It's not all that complicated. A demo ( including source ) from NVIDIA is available here, or you can simply check out a video of the demo.

There are some serious downsides to this approach though.

I personally don't mind the artifacts of lower-poly models too much. As long as the overall effect is good. Which has more to do with art direction than technology.

Agreed

This is nothing new.

http://www.tml.tkk.fi/~samuli/publications/laine2010tr1_paper.pdf

Good to see the creator of Sonic / NiGHTS / Phantasy Star Online explore this kind of concept.

@Erik - Nice find

Björk entering notgames territory?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/may/28/bj-rks-biophilia

Even though digital distribution is a godsend, it's nice to see people exploring the other end of the spectrum.

There are 25 of these total, and there will never be any more than that. They cost $500 each.

http://www.bogost.com/blog/a_slow_year_limited_edition.shtml

The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies.

http://www.americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/

Some peculiar picks .. and no Jet Set Radio?

Eric's GDC Postmortem - http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014630/Classic-Game-Postmortem-OUT-OF

Quoted from around the 13 minute mark;

The big advantage is that the game would be interpreted in real-time, so no compiling was necessary to run the game. That was a key feature to be efficient during its creation.

Twenty years later developers somehow still demonstrate a lack of urgency on this approach ..

Try GameStart

Interesting article from the "other side of the fence" by Q-Games founder Dylan Cuthbert.

http://altdevblogaday.com/aesthetics-and-the-art-of-being-anal-for-the

Our coder brains tend not to be configured to let us create the art directly (the brain's left side vs its right side etc) but what we can do is everything in our power to appreciate it and enable it, and contrary to what some people might think, expression of aesthetics by us, the programmers, is actually much more important to the game than the art itself!

The demo scenes of the past and present are a perfect example of coders with an appreciation for aesthetics - Media Molecule's Alex Evans is a vivid example of this because he started in the demo scene and you can clearly see that his artistic side is infused throughout his work when you play LittleBigPlanet; of course he didn't design or draw the graphics directly himself but that game's aesthetics are driven by the power of its code.  Compare this with any game written using an off-the-shelf 3d engine such as Unreal and the difference in artistic expression is striking to me and it is very rare to see anyone other than artists expressing anything in games that use those kinds of 'standard' engines.

Except for the part where each of these is an artist!...

Why would you consider a film director being a artist, but a game director not?

A bit like how in cinema the director, the cinematographer and the editor form the creative triumvirate.

This is exactly how it works in most big studios.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_director

Coincidentally I recently did some research in this area ( using PlayStation®Move ) The most powerful solution I could find was ( simply said ) a combination of the following elements.

- During collision calculate the penetration direction + depth and move the camera relative to the inverse of this vector*
- During collision set the rumble intensity relative to the penetration delta + depth to represent the applied pressure.
+ Upon collision enable rumble for a single frame to let the player know collision has occurred ( state switch ).

* Similar to when you're pushing into a wall, causing your body to move / tilt into the opposite direction.

I am not "Dali / Klimt / Kandinsky".

You're welcome to swap any of those names with your own

I know we're trying to find a subjective way of using realtime 3D.

Stop looking, it's called deferred rendering

For those that are not familiar .. it's basically a two-step render approach. Imagine Dali / Klimt / Kandinsky sitting outside in a field. First you render the actual ( "real" ) scene that they see around them, then you use that data to render what a painting of that scene would look like using their specific aesthetic / technique.

Cell shading is an example of how you can ignore the mathematical accuracy and go for beautiful results.

Cell shading is just as mathematically accurate as the default pipeline But I know what you mean .. instead of a accurate representation of our physical world, processing it in a way a painter does can add allot of charm & identity.

Not that realism can't be nice.



Self Portrait in Tub with Chinese Food
Oil on Linen, 44” x 44”