Report to the Holodeck
by Olivia_Allin, HSM team writer
In my real life and on Home I make my living as a professional photographer and videographer.
My husband and I have over forty years combined experience. It is something that has become second nature to me, yet I still have a passion for it. It has changed how I see and do things. I cannot walk into a room without looking at angles and lighting. I can tell you more about the layout of a room than the people within it in the first minute. I look for colors, depth, backgrounds and so on. I also have the side compulsion to locate all the electrical outlets – odd I know, but necessary in my line of work.
A few years ago, my husband showed me a video, no, a work of art. Its perfection moved me. The use of texture, colors, lighting, depth, motion and emotion were like nothing I had ever seen before. Maybe you should watch it before I go on any further. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you The Third & The Seventh by Alex Roman.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSGx4bBU9Qc (copy and paste the link into a new browser tab)
If you just watched the video and did not read anything about it then you may be impressed, but not as much as you should be. Every frame – every second – of that masterpiece is comprised of computer generated images. Also, it is very worth noting that he did the music for it, too.
You may be asking, “That was lovely, but what does it have to do with Home or video games?”
Fair question. In the interest of full disclosure, I just really wanted to share my favorite work of art with you. Then, in an effort to make it relevant, I started wondering – if such hyper-realistic graphics are out there and gaming systems are exponentially improving their ability to handle such graphics, how long before our games – and Home – become too real to be real?
That’s how I described The Third & The Seventh.
At what point does virtual reality become so real that we must question all that we see second hand? Will we have crossed a line?
I can do some amazing things with Photoshop. I can take a picture of myself and manipulate it into some other picture. I have done this many times. I have pictures of me being blessed by the Pope that never happened. I pose with the Oscar I never really won – yet. I even have one of Brad Pitt and I adopting a child together. Photo manipulation has become a more common technology, but it is not that new a technology.
In 1917 Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, two young girls living in Cottingley, UK, produced the most famous fairy pictures in Britain which are still talked about today.
The first photograph was taken in July 1917 and showed Frances with the fairies.
Frances and Elsie had been teased about their story of seeing fairies near Cottingley Beck. Elsie borrowed her father’s quarter plate camera and after some rudimentary instruction on how to operate it, she went off with Frances into the area where the beck ran among the trees behind the family home. An hour later they returned triumphant.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – of Sherlock Holmes fame – was entirely convinced by the photographs and to demonstrate his unshakeable belief in the spirit world, he published The Coming of the Fairies in 1922. It recounted the story of the photographs, their supposed provenance, and the implications of their existence.
February 1983, Elsie admitted that the photographs were a hoax, claiming that they had drawn the fairies, cut them out and fastened them to the ground with hatpins.
I wonder what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would say about Alex Roman’s art.
Let’s take this a step further. Alex Roman’s masterpiece is now on the forefront. Combine hyper realism CGI with Third and then make it a virtual reality like Home or a video game. This is just one step away from a holodeck.
Remember Pong, and now picture the graphics we enjoy in today’s games. Now take into consideration that technology, according to Moore’s Law, doubles approximately every eighteen months. How far away are we from the holodeck? And are we ready for such an immersing experience?
I remember a PlayStation game called Jumping Flash. The graphics were not bad for the mid 90’s. I loved this game because you would hop up to great heights and have to jump great distances to get to where you needed to go. My butt would tighten up every time I had to clear a long gap while being what felt like hundreds of stories in the air. Now if that game was remade for the type of Holodeck technologies in our “near” future, I am afraid my heart would stop in mid virtual air.
Holodeck gaming dreams are nothing new. But I don’t know if people realize how close we are getting. I often hear people complaining that a game should have this feature or that Home should do this or that. But we have become spoiled by our technology and maybe to critical. Yes, we learn and grow from this ideas and it helps make a better gaming future. But maybe we need to work on our perspective some.
Atari released Pong in 1972; fast forward thirty-nine years and look at Uncharted 3 (E3’s best game graphics of the year award winner). That is an amazing difference. And I bet Pong players were not grumbling that Atari should let us pick the shape and color of the “ball”.
Dream, suggest, imagine, share and look to the future. But stay grounded and keep perspective. There may come a day, and not so far away, that games will look so real that we can get lost in them.
For your comment homework, what games would you like to experience on a holodeck, and why?
December 27th, 2011 by Olivia_Allin | 18 comments
Olivia_Allin is a team writer, photographer, model, curator, graphic artist, researcher and comic relief for HomeStation Magazine; she lives in Texas with her boyfriend, and Home is more than just a game to her. Years ago she discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. On weekends, to let off steam, she participate in full-contact origami. She saw a Bigfoot once, made a sound you never want to hear twice, and was so proud of her Special Olympics gold medal that she had it bronzed. She is, in her own words, adorkable.
