Graphics, Sound, and Moore’s Law
In the year 1975, Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, published his revised prediction that the number of transistor components in integrated circuitry would double every two years. Not only has has this prediction held true for move four decades, but it has also been further revised to only eighteen months per doubling. The prediction has been so successful, that it has been coined as Moore’s Law by many in the tech industry. As videogames were born and lived through their infancy in this very same span of years, they too have been affected by Moore’s Law. Each new generation of videogaming technology offers feats of graphic, sound, and other effects that dwarf their earlier counterparts.
I remember clearly the very first time I stepped out of the Kokiri Woods in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and saw what I then considered to be vast lands of the Hyrule Field. I took my time exploring these fields (and repeatedly dying to enemies that I was not yet geared to face) and looked in awe at how real the trees looked then, having only experienced cartoony pixel trees in prior videogames on simpler systems. The Ocarina of Time was released for Nintendo’s very first 3D game system, the Nintendo 64. The trees were rendering using a very simple player-facing texture mapping system, which gave the trees the illusion of being full of leaves, no matter which angle they were viewed from. For the technology of that era, the sight was breathtaking.
In the year 1975, Gordon E. Moore, the co-founder of Intel, published his revised prediction that the number of transistor components in integrated circuitry would double every two years. Not only has has this prediction held true for move four decades, but it has also been further revised to only eighteen months per doubling. The prediction has been so successful, that it has been coined as Moore’s Law by many in the tech industry. As videogames were born and lived through their infancy in this very same span of years, they too have been affected by Moore’s Law. Each new generation of videogaming technology offers feats of graphic, sound, and other effects that dwarf their earlier counterparts.
I remember clearly the very first time I stepped out of the Kokiri Woods in The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and saw what I then considered to be vast lands of the Hyrule Field. I took my time exploring these fields (and repeatedly dying to enemies that I was not yet geared to face) and looked in awe at how real the trees looked then, having only experienced cartoony pixel trees in prior videogames on simpler systems. The Ocarina of Time was released for Nintendo’s very first 3D game system, the Nintendo 64. The trees were rendering using a very simple player-facing texture mapping system, which gave the trees the illusion of being full of leaves, no matter which angle they were viewed from. For the technology of that era, the sight was breathtaking.
When compared to today’s virtual spaces, those old Hyrule Field trees appear as what they really are; unsophisticated pixel mapping applied to a simple polygonal trunk. I am immediately made to think of the concept of suspension of disbelief. This term is used in story telling as the level that the reader is willing to ignore the unbelievable, so long as the plot is compelling. In similar throw, the player is willing to accept simple illusions as aspects close to reality, so long as the game is entertaining. When a person views something that is meant to be a facsimile of something real, the mind makes the attempt to decode the image to confirm it as something real.
Though the human mind is very skilled in detecting patterns, it can also be easily fooled. Viewing something that is “not quite real”, but very convincing nonetheless is called the uncanny valley – a place between the real and fake. In the same manner that readers or listeners of a story are willing to ignore plot holes while enjoying a good tale, gamers are willing to ignore cheap graphics if the gameplay is fun. As a child, I enjoyed playing The Ocarina of Time; to this day, it remains one of my many favorite games. The level of entertainment I received while playing it for the first time was sufficient that I ignored the silliness of the Hyrule trees. Looking back at them now, especially when comparing them to more modern artificial trees in videogame spaces, I see that they are in truth rather cartoony. I believe that the acceptable “breadth” of the uncanny valley is subjective to the experience in which is encountered – the more a person enjoys the content, the wider of a valley can be accepted. Moore’s Law also applies to the auditory experience of the player. Sound and music were very important elements in The Ocarina of Time – both in mood setting and story line. The game behaved within a realm of time (as evident by the title), in that it operated within a day and night system. Roughly every fifteen minutes of game time, the sun would set and night would begin. Another fifteen minutes later, the sun would rise while the “morning theme” played. The very first few notes of the morning theme would later come into the game play as a tool the player could call upon with the eponymous Ocarina of Time.
