Actually there was a time when 2d was aging really fast that was between 1980 and 1990 then it became somewhat stable and now it is aging again thanks to HDTVs. 3d has been in a similar cycle so far, until 2005 it was aging fast due to swiftly developing technology. Nowadays the 3d improvements are not so fast anymore. Partially because the images almost look like movies, secondly consoles gave the technology a standstill. Things might change again but the aging cycle has slowed to a significant degree.
Wasn't there some talks in 2004 or 2005 about how computer graphics is in the danger of resembling too much to reality, thus making people got all turn-off by it. Something about a gulf or something...
Sighz~! I'm still screwed with no XBOX360 or Steam availability. I miss pixelated graphics...
I am not talking about the Purcell stills, they still scale, I am talking about the in game live animation graphics. It has huge problems to scale well to big monitors with high resolutions. It looked good back then because we had small monitors with blurry masks, but they look not good anymore on newer beasts, and even scalers do not really help or only can help to a certain degree.
It is one of those things why I am so grateful about the remake Lucasarts did, the game still is excellent but I cannot get over it playing it anymore because it looks terrible on newer monitors.
I think the entire resolution and monitor issue is one of the reasons why Lucasarts went with bigger characters for their later adventure games, (one thing having to use such small characters was the limits induced by the amiga anc c64 support)
Wasn't there some talks in 2004 or 2005 about how computer graphics is in the danger of resembling too much to reality, thus making people got all turn-off by it. Something about a gulf or something...
Still going on, I guess...
But the matter of fact is that games depending on the style nowadays either are stylized or realistic. Just 2d was once they hit the 1024x768 + 16 mio colors. graphics mark, which was the one, 2d came to a standstill with aging.
We have reached a similar point in 3d now, with gradual improvements, one probably will be voxels in the near future.
To be honest I believe we reached pretty much the peak with 3D. Even if you triple the poligons on each model, they are so detailed it would hardly matter. So, I just think the 3D games past this point would really age well.
Look, I'm not trying to bash 2D or anything, I grew up with those games, I just think these days 3D really can do everything 2D could and and even top it with things 2D can't do, so why the hate towards 3D?
That said certain games like the old Sam and Max Game and DoTT really aged well, even with the low resolution.
To be honest I believe we reached pretty much the peak with 3D. Even if you triple the poligons on each model, they are so detailed it would hardly matter. So, I just think the 3D games past this point would really age well.
Look, I'm not trying to bash 2D or anything, I grew up with those games, I just think these days 3D really can do everything 2D could and and even top it with things 2D can't do, so why the hate towards 3D?
That said certain games like the old Sam and Max Game and DoTT really aged well, even with the low resolution.
If there's anything I learn about IT, it's this. Never underestimate advancement.
Years ago when Pixar came out with the (then) jaw-dropping 3D animations, people were quoting about how expensive it was to produce them. Most still stuck with 2D animations, leaving 3D only to specialised companies with strong financial backing. Now what's happening? Almost anyone can run a 3D animation.
I think the next step in 3D will be actually playing the game like how the rendered animations are. Can you imagine playing Final Fantasy for example, in the entirety in the consistent display like the cutscene?
Again, it is not all that new too. Quantic Dream for instance, have been making games in nearly consistent quality between their rendered animation scenes. I am so looking forward to Heavy Rain.
If there's anything I learn about IT, it's this. Never underestimate advancement.
Years ago when Pixar came out with the (then) jaw-dropping 3D animations, people were quoting about how expensive it was to produce them. Most still stuck with 2D animations, leaving 3D only to specialised companies with strong financial backing. Now what's happening? Almost anyone can run a 3D animation.
I think the next step in 3D will be actually playing the game like how the rendered animations are. Can you imagine playing Final Fantasy for example, in the entirety in the consistent display like the cutscene?
Again, it is not all that new too. Quantic Dream for instance, have been making games in nearly consistent quality between their rendered animation scenes. I am so looking forward to Heavy Rain.
