Gaming has come a long way since the days of pixelated figures and rudimentary sprites. Today, games often feature characters that look strikingly lifelike, from their movements, voices, gestures, appearance, just everything about them. They move with realistic fluidity and emotions that rival real-world humans.
The transformation is the result of years of innovation and the collaborative effort of developers, artists, and engineers. Not much of a surprise to be honest, you can’t expect such craftsmanship to be done overnight. Just take GTA for example, the new additions to the series take years and years to create!
But how exactly do developers make gaming characters look so real? It’s a multifaceted process involving innovative technology, artistry, and a deep understanding of human anatomy, behavior, and motion. Essentially, it takes a genius.
1. Advanced 3D Modeling:
The foundation of realistic game characters is in 3D modeling. At its core, 3D modeling is the creation of a virtual skeleton or “mesh” that forms the character’s shape. Early games relied on low-polygon models, meaning characters had few surfaces or “polygons” making up their structure. These models looked blocky and simple. If you look at any old game in this day and age, like the classic Sonic games or other arcade games, you’ll know exactly what we mean. Take classic slot games as another example, all of the symbols used in fruit machines are low-polygon structures. But these games are still popular in this day and age as they are great for reminiscing back to when digital games first launched, as well as just being extremely simple, which is what some players like. Not only that but one of the core reasons for playing slots is of course to win money, take the highest RTP slot games at JohnSlots UK as an example, there’s not much focus on making characters realistic, or even the themes. But they are still massively popular due to them being arcade like and potentially very rewarding.
Today’s developers use high-polygon models, which significantly increase the detail of the character’s body, face, and clothing. Take the latest video games that hit the market, for example FIFA, you can see the vast improvements where the faces of characters and players are so realistic it’s almost scary.
Advanced modeling tools like Autodesk Maya and Blender allow developers to design incredibly detailed meshes, including subtle curves, wrinkles, and pores in the skin. Artists also sculpt finer details that contribute to realism, such as the unique structure of a character’s face, muscle definition, and even the way clothes fold or stretch over the body.
Subdivision and Level of Detail:
To maintain performance in gaming engines while keeping characters looking real, developers often use subdivision techniques and Levels of Detail (LODs). This approach dynamically adjusts the number of polygons visible based on how close the character is to the camera.
Farther away characters have lower detail, which improves performance without sacrificing visual fidelity. If detail was maintained throughout, even at a distance, it would probably take some toll on your gaming device. In the future, we may see this being a thing but we aren’t quite there yet.
2. Photorealistic Texturing and Materials:
Once the model is created, the next step in achieving realism is texturing. Textures provide the surface details for a character, such as skin tone, scars, freckles, or clothing patterns. Developers often use high-resolution images from the real world, applying them to the 3D models to give them a photorealistic appearance. This goes back to the example I mentioned earlier where characters look like their real-life counterparts.
PBR (Physically-Based Rendering) is a key technique in creating realistic materials. It simulates how light interacts with different surfaces. For example, PBR helps distinguish between skin, which might be slightly reflective and translucent, and metal armor, which has a different reflectivity and roughness. Developers adjust the diffuse, specular, and normal maps of textures to simulate light reflecting and refracting as it would on real-world objects.
Skin and Hair Shading:
Advanced subsurface scattering (SSS) techniques simulate how light penetrates the skin’s surface and diffuses through layers of flesh before reflecting back out. This gives skin a soft, translucent glow that looks natural. The same is done for hair shading, you can use hair card or strand rendering to achieve both a glow in areas and also create movement. All of this aids the realism of the character.
3. Motion Capture (MoCap):
Onto character movement, arguably the most important feature. Static models, no matter how detailed, would look ridiculous without the right moment, let’s be honest.
MoCap technology is widely used to capture realistic human movements. So when you’re playing online slots and you have symbols that move or even just characters that are part of the scenery, not even on the reels, having them interacting with your gameplay makes all the difference.
What motion capture entails is placing sensors on a real actor’s body, which tracks their movements in three dimensions. Before we continue, this won’t always be necessary, especially for the example we just used about slot games. But in bigger game franchises (back to the example of GTA we used in the beginning) it is so needed.
These movements are then translated onto the 3D character model. This technology allows developers to replicate everything from walking and running to nuanced gestures like finger movements or facial expressions. It’ll also be used on facial movements, so when a character talks, you expect their mouth to move at least!
4. Facial Animation and Emotion Simulation:
As gamers, we can be so critical when it comes to the faces and expressions of characters. It’s one of the biggest challenges for developers.Creating believable faces and expressions is perhaps the biggest challenge for realism in gaming. To overcome this, developers employ several techniques to simulate emotions realistically.
Blendshapes and bone-driven facial rigs are two common approaches to animating faces. Recent advancements in machine learning and AI are also being used to improve facial animation. AI can learn patterns from real-world facial expressions and automatically generate corresponding animations for digital characters, saving time and increasing accuracy.
5. Real-Time Rendering and Lighting:
All the work that goes into modeling, texturing, and animation is brought to life through real-time rendering. This process occurs in the gaming engine, which continuously calculates and displays images on the screen. Achieving realism in real-time is a technical challenge, but thanks to the power of modern GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), games can now render millions of polygons, complex lighting, and shadow effects simultaneously.
Global illumination and ambient occlusion are techniques that simulate the way light interacts with the environment, creating soft shadows and realistic lighting that wraps around characters. Dynamic lighting, like the sun’s rays or glowing streetlights, adds another layer of immersion.
6. AI-Driven Behavior and Interaction:
Thanks to the advancements in AI, developers can use these types of systems to control the reaction of characters to their environment and interact with players. For this example we’ll use the popular game franchise of Skyrim. In Skyrim, you can approach NPCs and interact with them, you can ask them different questions and your choice will determine what response they give.
Disclaimer:
CBD:
Qrius does not provide medical advice.
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) outlaws the recreational use of cannabis products in India. CBD oil, manufactured under a license issued by the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, can be legally used in India for medicinal purposes only with a prescription, subject to specific conditions. Kindly refer to the legalities here.
The information on this website is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions regarding a medical condition or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read on this website.
Gambling:
As per the Public Gambling Act of 1867, all Indian states, except Goa, Daman, and Sikkim, prohibit gambling. Land-based casinos are legalized in Goa and Daman under the Goa, Daman and Diu Public Gambling Act 1976. In Sikkim, land-based casinos, online gambling, and e-gaming (games of chance) are legalized under the Sikkim Online Gaming (Regulation) Rules 2009. Only some Indian states have legalized online/regular lotteries, subject to state laws. Refer to the legalities here. Horse racing and betting on horse racing, including online betting, is permitted only in licensed premises in select states. Refer to the 1996 Supreme Court judgment for more information.
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