Topic: Why don't games use photo-digitized textures?

[ShyGuy]

You would think with all the graphic-whoring you have these days, photo-digitized textures would be all the rage. I can't think of another game that has done it since Max Payne One? Imagine what you could do with today's technology.


Can anyone else point out a game that has used this?

[BranDonk Kong]

Pit Fighter, Mortal Kombat 1-4 (and Trilogy), Street Fighter the Movie, all of the WWE games, MLB games, the Onimuha games, all of the Call of Duty games...

[ShyGuy]

Pit Fighter and Mortal Kombat used 2D sprites rather than textures over a 3D model.

The COD games used photo textures? Can anyone post a screenshot as an example?

[ShyGuy]

I should note I'm not talking about digital mapping using facial recognition software. That still produces a rendered look.

L.A. Noire, for example.

[BranDonk Kong]

Mortal Kombat 4 uses real scanned faces.

[ShyGuy]

Okay. that's cool.

[BranDonk Kong]

Jean Reno in Onimusha 3



John Cena and CM Punk in WWE 13

[KDR_11k]

Photos aren't really good source material for games. You can use them as a bit of detailing but with all the shaders and such games need different information than that contained in a photograph: The diffuse texture should be free of directional light (because there's dynamic lighting in the game), normalmaps must contain the structure of the material, ...
Even back when photos were used more often they still required significant cleanup, e.g. a wall won't be uniformly lit in real life but when you want to tile that texture it can't have notable edges.

That said, photos are often mixed into textures to add a bit more realism than what you can paint by hand. You can never just plop a photo on an object and have it look good though.

BTW, remember the "proprietary face scanning technology" EA had during the Gamecube era? That was mostly just feeding very noisy and practically useless data to their lead artist and having him make everything by hand anyway.

[ThePerm]

 Resident evil 4 uses photos for the skins. When you look at what the skins look like though, they are all Japanese guys. I found the Leon Skennedy model from Re4 one time, it was quite an interesting thing.

[dominox]

Our technology today is more advance especially in video games using photo-digitized textures.I'm playing Jean Reno in Onimusha 3 and it' really cool! love it!

[MukiDA]

Keep in mind that most games using "photo digitized" textures are usually either drawn from scratch to match the photo or HEAVILY edited. If you want the PEAK of this method though, look at a scene from L.A. Noir. That said, there's the strangest uncanny valley in the disconnect between those perfect faces and those rather imperfect bodies around them.

Tons of games digitize real people. Just look at Starkiller and the guy who played Doomsday in Smallville. Same guy and it shows. I'm sure a lot of studios don't for the same reason that Pixar won't use Mo-cap and Rotoscoping gets looked down upon occasionally: It feels like a "cheap" method.

[ShyGuy]

THIS!!! This is what I am talking about!

http://chibirobo.nintendo.com/

Photo textures of wall outlets! Photo textures of meat!