Next-gen graphics are within reach of Sony and Microsoft, thanks to The Matrix Awakens. It is unlike any other tech demo you have tried before. The kind of push that has the potential to turn that around is what we said when we said the next generation of gaming didn't actually arrive with Xbox Series X and PS5. It is free to download on those consoles, so you should give it a try.
Don't expect it to make you question your reality, the valley is still alive and well.
Noupscale is a file onchorusasset.com.
After watching our exclusive interview with the two actresses who play Neo and Trinity in The Matrix Awakens, I decided to check it out. If you watch closely, you will see that the character models get less and less impressive as time goes on.
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We go from a doppelganger of Reeves that must have been at least partially real-life footage, to valley puppetry (what robot is wearing Keanu's skin?) and finally just fairly average video game characters roaming around a world with no The illusion breaks quickly from a digital humans perspective.
:noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com.
Getting a little more accurate...
TheScreenshot was created by Umar Shakir.
It reminds me of the original Final Fantasy VII, where Cloud, Tifa,Barrett and Aerith might look different depending on whether you were playing a battle, watching a cutscene, or traversing the world.
:noupscale is a file on thechorusasset.com
The Matrix Awakens is convincing from a perspective of "is it time for photorealistic video game cities?" It is above the most realistic video game cities we have seen so far, including those in the Spider-Man, Grand Theft Auto and Watch Dogs series. The cities of those games look similar to those of the most recent ones that added real-time raytracing.
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Unreal Engine has an incredible global illumination and real-time raytracing that make The Matrix Awakens city feel more real.
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It is not just a scripted sequence running in real-time on your PS5 or Xbox like practically every other tech demo you have seen, you get to run, drive, and fly through it, manipulate the angle of the sun, turn on filters.
You can see what the world is made of.
There is a lot to do in The Matrix Awakens, but finding different ways to view it is the most important thing. There are no car chases except for the scripted one and you can't land on buildings. You can crash any of the 38,146 drivable cars in the game into any of the other cars or walls. I did a lot of that before I became bored. The game has some impressive statistics from the press release.
The city is slightly larger than the size of downtown Los Angeles.
The city has a surface of 15.79 km2.
The city's perimeter is 14.19 km.
There are 260 km of roads in the city.
The city has 512 km of sidewalk.
The city has 1,248 intersections.
There are 45,073 parked cars, of which 38,146 are drivable and destructible.
There are 17,000 vehicles on the road that are destructible.
There are 7,000 buildings.
There are 27,848 lamp posts on the street.
There are 12,422 sewer holes.
There were almost 10 million unique assets created to make the city.
The world is only lit by the sun, sky and emissive materials. There were no light sources for the tens of thousands of street lights. Most of the lighting comes from the millions of windows.
Over 35,000 pedestrians weresimulated.
The buildings of the city are made of 1000s of assets and each asset could be up to millions of polygons, so we have several billions of polygons to make up just the buildings of the city.
I can't wait to see Unreal Engine 5 developers try to do this or better with its ready-made tools at their disposal. I don't think photorealistic games are my favorites, but I'll take all the experience I can get.
It would be great to have a game based on The Matrix. If there is a good script, it seems like Carrie-Anne and Keanu might be interested in it.
