Science in the Triangle

Tony Tamasi

From text-based adventure titles to dystopian 3D shooters, video game graphics have come a long way. But if people like Tony Tamasi have anything to do with it, that rapid progression won’t be stopping anytime soon.

NVIDIA‘s senior vice president for content and technology will be in Raleigh Wednesday for the East Coast Game Conference, when he’ll deliver his keynote address titled, “The Future of Graphics Processing.” Science in the Triangle caught up with Tamasi by e-mail to discuss where graphics are heading in the gaming world — and how gamers’ constantly changing palates will guide that growth.

Q: What role do you think graphics play in the quality of a game, especially when it comes to things like storytelling and gameplay?

Graphics is one of the core components of great games. Obviously graphics alone don’t make a great game, but great graphics can help to make a game better, more immersive and more enjoyable. For example, horror-style games would be significantly less scary if lighting and shadows couldn’t be done interactively. Seeing some creepy shadow approaching around a corner can really help to set the mood.

Q: How are technological advancements changing how game developers think about graphics?

Epic's "Samaritan" demo showcased the new Unreal Engine 3. | Image courtesy of Epic Games

The transition of graphics processors to these generally programmable devices has really allowed game developers to become much more creative and get much closer to the visions they have in their head. Some of the most recent advances in graphics processing with DirectX 11-class graphics processing units enable incredible levels of geometric richness through procedural tessellation, the ability of the GPU to create geometry from a higher-level surface representation or to extrude real geometry from displacement maps. Increased levels of geometric realism can help environments seem much more realistic, and characters much more lifelike as artists are less constrained to a small number of polygons, which ultimately leads to harsh silhouette edges that look more like a collection of polygons than something alive.

Q: Despite the explosion in power of both console and desktop gaming platforms, we’re seeing a surge in popularity for games with a more retro aesthetic — like Minecraft for example. What do you make of this movement?

It’s fantastic. We’re seeing a resurgence in innovative gameplay. Minecraft is a fantastic example of a creation/exploration type of game, and despite its retro look, can be incredibly addictive. I would expect that as before, as new gameplay or design mechanics are developed, over time they will evolve, and as future games incorporating these concepts are developed, they’ll layer on not only enhancements to gameplay, but improved visuals, physical simulations, more intelligent AI, etc. It’s incredibly important that the game development industry continues to be creative and innovative, since all of us gamers have a little bit of ADD in us and are always looking for something new to challenge or delight us.

Q: We’re seeing a huge shift as gamers embrace mobile gaming platforms. How do you think this fragmentation will affect the development of graphics processing?

Fragmentation can be a difficult problem for game developers to address. Happily, for things like the Android, iPhone, Xbox 360 and PS3, the core graphics capabilities aren’t that different (the horsepower obviously is). So from a core architecture perspective, it isn’t an intractable problem to design an engine that can span a very wide dynamic range of devices. Unity and Unreal Engine are obvious examples of the ability to have core engine technology with range. Epic’s latest demonstration of their engine’s capability, Samaritan, also shows that it’s possible to build incredibly stunning real-time graphics capabilities on this core technology.

There’s no doubt though that designing a game that pushes the envelope on today’s high end DX11-based GeForce GTX 580 will involve different art, assets and capabilities than a game that is targeting mobile devices. In many ways though, mobile device capability and horsepower isn’t that different from consoles from a few years back, so to some degree the industry’s already “learned” how to develop for that.

It’s an incredibly exciting time for game developers. Resurgence of mobile, a new renaissance of game design and creativity, revolutions in business models, pervasive connectivity, enormous increases in graphics capability and power, devices with huge numbers of input devices and sensors, and next-generation functionality and platforms – all mean the next decade should be a great time for creative developers to tap the enormous potential of our rapidly changing ecosystem. I can’t wait to see how awesome these new games are going to be!

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