What if the video games industry one-day reach
a high fidelity level in graphics that makes
it indistinguishable from reality?
Would that mean a plateau for the medium?
a generation of consoles that lasts forever?
And would there still be a need to develop
new game engines?
I will try to explain why that plateau is
coming and how the ideas of non-other than
the Greek philosopher Plato can help us move
this industry forward.
With every new generation of consoles, we
see new impressive looking games that gradually
bridge the gap between the real and the virtual.
That is the result of increased computing
capabilities, measured with TeraFLOPS.
But in terms of TeraFlops, how far are we
from realistic graphics?
Tim Sweney, the Co-founder of Epic Games,
the makers of the famous Unreal engine in
an interview with Gamespot, said:
"You know, we’re getting to the point now
where we can render photo-realistic static
scenes without humans with static lighting.
Today’s hardware can do that, so part of
that problem is solved.
Getting to the point of photo-realistic dynamic
environments, especially with advanced shading
models like wet scenes, or reflective scenes,
or anisotropic paint, though…maybe forty
Teraflops is the level where we can achieve
all that."
But why is the industry so obsessed with the
teraflops, amount of ram and CPU speed when
we know that they go against ... the law of
diminishing returns.
By that we mean: that in a production process,
as one input variable is increased, there
will be a point at which the marginal per
unit output will start to decrease, holding
all other factors constant.
Like a farmer who adds more and more fertilizers
to his farm, at one point adding more will
only increase the costs and not the benefits.
So as technology advances more ram, GPU and
CPU power will be needed for less visible
results.
Here is an example of what the latest Unreal
engine with very good hardware can achieve...
while technically it's very impressive, hyper-realism
does not make games more enjoyable.
Who wants to relive the real world again in
a video game when you can simply open the
door and go outside.
There has always been a gap between graphics
and reality, in the case of characters we
call it the uncanny valley, and we didn't
like it but in terms of context and game environments
our brains enjoyed filling this gap.
It's like the difference between a painting
and a photograph.
A photo is more accurate, realistic, and contains
all the tiny details, but it's dull and boring,
a good painting, on the other hand, captures
the soul and essence of the subject it portrays.
With hyper-realistic games, we should be careful
what we wish for.
And here is where I think Plato has a good
lesson for all game developers in his theory
of Forms, also known as Plato's ideal.
So what is this theory and how can it advance
video games?
To explain his idea Plato uses an interesting
allegory called " the Cave allegory".
In it, he Imagines a cave, in which there
are prisoners, tied to rocks, their limbs
are fastened, and their heads are attached
so that they cannot look at anything except
for a wall in front of them.
To make things more interesting, Plato asks
us to bear with him and imagine these detainees
have been here in the cave in that position
since birth and have never seen anything outside
of the cave.
Plato continues the allegory by describing
the scene like this: Behind the prisoners
is a source of light (let’s say fire or
sunlight that enters the cave), and between
the prisoners and the light is a walkway.
People outside of the cave frequently walk
along it bearing their daily objects on their
heads like; Plants, food, and animals.
The only thing the prisoners are seeing is
the shadows of the objects being cast by the
light on the wall in front of them.
No one would blame them if they mistook shadows
for real objects because shadows are the only
layer of reality they were exposed to through
their senses.
Plato then continues the allegory by imagining
the situation if one of the prisoners escapes
from the cave.
He would be astounded at the world he sees
outside and would not believe it.
Slowly he would accept a new layer of reality
more real than the one he believed in, and
notice that shadows are merely a byproduct
of a more real Form.
Through this allegory, Plato tells us that
the physical world around us is merely a reflection
(like the shadows in the allegory) of a perfect
ideal world of Forms.
Our world is observed through senses, but
the ideal world is one of the ideas.
It depends on how literally one is willing
to believe in the existence of another ideal
world, but on its face value, the theory simply
asks us to think of a more idealized form
of the surrounding objects which can exist
in our thoughts and imagination.
