Why Haven't 3D Graphics Surpassed 2D Game Art?

Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' article discussing the longtime game player's "soft spot" for 2D games, and why, in the author's view, "3D polygonal graphics still haven't entirely surpassed 2D game art." He explains: "In a way... I think the cinematic power of gaming almost took a step back with the transition from 2D to 3D. 2D game characters are displayed precisely how the artist chooses to display them to you. There is no extraneous frame of animation to be found. 3D game characters, meanwhile, are yours to control, so you may rotate them and view them from whichever unflattering angle you like." It's also argued: "2D games handle collision detection (or the interaction between two characters or objects) better than 3D games do... [and] I think 2D game characters still have the capacity to display more-lifelike emotions than 3D game characters do."

Comments

Difficulty of 3D Games

[Aggrazel]

Here's something else I've noticed, with rare exception, 3D games to me seem easier than their 2D counterparts.

Maybe its me, but games like Metroid Prime aren't nearly as difficult as the original Metroid. It just seems to me that 2d games are easier to balance and whatnot, easier to see where the player is going to be and to "force" people into using a certain strategy.

As far as art, well, thats subjective. Creating an immersive 3d world is much more challenging than creating a painting. Screenshots don't often do games justice, you have to experience them, see how they move, in order to appreciate the art and work that went into them.

It's the level of abstraction

[foidulus]

kind of like the difference between animation and live action movies/television. There are certain things you can do in animation by not making the characters concrete. A live action family guy would probably be disturbing, much as the live-action tick is. The charm in those shows was that you were dealing with somewhat abstract beings. The same thing goes for games, for certain games, I just want an abstraction of what is going on, ie 2d, I don't want something that is nitty gritty realism. For others(doom 3!) that works out really well. I think it largely depends on the game itself and what the authors are going for.

It's a matter of time.

[riverLINE]

Two dimensional pictures have been the mainstream since there were cave paintings. Sure, there has been sculpture too, but never in the sheer volume of traditional two dimensional art. It's no wonder the quality of three dimensional art in video games isn't at the level we would like it to be.

2D Games and Art

[Zorilla]

The comparison between 2D classic graphics and modern 3D graphics could be seen as synonymous with the change to impressionistic art after photography came around.

...which is one of the reasons Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is still one of my favorite games. When all the 32-bit consoles were trying to get the most cutting-edge picture possible, games like SOTN were taking the artistic/gameplay route. Without worrying about things like model animation, the developers were free to work on other aspects, such as the soundtrack, physics, color balance, etc.

Two things 3D games need

[frenchgates]

1. The biggest technical problem with 3D games is that they all have a quiality of origamai. The objects mostly look like they are made of 2D paper folded and joined edge to edge clumsily. How many times have you noticed the seams between facets? 2. Too much striving for realism. As people have pointed out, detailed attempts at human-like faces seem like corpses. Blizzard is going in a better direction with the less realistic but more fun graphics in World of Warcraft. For more info about why comic book style graphics tend to be more compelling read Understanding Comics.

Ease of Play?

[fuzzybunny]

I think a large factor in the continuing popularity of side scroller-type or top-down games is that they're usually a lot simpler to play than 3D (not to mention less resource-intensive.)

Case in point: I can fire up MAME and Ghosts & Ghouls on my laptop, goof around a bit, there are about 7 controls for me to "master" (back, forth, jump, duck, up, down, fire) and my machine never grinds to halt because I don't have the latest super-duper 3D drivers installed.

This sort of goes into the whole difference between "casual gamer" and "hardcore gamer"--it is the same reason I enjoy Angband on the train, before a meeting, before going to sleep, whatever--the controls are more difficult and involved, but I can quickly start it up, futz around a bit, and close it when I don't feel like getting too mentally involved.

Whereas, when I start up Call of Duty or something similar, I sit down with a coke and my headphones for a few hours and really get into it, as I would with a movie. I wouldn't be able to sleep or concentrate on work after 5 minutes (good luck anyway keeping it that short) of playing the car chase missions in CoD.

I'm a bit resentful of the 3-D platform.

[hal2814]

I was a huge fan of the 2-D platform games. While I do think that there were planty of bad 2-D platformers, but I really think that they had a much larger percentage of good games than most genres. When the 3-D platform games came out, it's like all game companies just abandoned the 2-D platform. The gaming companies saw 3-D platforms as an upgrade instead of seeing 3-D platforms for what they are, a different gaming style. Soon Mario, Zelda, and Sonic all left the 2-D arena (except for a couple of subpar 2-D games like Yoshi's Island and some Sonic compilations of older games). Then everyone else followed. 3-D platform games should never have been seen as a REPLACEMENT for 2-D platform games, and that makes me resent most 2-D to 3-D conversions somewhat (ESPECIALLY the 3-D bastardization of Bomberman on N64). That doesn't mean that there aren't 3-D platform games that I like (ex. Sonic Adventure series). It just means that I've got this unintentional bias towards the 3-D platform games that I can't always seem to get past.

Dumb questions, simple answers

[NanoGator]

"2D game characters are displayed precisely how the artist chooses to display them to you."

Yes, this is true. It was easier to fill up those pixels when you had low resolution images to fill. Kind of like how it's easier to fill up a lite brite than it is to make a full color painting that will stand close up scrutinizing.

"There is no extraneous frame of animation to be found. "

None of those extraneous weird things like rotating cameras to worry about, etc.

"3D game characters, meanwhile, are yours to control, so you may rotate them and view them from whichever unflattering angle you like"

I'm not sure if he's pointing out that there's only so many polygons you can put in something, or that something doesn't look 'cool' from every angle. If it's the latter, the answer falls neatly under 'duh'. It is VERY hard to design something that looks cool from just about any angle. A lot of times, you just can't reasonably do it. It's not like living in the wonderful very limited world of 2D where you nudge the proportions around until each frame looks decent.

"It's also argued: "2D games handle collision detection (or the interaction between two characters or objects) better than 3D games do..."

Right... that would be because of the limitations of 2D, makes it MUCH simpler to detect what part of the sprite is touching what part of another sprite.

My responses are a little half assed here, so I'll put it together in a nice little summary: 2D graphics make the world simple enough that these challenges are much easier to overcome. 3D graphics need a LOT more work to accomplish the points this person brought up. Why haven't they done it yet? For the simple reason that in some cases you need more talented artists working on it (more in this context means both quantity and higher level of talent. Not a bash against 2D, but a lot more has to be considered...) and you also need hardware capable of it. It's like comparing a comic book to a live action movie.

"[and] I think 2D game characters still have the capacity to display more-lifelike emotions than 3D game characters do."

This is plainly untrue. Play Mario 64 or Wind Waker, then find a 2D game that's just as expressive. I'll concede that 2D games in a lot of cases had more character, but this is strictly a 'talent of the team' sort of thing.