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The Future of Videogame Aesthetics
daniil writes "Here's another look at the 'Realism vs Style' debate. David Hayward, a level designer involved with UT2004 mod Alien Swarm, among others, has written an interesting essay on the aesthetics of videogames, suggesting that, similar to other art forms, the peak of realism in computer games might also be a plateau that acts as precursor to wider experimentation: "We've come a long way since the flint-carved figures of early 3D games, but there's still progress to make before we're producing the game equivalent of sixteenth century marbles. Though it makes for a myopic obsession when compared to the vastness of the picture plane, photo-realism is nonetheless a worthwhile technological achievement to aim for, because it is through this that games will attain the sensation of a lucid dream.""
Perhaps after we reach true photorealism game companies will actually start to sell their products based on good gameplay instead of the latest flashy graphics.
Here's the problem - the people who buy games - lots of games, not just once every few months, are teenaged boys. They're insecure, hormonal, and rather stupid. So, games must market to them.
First of all, they violently object to anything stylized as being "kiddy" and "stupid faggy crap" - witness the reaction to "celda". Second, they don't have very complicated tastes.
Also, as costs go up the game industry will become increasingly risk-averse.
So, the games of the future are $200 million titles that feature photorealistic graphics, voices provided by pop artists, and lots and lots of explosions and tits. Plus, since the market grows up in roughly 8 years (assume they start on hardcore action games at 12, and grow out of them in college when they can chase RL tits and beer) then they don't need to worry about rehashing - it doesn't matter if your gameplay has been done 1000 times, these kids never played the original Doom and all it's ripoffs.
Yay future.
I'm so sick of this. Style and realism are not opposites. Realism is just one of many visual styles that a game could adopt.
And just because you choose realism, that doesn't say much about the visual style or flair of your game. The vast majority of photography is realistic, and no one would argue that all photographers have the same style.
Photo-realistic graphics will only go so far toward immersing a player in the game, when those graphics are displayed on a flat screen several feet/inches in front of the gamer's face. Looking at pictures on my computer rarely, if ever, makes me feel like I am in that place where the photo was taken.
The thing that will make games more immersive is holographic technology - when a 3D image can be thrown all around you rather than on a comparatively small rectangle in front of you.
I look at it this way, if your trying to sell a flight sim, racing sim, or Army-Sim then yet photo realism is going to be a good feature to have.
Yet for games like the "Sims" there isn't a need. The context of the sims isn't emulating real life in the same sense as the other games.
A lot can be said by adapting a style that is not trying to be realistic to create an environment more beneficial to the story you are telling. World of Warcraft is a great example. While many other MMOPRGs tried harder to look more "realistic" WOW went a whole another direction.
The problem with trying to make realistic appearing models is that the little errors of those models become glaring. Half-Life2 has many examples of approaching a realistic setting but having incosistencies that totally blow it. Examples include objects of a type that are not destructible while others of the same type are. MMORPGs suffer more as they have to meet the limitations imposed by lesser machines. This leads to a game that looks great on the high end machines and downright atrocious on lower end machines.
Context should be the deciding factor. Don't do it just because you can.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Here's another look at the 'Realism vs Style' debate. David Hayward, a level designer involved with UT2004 mod Alien Swarm... I don't see how you guys can call it a dupe when the first sentance clearly states that it is "another look" at the realism vs. style debate. Just because something is on the same subject does not make it a dupe!
WoW: Scheod 70 orc warlock on Shadowmoon
I will be very glad when photorealism is actually EASILY possible in games. Then, maybe game companies will stop dedicating all of their resources to making their games 'pretty.'
One of the problems that I can see on the horizon is that games will get ALMOST perfect photorealism and start causing nausea when playing. When the brain starts to believe that what it is seeing is real but has problems with certain aspects, angles, reflections or refresh rates, motion sickness like symptoms start to occur. Couple this with larger monitors and TVs that completely occupy your FOV, denying your sense of real world perspective and it gets interesting. Half-Life2 seems to be one of the first mainstream games inwhich this might be starting to occur; the hovercraft level seemed to be particularly troublesome for many.
http://www.tomandemily.com
Take Half-Life 2, for example. It has some of the best renditions of humans I've ever seen in any game. But once you look past that, it becomes glaringly obvious that these characters are still missing something. A character finishes talking to you, then goes into a "trance", staring straight ahead. HL2 tries to fix this by having the character "wobble" a bit to give the illusion of a living, breathing, not-perfectly-motionless human, or by having them turn their heads and look around from time to time. But there's still something... just not quite human about them.
Compare that to Mario in (let's say) Super Mario World. He's obviously human, but drawn and animated in such a whimsical way that you don't find it odd at all that he stands perfectly still, never moves a facial muscle, etc.
This isn't the article I was thinking of, but have a look at the Wikipedia article on The Uncanny Valley if you're interested in more. See also this blog for speculation on why The Incredibles did so well while The Polar Express just creeped people out.
If the kid's not grounded in reality, he's going to fall victim to any immersive medium. Better keep him away from television, movies, and literature.
Your anecdotal evidence also doesn't hold true for the majority of the game-playing audience.
In short, what the fuck to videogames have to do with reality? Aren't they about escapism, just like almost everything else we spend our money on?
... and then they built the supercollider.
In the old days of low-poly monsters and low-res textures, any slightly artistic geek could build a model or a level and it would look as good as anybody elses. That is changing as the tools and processing power evolve. The newer games require very high-quality assets that not every artist has the skill to produce. It's no longer enough to be an arty geek, now you need to be a geeky artist.
Imagine you take two people and sit them down with a pencil and a piece of paper. One's just some guy from off the street, the other is a fine arts major from t he local art school. You tell them each to draw a figure using only six lines and in the shortest possible time. They each draw a stick figure, and both look pretty much alike. You then say draw another person, no limit on the number of lines, take a half an hour. You've now removed the limitations that were hiding the disparity of talent, so at the end of that time the first guy has a stick figure (maybe a stick figure with hair) and the art student has a passable portrait of the first guy.
The same thing seems to be happening with game visuals: the improved tools and increased polygon pushing abilities of modern consoles have removed most of the limits that in a way protected less-talented artists, and their limitations are now made more glaring. If you really want to push for photorealism, how long before you get to the point where you need a Francisco Cortina to make your models? There are'nt a whole lot of those guys out there.
Re: the larger "stylized vs. realistic" issue, I think overall it's easier to be "Boris" than it is to be "Frazetta". Mimicing real life is always easier than developing a distinctive and original visual style.