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[KvP]

This is a CG image. It's part of AMD's new "Cinema 2.0" deal, announced with the 2.4 teraflop ATI Radeon HD 4870 x2 (to put it in perspective, the PS3's Nvidia chip exerts 1.8 teraflops of power. The ATI 360 chip puts out about 1 teraflop)

I did not suspect that it was a CG image until I was told, but now that I know I think the features of the neck and the shadows are a little off. But the things that you normally notice as being "a little off", notably the features around the eyes and the hair, are not very apparent. Of course, the eyes look a little blank, I suppose. But there wasn't a confluence of flaws that shouted "fake" to me initially. I don't know, maybe it's just me.

Here's a CG map of the woman's face:


The software for this sort of graphix isn't out yet, and it won't come out with the card. So for now you can only utiize this card to, I don't know, run two games of Crysis at highest settings at the same time. The card will be available for about the price of a low-end custom rig ($599 or thereabouts) and a somewhat less powerful card will be out later for about $399.

It's nice and all, but I'm not looking forward to games adding years onto their development times and millions of dollars onto their budgets just for this level of detail. For now this is all flash-and-dazzle eye candy, and it's pretty damn effective.

Here are some other rendered shots:
Looks like maybe an approximation of Dog from HL2
A spherical room

[Alex C]

That is an actually pretty effective image. I mean, I thought it was off, but I would have assumed that it was simply a subpar photoshop job of a real image rather than CG, which frankly, is pretty amazing.

[Leinad]

If you cut the woman in the second link off at the legs she would look real, as it is her hips are a little odd.

And yeah, with the first image I wouldn't have thought "CG" but her neck is a little odd, once I look again.

[KvP]

Of course, the true test is animation. This is without a doubt the single most convincing CG still I've ever seen rendered on a consumer-grade GPU, but they say with these things it takes less than three seconds to catch the falsity of CG animation.

[Johnny C]

I think the woman in the second image is actually real. Correct me if I'm wrong there but it's the room that's rendered, isn't it?

[Dimmukane]

Well, for the Dog-like thing, there's a video of it in action (minus sound).  It ends up looking like it was out of Transformers.  But it rendered real-time on a single 4870 and a 9850 Black Edition.

[est]

Jesus, that is an excellent image.  I am getting pretty excited about the current hardware refresh.  ATI pulling back into nVidia's performance range is a great development, I can only wish for a similar thing to happen in the CPU space.  But in any case Nehalem is going to be out soon, which will be interesting, then we've got Intel entering discrete graphics late next year plus GPGPU stuff coming up as an option for some apps.

I mean, one possibility for the future is that GPUs become an even more integral part of the pc due to more applications of GPGPU but then again there is also the possibility that Larrabee will take off better than expected and Intel will slowly push devs toward ray-tracing everything using the extra CPU-like power of the Larrabee card working in tandem with the CPU because it might be simpler.  It's one of those times where I feel something important is about to happen.

[Nodaisho]

The face image just looks like a poor quality real image to me, at least until I look closely at the eyes. That is damn good.

[Melodic]

The x2 card is just a suped-up version of the 4870, which in its own right is a damn good-looking card. It performs better than any card on the market (save for the GTX200, which is 5% superior) for only $300. That's insane compared to the $600 price tag on the GTX200. It's like 360 versus PS3 again.

[dennis]

They're cheating quite a bit in the image of the woman's face, adding in a grain/scan effect that hides a lot of flaws within distortion. However, the lighting is quite good, it actually looks like the subject is in the room pictured.

Also, "deadness" of the eyes is a common uncanny valley complaint, but it really only applies to animated images. For stills, all eyes are "dead", including photographs.

[Dimmukane]

For what it's worth, I thought Mass Effect did eyes pretty well.

[dennis]

Agreed. They did a good job with having characters look at each other and focus at the right distance, in addition to their facial expression modeling.

[KvP]

Here's a little explanation / demonstration of the tech. Around 3.35 it shows an animation of the woman's face. The eyes still look off but otherwise, that's really unsettlingly nice looking.

