[HN Gopher] The Gates of Argonath in VR at 50 FPS on Unreal Engine
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The Gates of Argonath in VR at 50 FPS on Unreal Engine
 
Author : huhtenberg
Score  : 192 points
Date   : 2022-12-15 08:38 UTC (14 hours ago)
 
web link (old.reddit.com)
w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
 
| huhtenberg wrote:
| I think it's worth taking a step back and just marveling at
| what's now possible to do with an off-the-shelf software.
| 
| Yeah, it's "just" 50 fps, but ... would you just look at it!
| 
| 4 years ago there was an equally fascinating "Paris apartment" VR
| demo, but the movement was limited and the amount of work that
| went into appears to have been orders of magnitude more -
| https://www.benoitdereau.com/
| 
| Go back 10 years and seeing this back then would've been
| absolutely bananas.
| 
| Makes you wonder what we'll have in 10 years from now.
 
  | Daub wrote:
  | Off the shelf yes, but wow.... The requirements for Unreal are
  | unreal.
  | 
  | Recent versions handle real-time global illumination (Lumen)
  | and dynamically render geometry to insane levels of detail
  | (nanite). Both of these are groundbreaking achievements. But
  | having had to install this in a bunch of university computers I
  | can tell you that it comes at a cost.
  | 
  | Interestingly, the most significant issue is the space these
  | installations require. We have optimized our installation as
  | much as we can, but we nonetheless had to introduce systems
  | whereby local storage was wiped clean every two weeks.
 
    | solardev wrote:
    | Wait, disk space was the limiting factor, not GPUs?
 
      | chabad360 wrote:
      | Yep, unreal is surprisingly efficient on the graphics side
      | of things, but it also wants 70-something GB just to
      | install and that's before it starts setting up the graphics
      | cache which adds another 40 GB iirc.
 
        | jupp0r wrote:
        | 1TB SSDs are $90.
 
        | birksherty wrote:
        | HN is rich and detached from reality in other parts of
        | the world. People still have to manage their savings to
        | buy storage in non rich world.
 
        | jupp0r wrote:
        | How much is the rest of a VR setup?
 
        | chabad360 wrote:
        | Yes, but it's a bit hard to convince your boss to allow
        | buying a lot of them (just 10 is already $900).
 
        | jupp0r wrote:
        | I found it harder to justify those VR goggles.
 
        | yamtaddle wrote:
        | And thanks to inflation, while $90 used to be like six to
        | eight bags of groceries not that long ago, now it's only
        | two or three. So that's not like you can buy much else
        | with that $90.
 
        | jbverschoor wrote:
        | And 2TB is like $120
 
      | Daub wrote:
      | Yep. The install size of unreal is a known issue:
      | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n7vwGnKSbmE&feature=youtu.be
      | 
      | Our lab computors have 500gb of space. Each time a new
      | profile is activated by a student, that eats up around 5 to
      | 10 gig. In addition... Video editing eats up storage space
      | like there is no tomorrow (the Cache requirements of
      | Resolve are another issue). Nanite supports scene with very
      | dance meshes (downloaded directly from Unreals online
      | store). These add up quickly in terms of file size,
      | especially as each comes in several versions, with multiple
      | levels of detail.
      | 
      | Ideally we would have liked to install more than one
      | version of Unreal. Unreal updates regularly and files
      | created with each version cannot be guaranteed to be opened
      | by subsequent versions. However, this was one saving we
      | made.
      | 
      | There are sample files which are actually very instructive
      | but which we did not install.
      | 
      | All of these issues compounded and towards the end of sem
      | we were having a tough time.
 
        | jbverschoor wrote:
        | A 2tb ssd is little over 100. There's no good reason this
        | isn't upgraded
 
      | smoldesu wrote:
      | I couldn't find the exact video, but Digital Foundry did a
      | great breakdown on the performance bottlenecks in Unreal 5.
      | They showed how disk speed directly influenced asset
      | streaming, and it was pretty interesting to watch. Their
      | HDD-speed drive choked constantly when running the UE5
      | demo, but a SATA SSD had enough bandwidth to handle the
      | assets.
      | 
      | So, it's kinda a weird spot to be. Not every scene was
      | streaming 250mb/s of assets, but when it _did_ the worse
      | drives took a notable hit to performance.
 
        | adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
        | Are these types of assets typically compressed?
 
