But that’s just the beginning, according to Cage in conversation with Tech Radar. “This is basically Beyond’s engine, and we were so excited with what we could achieve. Some people were really impressed with the Dark Sorcerer but this is just the beginning, it’s the minimum quality you can get on the console.

“It was done with a very small team, a very small amount of time and small resources. Now we have a full team and we hope to make something really impressive.”

Rumours of the PS4 project – from being called Kara to Singularity – still abound. We’ll need to wait for further details, but it appears that developers aren’t even close to getting started with exploiting the PS4’s hardware.

However the many demos showcased highlight that not only will the PS4 be able to significantly up the amount of detail on screen – with more particle effects, greater draw distances and a larger number of character models on screen – but that it will significantly increase the realism of its environments and characters. Well, as realistic as a flaming demon lord could look in the real world that is. This goes double for the facial capture, which has moved up the chain of motion capture and scanning to support a higher number of triangles with each new generation.

But just how does the PS4 measure up to the previous generations? What kind of evolutions have we seen since? We take a look back at previous PlayStation facial model tech demos to compare just how far the PS4 has come – and how much of a leap it is over the PS3.

Let’s start with Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation. It’s amazing how for a game praised on the basis of its emotive storytelling and deep characters that the facial emotions look so blocky now. Of course, they looked blocky back then as well. Capturing facial expressions using motion capture just wasn’t practical in the old days.

With the PlayStation 2, the number of polygons was upped significantly. A full 3D scan of a model’s face was now at hand to be peppered with details. Cue the introduction of shader technology that gave detail and texture to the features, adding those wrinkles for realism and individual hairs on the eyebrows and head.

Of course, modelling and rendering those individual hairs was still incredibly tough – it’s actually not until AMD’s TressFX technology that we can see a realistic depiction of 3D modeled hair in a video game.

But the foundation was set for the PlayStation 3. David Cage of Quantic Dream deeded to take the technology for a spin and produced a tech demo for KARA. One can see the basis of KARA and how it applies to Beyond: Two Souls’ protagonist (at least in how vaguely similar they look).

It’s here that the amount of triangles added became an almost indiscernible mesh. Lighting and detail that realistically reflects off the iris in the eye gives it that extra hint of detail. The power needed to properly model detailed expressions was still slightly lacking. But hey, Beyond: Two Souls still looks pretty damn good.

That lack of power would also keep the system from properly rendering individual strands of hair, as seen in the Alfred Molina tech demo from E3 2005. While the texture quality and triangle count is high, with various wrinkles and even sweat visible, the hair was still just a neat clump of triangles.

At the PlayStation 4 reveal event, David Cage revealed the new engine that was being worked on at Quantic Dream. He also let us know about the triangle count on Beyond: Two Souls being 30,000 for a single model. He then showcased renders of an old man using the new engine.

The utter nuance of expressions and the significantly improved rendering of individual strands of hair was much better handled here. And while it may not look like a significant step up from the PS3 at first, looking at the two side by side showcases just how far the technology has come.

Again, this is only the beginning. If the PS3 is capable of something like Beyond: Two Souls and can play host (maybe) to games like Metal Gear Solid V and Battlefield 4, it will be interesting to see just what the PS4 is capable of.

And if that isn’t an indicator of the PS4’s imminent arrival, nothing is.

Truth be told, it raises more questions than it answers. Isn’t there already a game called Singularity for consoles and PC (Raven Software’s FPS comes to mind)? What of Beyond: Two Souls, which will be featuring a brand new engine according to director David Cage?

How far can we expect Singularity, much less any word of when the Playstation 4 – which it indeed is being called now – will release? And for the love of all that is holy, does it also feature Ellen Paige?

What we do know is that it may be loosely based on Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near, which was an influence on a tech demo Quantic Dream did called “Kara”. The naming convention for the site is also in keeping with the developer’s usual efforts. For example, heavyrainps3.com and beyondps3.com.

Many many questions but very answers to be had. As always, we’ll wait till this year’s E3 for the latest scoop.

Source: Superannuation

Eurogamer has blown the lid off new Quantic Dream project called “Kara”. It shows a robot with emotions, and convincing voice acting.

I felt it was pretty cool, but it is just a tech demo and won’t be there in the full game.

They say that it was created 1 year ago, and the engine is much better now. The engine is a new one, and Cage said it allowed the studio to do so many things.

“There were many things that we couldn’t do on the old engine, so we decided to build a new one from scratch. Kara’s the very first thing we’ve done with this brand new engine, so it’s not optimized – it’s got 50% of the features that we have right now, as Kara was done a year ago,” he said.

You can read the full article over here.

Update: This video is no longer available.