So basically Johnny was correct,  that spherical room was a sort of uber-mocap facility,which allows one to gather data and make a near-perfect recreation of whatever it is you had in the chamber, without any sort of photography or the like. The photo is a person visually retro-engineered by a very powerful computer.

[est]

oh god, the fucking eyes.

[dennis]

Speaking of uncanny valley.

This company claims that this is the first animation to get out of the uncanny valley, but I'm not entirely sure I agree.

There's another video on their website.

[dennis]

Here's a little explanation / demonstration of the tech. Around 3.35 it shows an animation of the woman's face. The eyes still look off but otherwise, that's really unsettlingly nice looking.

So basically Johnny was correct,  that spherical room was a sort of uber-mocap facility,which allows one to gather data and make a near-perfect recreation of whatever it is you had in the chamber, without any sort of photography or the like. The photo is a person visually retro-engineered by a very powerful computer.

I like how he refers to the "holodeck" without any qualifiications at all. Dude knows his audience.

[KvP]

The animation's quite impressive (and the video was linked in the same Joystiq article as the ATI stuff) but my eye kept being drawn to the edges of her face, particularly on the left (her right) of her face. Definitely not out of the uncanny valley yet.

[dennis]

The animation's quite impressive (and the video was linked in the same Joystiq article as the ATI stuff) but my eye kept being drawn to the edges of her face, particularly on the left (her right) of her face. Definitely not out of the uncanny valley yet.

Figures, they mention the new ATI chip in the article as well.

I found it on the Kurzweil AI mailing list.

[est]

Ok, here's something else I saw just now that is related to this

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece

Check out the clip of Emily.  You can tell it's CGI, but god damn it is a really well-done video.  The little mannerisms she has really makes her seem more realistic.

[Johnny C]

I showed this to my mom and she quite rightly pointed out that the capacity for the misuse of technology like that is terrifying.

Imagine a powerful digital modeling of, say, Michelle Obama railing against "whitey." Futz with it enough and it'll look real enough to people who want it to be real. Even if the footage doesn't exist.

[dennis]

Ok, here's something else I saw just now that is related to this

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece

Check out the clip of Emily.  You can tell it's CGI, but god damn it is a really well-done video.  The little mannerisms she has really makes her seem more realistic.

I posted this already! I'd like to see this done without actors, though.

[est]

Aww crap, sorry Dennis.

And yeah I agree, JC.  With that kind of technology we are getting into Running Man-type scenarios where you can get a mo-cap actor to do something then play it back using a high-detail model of whoever you want it to look like.  Add a bit of graininess and cinematographic black magic to make it look like it was shot surreptitiously on a handicam or a mobile phone or a security camera and ba-boom, you've got yourself a scandal-maker.

Examples include the President's face on someone having sex in hotel security cam footage, as you've already suggested: someone close to someone in power saying something very very bad politically, or oh hey - perhaps the leader of another country saying they declare war the US.

[dennis]

I predict a rise in the number of "video analysis experts".

[est]

Oh man, more awesome/bad news: http://gizmodo.com/5038183/photographs-enhance-video-in-absolutely-unbelievable-ways

Replacing things in video in a fairly believable fashion using photos.

[Catfish_Man]

est: Or footage of $group_of_choice taking credit for a terrorist attack...

[KvP]

Keep it down! I don't want Loose Changers to start coming into my thread.

[dennis]

That spacetime fusion thing is amazing.

On the other hand, I don't think there's too much to be afraid of here. People were afraid of digital imaging for the same reasons.

[Johnny C]

I am not deadly afraid of this but I do sense it could be put to some ill use.

Hasn't Photoshop been used in propaganda before?

[Noct]

Yup, more or less.  See: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/10/iran-you-suck-at-pho.html

China also got in a bit of trouble for digitally faking some fireworks during the Olympic opening ceremony, but really that was just because they couldn't have low-flying helicopters flying through pyrotechnics over a very crowded Beijing.  Fireworks were still there, they just faked the nifty little aerial shots.

[A Wet Helmet]

Edit:  Nevermind, I see the link to Emily has already been posted. 

Whoops