Um, wouldn't that be "watching" rather than "playing"?
Or if you prefer this joke instead.
That already exists. It's called Metal Gear Solid 4.
To be honest I believe we reached pretty much the peak with 3D. Even if you triple the poligons on each model, they are so detailed it would hardly matter. So, I just think the 3D games past this point would really age well.
I dont think so but the improvements will be less. The next step obviously will be the reintroduction of Voxels, but in a proper manner. The Voxel games of the past were rather limited, but there is a load you can do with Voxels (they have been in usage in the medical area for ages) but until now there was a problem that they suck up ram like nothing.
Voxels would be awesome for textures for instance, currently tricks are used to produce 3d like images on textures to reduce polygons, voxels would eliminate that, or even entire surroundings made of voxels replacing the polygons.
Also with the improvements in speed ray tracing and other stuff will become important again. But none of those measures will again make a new wow effect like it was when Doom or Quake was introduced on the PC or when you saw the first accelerated 3d racer with your 3dfx card or the PS1, it will be just another evolutionary step.
We have reached a similar point in 3d now, with gradual improvements, one probably will be voxels in the near future.
I really wouldn't count on that.
Don't forget that voxels are basically a 3D texture. So if todays high-res 2048x2048 textures at 32 bits, i.e. 4 bytes (R,G,B, Alpha) per pixel take up about 16 MB you're looking at a whopping 32GB for a 2048x2048x2048 voxel object; and it doesn't look like we'll see a breakthrough in memory technology (space, heat production and cost) similar to the parallelization that's possible in computation technology.
And since just having it in memory isn't enough you'll have to still render that into a 2D buffer - but without any of the shortcuts rastering triangles gives you. Also, if you want to simulate complex surfaces you're probably better off with DX11's geometry shaders, or parallax mapping which works fine on today's hardware...
Don't forget that voxels are basically a 3D texture. So if todays high-res 2048x2048 textures at 32 bits, i.e. 4 bytes (R,G,B, Alpha) per pixel take up about 16 MB you're looking at a whopping 32GB for a 2048x2048x2048 voxel object; and it doesn't look like we'll see a breakthrough in memory technology (space, heat production and cost) similar to the parallelization that's possible in computation technology.
And since just having it in memory isn't enough you'll have to still render that into a 2D buffer - but without any of the shortcuts rastering triangles gives you. Also, if you want to simulate complex surfaces you're probably better off with DX11's geometry shaders, or parallax mapping which works fine on today's hardware...
np: Tosca - Ambient Emely (Opera)
Hehe I count here on good functional description of voxel patterns in conjunction with the fact that modern graphics cards are nowadays highly parallel vector processing units instead of polygon pushers can go miles.
There was an interesting article a few months ago in german CT and it basically gave an overview on what people like Carmack are working on, and it indeed is voxel support, but the memory problem is definitely there, but there are ways to bypass it with certain limitations.
There was an interesting article a few months ago in german CT and it basically gave an overview on what people like Carmack are working on, and it indeed is voxel support, but the memory problem is definitely there, but there are ways to bypass it with certain limitations.
No, I'm not gonna dig through my old c't issues just for that...
But anyway - if they bring down the memory usage by compressing the data structures so the insides consisting of same-y stuff get squished... they're basically leaving only the surface.
Which - incidentally - is exactly what today's 3D graphics cards do so well...
I always think that 3D animation is a bigger risk when it comes to quality. When done really well, it's absolutely stunning. But if a texture isn't right, or movement isn't done properly, it does tend to show up more so than it does in 2D. But 2D can also be really good or really bad. So much of it still comes down to the animator, rather than the technique.
But as far as TMI goes, I think they did a great job with their 3D animation. And I know it's been said before, but once you have made the models, the animating side of 3D is much quicker than, say, 2D frame-by-frame animation. They really made good use of their camera angles and perspectives too, which I think is the best part of 3D.
