pouët.net

The problem with technologically based graphics

category: general [glöplog]
http://blog.i2pi.com/2007/11/06/dynamic-graphics-for-statistics/

In the words of jdigital/i2pi:

Quote:

In a semi-unrelated meme, I was chatting with my friend Aaron a few weeks back about why I disliked 3D graphics, especially in games. To his credit, I don’t play computer games so I miss out any much of the emotional nuance that comes from interacting with simulated gore and I probably shroud my argument with rationales purely to hide my irrational aesthetic bias. But that said, I don’t like 3D graphics for two interrelated reasons. Firstly, I assume that the designers of these graphics curse themselves at the lack of rendering power at their fingertips. Sure, they think their blood spatter looks better than any game that came before it, but if only they had 64 GPU pipelines instead of 32, it would look so much better. George Suerat never complained about the number of lines per inch in his Gillot paper. The paper was chosen for its capabilities and its characteristics were exploited to promote the aesthetic that Seurat was seeking. I have long felt that art and constraints go hand in hand and successful creators express themselves within boundaries. For the most part, game graphics are not timeless. Today people look back on games from 2003 and chuckle at the lack of realism. In 2009 the creators of Halo will secretly wish that they could go back and remake their games with 2009 era technology. Who knows if the makers of Galaga would prefer to recreate their game using today’s technology, my guess is not.

Fundamentally, I find it a little offensive when people make graphics and aren’t happy with the outcome. Sure, game creators (and players) probably really enjoy their work. But whenever they admit that they need a better computer to ‘get the full experience’, they are stating that they are not happy with what they have. Computers are immensely powerful. But I fear that much of that power is being dedicated to doing things very uncomputer-like. If people adapted to and adopted the medium, we may have graphics that look very different to reality but in the abstraction away from reality I think we can find a fluid, informative, and medium appropriate representations. People don’t have an innate understanding of what data looks like, and in the world of statistical analysis and visualization we can afford to break the mold. Perhaps not in many games, but I have seen some games that take this approach and invent new visual realities that are (to my untrained eyes) as emotionally engaging and poorly rendered trees and bump-mapped blood spatter.
added on the 2007-11-07 09:21:00 by _-_-__ _-_-__
No surprise here, I'm 100% in agreement with his approach of the need to treat computers as a canvas of its own, and not a set of tool to reproduce a simulacra of something else.

Precisely, that was the spirit of the scene in its early ages: doing things that can only be considered idiomatic of a computer.
added on the 2007-11-07 09:23:32 by _-_-__ _-_-__
this is really, really old news -- also within the game industry (not saying that many companies fully adhere to this), but DUH

2001 called, they want their opinion back
dork
added on the 2007-11-07 09:32:17 by superplek superplek
I WANT THE HOLODECK, GODDAMMIT!!
How is that news at all? It's an opinion. Are you totally stuck in the "internet time" rut that anything which has remotely been said once has to be dismissed again and again?

Start covering your ears and scream lalalala all you want, I'll be sorry for you.
added on the 2007-11-07 10:41:55 by _-_-__ _-_-__
its just a moot and boring point, thats all.

so next time you're trying to set up an interesting discussion, try one that people havent been through a 1000 times yet.
added on the 2007-11-07 10:45:31 by superplek superplek
yeah BASS!
BB Image

I've been reading the whole article and I personally found it quite interesting.
Maybe not to scene-people, but to normal artists I actually have to explain in detail why I think 2D suits the frame of the screen better and thus becomes more real (at least to me).

But I guess not too many artists outside demoscene reads this stuff...
I'm personally bored of photorealism in videogames...
I'm saying photorealism because it actually make a point between photography and art and trying to emulate the reality isn't art in itself "imo".
I know exactly what he means... games should be like demo. No one watches good old demos thinking that they could be better today.
added on the 2007-11-07 13:44:15 by xernobyl xernobyl
I agree with the guy but on the other hand he's so stating the obvious. Of course games like Galaga would not gain anything if remade with modern technology, using 3D and stuff.
It's old enough to belong to a remote past that is all about nostalgia and also because it would be a totally different game and gameplay if done in 3D (those games have a pure 2D gameplay)

Comparing it with an upgrade of Halo 2->3 is pointless, especially when the Halo series has the very same gameplay/gamedesign, with a 3D gameplay.

