Matrix-Like VR Coming in the Near Future? 249
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."
VR.5 (Score:3, Funny)
Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
"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
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Funny)
</morpheus>
Yeah, but is there anything worth watching? (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a couple of hundred television channels, and canceled my satellite service because there was never anything worth watching on.
Having a realistic world doesn't impress me. I'm holding off to see what they do with it before getting excited.
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I'm holding off to see what they do with it before getting excited.
you will be excited.
With this in the "near" future (whatever the hell that means) we gotta be getting closer to a holodeck type deal, which reminds me:
Kif: The Holosheds broke again and all the characters became real! Cpt. Branigan: Last time this happened i got slapped with 4 paternity suits.
Bender: Oh No, Evil Lincoln, were doomed!
Well, if anyone needs me I'll be in the holoshed
Re:Yeah, but is there anything worth watching? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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The more you exclude because it isn't using gee-whiz special effects, the less likely you are to find anything good. Only rich assholes who don't respect you can afford gee-whiz special effects, and they'd rather your entertainments be trite and superficial.
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Try something like WoW. It may not be exactly good, but it's certainly addictive.
Or try something like Second Life.
Of course, making it photorealistic is not "Matrix-Like VR", that requires a better interface. Nor should photorealism be regarded as a sign of any kind of "intelligence", and comparing it to a Turing test is absurd.
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No, thanks... (Score:4, Funny)
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I still play (Score:3, Funny)
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You see no life here.
photorealistic != realistic (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:photorealistic != realistic (Score:5, Insightful)
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Read it at http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/ [kuro5hin.org] .
Re:photorealistic != realistic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:photorealistic != realistic (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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There was a student in my dorm who was blind from birth. He responded to a question about how he felt about what he was 'missing'. He said he didn't miss it at all, since he never had a concept of 'sight'.
For an interesting brainteaser (or philosophical question)
"How do you explain color to a blind man?"
Tasty wheat (Score:2)
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Gimme a P... (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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Turns out visuals != experience, and that's probably a really good thing..
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That, and the tactile feedback still wouldn't be the real thing. It's supposed to be about human contact.
This is assinine. (Score:5, Insightful)
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!!!
Re:This is assinine. (Score:5, Informative)
tachyon (Score:2)
Because raytracers are useful, and there aren't that many free raytracers with good performance, a reasonably complete set of features and support for distributing the workload across hundreds of processors.
That's because they didn't use antialiasing for that teapot render. They do support anti-aliasing, according to the documentation.
Besides, the SP
You take the red pill.... (Score:2)
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Or you say no to drugs...
"Matrix-Like" ... sounds like a kid posted (Score:2, Interesting)
The poster sounds like a pup to use the phrase "Matrix-Like". Back when the Wachowski brothers were in high school, Gibson had already formulated the term "cyberspace" in Burning Chrome, which was a "Matrix-Like" VR before there was even a Matrix. Give credit where credit is due!
* I find people who post something along the lines of "I have a lot of karma to burn" before posting a rant end up getting modded plus points. Let's see what happens!
Re:"Matrix-Like" ... sounds like a kid posted (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Call it what it is: photorealistic graphics. And just graphics -- no tactile feedback, no direct neural interface, and no convincing AIs -- barely passable physics -- and it says nothing of the actual structure behind it.
That, and Gibson's cyberspace, at least in Neuromancer, wasn't even trying to be photorealistic. It was more like an acid trip, or like Tron without the humanoids -- it would have either had basic geometry, or it'd be usin
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As a philosophy buff the first Matrix had me, then they killed it with the latter two and their cave-raves and messianic imagery.
I got sick of Matrix analogies about the time my old college started forcing 101 kids to watch the Matrix on top of the section on Descartes, and I walked into a book store and saw "The Philosophy of the Matrix" book. Yes, it raises valid (and arguably historic) philosophical issue, b
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BUT, you've got a "fuck the establishment" type post, which is always good for karma whoring (and can anyone honestly say they haven't done it?), so you'll probably stay at a 5.
Future of Video Games (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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But if it sells, why not?
Personally, I'm not waiting for that kind of realism, but on the other hand, I sometimes question the way violence in games is censored. In GTA: San Andres you can shop/shoot off someones head, yet the head disappears and the blood is doesn't look realistic at all (as with most of the violence in GTA). IMHO that can backfire as well, as it can make people indifferent and careless to violence. Compare that to real violence which has an strong emotional to even physical sickening ef
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LS
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Will a realistic world make it difficult to know the difference between real and fake? a kind of cyber-psychosis, if you will.
