green dot on map" (Hello Crysis!)

Music!
And not the hollywood movie like orchestral stuff. Who was the retard that got the idea that music was only for playing in the background when showing a worthless scripted sequence?

GAME
as opposed to the nobrainer linear cinematic garbage (hello Doom3, Quake4, Prey, Half-Life2, Crysis!)

Challenge
Studios are deadly afraid of their audience these days. Stuff like "Don't kill the player!", "Don't piss him off!", "Don't do timed missions!", "No hard puzzles!", "Constant progression!" is what makes dull games. Please stop holding our hands throughout the game! It's highly gay.

PC Gaming
Because it's the only serious gaming platform

[Shaikoten]

We need to bring back blood 2 gibs. I want my trashcans and washing machines to gib lead pipes.

[david_a]

To add to my first comment, I think pushing games in a more stylized direction is more appealing than approaching photorealism. Given the limitations of games I think trying to render more realistic humans will just fall squarely into the uncanny valley anyway, since they won't act like real people.

I don't mind gore if the art direction is more cartoonish (something like MGS4, for instance). MadWorld is a prime example of something that I think looks neato in the current form, but I probably wouldn't find appealing if the people looked like this.

[jute]

Imagine a game where killing is so unpleasant that pacifist is the most common playing style.

[Koko Ricky]

This is becoming an interesting thread. I posted this exact same proposal in the official Cannibal Corpse forum, where I was met with praise and agreement. Perhaps the death metal crowd is more accepting/interested in simulated intense violence...

I've always enjoyed seeing the gore in Doom, Duke 3D, Quake, Q3A, etc., but I feel it's time to take it to the next level (no pun intended). I'm fascinated by human anatomy and would love to see games in which injured characters are running around with massive flaps of skin hanging off after surviving a grenade explosion, or having half a face missing after a shotgun blast.

I find it irritating and unsatisfying that even games like Dead Space seem to focus on dismemberment with little in the way of actual rupturing skin or the tearing apart of organs and muscles.

At the same time, I do understand the argument that it's unnecessary detail, that it would create a bad rep for Mature rated games, and that it is fairly perverse. But I for one find it fascinating and harmless. As a pacifist, I feel I could handle such simulation of violence.

Kristus, why do you feel voxels are the future of real time rendering? Stylistically, it looks awesome, but its Lego-like appearance would contradict the current trends of increasing realism and high polygon counts.

[kristus]

Doom3 world thread on Voxels.
http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21992&start=0

[DaniJ]

The problem is that people are confusing the future concept(s) for voxels with the way it was done years ago. The techniques involved bear only a passing similarity and perhaps, high-level design mythos.

Also, the demos ATI released only used a voxel-like data structure for lighting. The world and all game objects are still entirely polygonal.

[Shaviro]

david_a said:

MadWorld is a prime example of something that I think looks neato in the current form, but I probably wouldn't find appealing if the people looked like this.

To me it doesn't really matter much. That game looks like it's all about violence for the sake of violence. In my book that's just downright sickening. Like GreyGhost wrote, I question the ethics and morality of the developers of that game.

[Bucket]

jute gyte said:

Imagine a game where killing is so unpleasant that pacifist is the most common playing style.

Heh, imagine shooting someone in the neck and they squirm and yell and gurgle for half an hour.

[myk]

NEWSFLASH: Reports are coming in that Jack Thompson has turned to voodoo magic now that he's been disbarred. Little by little signs that he's been altering select game fans into zombies under his control are becoming evident throughout the Internet.

[Reaper978]

Like GreyGhost wrote, I question the ethics and morality of the developers of that game.

Hahaha...

I found GoatLord's initial ideas rather interesting. Considering the extreme realism of violence found in films, I don't understand why games should be left out. In any case, highly realistic violence does not automatically suggest a sick macabre fantasy. If these effects were used in a war game, for instance, it would be part of the anti-war message (as typically found in very graphic war films). It is just a portrayal of reality - indeed, firing an assault rifle at someone would have the effect of firing an assault rifle at someone. If you don't want to see such things, why are you playing the game? I think it all depends on how it is employed. I see it as part of the environment.

Style is mentioned above. With access to realism in any element of the design, I think the creator is given more flexibility in forging their own style. I am not suggesting gore be given more attention than anything else, but it makes sense to me that it is included as everything advances. Killing is, after all, a main element of many of these games.

[Creaphis]

david_a said:

.....but I probably wouldn't find appealing if the people looked like this.

Heh, after clicking on that link, I was wondering why you chose to link to that picture over all other pictures of human beings, and then I noticed the domain name "cgsociety" and the dots connected. Ho. Lee. Crap.

[Shaviro]

Reaper978 said:

Hahaha...

Reread my post.
You'll find that it's not about GoatLord's idea, but the game I link to in the actual post.

[NiGHTMARE]

geekmarine said:

Huge chunks of time that could be invested into gameplay, wasted on purely visual effects. It's just completely illogical.

This isn't the 1980's or early 1990's, where one or two guys can create an entire commercial game on their own (indie and freeware is a different story, of course). Modern progessional games developers have massive teams of people, each of whom work on one (or maybe two) individual aspect of the game.

Therefore, time spent on visual effects (created by modellers and artists) isn't going to impact the time spent on gameplay (level designers, scripters, etc) very much at all. Pretty much the only thing the two areas would have in common is that both require programmers, but then most games these days have multiple programmers anyway.

Heck, the BioShock team hired a programmer AND an artist solely to work on the water effects.

[40oz]

I suggest game developing companies stick with sprites being drawn on the area of bullet contact, then the sprite falls straight down at a constant speed until making contact with the ground, dissapearing about a half second after.

[AndrewB]

NiGHTMARE said:

Therefore, time spent on visual effects (created by modellers and artists) isn't going to impact the time spent on gameplay (level designers, scripters, etc) very much at all. Pretty much the only thing the two areas would have in common is that both require programmers, but then most games these days have multiple programmers anyway.

This would make sense if you could make a good game where the things you see and the things you do have no connection with each other. This just isn't so. The issue really isn't so much graphics taking away from gameplay but rather graphics being detached from gameplay. Inevitably the two ARE abstracted out from each other because of the large development teams. That's when you end up with games that are full of scripted sequences and linear gameplay so that everything can be tied together.