Project Offset Creates Graphical Magic
There aren’t very many games today that, graphically, give one goose bumps. While movies like James Cameron’s Avatar or Peter Jackson‘s Lord of the Rings have graphical effects that appear absolutely real, many wonder if games will ever achieve that level of detail.
Now get ready for Project Offset. This little-known development team, owned by Intel, is building a game engine that may make you believe that the richness of reality in the virtual world is not so far away.
Videos posted on their website (see Resources) show a variety of graphics engine experiments. You will find video footage that ranges from the detailed facial expressions of an ogre to a meteor shower blasting through ancient stone pillars. Compared to contemporary movie CG, Offset’s footage doesn’t look all that impressive at first. But considering that these animated graphics were rendered in real time by a dynamic game engine, unlike animated frames that undergo lengthy rendering processes in a motion picture, the short clips are jaw-dropping.
The Offset engine isn’t the only one in the race to develop a visually rich real-time game graphics engine, but they’re the newest on the scene. Companies like CryTek, Epic, and ID Software have all been doing this for years, working steadily toward the photorealistic holy grail. Offset sets itself apart by accomplishing the most difficult lighting, shading, and graphics effects in very simple fashion. Their video clips show artists pulling together 3D elements like a jigsaw puzzle, making movie-level CG look as easy as following a recipe.
Offset has yet to officially announce a game title, but we are excited by the implications they bring to the virtual world.
Project Offset
http://www.projectoffset.com
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Admittedly, what has been done well. I wonder how many years the schedule will be on a level that people can not distinguish the game world from reality. Martin from mahjong club.
Offset has been developing this for years... they were on G4 TV with a tech demo and many of these features have been integrated for a LONG time... so people bashing them, this article or the video about not keeping up with the times, clearly haven't been doing so themselves!Übersetzung Italienisch Deutsch
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I can also not see anything that special in this what has not already been use in other games. Instead of claiming how great their technology is (which it isn't, although the quality is good enough) they should release the game, that was already announced for release in 2009.
I'm somewhat fascinated as to what the heck is under that loincloth...
Uhm, every video on the Geomerics site *shows* overuse of bloom-filters and hacks.
And sure, they might do some global illumination in a nice testscene, but now I'd like to see it in a real game where there's more to see than one little room / building and more to do than just rendering a building - let's say AI, particles, gamelogic, streaming in of leveldata etc.
Geomerics stuff looks nice for a techdemo, but it doesn't look like a GAME-engine.
There are some technologies around the corner that will bring about a whole new level of realism, but this isn't one of them as far as I can tell. The main trouble in games right now is not polygon count, it's not texturing, it's not normal mapping, it's not realistic motion or expression - those problems have been tackled very convincingly for half a decade now. The problem is that cheap tricks are being used to emulate lifelike lighting ("HDR", bloom effects, shaders in general) because simulating real-world lighting in real time is completely outside the capability of any GPU. Not to worry though, groups like Geomerics and their Enlighten engine are on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPQiCliKmg
Get the lighting right and you no longer have that dull, over-reflective plastic look. Everything else is just iteration.
Offset has been developing this for years... they were on G4 TV with a tech demo and many of these features have been integrated for a LONG time... so people bashing them, this article or the video about not keeping up with the times, clearly haven't been doing so themselves!
Just to also clear something up - they also developed most of the tech BEFORE being acquired by Intel, so engine development sans-$millions. Oh, and it's the core team that developed Savage, in case anyone was wondering :-)
This is lame. I work for a game developer as a senior engine programmer and have been doing just as impressive technology in my basement at home (let alone at work), albeit with out the multimillion dollar support of Intel and a huge art team.
The videos really don't even look that good.
Dave makes a good point, so stop bashing him. The rest of you who think this is awesome, are idiots.
ed fries???
Any references? Videos? Anything at all that proves your claims are valid? Talk is cheap.
If the point is to create superior graphics, then Project Offset is simply on par with engines such as CryEngine2 and Unreal3. If it's for a nice underlying engine for the sake of it, then I guess it's succeeded.
Obviously Dave didn't understand the point of this article. It's not really about the graphics they are talking about here. It's about the underlying technology.
Read this and you'll understand what's so amazing about it:
http://www.projectoffset.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i...
Err no dave - nothing does what they claim yet. Particles that all cast soft shadows? Universal motion blur? Nothing does it - yet. Sure, your listed games look pretty - but its the technical aspects of Project Offset that are impressive. And this article is more for those interested in the progression of game engines - not for know-it-all gamers.
Oh and "pretty much" is not "do" - especially when your a developer/artist.
Videogames pretty much look like that now. Gears of War 2, Bioshock 2 and Mirror's Edge already look like that. This is an article for people who do not keep up on the lastest on videogames. This article is misleading.
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