        | smoldesu wrote:
        | Depends on the system, AFAIK. Modern consoles have so
        | much disk bandwidth that compression is completely
        | unnecessary, but PS5 and Xbox both have APIs for
        | streaming and decompressing compressed assets. I haven't
        | seen any titles using them, and it's doubtful that we'll
        | reach a point where it's required with modern systems.
        | 
        | That being said, compression would be an interesting
        | avenue to explore for SD cards and SATA drives. The
        | performance add can be pretty marginal, but sometimes
        | that's just what these drives need.
 
    | MisterTea wrote:
    | > The requirements for Unreal are unreal.
    | 
    | This has been true since 1998.
 
      | Daub wrote:
      | True. But the recent releases are a little better. We
      | looked into using Unreal at school a few years ago but
      | rejected it. This year was the first time we felt that our
      | lab machines were equal to the task.
 
| djmips wrote:
| 50 FPS is too low. There's a reason that 90 FPS is the low bar
| for VR.
 
  | rngname22 wrote:
  | Nah. Not once you are experienced. Agreed as far as beginners.
 
  | contravariant wrote:
  | For something this big and far away you'd think there would be
  | a way to cheat.
  | 
  | It's not as if things are going to move massively if you move
  | your head a bit, you should be able to precalculate things to
  | an extent.
 
    | jayd16 wrote:
    | Most VR headsets/runtimes support this but it only goes so
    | far. The closer things are the more occluded sections will
    | need to be in-painted. The farther the scene is the more it
    | might as well be a skybox at infinite distance.
 
    | jffry wrote:
    | There is such a way to cheat, and it's pretty clever. Store a
    | depth map and just approximate parallax while you're waiting
    | for a real new frame.
    | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_reprojection
 
  | Toutouxc wrote:
  | 90 FPS for redrawing the image according to the motion of your
  | head, but the actual rendering of the scene can be much slower.
  | Motion reprojection is basically the only way to make GPU-
  | intensive games like MSFS playable in VR on < $1000 GPUs.
 
    | jayd16 wrote:
    | Retrojection is great but it can't make up for 50 fps.
 
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| As someone who never appreciated VR, this looks great.
| 
| Now please do the Ishtar Gate
| 
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate
 
| Loic wrote:
| Thinking about it, it could be a very good tool to help cure fear
| of heights (or vertigo, not sure about the right term in
| English).
 
  | time_to_smile wrote:
  | If you haven't played it, I highly recommend Richie's Plank
  | Experience [0].
  | 
  | The main focus of the game is you take an elevator to the top
  | of a building, there is a plank an you jump off it.
  | 
  | I've found depending on the age of the participant the
  | experience ranges from light fun to harrowing encounter with
  | our own fears of death. I've seen people that, if it's their
  | first time in VR, can take nearly an hour to finally do it.
  | 
  | 0. https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1642239225880682/
 
| zokier wrote:
| One thing that sticks out like sore thumb are those relatively
| low-res rock textures, especially close-up. Would be neat to see
| some procedural generation there.
| 
| For reference here is the scene from the movie
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN7kG7Ui7Bg
 
| causi wrote:
| Am I alone in thinking most of this year's Unreal Engine
| demonstrations are just...not that great? Like, this is what
| graphics looked like on the Xbox One from nine years ago:
| https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/1/12/H5G-Waypoint-Swords_of...
 
  | oneoff786 wrote:
  | Halo 9 nine years ago looked like this
  | 
  | https://images.app.goo.gl/wbcDbmHJhcUsxB5YA
 
  | djmips wrote:
  | 1 is the loneliest number.
 
  | jayd16 wrote:
  | The technology at play is about handling scaling detail. You
  | can now use very large _and_ very detailed models so your
  | scenes look good from close and afar. A single shot misses the
  | point.
  | 
  | What makes that shot look good are just the post effects, eg.
  | depth of field and god rays.
 
  | bogwog wrote:
  | Nanite gives you high fidelity and Lumen gives you physically
  | accurate lighting, but those things can't replace good art
  | direction.
 
  | et1337 wrote:
  | There's no accounting for taste, but another reason why the
  | Unreal advancements are a big deal is improved productivity for
  | artists. The geometry in that Xbox One screenshot was
  | painstakingly optimized by some poor overworked artist, whereas
  | this guy just threw together a couple billion polygons and UE5
  | didn't even flinch.
  | 
  | edit: not to mention the lighting in the Xbox One screenshot
  | was also pre-baked and probably manually tweaked, compared to
  | real lighting updated in realtime in UE5.
 
