Hollywood: A Good Role Model For Gaming?
In the second part of this two-part article, we look at special effects like motion blur, depth of field, and distortion, which can either make a gamer’s life easier or rob him of his orientation. We also take a look at the elements of fire and water, for which PC graphics must be compared with the natural world.
Hollywood still has a whole lot of surprises up its collective sleeves: spectacular explosions and gigantic monsters keep entertainment enthusiasts glued to both movie screens and HDTVs. Many game developers just don’t have the resources to create such gigantic effects digitally and bring them to the PC, despite the fact that the possibilities in this area are pretty much unlimited, and destruction and devastation only requires starting up a simulation.
Maybe the constantly-growing presence of physical effects will provide the necessary motivation to accelerate their creativity. Perhaps PC graphics experts and games designers only need better-designed building blocks in order to move away from the limited model they’re able to generate today. At some point, it must be possible to have games with violent flood waves, volcanic eruptions, rock slides, avalanches, and earthquakes that will leave Hollywood producers quaking in their boots.
Part 1: Read more about the evolution of the games, the development of characters and the differences between lighting effects and depth effects right here.
