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Matrix-Like VR Coming in the Near Future?
Anonymongoose writes "A researcher at Brookhaven National Lab reckons it could be just a few years before computers can pass through the uncanny valley. The article refers to this as a 'Graphics Turing Test': 'a computer can be considered intelligent if it can create an artificial world capable of fooling a person into believing it is the real thing.' Michael McGuigan has been performing some interesting experiments using Brookhaven's Blue Gene/L supercomputer and has shown that it can produce realistic lighting effects in real time. McGuigan's original research paper (pdf) is available online."
Future Tech Prediction Checklist:
"Researchers" did or said something: x
"A few years" before the tech is out: x
Promises to change the way we think of computers: x
Shitty PDF "research paper" that was probably written by a half drunk college kid: x
Gimme an 'O', gimme an 'R', and gimme an 'N'!
It won't have to fool me into believing it's the real thing; I WANT to believe. I'm quite willing to ignore some gaping holes in any VR representation (but not others, nudge & wink).
(In fact my "Top Ten" List would contain more than a couple of anime characters)
Sure, using a Blue Gene/L you can run a radiosity simulation on top of raytracing in approximately real time. Big freaking whoop!
But will we have the model and shading tools, not to mention the physics engines and such to simulate a realistic environment in 5 years? 10? 20? Curiously the article fails to investigate this.
Instead they have a nicely shaded clump of colored balls. Maybe they'll do a teapot next!!!
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
But having a direct neural interface, that can mimic all five senses at once, is another thing altogether.
(Not to mention being able to do it for hundreds of thousands of people, some of whom might be spaced out all over the world, with no appreciable lag... Oh, and having many separate strong AIs all running on the same hardware...)
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Maybe in the new virtual worlds there'll be something good on TV.
I think I'd be impressed by a realistic virtual world. This one isn't convincing. There's a dead pixel in Iowa.
You fudge it with a nonsensical but repeatable and predicatable algorithm, like quantum theory
This is something that has always made me wonder. When computer graphics reach the point where you cannot readily tell if the image you are seeing is real or synthetic, how will this affect video game violence?
Can you imaging Grant Theft Auto X with full realistic imaging? How would that affect someone when they go beat a whore to death with a baseball bat and the mind cannot as easily dismiss the disturbing imagery as virtual.
When I played DOOM, I found myself trying to look around the corner of the inside of the computer screen.
It was immersive enough to fool me...
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I type this every time.
A researcher at Brookhaven National Lab reckons it could be just a few years before computers can pass through the uncanny valley.
We can use it for the heads-up display for our flying cars (just a few years away) powered by practical fusion (just a few years away) while travling to the clinic for our immortality tratements (just a few years away).
Thank god all the best things humanity will ever invent are going to be practical at the same time (just a few years away).
I remember when I first heard of VR around 1989-90. I'm talking about the big headset with two screens one for each eye drawing a slightly different angle, with it also having head tracking and then draw the screens appropriately.
I thought, what an amazing idea! This seemed like the closest thing you could have to a holodeck (kind of like a holodeck in reverse). Anyway, some games came out in the arcades. One company in particular was virtuality. They had this game called Dactyl Nightmare that I tried a couple of times. It was like a fps where you and a friend were pitted in an arena against each other with a gun. There was also this pterodactyl flying around that would randomly try and grab one of you. Anyway, neat simple idea to showcase VR. Problem was, it was certainly not ready for prime time.
The screens were extremely low res. I mean it seemed lower than 320x240 per screen. But what really ruined the immersion factor was the frame rate. It felt like it was in the teens at best. Most of the time it felt like a slideshow.
Anyway, they had a couple other games at the time, and they were pretty much the same experience.
I still think it's a great idea, just way ahead of it's time. The problem was they were trying to do 3d (on two screens no less) in a 2d world. At that time, I think virtua racing/fighter just hit the scene. Almost all games were 2d still, and most certainly with the consoles/home computers.