I certainly wouldn't say everything needs to be in 3D though. You'd be surprised how many 2D frame-by-frame animators there are out there looking for a bit of action. But yes, for small companies like Telltale, making a game with high quality 2D graphics would be a long and expensive task.
There's a bit of pressure with 2D animation these days though, which might put some companies off of starting such a project in the first place. Take 2D animated TV shows for instance; it seems that half the audience are only interested in saying, "cartoons aren't as good as they used to be." They don't even give a reason, that's just something you can guarantee someone will say every time a 21st century 2D animation airs on TV. On the other hand, there seem to be a lot of people who still love 2D over 3D. Those involved in the gaming industry could well be worried that, if they start employing 2D animators, they will start getting negative reviews about how their games aren't as good as games from the 20th century. Basically, 2D animation is seen as a somewhat nostalgic technique in the present day, and there's always someone who'll accuse it of being a rip-off of "the older stuff that was better anyway".
Whatever the technique, if you put personality and atmosphere into your animation work, then you're probably going in the right direction. And Telltale are succeeding in these areas, no doubt about it!
The real problem with adventure games is not how pretty they look. They could be perfect VR and still suck. The main problem is how well they are polished. Game design itself. Interface, that sort of thing. Ah, dang it. Got myself trolling.
Wasn't there some talks in 2004 or 2005 about how computer graphics is in the danger of resembling too much to reality, thus making people got all turn-off by it. Something about a gulf or something...
I remember reading an article on Gamespot.com once about some sort of trait in humans that allows us to spot how "human" something looks by how well it meets a certain criteria. If it didn't meet enough of the criteria, we psychologically deem it "not human" and don't like looking at it very much and reject it as looking human. (This was an actual study. I wish I could link to it, but I haven't been able to find it again.)
I've not read a study about graphics, but I'll say this: I much prefer creative, styalised graphics to realistic, 3D graphics.
I can understand why people want realisim, but at some point, I think you lose one of the main advantages of games: you don't have to be real. You can create something that you usually wouldn't experience in reality. For me, that's one of the interesting thing about games.
Examples of games with awesome styalised graphics:
Guilty Gear (2D fighting game)
Street Fighter Super Turbo (and the new Street Fighter Super Turbo HD Remix)
Curse of Monkey Island
Secret of Monkey Island
Notable 3D games that manage to do lots of good-looking things with styalised graphics:
World of Warcraft (I'm sure there are some others, but I'm drawing on my own experience here.)
Honestly, I'd rather play a lot of the 2D games than many of the 3D games. I've never really been able to care much for "realistic" 3D graphics since, really, they just have nothing when you compare them to real life. I think some of the *best* looking games have used cell shading (see Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3; Okami).
One game that I think used 3D graphics well was Shadow of the Colossus. The Zelda games (for Nintendo 64 or Gamecube, or the most recent Zelda for the Wii) also use 3D graphics well (the cell shading in the Gamecube Zelda games was okay, too, but I wasn't a major fan of them... but I wasn't their target market, I think, so the Zelda game for the Wii would be more appealing).
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Overall, I think a game is best graphics-wise when the developers realise it can't really compare to real life, release those constraints (or unrealistic standards), and open up to the wonderful creative space that a game provides (since, as I said earlier, games have a wonderful potential to show us what good-looking, non-realistic worlds look like). When I look at a game, I don't really marvel at the graphics, but the unique, creative, imaginative style and presentation of the game. The technology is just a medium for that message, and I think when you focus on the medium at the expense of the message, you get graphics that "look good," but have no heart or spirit--no ability to endure like all the of the classic games that get remembered and somehow manage to live on through the ages (even managing to be re-created many times).
Are you saying that not possible to put a realistic looking character into an unrealistic situation? Cause last I checked, that's what most video games have been trying to do since graphics started trying to look more realistic.