Violence would just be one part in it.
OTOH, I think people will enjoy games that may look real but clearly aren't. Either the period will be dated. i.e. recreating old event, or creating event's with technology we don't have.
Complelte realism won't really be popular on the mainstream. DO you really want to deal with the sound, smoke and kick
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Most modern military small arms are quite tame (for the person firing them). While i would think it prudent to limit game noise to level that were of minimal damage to the human eardrum, I fear that most gamers choose already to crank the volume to "uncomfortable levels". Realistic smoke would be less than what would
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Weapon recoil on most military assault rifles is pretty light.
Indeed, our first introduction to the M-16 in the Army was our drill sergeant demonstrating its lack of significant recoil by firing it with the butt against his forehead, his chin, and finally his crotch!
Meanwhile, forcing the idiot who insists on taking a Barret Light 50 every round, to deal with its mass and recoil (and trigger flinch) would be amusement enough to allow it to ignore any armor you could wear and tear off body parts for artistic effect.
That'd be hilarious. I'd be satisfied seeing realistic recoil to the degree one finds with the M-249 [militarypictures.info].
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I would love to play a game where my character sits in front of a virtual computer and types for 12 hours a day.
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I think morality issues will probably depend more on AI than on graphics.
I was about to suggest that it will change game design, probably making games more dramatic and thought-provoking, like the interactive-novel style of games that Star Trek crew members played in the holodeck, but I got to thinking that would really require passably intelligent and emotional AI characters.
No matter how realistic a GTA X whore looks, you're not going to feel a lot of empathy for her if she just follows a path down the
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No matter how realistic a GTA X whore looks, you're not going to feel a lot of empathy for her if she just follows a path down the block, day and night, repeating a handful of phrases and behaviors when you interact with her.
I reckon it'd feel about as real as beating up a robot or a mannequin.
"hey sailor....$20" (walk walk walk) "hey sailor"
Even with a list of 50, 100, even 500 canned phrases, it won't be long before you see repeats and your mind will instantly categorize it as "robot". It's gonna take more than realistic VR to get there. We're gonna need to pass the Turing test.
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Environmental building and lighting are
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how will this affect video game violence?
It will make it look like interactive action movie violence, which will be obviously more spectacular and vibrant than it is now (just wait for GTA IV, from the reviews so far it seems it's a leap forward in that very direction). But on the other hand, is it such a big deal? What shocks you the most, a guy stopping a bullet with his bare forehead in Heat or your average episode of Happy Tree Friends?
It's not unique to videogames. (Score:2)
But the photorealism has been there in movies and TV for some time now.
If it's going to affect people, the damage is already (being) done.
Oh, and keep in mind... you don't have to beat the whores to death with baseball bats. That's the interesting thing about GTA. It's a tradition that goes back to Ultima -- let the players do whatever they want, even if some of these things might be downright horrible. It's a test of their morality (or lack thereof), and they
didn't DOOM already do this? (Score:5, Funny)
It was immersive enough to fool me...
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I type this every time.
"Not there yet," When have I heard that before? (Score:3, Informative)
The virtual world was the least impressive thing (Score:3, Interesting)
That's real power. Imagine if everybody could know every thing. that means everyone would push new boundaries and the wheel wouldn't ahve to keep getting invented.
The second kick ass thing was the ships.
Re:The virtual world was the least impressive thin (Score:2)
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What you don't get to take to the real world is your virtual muscles (which can be as toned as you want), and the ability to do things that are physically impossible. But that's no reason the knowledge would suddenly go away.
Re:The virtual world was the least impressive thin (Score:2)
I want to learn how to master kung-fu in a day, and fly a helicopter in a few seconds. That's real power.
That's nothing. Now if you could learn how to be a ninja in a day, that's what I'd call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [realultimatepower.net]
Just a few more years (Score:5, Funny)
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).
How about another shot at that headset VR?! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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http://www.arcadianvr.com/images/Video/Video_Page.htm [arcadianvr.com]
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I tried the glasses in two games - Call of Duty 4 and Flight Simulator X. Both have pretty impressive magic 3d technology where everything gets a nice 3d style.
The glasses for FSX also supported h
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The games
oh puhleeeez... (Score:5, Funny)
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
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Can we expect those who grew up with the darkness to ever be accustomed to light of truth?