Though the human mind is very skilled in detecting patterns, it can also be easily fooled. Viewing something that is “not quite real”, but very convincing nonetheless is called the uncanny valley – a place between the real and fake. In the same manner that readers or listeners of a story are willing to ignore plot holes while enjoying a good tale, gamers are willing to ignore cheap graphics if the gameplay is fun. As a child, I enjoyed playing The Ocarina of Time; to this day, it remains one of my many favorite games. The level of entertainment I received while playing it for the first time was sufficient that I ignored the silliness of the Hyrule trees. Looking back at them now, especially when comparing them to more modern artificial trees in videogame spaces, I see that they are in truth rather cartoony. I believe that the acceptable “breadth” of the uncanny valley is subjective to the experience in which is encountered – the more a person enjoys the content, the wider of a valley can be accepted. Moore’s Law also applies to the auditory experience of the player. Sound and music were very important elements in The Ocarina of Time – both in mood setting and story line. The game behaved within a realm of time (as evident by the title), in that it operated within a day and night system. Roughly every fifteen minutes of game time, the sun would set and night would begin. Another fifteen minutes later, the sun would rise while the “morning theme” played. The very first few notes of the morning theme would later come into the game play as a tool the player could call upon with the eponymous Ocarina of Time.
By playing those few notes, the player would call upon the Sun’s Song – a magical tune that would advance time by one day or night cycle. The Ocarina of Time was the very first game in the Zelda series to allow the player to control the time cycle via musical instrument, but many other Zelda games would later implement the same tool. Interestingly, the same Sun’s Song would be used, only with different instruments. In another Zelda game, The Wind Waker, the song would be called the Song of Passing, but consisted of the same notes. A large portion of the game was guided and controlled by the presence of music within the world of Hyrule. Various songs would control minor elements within the world, such as the time day or weather. More complex songs would allow the player to move great distances instantly via magic teleportation. This method of music-controlled gameplay became a common medium with the Zelda series. Many of the later entries in the Zelda series would allow the player to control aspects of the world through the use of magic songs played on an equally magic instrument. The songs were not only used as tools within the game, but the very same tools would often set the mood for a region or critical point. For example, the titular character, Princess Zelda herself, was heralded by the royal family’s lullaby. This lullaby not only signaled that either Zelda was nearby or that the story was currently involved with her, but the song was also used to active machines or puzzle elements tied to the royal family. In early years of videogaming, hardware could not produce the full range of acoustical music and instead worked with simple instructions organizing ‘beep’ and ‘boop’ sounds into a musical tune. This method was called the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI extension. The earliest of 8-bit videogames had entire music scores comprised purely in this primitive form – even the first Legend of Zelda title. As game technology was improved over the years and music production technology within game worlds became more advanced, full orchestra sound was eventually achieved. Though the capability of writing entire new music scores for the series was now possible, those old MIDI sound tracks were simply updated using new instrumentation. The players of old had grown fond of those simple tunes as they had not only been tools in the virtual world, but had also been part of what set the mood – everything from the villainous Ganon’s foreboding theme to Zelda’s soft lullaby. Those old, simple tunes become an integral part of the Zelda universe.
Even today, the Zelda universe is changing – expanding into newfound territory. One of the most recent entries into the Zelda series, Skyward Sword, used a gyroscopic sensor built into the WiiMote controller that sensed the orientation the player was holding this controller, and used that data to directly control the hero, Link’s, sword in game. This was a new level of player immersion not found in any other Zelda game. The technology of gyro-sensors was originally used in massive aircraft to assist in pilot control of the plane. This technology was big –so big in fact, that it could only be placed on the largest of aircraft. But Moore’s Law held true. With every two passing years, the necessary components of the earliest gyro-sensors became smaller. Today, they are small enough to fit in most cellphones. Despite the many years of videogame history we have lived through so far, as long as the prediction Moore made in the seventies continues to hold true, there will always be new technology that will offer the player new in-game experiences. The line between the real world and ‘fake’, virtual one becomes more blurry with each gaming generation. New technology such as the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and various augmented reality platforms are closing the gap of the uncanny reality a little more each year.
The Oculus Rift allows a user to bring the view of first-person virtual worlds into the direct control of their own head position and various augmented reality uses video layering effects to add graphical elements to live video of real places – both of these technologies could easily be incorporated into current and popular videogame franchises. How many decades until the breadth of that uncanny valley becomes short enough to simply step across?