It’s been a characteristic of Mankind for quite awhile to strive for something better,no matter how good we have it at the moment.This is what drives us to new ideas,to ask “what if we try this?” has led us to where we are today.I’m not sure Mankind has ever been truly prepared for any of the great innovations of History but we adjust quite well.My Holodeck Game would probably be very much like the “Civilization”‘s games in function but on a much grander scale and with waaay better graphics.It’s just the type of game I enjoy best,although IF I truly had a Holodeck I’d have more than just 1 game,it’d be more like a library of games.
My first choice would be a re-rendering of Final Fantasy 7, or possibly Skyrim which is my new favorite game. The stories in these games are really immmersive (is that a word?) They take us places and I think that a holodeck, like the one Jean Luc Pickard used in Star Trek, would make you want to have a really good story to play through. If you remember he used his favorite mystery author to make his games there, can’t remember which author it was.
That video you had me watch was absolutely astounding! Until you said it was totally made in CGI I thought those were real buildings somewhere on Earth. Incredible.
By the way very nice article Olivia! You always make us think with a new viewpoint.
Thank you Burbie
Thanks for a very nice article first of all. Secondly then thanks for sharing Alex’s work, I’ve seen it before and it’s pretty spectacular.
I’m not sure if there’s a definitive answer to the question of what game or experience should be created. What kind of a game or experience would you and Alex like to see in Home?
Halli
CEO Lockwood
Personally, I’d like to see Home deliver a scaled-up version of what Lockwood’s already put in place with the Sodium Hub: an internal currency earned through various gaming activities, both solitary and multiplayer, which can be used to unlock special rewards. This would encourage longer user session times and more revenue generation.
It would also make sense to include a level system (similar to what nDreams employs with Aurora), such that certain public areas or gaming enhancements would not be available until various tiers were reached.
With regard to what *kind* of gaming or experiences best lend themselves to Home — given the technological restrictions such as ping rates that have to be dealt with — I’d love to see puzzle rooms. If you remember that wonderful game show, “The Crystal Maze”, they had puzzle rooms which offered a variety of different challenges. As higher-level areas were unlocked, the puzzles would become more complicated, much like Myst, Obsidian or The 7th Guest.
Ideally, this would all tie together underneath an overarching loyalty program which rewarded consumer purchases, much as airline mileage programs and hotel points programs reward frequent spenders.
In short, the idea would be to make Home *itself* a social game, as opposed to a metaverse which simply exists without purpose. Console gamers are used to having clearly-defined objectives to fulfill, and socialization amongst each other — initially a byproduct of cooperative gaming — inevitably forms the glue which brings the community back long-term.
The templates for all this are already there, and much of it was pioneered in Home by Lockwood. I sincerely hope to one day see the Sodium Hub formula, with the aforementioned additions included, implemented across a wider spectrum of Home spaces.
I agree, there is no definitive game or experience. I think diversification is the true answer. I myself like racing games, FPSs, puzzles, real time strategy and much more.Simple or hard, one thing that is a must is intuitive playability. I am not a trophy hunter myself and while I enjoy free items and rewards, the fact that they are free often makes them lets say less than rare. And if everyone has it then it losses its value in a way. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy getting and or earning cool stuff… but… I tend not to wear the free shirt. Not because I think I am better than that nor is it a matter of not liking it. I tend to want to be different and stand out, not to much, but by displaying my own style. As for my Holodeck game wish list…
Jetmoto
Grand Tourismo
Blazing Angles or any quality flight sim (not near as many as I would like to see)
Steel Talons
Battle Chess
Tomb Raider
Sim City
Wow… I could go on and on.
With hyper realistic CGI soon to be the norm, I think that it will not be so much a retooling of games we know but a world of new games envisioned with the capabilities of every improving visuals, sound, size and depth. I for one am so excited to see what is in store.
Thank you for reading and commenting! Lockwood is more than awesome and I love the epic work y’all do!!!
Livi
Please contact me Olivia. I have something I think you could help me with, if you have time I would appreciate alittle of it. I have a Holodeck and I had you in mind. Now Norse has made that very nice machinima movie,”Periselene” and the wheels are turning.
Thanks guys for your compliments tips and suggestions. My suspicion is that Home will gradually with time cater for much of what you´re after. I´m pretty sure that most of the developers who are engaged in developing for Home follow what good people like yourselves would like to see and are taking notes.
