More realism, coming soon to a console near you?

Games & the apparently never-ending quest to make things look more realistic may soon be getting a boost from technology that's been in use for a while with movies - ray-tracing. But studios like Pixar use giant farms of computers to speed the achingly slow process, making it an unlikely option for use in games. Scientists from a German university have shown how to use the technique with custom chips or high-end graphics cards - and don't require tons of computers to get beautiful results.

Professor Philipp Slusallek and co-workers from the University of Saarland have developed a series of ray-tracing algorithms that promise to make it much easier to use the technique.

Daniel Pohl, one of the researchers who has worked with Professor Slusallek, has used the algorithms to produce ray-traced versions of the Quake 3 and 4 video games.

"It gives much higher image quality in shadows and reflections," said Mr Pohl. "You can even do reflections on reflections on reflections."

Reflections on reflections on reflections? I think I have a headache - and that sounds like the hell of a three-sided mirror in a dressing room. Here's hoping use of a technique like this will end the trend of "Not quite real, not quite cartoonish, just looks kinda off" graphics of games like Final Fantasy.

Rays light up life-like graphics [BBC]