  | ainiriand wrote:
  | Well that screen capture is taken from a cinematic scene if I
  | am correct. UE demonstrations are real-time playable
  | environments.
  | 
  | Have you tested the Valley of the Ancients demo on your
  | computer? You will see what I mean.
 
  | kuschku wrote:
  | The quality of nanite heavily depends on your model. You can
  | use photogrammetry scans or CAD exports directly, and nanite
  | will make sure they'll look good. But if you just use existing
  | videogame or fanmade assets (like here), the quality obviously
  | suffers.
 
  | sk0g wrote:
  | That screenshot does not look rendered in game, and no idea
  | what the resolution is - at least not by an Xbox One. If
  | current games are indistinguishable from single-frame renders
  | that take minutes if not hours, I'd say that's a massive win!
  | 
  | This looks more like the actual in-game rendering:
  | http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deri...
  | 
  | What stands out to me is the low resolution textures
  | everywhere, obvious seams between terrain and assets (runtime
  | virtual texturing resolves that), light seams which have odd
  | seams, and the entire ambience being vaguely similar to how
  | light acts, but not really - primarily the lack of bounce
  | lighting affecting anything. With the move to HDR, the more
  | binary lighting of previous games looks weird too now.
  | 
  | Contrast that with the rich detail in lighting you can see in
  | Fortnite's new update - https://i.redd.it/g2wqe10no44a1.jpg
  | 
  | Nanite, especially foliage, is something you have to experience
  | for yourself though. Foliage pop-in not being so stark and
  | alarming is huge for me, and the rich lighting capabilities
  | improves immersion massively.
  | 
  | Regarding assets, high polygon assets have been created for
  | ages too, but were never actually brought in to games. You bake
  | those details into your normal maps, but with Nanite you can
  | just bring them into games, and get the full detail when the
  | player is up close to them. When games can fully embrace Lumen
  | and Nanite, the developer iteration improvement will be huge.
 
| Tepix wrote:
| I think it will be commonplace to virtually walk around in movie
| scenes turned into 3d scenery by AI by the end of next year. I
| can see this turning into a real industry. Who wouldn't like to
| wander, fly and swim around Pandora, the world of Avatar?
| 
| It will also lead to questions about the copyright of the
| resulting models, probably somewhat dependant on how automated
| this process is.
 
  | AussieWog93 wrote:
  | >Who wouldn't like to wander, fly and swim around Pandora, the
  | world of Avatar?
  | 
  | Sure, like once or twice? I could see it getting old fast,
  | though.
 
    | andybak wrote:
    | You might get bored with a specific location but not the
    | general concept.
 
      | vlunkr wrote:
      | I disagree. VR is cool, but just walking around with
      | nothing to do is not that interesting now.
 
        | andybak wrote:
        | Do you feel the same way about real life locations?
        | Exhibitions? Galleries?
        | 
        | Obviously nobody is saying "VR is the same as real life"
        | but surely to some degree it's the content of the
        | experience that determines whether something is
        | interesting. Some locations would be fascinating to walk
        | around even if there's technically "nothing to do".
        | 
        | I'm not much of a gamer so my interest in VR has always
        | slanted towards towards the more passive experiences. In
        | fact quite often don't want my enjoyment spoiled by
        | having to complete tasks or solve puzzles just to get
        | around.
 
      | bemmu wrote:
      | Make them hangout spaces for VRChat and people will spend a
      | lot of time in them.
 
      | lajamerr wrote:
      | I'd like a version of Tokyo that is hyper detailed and
      | functioning transit system/lines.
      | 
      | Spend a week preparing for a trip on how to navigate the
      | city before actually going.
 
        | spaceman_2020 wrote:
        | I'd like a version of my city without trash and traffic!
 
        | astrange wrote:
        | You don't need practice for that, all the signs are in
        | English and you just use Jorudan for route planning. Or
        | Google Maps if you must, though it's gotten worse over
        | time.
        | 
        | nb: you may need practice to navigate Shinjuku station
 
      | markus_zhang wrote:
      | I don't know but then agree. The general concept sounds
      | boring to me but I can see how this can be interesting for
      | many people. For example as a Starwars fan someone must
      | want to fly the same scenes in VR for a few times.
      | 
      | But I think the better is to train AI to generate scenes
      | based on description such as "dogfight in P-51 with German
      | ME-109 in WW2 for 15 mins" and after some computation the
      | player gets to play this game in VR for 15 mins. The
      | problem is how to make it possible at low cost as player
      | will probably just pay a few bucks for such experience (but
      | you can always resell the popular ones many times)
 
    | mejutoco wrote:
    | Once that stops being exciting we could tell AI to create new
    | worlds combining others such as mixing the Smurfs and
    | Pocahontas worlds... I wonder what it could come up with /s
 
  | Mountain_Skies wrote:
  | The Trek community created a pretty detailed model of the
  | Enterprise-D, but took it down due to copyright concerns. It's
  | still floating around if you know where to look but it's a real
  | shame that development on it had to stop out of legal fears,
  | well founded or not.
 
