Maybe full photon mapping?

They are going to improve in same paths like multithread, softbodies, fluid simulation (Even if is only the surface like GeoW2) and better lighting solutions...
Probably they are going to aim for bigger and more detailed envirments with more characters on screen with some sort of ramdom character builder (To avoid the storm trooper feeling)...
And make it more easier to handle it, they don´t want another pointless sue...

 

@ Halogamer photomapping is expensive too, and without enough photons to reach the camera the final output could end up with artifacts on some frames...

 

Motion Blur? Depth of Field?

I think there is lots of room for lighting enhancements. Many of the effects we now have are bad hacks. It looks cool but only if you look at it in exactly the way it was meant to be. If the next gen of consoles is powerful enough for a true global lighting model than we would save a lot of development time.

More Color.

Kyros said: we will be hitting the limit of what is (really) noticeable from pixel shaders and people will be focusing more on improving the image after it is rasterized ... Motion Blur? Depth of Field? I think there is lots of room for lighting enhancements. Many of the effects we now have are bad hacks. It looks cool but only if you look at it in exactly the way it was meant to be. If the next gen of consoles is powerful enough for a true global lighting model than we would save a lot of development time.

 

Rough global illumination models will start showing up on bleeding edge PCs in 2011 or later, and in many ways will be a step backwards in order to get advanced lighting ...

What I was talking about is that a mid line graphics card of 2010/2011 will be able to devote (roughly) 2 to 4 times as much processing power to pixel shaders as we have on current graphics cards, and you're hitting the point where there really is no need to push shaders further in the raster rendering model. Certainly you could push motion blur, but if you can render at 60fps that is a very minor detail (and blending 3 frames at 90fps into 1 frame at 30fps gives a very good approximation of "real" motion blur), and depth of field can be approximated very well in a multi-stage rendering process using a post processing blur-filter.

 

I think that is a daring statement. There is so much room left for better shader effects you cannot even imagine it.
Currently pixel shaders are the bottleneck for most games. I do not think this will change with the next generation. Computing more and better dynamic lightsources (the most important improvement IMO) is all shader work.

That's number one. More detailled environments and textures is number 2 and until now post-processing effects are a problem I would like to get rid of as often as possible because it mostly results in blurred confusing images. But this may be a personal thing. I like clear, sharp looking games and think post processing is mainly used to conceal problems of the engine. (Similar to the good old distance "fog") GTA4 looks great but the cities and views in Assassin's Creed were as complex and big and looked better with far less blurriness.

Unreal Engine 4 should have integrated support for the Wii Hardware, Wiimote and Nunchuck controls and WiConnect24 :-ppp

.:Dark Prince:. said: More Color.

 

That.. I want something more than grey & brown.. xD

Fonzerelli said: Unreal Engine 4 should have integrated support for the Wii Hardware, Wiimote and Nunchuck controls and WiConnect24 :-ppp

 

I think that shows an interesintg point, on the PC no problem, but on the consoles, maybe the next iteration will bring a new api for the use of the motion controls...

.:Dark Prince:. said: More Color.

 

I was going to say those exact words!