A 3D game always tries to be realistic at some point, even if the rendering is not at all, whereas a 2D game is more about a conceptual representation of a world and suggestions. So indeed, any 3D power upgrade would benefit the 3D game, whereas the 2D visuals don't need hardware upgrades since they don't mimic the reality and rely more on our imagination and stuff we don't have in real life.

Mind you, I prefer 2D gameplay but that's just personal taste :)
added on the 2007-11-07 14:01:41 by keops keops
oh and I restated the obvious with obvious arguments, now that's interesting, I got caught :)
added on the 2007-11-07 14:04:11 by keops keops
surely by the same argument all mods should be chiptunes, because everything else could have been done better on several thousand pounds of synthesiser equipment or by a real band/orchestra.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:07:59 by smash smash
smash: indeed and by the same argument we should never do anything AT ALL, because it might be done better someday :)

Reminds me of some sceners I won't name who are ashamed of their past and what they did on old machines. "we did not know", "what we did was ugly, we just did not realize it", "what we do today is art, what we did before was just toying around".

Oh well... :)
added on the 2007-11-07 14:11:17 by keops keops
I second Keops on this. Obviously. ;)

I find myself rediscovering a lot of great 2d games these days. MAME was about to mame my real life social life last week. And I'm usually a moderate gamer. What I find is that nowadays I'm more impressed with 2d graphics than the "photorealistic" 3d mentioned here. Capcom friggin' rules!
added on the 2007-11-07 14:14:47 by Archmage Archmage
Damn. mame=maim. Just to state the obvious.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:17:25 by Archmage Archmage
Archmage : I bought Metal Slug Anthology on Wii, it's a delight :)

BB Image
added on the 2007-11-07 14:18:44 by keops keops
Yes, old. Chasing realism is pointless...unless you do it to get cash. It's a great way of selling the same game twice (or 25 times), as you always can do a little better than the last attempt. Half Life 2 will look more dated than Super Mario 3 (or Super Mario 64) as time passes.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:24:06 by Shrimp Shrimp
I don't understand the assertion that you made about 3d being always about realism.. Ok I actually get the point in some way, however I have a special liking to the stuff that suda51 did with killer7 and soon no-more-heroes, or even keita takahashi's design in katamari..

However the argument goes way beyond non-realism, to the idea of exploiting the canvas (platform) one has *on its on merit* rather than as an incremental upgrade enabling us to asymptotically get closer to an ideal goal.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:35:23 by _-_-__ _-_-__
And galaga rocks.

So there :)
added on the 2007-11-07 14:35:39 by _-_-__ _-_-__
I don't get what he's trying to say. Sure, 'realistic' games always looks unrealistic at some level, and look crap when the next generation comes out. So what? Should we wait for the perfect computer to arrive so we can have perfectly real games? But we'd miss out on all the great games along the way, and possibly never get that perfect computer. I guess the guy doesn't care about that as he doesn't seem to like those games.

Then he goes on about making games that look computerlike, and therefore avoid the problem of not looking as good as they could. Damn, nobody thought of that before! What's he getting at, that we scrap all the 'realistic' games and just keep the more abstract ones? Does he want the world to judge games by his taste only?

Oh well, I'll just add that I think the article was a poorly thought out pile of bollocks, and that the author should wait until he writes something either perfectly written or that I agree with before publishing it.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:38:49 by psonice psonice
Videogames industry don't need more fps or dull mmorpgs, it needs nice and funny ideas, just like it was.
But i'm off topic :)
smash: I think the argument is more that you shouldn't dismiss chiptunes just because they're not state-of-the-art, just as criticizing a really nice guitar solo for not being a full-blown orchestral piece is missing the point.

He is stating the obvious, but I don't think the article was written with sceners in mind.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:51:36 by doomdoom doomdoom
psionice: Dunno, but whatever his opinion it, it's surely EXTREME! Or, I guess he didn't count on his article being run through a pouet filter. Not enough "generally speaking" and "don't get me wrong" and so on.
added on the 2007-11-07 14:55:56 by doomdoom doomdoom

login