  | onion2k wrote:
  | _I can see this turning into a real industry. Who wouldn 't
  | like to wander, fly and swim around Pandora, the world of
  | Avatar?_
  | 
  | Me. It sounds boring. I couldn't give a damn about exploring
  | someone else's fantasy world. This is a bit odd because I love
  | open world video games. I guess I need a reason to spend time
  | there.
 
    | dvngnt_ wrote:
    | if you watch TV, movies, read books, post games, or exist,
    | you're already exploring someone else's world
 
    | Taylor_OD wrote:
    | Once we can generate the world quickly, how far are we from
    | generating things to do in that world?
 
      | LeanderK wrote:
      | I think ChatGPT showed exactly that we are not that far
      | away. ChatGPT fine-tuned on the specific world could
      | generate quests and make every NPC able to get interacted
      | with
 
  | SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
  | > It will also lead to questions about the copyright of the
  | resulting models
  | 
  | I very much doubt it. Within the Movie business, the ownership
  | of "digital assets" such as 3d models, who keeps what, and what
  | they can legally do with it, is the subject of long and
  | detailed contracts between the film studio, VFX houses,
  | subcontractors etc. Ownership is well-covered, if not exactly
  | "clear" if you're not versed in the law regarding it.
  | 
  | A third party using any technique (AI included) to re-create a
  | look-alike of such an asset, and to monetise this, would surely
  | attract the "eye of Sauron" of the big studios to turn it's
  | withering gaze upon them, and to send out a well-armed
  | detachment of lawyers.
 
  | oneoff786 wrote:
  | > Who wouldn't like to wander, fly and swim around Pandora, the
  | world of Avatar
  | 
  | This is a good example of the fundamental limits of headset VR.
  | Jumping into a lake will never feel real. Not by touch,
  | obviously as you can't get wet. Not by physical movement
  | because you almost certainly can't move downwards irl. Not by
  | the weight of water around you or the buoyancy you expect to
  | feel. Not by the rotation you would expect to have in water.
  | Probably not by the stroke propeller movement or the
  | correlation of your breath. And of course probably overly
  | smooth movement to avoid motion sickness.
  | 
  | The difference between controlling a flying camera through
  | water and believing you're swimming is pretty big.
 
    | baandang wrote:
    | Exactly. We don't have virtual reality at all. We have
    | virtual remote viewing with sound.
    | 
    | We are basically at the Eliza stage of VR with a bunch of
    | people pretending Eliza is not that far from passing the
    | Turing Test.
    | 
    | Once we have virtual skin sensation and virtual physical
    | movement there is no intellectual debate about any of this.
    | Just instruction tutorials about how to have the experience
    | because no marketing needed.
    | 
    | Once we have this I can think of far more interesting things
    | than swimming around in the Avatar movie.
 
    | zimpenfish wrote:
    | > Not by touch, obviously as you can't get wet [et al]
    | 
    | What you need is a home version of the 4DX cinema setup. If
    | VR lasts another 5 years, I'd put money on someone making one
    | of those in that timeframe.
 
    | Jeff_Brown wrote:
    | This led me to imagine people who learn to swim in VR and,
    | because breathing is counterproductive underwater, then drown
    | IRL.
 
      | ChoGGi wrote:
      | Then the family suing as the city doesn't have signs
      | warning of holding your breath while underwater.
 
  | avian wrote:
  | > It will also lead to questions about the copyright of the
  | resulting models
  | 
  | I'm sure there will be no questions there.
  | 
  | The questions about the copyright of models like DALL-E, Stable
  | Diffusion, etc. exist solely because it infringes on the rights
  | of thousands of random artists all around the world. There is
  | no one single entity with enough power to clearly oppose it so
  | people making the models can get away with "questionable
  | copyright", "legal gray area", etc. kind of talk.
  | 
  | Try the same with a model trained on a single movie created by
  | a multinational with infinite money and all this will be
  | resolved and defined real quick and strongly worded cease &
  | desist letters sent out by end of work day.
 