Are you saying that not possible to put a realistic looking character into an unrealistic situation? Cause last I checked, that's what most video games have been trying to do since graphics started trying to look more realistic.
No, what people are talking about is an effect called the 'uncanny valley'.
How it works is... well, first assume that someone was trying to make a 'realistic' game in 1999. The visuals would simply be not technically proficient enough to look real, but you could probably get away with a half-decent looking pseudo realism. Like, say, Counterstrike. You know it doesn't look like real life but the imagination bridges the gap.
The problem comes when game graphics get so detailed that there's no room for the imagination to fill in the gap. Suddenly the weirdness of a particular animation, or an out of place texture or a strange bit of lighting or bad lip synching is amplified many times.
In other words, nowadays if graphical realism is what is intended things that are unrealistic about an otherwise realistic looking character or scene will seem all that more unrealistic.
This may be a good reason for games to use a stylised graphic approach as heavily stylised visuals do tend to have a timeless quality. Doesn't seem to make much difference whether it's 2D or 3D though - I still think Psychonauts looks fantastic, and same with Windwaker and several other games.
No, what people are talking about is an effect called the 'uncanny valley'.
Thanks buddy! That was the phrase I was looking for. Hadn't read much of uncanny valley in years. Here's the wiki link for uncanny valley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley I remembered the graph distinctly.
Think there was an article earlier also on how Madden games are getting too realistic that some critics got turn-off by the realism of the game. Need to dig a bit for that writeup.
No, what people are talking about is an effect called the 'uncanny valley'.
How it works is... well, first assume that someone was trying to make a 'realistic' game in 1999. The visuals would simply be not technically proficient enough to look real, but you could probably get away with a half-decent looking pseudo realism. Like, say, Counterstrike. You know it doesn't look like real life but the imagination bridges the gap.
The problem comes when game graphics get so detailed that there's no room for the imagination to fill in the gap. Suddenly the weirdness of a particular animation, or an out of place texture or a strange bit of lighting or bad lip synching is amplified many times.
In other words, nowadays if graphical realism is what is intended things that are unrealistic about an otherwise realistic looking character or scene will seem all that more unrealistic.
This may be a good reason for games to use a stylised graphic approach as heavily stylised visuals do tend to have a timeless quality. Doesn't seem to make much difference whether it's 2D or 3D though - I still think Psychonauts looks fantastic, and same with Windwaker and several other games.
I'm aware of the whole uncanny valley thing. I was referring to the post directly above mine where Bruce Achterberg said;
I can understand why people want realisim, but at some point, I think you lose one of the main advantages of games: you don't have to be real. You can create something that you usually wouldn't experience in reality. For me, that's one of the interesting thing about games.
as an argument against realistic graphics. The only way this would be a relevant argument is if we assume that realistic graphics and unrealistic experiences are mutually exclusive, which is of course absurd. For proof just look at any major blockbuster title.
I remember reading an article on Gamespot.com once about some sort of trait in humans that allows us to spot how "human" something looks by how well it meets a certain criteria. If it didn't meet enough of the criteria, we psychologically deem it "not human" and don't like looking at it very much and reject it as looking human. (This was an actual study. I wish I could link to it, but I haven't been able to find it again.)
I've not read a study about graphics, but I'll say this: I much prefer creative, styalised graphics to realistic, 3D graphics.
I can understand why people want realisim, but at some point, I think you lose one of the main advantages of games: you don't have to be real. You can create something that you usually wouldn't experience in reality. For me, that's one of the interesting thing about games.
Examples of games with awesome styalised graphics:
Guilty Gear (2D fighting game)
Street Fighter Super Turbo (and the new Street Fighter Super Turbo HD Remix)
Curse of Monkey Island
Secret of Monkey Island
Notable 3D games that manage to do lots of good-looking things with styalised graphics:
World of Warcraft (I'm sure there are some others, but I'm drawing on my own experience here.)
