Like every year or so, comet Euclideon comes close to us and we get to see what they have been working on. Here is a video they posted a couple of days ago:
As usual, the technology is brilliant and quite interesting. It is still similar to what Nvidia and Olick were able to show a long time ago, but nevertheless a significant feat of engineering. I am just having trouble reconciling the narrator's discourse with what we see on screen.
I was hoping they would tone down the hype in the future. They however named this video "The World's Most Realistic Graphics". I wonder which World they are talking about. In planet Earth, 2014, pretty much any AAA game looks better and runs faster than this.
I'm not sure why they would go and compare themselves to engines like UE4 when everybody knows UE4 will produce far better looking graphics. Same for CryENGINE and even Unity. It is not enough you say it looks better, it has to look better. Jedi tricks do not work over YouTube.
The "conspiracy of fools" aspect is also interesting. The true sign of genius is to see all fools conspiring against you. Somewhere in this video the narrator points that many experts around the web were very critical of the tech. These are the fools. That they got so many fools to speak against them must surely mean they are geniuses.
Well we know it does not work like that. Sometimes the fools just go against other fools. Being criticized does not make you right. Now in this video they claim they have proven all the fools wrong. That has yet to happen. The burden of proof is on them.
I had some secret hopes for this tech to be applied to games, but the tech gap is growing every year. Let's see what happens next year, when the comet approaches us again.