    | Tepix wrote:
    | What if you train your AI model with three dozen films about
    | ancient egypt and then generate a new 3d world out using the
    | model? Seems fuzzy.
    | 
    | But what if you use only three films? Or two?
 
    | astrange wrote:
    | > people making the models can get away with "questionable
    | copyright", "legal gray area", etc. kind of talk.
    | 
    | Where are they saying that? Nobody thinks it's a gray area,
    | they think it's explicitly legal and they're probably right
    | too. Claiming it's a copyright violation is actually a rather
    | weak case artists are just saying is obvious.
    | 
    | Microsoft has licensed DALL-E. They're not venturing into
    | legal gray areas.
 
      | zimpenfish wrote:
      | > Microsoft [...] not venturing into legal gray areas.
      | 
      | Their history as litigation defendants would suggest your
      | optimism may perhaps be unfounded.
 
      | mejutoco wrote:
      | Well, I think it is a grey area.
      | 
      | The argument I heard most often goes along the lines of:
      | "people also learn from a lot of examples and other
      | artists, and that is not copyrighted".
      | 
      | It is an interesting argument, but AI is not people and the
      | argument could easily be the opposite (not taking sides
      | here). They might think it is legal, but it is far from
      | clear, IMHO.
      | 
      | IANAL, but it will be interesting to see if this is
      | enforceable and by whom.
 
    | sandworm101 wrote:
    | The day after movie-to-VR becomes easy to do, movie owners
    | will monitize it, which will end the current free-for-all.
    | Want to walk around The Shire in VR? You better have paid for
    | the Hobbits Online subscription package.
 
      | zimpenfish wrote:
      | Sam: This is it.
      | 
      | Frodo: What?
      | 
      | Sam: If I take one more step, I'll be the farthest away
      | from home I've ever been.
      | 
      | Popup: And you can do that for just $29.99 when you buy The
      | Hobbits Shire Expansion DLC!
 
      | SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
      | > The day after movie-to-VR becomes easy to do, movie
      | owners will monitize it, which will end the current free-
      | for-all.
      | 
      | The movie making studios already own those 3d "digital
      | assets" from their films. IDK if there is a real "free-for-
      | all" right now, but the monetisation play has already been
      | planned for.
 
    | me551ah wrote:
    | I think it would be the other way around. A lot of movies(and
    | tv shows) have games these days. You can already experience
    | Star Wars in VR with "Star Wars Squadrons" and I'm sure we
    | will start to see a lot more games with VR support in the
    | future, many being based on Movies. MNCs are there to make
    | money and they will just license it.
 
    | concordDance wrote:
    | > The questions about the copyright of models like DALL-E,
    | Stable Diffusion, etc. exist solely because it infringes on
    | the rights of thousands of random artists all around the
    | world
    | 
    | How does it infringe? Are your memories of a movie copyright
    | infringement?
    | 
    | https://youtu.be/IFe9wiDfb0E
 
      | jerf wrote:
      | I do enjoy that video, but also, despite my deep cynicism
      | about copyright, I can't help but think this is not in any
      | risk of happening. If you trace the economics it makes no
      | sense. Why would a creator make a thing, then sell you the
      | experience of that thing, then be upset that you have
      | memories of the experience of that thing? If they do try to
      | claw it back in an era where memory editation is possible,
      | why would anybody shell out any money to have an experience
      | if they won't be allowed to remember it tomorrow? Why would
      | I use copyright law to _prevent_ word-of-mouth marketing,
      | the most powerful form of marketing there is?
      | 
      | The point of copyright in general is to protect the
      | economic value for the producer. Being so grabby about "IP
      | rights" that they literally claw back the experience of
      | consuming it means that the economic value of the IP drops
      | to zero. It only has value in the context of being
      | consumed, remembered, etc., and where the person purchasing
      | the experience has confidence that such a thing will be
      | allowed.
      | 
      | I suppose hypothetical future simulated humans could be
      | shaped and molded until they give up some real value for an
      | "experience" they won't be allowed to remember tomorrow,
      | but by then they have passed so far beyond what is "human"
      | that I have no further guesses what they may act like.
      | (That's the true meaning of the "singularity" term, not any
      | particular future, but the point at which our predictions
      | are meaningless.)
 
