As part of a GDC talk titled “Technologies to Support Emotion”, Quantic Dream head David Cage has released a tech demo running in realtime on the PS3 showing the studio's new engine in action.
While the above video starring Twilight: Breaking Dawn actress Valorie Curry does indeed look impressive, the head of the Heavy Rain studio repeatedly emphasized that "Kara" was simply a tech demo, and had nothing to do with their next game.
The video is also a full year old, with Cage saying the current engine looks even better:
Kara has fifty percent of the features we have now. What we are witnessing with the likes of Omikron, of Heavy Rain, of Hollywood’s Avatar, of Kara is a steady walk out of the Uncanny Valley.
Cage also explained to Eurogamer that the studio now has far more motion capture cameras:
So we invested a lot in our motion capture studio. Heavy Rain was shot with 28 cameras, and we’ve upgraded the studio to 65 cameras. Now we can shoot several actors – their body and their face – at the same time. It’s not a small change, but at the same time this is how Avatar and Tintin were shot, and it’s how the CG industry works because they know how much you gain from shooting face, voice and body at the same time.
Quantic Dream released a similar tech demo in 2005, titled The Casting, which showed off the engine used in Heavy Rain:
