Real-time rendered rocks reach remarkable realism

When I spoke with Oxford Professor Nick Bostrom a few weeks ago about simulation theory — whether or not we live in a computer, basically — we didn’t discuss rocks. We should have talked about rocks.

Graphic artist Rense de Boer — possibly one of the creators of the real matrix — created this jaw-droppingly gorgeous 3D terrain video using the Unreal Engine. We said real-time rendering was the future of computer graphics, and by-jolly this is what we were talking about:

Watch that on the best screen you can find, and then tell me you don’t wonder whether we’re living in a computer simulation or not.