It would appear that the ultra realistic future of video games is on the horizon. I'm usually pretty wary about R&D videos as I often find out after the fact it's a bunch of smoke and mirrors, but this is still pretty impressive. For tech geeks who understand the lingo, here's the description posted in the vid...
This animated character is being rendered in real-time on current video card hardware, using standard bone animation. The rendering techniques, as well as the animation pipeline are being presented at GDC 2013, "Next Generation Character Rendering" on March 27.
The original high resolution data was acquired from Light Stage Facial Scanning and Performance Capture by USC Institute for Creative Technologies, then converted to a 70 bones rig, while preserving the high frequency detail in diffuse, normal and displacement composite maps.
It is being rendered in a DirectX11 environment, using advanced techniques to faithfully represent the character's skin and eyes.
Note: Yes, this is the same source data from ICT used by Nvidia at GTC, but rendered using a completely different tech.
Check out this video (which was shown at the 2013 Game Developers Conference) and let us know what you think! How does the future of gaming look to you?