      | [deleted]
 
      | Ajedi32 wrote:
      | Not normally, but if you use those memories to re-create
      | the movie and sell it to someone else then yeah, that's
      | totally copyright infringement.
 
        | luma wrote:
        | If I am an artist and I go to art school, I'm going to
        | spend years studying the masters to learn their
        | techniques and style. If I then produce an impressionist
        | portrait on canvass, informed and influenced by the years
        | of study of existing works.... am I violating copyright?
 
        | Mindwipe wrote:
        | If you're influenced no.
        | 
        | If you build your own replica of the bridge of the
        | Enterprise, then yes.
        | 
        | This is pretty settled law.
 
        | burkaman wrote:
        | No, because it took years of study and producing a new
        | portrait will take weeks. If you were able to study a
        | master's entire portfolio in a matter of hours and then
        | instantaneously generate 10,000 portraits in their
        | distinct style, yes that would be unethical. I don't know
        | enough about copyright to say if it would be illegal and
        | I don't think that's a particularly interesting topic.
 
        | chrischen wrote:
        | You just described some pretty amazing technology that
        | can quite possibly move the human race forward and I'm
        | surprised your first thought is that it is unethical. New
        | technology often displaces old methodologies by
        | disruption. It is not unethical to disrupt, but it may be
        | unethical to let those people be disrupted without
        | compensation, which is where I feel a lot of the anti-
        | technology sentiment comes from.
        | 
        | As a society we ask people to branch out into various
        | expertise... through no fault of their own maybe
        | someone's expertise is randomly obsoleted by a new
        | technology. Just as copyright laws incentivize new
        | creations, we as a society should incentivize people to
        | embrace new disrupting technologies by safety-netting
        | those displaced by them since it's a gamble more or less
        | of who is next to be displaced.
 
        | Ajedi32 wrote:
        | If you're creating new works _inspired_ by copyrighted
        | works, no that 's not (or should not be) copyright
        | infringement. If you're creating exact reproductions of
        | copyrighted works (e.g. The Gates of Argonath from Peter
        | Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings), just in a
        | different format (3d instead of 2d) then yeah, that
        | probably is.
 
        | bscphil wrote:
        | Right. Most of the conversations about IP on this site
        | seem to rely on extremely abstract reasoning or idealist
        | thinking about what constitutes "property" or what a
        | "copy" is. My understanding is that judges are not so
        | easily misled. If you are selling a "replica statue of
        | two kings" online that is clearly intended to resemble
        | the Gates of Argonath, you are setting yourself up for a
        | lawsuit. It doesn't matter if you built it from your
        | memory of the LOTR films, used an AI to generate a bunch
        | of similar looking statues and picked the ones most
        | similar to the films, or what have you. In practice any
        | judge will see that you are attempting to make money off
        | of the LOTR IP. (Note: not legal advice.)
        | 
        | Note that this doesn't mean that Stable Diffusion (and
        | friends) are copyright infringing just because they're
        | trained on copyrighted material. My brain doesn't
        | infringe the LOTR copyright because of my memories of the
        | films. If I turn my experience of fantasy epics into a
        | new novel with a different storyline than LOTR, that's
        | not copyright infringement. That's creativity. But those
        | same memories can likewise be used to make works that
        | _are_ infringing. The question of infringement isn 't in
        | the creative act, it's in the artifact. I think it's
        | plausible (though not certain of course) that IP
        | questions will be settled for AIs in the same way: it's
        | not infringement to train your AI on copyrighted
        | material. It _is_ infringement to use your AI to generate
        | works that a reasonable person would conclude are
        | intended to replicate or imitate copyrighted material.
 
      | chrischen wrote:
      | I'd like to add that all creative work stands on the
      | shoulders of predecessors by being trained and based on
      | (even if indirectly influenced) previous works. This really
      | is unavoidable on a human level because we can only do what
      | we see and experience.
 
    | sfifs wrote:
    | > There is no one single entity with enough power to clearly
    | oppose it so people making the models can get away with
    | "questionable copyright", "legal gray area", etc. kind of
    | talk.
    | 
    | Never underestimate the power of a sufficiently motivated
    | rich individual to create legal hell (see Gawker). There are
    | many very rich artists. There just needs to be an obvious
    | large enough irritant which will happen as these generative
    | models start getting used beyond toy amusements. The class
    | action lawsuit against Copilot was filed just as pricing
    | models started.
    | 
    | This is going to be an interesting area to watch. Use in
    | commercial projects at your own risk of exposure to
    | liability.
 