Honestly, I'd rather play a lot of the 2D games than many of the 3D games. I've never really been able to care much for "realistic" 3D graphics since, really, they just have nothing when you compare them to real life. I think some of the *best* looking games have used cell shading (see Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3; Okami).
One game that I think used 3D graphics well was Shadow of the Colossus. The Zelda games (for Nintendo 64 or Gamecube, or the most recent Zelda for the Wii) also use 3D graphics well (the cell shading in the Gamecube Zelda games was okay, too, but I wasn't a major fan of them... but I wasn't their target market, I think, so the Zelda game for the Wii would be more appealing).
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Overall, I think a game is best graphics-wise when the developers realise it can't really compare to real life, release those constraints (or unrealistic standards), and open up to the wonderful creative space that a game provides (since, as I said earlier, games have a wonderful potential to show us what good-looking, non-realistic worlds look like). When I look at a game, I don't really marvel at the graphics, but the unique, creative, imaginative style and presentation of the game. The technology is just a medium for that message, and I think when you focus on the medium at the expense of the message, you get graphics that "look good," but have no heart or spirit--no ability to endure like all the of the classic games that get remembered and somehow manage to live on through the ages (even managing to be re-created many times).
Since you are name-dropping, some of the more best looking game thus far are Valkyria Chronicles and Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy).
Possibly because 3D is cheap and can be created and adjusted very quickly to the desired environments, whereas 2D Drawings take a lot of time for professional artists to work on. If you wanna rush out your games, 3D definately seems the way to go.
Really, whats so great about 3D anyway? The Camera Angles in 3D Games are usually awful. ToMI didnt have a good start either, being on the ship its all hectical, and the angle sucks most of the time. Where are the days as you could just sit down and relax while playing your adventure games?
Okay, everybody talks about how great 2D is and all, but I'd prefer my games now and in 3D than having to wait another two years or so until the game finally arrives in 2D.
If a 2D game were to be made it'd have to be ultra HD graphics (like SMI:SE) with super smooth animations just to live up to the expectations that everybody has after being spoiled with silky smooth 3D animation and super high HD (and alterable) graphics settings. I doubt many would want to go through all that work when 3D is right there and cheaper to use. That's one thing 3D will always have over 2D. You can alter graphic settings. Texture quality, screen resolution, model quality, etc. In a 2D game you'd at most have control over texture quality and that's what would ruin the experience. In a 3D game you can move these quality controls to either extreme and the game would still be playable and visually appealing (at least you'd be able to make things out), if you lowered a 2D game's quality even by a little bit it ruins the whole picture and makes things unrecognizable. And HD 2D games would require just as much system requirements as a 3D game. So the votes always go in favour of 3D.
Since you are name-dropping, some of the more best looking game thus far are Valkyria Chronicles and Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy).
Yeah. A common trait of these "good looking" games seems to be that they exist in their own rich, immersive world.
I quite liked the HD art in MI1:Special Edition, too (although it's not as awe-inspiring to me as say, the art in CMI. CMI was just very impressive and had such a distinct style. Really made you feel like you were in the world of Monkey Island. I guess the fact that it was 2D also helps).
I think an interesting question is: what type of business model (or style of development... or something) would be conducive to making games with really nice, high quality 2D art?
I think it's a shame that people can't really explore an entire realm of expression (i.e. 2D games), or at least, that the barriers to do so are so high.
I think an interesting question is: what type of business model (or style of development... or something) would be conducive to making games with really nice, high quality 2D art?
Licensed products will have a lot to gain from high quality 2D art. Adaptations from comics and graphic novels, and famous flash designed characters have often disappointed their fans when they jump into the realm of 3D. So, by sticking with high quality 2D, the original artist could be very much involved, giving it a more accurate translation than any 3D models ever will. I would really doubt an Emily game will benefit in 3D.
Other than licensed product, like any art-form, the experiemental artist will find a niche within the 2D games. Whether they will be successful or not as a business venture is another totally unrelated question.