Ummm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone else feel like maybe there's a step or two missing there?
blah (Score:5, Funny)
Fast Computers aren't enough for realistic images (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fast Computers aren't enough for realistic imag (Score:5, Interesting)
But as for still frames and modelling, we're getting there:
Sexy Girl - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=532817 [cgsociety.org]
Tattoo Guy - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=550192 [cgsociety.org]
The Artist - http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=121&t=472843 [cgsociety.org]
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.
Finally, progress! (Score:4, Funny)
Bemopolis
"Graphics Turing Test"? Lame definition (Score:2)
If the only aspect of the simulation you consider is "graphics", then I'm pretty sure just about anything capable of video playback qualifies as "intelligent" by this definition.
If the requirement is that the interaction with other "humans" in the simulation be realistic, then you've got two components: simulation of human behavior/interaction/conversation, and graphi
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Off topic, but in regards to you sig...
While the viewing of child porn might be somewhat like thoughtcrime, the main problem is the CREATION of child p
The Obvious Question.... (Score:2)
We don't even have decent VR with todays graphics! (Score:2)
At the moment all of these great games are still stuck behind a little screen. By now we should really be inside the games. When I
Re:We don't even have decent VR with todays graphi (Score:2)
Here they come.. (Score:2)
And once again the usual BS (Score:2)
Matrix-like (Score:3, Funny)
Or has it happened already? (Score:2)
The really funny thing is... (Score:3, Informative)
You have no way of knowing whether you are in a convincing artificial reality right now.
In fact, Hegel - back in the 1830s - already taught that all "reality" is virtual. It is *essentially* appearance. It is all a show, folks. It is meaningless to discuss "real reality versus artifical reality", because there is no absolute distinction between them. They are just "more real" and "less real" in relation to each other.
We philosophers knew all about the problems of virutal reality and knowledge of the world back in the 1600s and 1700s and 1800s - long before computers were invented.
Computers just help the people with no imagination to get the problem a few centuries late.
There. Was that trollish enough?
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Socrates/Plato beat them to it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Allegoryofthecave.png [wikipedia.org]
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Good luck with that (Score:2)
2)Place a number of random objects into the container
3)Fill container with soapy water to half-cower the objects in question
4)start stirring the water.
Even if you manage to render that realistically your supercomputer is going to completely choke trying to work out 3D fluid dynamics with surface tension in real time. For extra fun you can throw in some hydrocarbons with a melting point in the vicinity of room temperature, thus forcing the simulation to take into consider
War of the Worlds? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not so concerned about the technical issues as I am of the social issues.
I'm reminded of the problems that arose when "The War of the Worlds" was broadcast on the radio and some people thought it was real. That was audio. Then, IIRC, there was a scene in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" where the moon colony made up a video of a leader announcing something, but it wasn't real (sorry about the lack of details - I read it a LONG time ago - I'm sure someone here can elaborate/clarify).
Yes, there are still some technological hurdles to overcome in both hardware and software, but at some point I believe it will be possible to generate a scene that is, for all intents, indistinguishable from reality. Then what?
The geek in me can't wait for the day for us to have this power. The human in me fears for the day it comes.
This isn't the Matrix... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...)
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Which would also make the "hacking" believable, even that it's something that's all in your head, that it's effectively like lucid dreaming -- the machines' mistake for using untrusted nodes for their distributed computer -- although it doesn't explain why they'd make quite such a trivial mistake; I'd expect machines to be able to code flawlessly secure virtualization in a brain between human consci
Um, raytracing isn't "photo realistic"... (Score:3, Informative)
It works for plasticky scenes with lots of mirrors and refractive glass balls but not much else.
The Bible has views on issues? (Score:2)
Now, if you said God's view on the issue, it would be arguable. Or Jesus', the apostles, Saul/Paul, or any other figure. But the Bible is a book, and a book with many authors. A book may present a point of view, but it doesn't have one itself.
As far as the second two quotes - well, hence the comment about pork. I still don't understand why anyone clai
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Virtual worlds are defiantly going to be restricted in the future to what you can and can't do. In fact that am I talking about, they are today. Games like GTA are getting a bad rep for their evil situations.
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Once you can make simulations look like reality, you can then pass off reality as a simulation and get fast grade-schooler reflexes behind your remotely operated guns. And not only do you not have to pay them for their service, they'll pay you instead for access to your "game".
(Feigning paranoia is fun!)
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Well supposedly vista sp2 will include support for directx 11 which they claim will support raytracing.
Do you by any chance recall on which precise day of the year you heard these news?
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Surely you can't be serious. In case you are, you're a hell of a gullible mother fucker! I mean, look at the date it was posted or even the last page...