      | worldsayshi wrote:
      | The wrong and easy reaction to this is to limit these
      | services to not include copyrighted content. The more right
      | and really really difficult solution would be to give the
      | original copyright holders partial rights to the output.
      | 
      | It really feels like the textile factory worker problem all
      | over again. We can't let the big players be the benefactors
      | every time.
 
        | astrange wrote:
        | > The more right and really really difficult solution
        | would be to give the original copyright holders partial
        | rights to the output.
        | 
        | That is impossible (assigning credit to training images
        | from the output is arbitrary, not deterministic) and
        | wouldn't help anyone (imagine Spotify except it pays you
        | even less).
        | 
        | > It really feels like the textile factory worker problem
        | all over again. We can't let the big players be the
        | benefactors every time.
        | 
        | Industrialization is better for society because it
        | produces more customer surplus. Even Marx thought the
        | Luddites were wrong.
 
        | worldsayshi wrote:
        | >Industrialization is better for society because it
        | produces more customer surplus.
        | 
        | Also my point.
        | 
        | >Even Marx thought the Luddites were wrong.
        | 
        | Sure they are wrong in that they confuse what the problem
        | is. If workers owned the factory they would be happy to
        | automate the work. But their feeling of being left out
        | has some validity because if they weren't the total value
        | would improve.
        | 
        | The real issue is that the revenue brought back through
        | automation doesn't benefit the worker. If it did, the
        | automation would happen sooner because incentives would
        | align better and the total value for society would thus
        | likely improve faster.
 
    | moron4hire wrote:
    | The copyright protected material isn't in the model. This can
    | be figured out easily because, if they did, the models are so
    | much smaller than the input data that it'd be literal
    | unobtanium for compression algorithms.
    | 
    | Copyright also has nothing to do with the tool.
    | 
    | What a piece depicts and how it is used are much more
    | important than how a piece was created. If I paint a picture
    | by hand of a particular scene from a Disney movie, that's
    | clearly a derived work and may be subject to copyright
    | protection (it depends, there could be a fair use argument in
    | specific situations, so even "it's copyright!" is not a cut-
    | and-dried argument). If I paint a picture of Hercules in the
    | style of Disney, that's trademark violation. But I can paint
    | Hercules in any other style and Disney can't say shit (though
    | they certainly try).
    | 
    | This is an age-old argument. Some artists think they should
    | have a monopoly on certain ideas. As a society, we've already
    | said no, you only get to own your expression of your ideas.
    | 
    | And as ideas go, "like a trending artist on ArtStation" isn't
    | a particularly strong one.
 
  | Arelius wrote:
  | Why by the end of next year? That seems optimistically short.
  | 
  | Why hadn't it happened this year, or last? Nanite is great, but
  | IMO doesnt change the equation that dramatically.
  | 
  | The cost for a studio to manually decimate game quality
  | versions have been small enough that of the will had been
  | there, we could have been doing it for years.
 
    | smoldesu wrote:
    | > Why hadn't it happened this year, or last?
    | 
    | Having loosely followed this space, I think I might actually
    | have some input!
    | 
    | First off, you need a VR-ready environment. Not many
    | companies are making these, so the only people equipped to
    | roll this out is Valve, Meta, and possibly Unreal/Epic. Valve
    | already did this alongside Half Life Alyx; they released
    | certain map portions so you could freely walk around them
    | with friends without playing the game. Meta is _getting_
    | there, but the combination of low-power hardware and headset
    | attrition doesn 't leave them with much of an audience.
    | There's also Epic, but they don't really do much in this
    | space yet either.
    | 
    | So, obviously a paradigm shift is needed. And frankly, I
    | think Universal Scene Description will be that paradigm
    | shift. TL-DR: Nvidia came up with a new standard for 3D
    | environments that interoperates game technology with digital
    | effects. In theory, you could take your favorite Andor or
    | Rings of Power scenes, drag their file into another app, and
    | just start walking around in-scene. You may end up adjusting
    | a few things vis-a-vis scale, but once it reaches adoption I
    | can see it being pretty easy to work with and popular.
    | 
    | Maybe 'next year' is a little close, but the stars have
    | definitely aligned already.
 
      | astlouis44 wrote:
      | Thoughts on the web and the role that WASM, WebGPU, and
      | WebXR have as a distribution channel for these immersive
      | experiences?
 
        | rngname22 wrote:
        | The content pipelines aren't there, or visual fidelity.
 