As it´s close to the end of the year then thanks for a great publication from us here at Lockwood, we´re avid readers and look forward to follow you in the coming year.
Halli
And thank you, Halli, as well as your phenomenal team, for supporting us. It is truly a honor.
I whole heartily agree. It is such an honor to not only be read by you and your staff but for you to take the time to comment, very cool!
way cooler than bacon cheesecake!!!
I think this virtual reality idea will be less about external machina than literally internal as I see the day when our own minds will be able to plug in to a digital neural network vastly more real and surprising than can currently be imagined.
Perhaps J.B.S. Haldane best surmises that sense when he speaks of the universe and says “Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”
You just referenced Haldane. One *million* purple Drazi points.
Haldane had one of the best one-liners I’ve ever read: when asked what we might be able to infer about the creator from his creation, he replied, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.”
(At the time, beetles made up over half of all known species on the planet. They still represent, what, forty percent?)
And Haldane’s observation that fanaticism is one of only four or five really useful inventions that humanity has come up with in the last four-thousand years is right on the mark, as far as I’m concerned.
Perspective is an awesome tool.
When I first watched The Thrid & The Seventh, I swithced off about a 3rd of the way through because all I was seeing was yet another arty-farty short film. However, after then reading that it was all CG I promptly went back and watched the whole thing with amazement. The camera angles remind me of Kubrik and the music is reminicent of Flower or LIMBO, and takes a very AC (Assassin’s Creed) turn near the end, to my mind. A very inspirational peice indeed.
L.A Noir was said to touch the horizon of “uncanny valley” but to me, still fell short. Don’t get me wrong, its facial animations are by far the best yet in gaming (you heard me Mr.Drake) but after all was still “just a game”. The environments of Home look good for sure, but there’s still something very clinical and clean looking that makes it impossible to forget where you are. Even with graphics as good as Uncharted’s, in 5 years time will look choppy, plastic and messy to us all. Remember when parents were going mad about Mortal Kombat, and would they blink an eye now if they found their 10 year old playing it?
We have a tendancy to live “in the now”, and as such I think we can be blinded by cutting edge graphics, until the next level is acheived it’s never clear how “fake” they really look. Having said that, for my homework I’d like to submit the idea of Skyrim being as real looking as The Third & The Seventh. Of course, sky-bound mamoths would need to be grounded to keep that “real” look regardless. But if Skyrim looked like that, my 320 hours racked up so far would be in the 600’s by now!
Wow Olivia, great article and I loved the video. I did get the sense that Alex Roman was borrowing a few styles of architecture in the video; Specifically Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry. But that aside, considering this is where we are at now, then more than likely by the end of the life of the next gen game consoles, we will start to see that level of imagery on screen.
As for an actual holodeck, while the thought would be nice, I think we are ways off from turning energy into matter, even if it is within certain areas only. And to quote Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park “They were so concerned about whether they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The thing is, there is an unlimited amount of things we could do with such a tool, but like any tool if it is used in a manner other than which it was intended, many problems can occur.
For example: Fire can light the way home, keep you warm, fuel an engine, the list goes on. But in the wrong hands it can burn your house down, create deadly smoke or simply create polution as materials are being improperly disposed of. The same holds true for a holodeck. There are a million ideas of how it can be used for fun, education or even just exercise. But think about it for a second. Here is a world which for all intensive purposes looks real, yet is not. The big difference “other than its limited size of course” is that there are no consequences. You could get away with all sorts of crimes and sins, and none would be the wiser. And on top of that, you could relive anything over and over.
Ok so lets suppose that there are safety measures in place to prevent this type of thing. Sure!!! Because things like that have worked so well in the past. If someone wants to, they will find a way.
Olivia, I know this seems kinda like a downer to your article, and forgive me for that was not my intention. Rather consider it a Yang to everyone else’s Ying. If we do not consider things like this you can bet others will. And they won’t be talking about it, they will be abusing the technology.
To summarise though, as long as our virtual reality is still up on a screen, and we are not interacting physically with it, we are safe from such issues.
Well that is always an issue with new technology. When cars came out we were amazed how they could improve the quality of life and they did… but they also brought pollution, depletion of our resources and death in many ways. Facebook may stay on the screen but its effects don’t. Things said on the screen has lead to deaths in real life. The fact is its not the technology we should fear but the people that use it and we can’t just not create new stuff because us apes might misuse it… we should understand that it will happen and try to modify the human mindset not the scope of our inventions. More people die from talking on there cell phone and driving or from texting. If we knew that before we invented them would we have said… ahh never mind?