Do Videogames Need More Graphical Grit?

Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing whether some recent videogames, such as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, look "too sterile and perfect" . The author explains: "The animation is fine but the world Snake runs through is too sharp edged. There's no dirt and grime in the graphics because they're perfect versions of what was seen in the original game. Somehow, these better graphics have detracted somewhat from my opinion of the newer game." He continues: "DOOM 3, for as great as it looks, suffers from a lack of grit in still shots. I'm hoping the final game will not have the plastic look of the current pictures. Even the highly polished Quake III Arena didn't come across as being plastic to me." Do other gamers share this perception of graphical sterility in some recent games?

Comments

Games need a dirt filter

[nadadogg]

This is true. Too often games are overpolished, and look sterile to me as well. Hell, once they come up with a "dirt" filter for textures, games will feel a good bit more immersive than they currently do.

Re:Games need a dirt filter

[Trillian_1138]

I think we're also reaching what's called the "Uncanny Valley" (good explanation: http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/glimpses/valley.html ).
"Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human "look" . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete."

The website explains it very well, with helpful graphs. Basically, people are willing to accept unrealistic portrayal of a 'live' thing (teddy bears or straight animation). As you approach actual photo-realism people continue to accept the visual as looking 'good'. Take Toy Story or Finding Nemo for examples. But then there is a sudden dropoff where the object looks real enough to be creepy, but not real enough to be convincing. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within arguably suffered from this.

Relating it to videogames, Mario was only the vaguest representation of 'reality' and everyone was fine accepting this jumping 2D. figure. No one was saying the graphics in Mario were disturbing or whatever. Leap forward to Mario 64, and it's still cartoon-ish enough that it doesn't look weird. But games are beginning to reach the Uncanny Valley where they are real enough to be disturbingly lifelike, but where the movement animation and graphics aren't actually realistic enough to jump out of the Uncanny Valley.

This isn't directly related to what the article is talking about, as this is more about movement animation than the environment of the game world, but it's on the same topic. Games are becoming real enough that we're beginning to have problems with the discrepancies between game and reality. No one complained Mario 64 or Sonic or Final Fantasy VII looked 'unrealistic' because they were clearly only attempts to model and emulate specific parts of reality, to give an idea of the world rather than model every single blade of grass. But as graphics attempt to move towards modeling every single blade of grass they suffer the danger of hitting this Uncanny Vally wall.

-Trillian

Realism

[oO Peeping Tom Oo]

I belive that as the technology to have "perfect" animations continues, we will be hitting a celing soon. Through adding "grime" to those animations in proper areas, we will be able to further add to that realism by bringing "real world" effects into the games with realism. Even with more advanced engines we will be able to see this. Splashing muddy water on a character, anyone?

It's not just dirt

[superpulpsicle]

If you play a sports game for example, dirt isn't the only thing that makes it feel "real".

1.) Inconsistent lighting
2.) Fog in the air
3.) Dirt everywhere
4.) Fans that look different in the seats

Damn I can go on forever

Just like System Shock 2...

[ConceptJunkie]

SS2 was an awesome game with an incredible spooky atmosphere, but there was the glaring problem of everything being pristine and clean... even broken stuff. Worse, there were no no bodies, debris and very little damage in the environment. And of course, killed enemies would disappear shortly after being dispatched. I realize this was a technological limitation (the game came out 5 years ago), but I think it's one of the biggest barriers to real immersion in an environment. If I'm walking in a derelict spaceship overrun with zombies and cyborgs, there should be bodies everywhere and lots and lots of busted stuff. Also, if I'm struting around with a plasma rifle, I want to be able to blow stuff up. Descent 3 provided black scorch marks on the walls if you shot at them, but I want to see chunks of metal or masonry flying around and if I spent enough time and ammo, I want to be able to blow my way through walls or doors or really abuse the environment in other ways. When this happens, it will seem like VR compared to today's games.

Hmm...

[NanoGator]

Well this is an interesting topic for 3D rendering in general. The world is 'imperfect'. The moment something is exposed to human interaction, it gets nicks, cuts, scratches, dents, fatigue, etc. The common way to communicate the 'used look' is to make things look beat up and dirty.

Yes, it does look better. Yes, it does look more lived in. Yes, it does take away from the 'perfection' that computers achieve and look more like we expect. Is it the right thing to do? Well, interestingly enough, I'm running into this problem right now. I'm working on a 3D rendering of a futuristic particle cannon. Right now, I'm building a room around the machine. While texturing this bad boy, I realized something. You see, when I originally built the machine, I used Lightwave's more advanced rendering features. This means more time to render, but it looks more realistic. There is radiosity rendering, and subtle blurred reflections (you'd be surprised how much rendering time that eats up..) area lighting, the works. And you know, by the time I've got all these on, it is startlingly good looking. However, it was taking FAR too long to render an animation of, so I had to find ways of dirtying it up. Well, that's what I've started doing. Instead of using reflective chrome like you'd see in the CERN laboratory for its machines, I grittied it up. No more expensive reflection blurring there. Some of the photos I'm using for textures have some of the effects of 'realistic light' baked into them anyway, so I can stop using area lights and go back down to spotlights. Radiosity? Well the dirt on the machine gets so dark that radiosity wouldn't make a huge difference, so bye bye lengthy render times.

Maybe the dirt etc helps reduce the need for fancier renderings? Maybe, though it helps sell the idea that something is used, it's really covering up something that'd be more expensive to render? I say maybe because this may not be true in every artist's experience. I just found it interesting that when it came down to getting the rendering done in time to get an animation done, the grit texturing has saved my rump.