Let’s take chairs as an example, they come
in different shapes and colors, but no matter
how they look we instantly recognize them
as chairs.
For Plato what’s common between all these
chairs is the idea of the chair, the ‘Form’
of the ideal chair they all aspire to look
like, which also allows us to recognize all
of them as chairs.
Plato’s theory of Forms and ideal has profoundly
impacted western arts through the centuries,
especially in the period between the Renaissance
till the end of the Romanticism.
Artists were not aiming to mimic the real
world but to idealize it and bring it closer
to Plato’s ideal,
Even the term ‘renaissance’ means rebirth
by rediscovering the Greek philosophy which
idealized the man and made him the measure
of all things.
When the Greeks invented the architectural
orders, they used the proportions of the human
body as a guidance in buildings; they wanted
to shape the world into an idealized Form
of the human body.
The best example to see Plato's impact on
art is by comparing how Jesus was portrayed
in pre-renaissance gothic works of art as
a weak, skinny and clueless on the cross,
but the idealized one was modeled after the
Greek god Apollo by being more muscular, athletic
and confident.
The same thing with, Raphael's Mary in his
masterpiece "Madonna of the meadow" looks
similar to Venus, the Greek goddess of love
and baby Jesus resembles Amor, the god of
desire.
Artists understood back then that art should
not reflect reality and its miseries but should
aim to redeem its sufferings through idealizing
it.
Video-games as a medium is very well positioned
to explore endless idealized worlds and places,
instead of that we are obsessed with reflecting
our world.
There is a game creator who has perfectly
mastered implementing Plato's idea in his
games, it's Ken Levine, the creator of the
Bioshock series.
In Bioshock Infinite, he created an idealized
version of the American utopian city, Colombia.
We see the American founding fathers portrayed
as religious figures from another world, each
of them holding a symbol in his hand, Jefferson
holding a scroll a symbol of law, Washington
holding a sword a symbol of might and Franklin
holding a key as a symbol of science and knowledge.
The people of Colombia believed America took
the wrong path after the civil war and they
decided to leave it below and build their
floating ideal city in the sky.
Look at the colors, the architecture, and
the clothes of Colombia's citizens and you
can clearly see they are an idealized version
of our idea of the American city.
Objects are not the only aspect that Levine
is trying to idealize in the game and make
it otherworldly, dialogues too, are very theatrical,
filled with emotions.
You’re right, it’s not possible.
It's a technique Stanly Kubrick has excelled
at implementing in movies like A clockwork
orange and eyes wide shut.
One can instantly notice that the body of
the main character Elizabeth does not resemble
a real human body in many ways, the head to
body ratio, waist size, and the big eyes.
This manipulation with the human proportion
is effective in building a unique image in
our brains about Elizabeth without falling
into the trap of making her look comical.
For comparison look at these footages of Elizabeth
used for promotional purposes, Elizabeth here
was built to resemble a real model.
Tell us which one do you prefer?
Changing Human proportions in art is nothing
new, artists have been doing that for a long
time.
The David statue actually has proportionally
bigger hands to body size and that was intentionally
done by Michelangelo to make David look mightier
and from the point of view of the observer,
who will be looking at the statue from below
the size of the hands will look right.
Even Trees in any painting from the Romanticism
epoch is much bigger than any normal tree.
The lesson here is, instead of focusing on
rendering more pixels, polygons and make games
more realistic video games developers can
add another rich layer to their creations
and start to imagine idealized worlds by learning
from the visions of Plato, Michelangelo, and
Ken Levine.
Indie Studios are doing a much better job
at learning this lesson, they know they cannot
compete with big studios at making expensive
hyper-realistic games so their only way is
to compete with creative new idealized worlds
Here is one last message to video game developers
and players from Plato himself:
"A good decision is based on knowledge and
not on numbers"
Plato wants us to think less about frame rates,
resolution and Teraflops and focus more on
creating a beautiful dream through our beloved
medium.
