4K editing tools are on the horizon but we're not there yet. We can barely edit 2K. Which is why tessallation is so important. As we move up the scale to 2K and 4K this will allow for even greater (and far better) use of displacement mapping. If we do ever make it to well beyond that (16K, 33K, etc...) we should be able to trick our brain into seeing "3D" without glasses or special "stereo" cameras.
Wonder if that's why folks (tuna) didn't seem to care so much for "After Earth". Though shot in 4K, it is a buttload of CGI that could only be editing in HD. (That's right, 2K editing tools aren't there yet either though much closer than 4K.) But watch it again and take a look at the pebbles in the drive river bed. You can see thousands of them, distinctly... You can see grey stubble on Will Smith.
interesting... I can't say I understood all of it, but still.
Here's my thought about the current 3D models of the cars being almost as good as possible. That when you zoom in currently in GT5 you don't hardly ever see polygons, you soon curves. That means the detail is almost as high as it needs to go IMO. Are they going to add 10x the detail and then give us not only a camera lense to zoom in with, but a microscope to look at specs of dirt?
And, when the car is in motion, should we really expect to see much more detail than we already see in GT5?
Now, great strides have been made in lighting and with tesselation in GT6. I think that is what is going to make it look more realistic, but theactual shape of the car isn't going to be much more complex on most cars. (standards not withstanding)
Won't we soon be to a point where if the tech exists to make a car with 2 trillion polygons, that we might ask "so what? Why do we need that?"
Instead, eventually, and possibly on the PS4, I'd expect the scale and scope of games to increase as the complexity of the game's assets reaches terminal velocity. Surely, GT7 on the PS4 will have nicer looking cars, but not by leaps and bounds, I suspect. We mayh instead get twice as many cars on the track at once, and much more detailed crowds, blades of grass, dirt that kicks up (not just sprites but actual particles) and grass/sand/gravel that gets deep grooves dug into it as we drive over it, intentionally or unintentionally. You might see an airplane fly by and be able to zoom in with photo mode and get stunning detail.
In other words, I suspect games will soon come to a point that they can't actually look any better, but they will be bigger games with more content and larger areas to explore and more detail in every single area you look at. dirt, snow, and weather will not simply be an "effect" , but part of the physical world in the game. You step on some snow? It doesn't simply put a temporary footpring in it, but actually compresses it as if it were real snow.
I've predicted for a long time that one day people may get bored with all the awesome graphics of games, because they've made them look so real. Gamers who actually do go outside will remark "Wow, look at how detailed the world actually is!. Awesome graphics!" and actually do something productive with their lives...