        | smoldesu wrote:
        | WebXR feels like a solid building-block to me. Adoption
        | will be (and has been) shaky, but with Apple being forced
        | to adopt third-party browser engines it's revival seems
        | likely.
        | 
        | WASM is neat but extremely finnecky at the moment. I've
        | seen cool stuff done with it, but I'm not convinced it's
        | funny production ready yet.
        | 
        | WebGPU is sorta in the same boat as WASM, if a little
        | more realistic of a bet. People will want hardware-
        | accelerated browser experiences soon, and WebGPU will
        | probably do most of the lifting there.
 
  | hutzlibu wrote:
  | "Who wouldn't like to wander, fly and swim around Pandora, the
  | world of Avatar?"
  | 
  | Me, but I doubt it will be the same experience, if the scene is
  | highly optimized by hand like the movie is vs. some AI
  | generation.
 
  | VikingCoder wrote:
  | Have you read "Ready Player One"?
  | 
  | The author predicted that players will play a game where they
  | will be dropped into their favorite movies, and will be given
  | points for exactly mimicking the dialogue, inflection, and
  | movements of the characters.
  | 
  | Spoiler: the first one is War Games.
 
  | intrasight wrote:
  | >lead to questions about the copyright
  | 
  | It will lead to questions - but those questions will be
  | answered by the platform owners not the courts. The platform
  | owners will just remove your models even in cases where a court
  | would rule it fair use.
  | 
  | VR of real places is going to be huge - bigger than for
  | imaginary places. My guess is that most VR worlds will be a
  | combination.
  | 
  | Here's a question. What if you model the real world and an
  | architect of a building. I know that copyright doesn't apply to
  | buildings or other functional works. But again, this will be
  | decided by the platform owners and not the courts.
  | 
  | Clearly there are good reasons to not have "platform owners" in
  | the metaverse.
 
  | auveair wrote:
  | > I think it will be commonplace to virtually walk around in
  | movie scenes turned into 3d scenery by AI by the end of next
  | year.
  | 
  | I would take the opposite bet, I doubt most movies have
  | complete enough 3D scene to be AI enhanced, let alone something
  | good enough to walk around, you wouldn't model what you won't
  | film after all and nobody wants to see hallucinated aliens in
  | middle earth.
 
    | Tepix wrote:
    | No, AI will generate the 3d scene just by looking at the 2d
    | footage.
    | 
    | It can fill in the blanks (i.e. provide textures for areas
    | that are invisible in the film).
 
      | automatic6131 wrote:
      | It will make a chuffing good effort but fail hilariously in
      | >99% of cases but then people will parade the fraction that
      | make sense.
 
        | Tepix wrote:
        | It's getting better all the time, check
        | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y1-KlTEmwk
 
  | [deleted]
 
| dncornholio wrote:
| This is super cool. Performance doesn't really matter, as long as
| it can keep 45 fps, the experience would be good enough with
| motion reprojection turned on.
 
| kobaroko wrote:
| This looks so great. When I see this I'm somewhat sad that I
| don0t have computer powerful enough to try to do something like
| this by myself.
 
  | yrgulation wrote:
  | VR capable computers are quite cheap. Cheaper than a low spec
  | apple macbook pro running m1. For 2-3k you can get a beast of a
  | machine running everything on real high settings.
 
    | alt227 wrote:
    | Considring a brand new top of the line Nvidia GPU will
    | currently cost you almost 2k, your prices feel a little ~4-5
    | years ago.
 
      | oneoff786 wrote:
      | In my experience you can almost always do much better
      | buying a full computer on a good sale than buying
      | components and building it yourself.
 
      | smoldesu wrote:
      | Right. You only need a card that's more powerful than the
      | GTX 1060 for VR though, so the actual price-of-admission is
      | more in the $250-400 price range.
 
        | charcircuit wrote:
        | The original comment wanted to try a demo like this. A
        | RTX 3080 only runs it at 50 fps. A 1060 isn't good
        | enough.
 
        | smoldesu wrote:
        | The parent I'm responding to was interpreting "VR
        | capable" as "top of the line" which is demonstrably
        | false. You probably can't even get this scene in the
        | first place, so it's kinda a moot point.
 
      | volkk wrote:
      | i don't think you need a 4090 for this. and even if you did
      | get one, its 1600$. another 1000$ for good CPU and ram,
      | etc. and you're well under 3k.
 
  | [deleted]
 
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