I checked their wiki entry just now and there was a sequel to dactyl nightmare which came out about 3 years later that ran on a 486, so I could just imagine what the first ran on.
Anyway, the idea seemed to flop, but I always thought it was an idea ahead of it's time. Certainly we could do two screens at say 640 480 at 60 fps. It's been 16-17 years since I tried this and thought by now the idea would resurface.
Cyberspace is a dead idea anyways. Aside from "the goggles problem" (no one likes to wear geeky equipment), we're already in the /real/ cyberspace. William Gibson has suggested things along these lines.
The barrier between physical and digital is getting smaller all the time. If you go to a party, you can take a picture with your phone and it'll be on facebook in seconds. Cyberspace isn't going to be an "other" place, it's being grafted onto reality.
The whole Matrix simulacrum spiel is such a load of shite I find it utterly bizarre that people are still entertaining it.
I'm *sure* that the computer will fool some people into thinking what it makes is real, because THOSE PEOPLE ARE STUPID. It's not that the machines will become intelligent, it's that we're bending the curve on what we think is intelligence to something really stupid - we'll just lower the bar, or collectively enter our idiocracy and think "Hey - fooled me!"
"Gee Johnny, why don't you stop drooling on yourself for a minute and tell me: is the machine intelligent?"
"Id da macheen telligent? Duhh YEAH Boss! Id be willy telligent! Can I have cookie now?"
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I'd rather have Tron-like VR. Screw your stylish coats and sunglasses, I want a lightcycle and gridbugs.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If we just need a few years of development to get truly photo-realistic images in real time, then why can't why make those realistic images right now in less than real-time? I mean, sure Hollywood visual effects are great, but they are never perfect. And, that's with a zillion artists working day and night to make frames that often take many hours to render when all is said and done. And, when it comes to people, they aren't even great. Crossing the uncanny valley isn't about FLOPS. It's about creating the content to throw those FLOPS at. It's going to take a long, long time before you have the algorithms in place that can simulate, animate, and render a realistic person. Not that it won't happen. It probably will. I just think we may wind up with hardwrae to run those algorithms before we wind up with those algorithms. So, just pointing at hardware advances and shouting is probably a bit misleading.
I wonder though... particle physics aside, if you were born into the model a la The Matrix, would it matter if it was photorealistic? I have 20/20 vision, but I've heard that people with bad eyes don't really realize how much detail they're missing till they get glasses. If the Matrix had the graphic levels of DOOM or Quake 1, but you never saw what real life looked like, would you buy it?
I'd mod you up if I had the points.
Perspective is a very powerful thing. If you know nothing else, it's near impossible to even wonder about how it could be better.
For example, remember when the N64 was new and GoldenEye was the best game ever? I back to GoldenEye every now and then and I wonder how I could ever understand the writing or make out the other players from the background. I've just gotten used to "better" graphics.
Can you imagine a colour that we haven't discovered?
That said, I wouldn't volunteer my children or myself.
1178161 is prime...
But as for still frames and modelling, we're getting there:
Sexy Girl - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=532817
Tattoo Guy - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=550192
The Artist - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=472843
As for realtime photorealistic animation though, we're a long, long way from there. Lighting is one hurdle, the bigger hurdle is content. Models, textures, rigs... forget rendering, all of this takes a lot of time to BUILD for a photoreal environment.
Its one thing to come up with a realistic model and scene for a photo-realistic still frame. Its another, to rig all of those models so that they can interact with each other in a pre-determined way. Its something altogether entirely different to do this in real time without predetermined paths and choreographed actions, and modelling all viewable elements based upon the degree of movement that a user has within the space.
This is very much highlighted in the differences between high-poly count models (for detailed stills) and low-poly models (used for 3D games). The "art" for immersive environments like simulated 3D gaming (fps, racing sims etc) is to come up with a convincing representation of a real world object with the lowest poly count possible.
Currently the difference between these polycounts is massive.