The Samaritan demo shows off a variety of new effects the engine can pump out thanks to DirectX11. The latest update to the engine adds tesselation and displacement, geometry shaders, multisampled textures, shader model 5 support, and high-end features like subsurface light scattering, Bokeh depth-of-field effects, and significant improvements to reflections and shadows.

The demo was initially shown at last week’s 2011 GDC show, and now we all get to enjoy the footage. Be sure to crank your display up to full screen mode and switch to one of the HD modes to really get the most out of it:

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Pretty incredible, no? I for one can’t wait for games to look this good. I know that the hardware on your average PC or gaming console isn’t quite up to this challenge yet, but I’m happy to hear that Microsoft has already started hiring for their next-generation Xbox console, which I’ll bet will be able to handle it.

In the mean time, you can always grab the latest build of the Unreal Development Kit Beta and see if you can make any of it work on your PC.

[UDK via YouTube]

He created it back in 2006 and calls it Obsolete. The image It looks quite realistic, but was actually created using 3DS Max and rendered in V-Ray for learning purposes.

Pawel comments that the image was harder to render than to create, but he learned a lot about shaders and light. It’s kind of a window into the future, when even robots will lose their purpose/function due to progress.

[via JWZ via Boing Boing]

The little red guy looks like one of those wind-up toys you might get over at General Robots, and the boom box is one of those classic Lasonics numbers that you might find in a 1980s rap video.

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See, wasn’t that fun? I only wish that the song had kept going, so we could have seen more of the little dude’s dance moves. The video, titled A Robot’s Life, was directed by Elad Offer, with animation by Jacob Bergman and Derek Kent.

[via Wired via Botropolis]

Needless to say that I’m a fan of Hajime Sorayama’s shiny, sexy robots, including the Björk-bot above.

Of course, there aren’t just curvy female ‘bots in the collection. Here’s a slightly more masculine ‘bot for you in case you prefer your robots to be more macho.

You can check out the full collection over at Machoarts.

[via Design You Trust]

Well they love you too. Very much:

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I don’t know who made this clip, or for what. But even before seeing this I already knew how cold-blooded those beautiful insects can be.

[via The Presurfer]

The cool thing about the virtual foosball players and ball is that they’re still controlled by the same sort of spinny axle controllers that traditional foosball machines use.

In this case, however, software transforms all of the players movements into digital information which is used to control the virtual soccer players on screen. Each control lever is tied to a set of infrared sensors (similar to the way spinner controls work in arcade games) which tells the software which way to spin the players.

Check out the video clips below for a look behind-the-scenes of Space Foosball, along with some gameplay footage:

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The Space Foosball system was developed using the Virtual Physics CGI engine developed by Young J. Kim and the team at the Ewha Women’s University Computer Graphics Lab in Seoul, Korea.

No word on if or when you’ll be able to play Space Foosball at your neighborhood pub.

Here’s the trailer for 2010′s TRON Legacy (best watched in HD):

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And here’s the trailer from the 1982 original:

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Boy, we sure have come a long way. About the only thing these two appear to have in common are light bikes and Jeff Bridges. As the guys at Chunnel point out, being nostalgic is great, but most of us wouldn’t trade in our PS3′s and Xbox 360′s for Atari 2600′s, would we?

The source image is on the left, and the CG is the one on the right. Currently, MotionPortrait can modify the CG face by adding glasses or facial hair, as well as changing hairstyles. Click here or here to see an example of a MotionPortrait in action.

The CG face is still obviously artificial – the color is too pale, and the movements are a bit stiff – but it’s not that far off. MotionPortrait technology has been used in commercials in Japan, but I’m really hoping that the technology could be incorporated into video games someday.

Think of it: you snap a picture of yourself, upload it into your console, and it generates a CG face that you can use in games, complete with facial expressions. How awesome would it be to see a CG version of yourself playing basketball with the pros in NBA 2k15? Or be able to play Final Fantasy 25 with you as the hero? Technology: it’s the bee’s knees.

[via Tech on!]

Created by the CGI mavens over at Tronic Studio, the ad envisions larger-than-life versions of Sony gear, poured from chocolate. The animation seamlessly melds the gigantic candy electronics with the cityscape of Manhattan.

Tronic shot live action HD video from around NYC for the backgrounds, then composited in 3D modeled candy versions of headphones, a DSLR camera, a Handycam, and a solid chocolate laptop. And if milk chocolate isn’t your thing, there’s always a giant PSP made from candy cane-striped peppermint white chocolate. The key to pulling off the pouring chocolate illusion was RealFlow, a realistic fluid dynamics plug-in for 3ds Max.

Check out the video clip below to see the complete commercial:

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That’s all I need now, to get melty chocolate all over my hands whenever I surf the web.

[Tronic Studio via Fubiz]

Emily is a truly monumental achievement, recreating every nuance of human facial expression, even though what you’re actually looking at is the face of a digital actor. Created through a partnership with USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), the team’s primary objective was to create a completely convincing, animated computer-generated face, and I think they succeeded.

Using ICT’s special scanning system that can capture facial details down to the individual pore, the face of actress Emily O’Brien was transformed into a digital representation of herself, which could then be entirely machine-manipulated. A special spherical lighting rig captured O’Brien in 35 reference facial poses using a pair of high resolution digital cameras. The facial maps were then converted into 3D data using Image Metrics’ proprietary markerless motion capture technology.

Image Metrics then generated a new animation sequence and precisely superimposed it onto the live actress’ head. As you can see from the video below, you’d be really hard-pressed to tell the difference between digital Emily and real-world Emily.

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Amazing, no? Be sure to check out some of Image Metrics’ other CGI projects, which include work on Grand Theft Auto IV, Devil May Cry 4, and a most excellent Gnarls Barkley video featuring a anthropomorphic singing heart.

By using a high-speed video projector, a spinning platform with a holographic diffuser and special decoding hardware, the display can crank out up to 5,000 real-time images per second. Once the display spins up to speed, it creates a fully 3D image that you can walk all the way around.

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While I’m not sure that you’d want to get hit by this thing when it’s zipping around at full speed, the end result is pretty spectacular. As a matter of fact, the technology was the recipient of this SIGGRAPH’s Best Emerging Technology award for 2007.

[CGSociety via Geekologie]