I think it's a shame that people can't really explore an entire realm of expression (i.e. 2D games), or at least, that the barriers to do so are so high.
Like anything in life, you can't possibly have everything. You can't blame the majority of the people for going back the more reliable (read: safe) forms to ensure at least a relative business success. Most people do what they do because they have to put food on the table.
Furthermore, for someone who is serious in appreciation of certain expressions, they have to be resourceful themselves and find other means that are present, though normally hidden from view from mainstream media. The indie 2D games are still here, and will remain here for years to come. A connoisseur of game design need not look further than these ingenious gamemakers.
Also, if you want to simulate complex surfaces you're probably better off with DX11's geometry shaders, or parallax mapping which works fine on today's hardware...
Triangle rasterization does not parallelize well at all, where something like ray tracing is trivial to parallelize. It's very likely that within a couple decades, each pixel being rendered to your monitor will have a dedicated processing core responsible for tracing its ray.
Then you can simulate complex surfaces through mathematical formulae and Boolean geometry operations!
Triangle rasterization does not parallelize well at all, where something like ray tracing is trivial to parallelize. It's very likely that within a couple decades, each pixel being rendered to your monitor will have a dedicated processing core responsible for tracing its ray.
Then you can simulate complex surfaces through mathematical formulae and Boolean geometry operations!
Is this a fancy way of saying that 3D graphics in the future may be less reliant on textures and more on modelling the way in which surfaces reflect light mathematically?
Because I've been thinking things might go that way for a while....
Is this a fancy way of saying that 3D graphics in the future may be less reliant on textures and more on modelling the way in which surfaces reflect light mathematically?
Yes. Ray tracing has been around forever, it's just computationally expensive. The idea is that for every pixel, you shoot a ray into the game that determines what color that pixel should be. When it hits something, it picks up a little bit of color from it and then reflects and/or refracts into new rays and so on and so forth. Once you decide you're done, you set the pixel color and that's that. Each pixel's ray is independent of every other ray, which means that each ray (or a collection of rays) can run on its own thread/processor.
Wow, I'm shocked to hear that 2D games are more expensive than 3D. I thought it was the other way around. I'm not a programmer, but I am an engineer who likes to analyze the nuts-and-bolts of things. Would someone who understands how video games are made please explain in detail why 2D games are more expensive?
I would think a 2D game could be cheaper than a 3D one if you kept all the backgrounds static and hand-drew everything, like they used to do for cartoons.
Specifically, I'd think a good artist(s) could draw very detailed landscapes of each location in a matter of weeks. Then they'd simply scan them at high resolution. Then, animators would hand-draw animations of Guybrush and all the characters walking, talking, etc. Nothing too complicated. Scan all the frames. They wouldn't have to redraw everything sprite-by-sprite on the computer using this method. Items that can be picked up would have to be hand-drawn separately and simply placed atop the background. They'd have to do simple animations of Guybrush picking each thing up and using it. There's gotta be a zillion old Disney 2D animators who are out of work since Pixar came to town who could draw all this quickly and cheaply. Graphics done! Or maybe I've over-simplified it. Please correct me where I'm wrong.
How could that method be more expensive than making it in 3D? You have to make high-polygon models of EVERYTHING, Guybrush, each person, building, tree, boat, mountain, blade of grass, etc. Then you still have to make detailed 2D textures for EVERYTHING and apply them to all the 3D models. Yes, once you do that, animation is easier. And yes, 3D can do more advanced camera rotations, lighting and special effects; but that first step of making all the 3D models seems much more time consuming and expensive than the 2D method I described above.
BTW, that Ron Gilbert article referred to on page 1 also says 3D games are MORE expensive. He said, "Building the game in 3D is a much more costly endeavor that brings with it a whole slew of complications which I won't get in to in this article." I'm not a game designer, but he is, so I trust his opinion on this.
In my world, engineering designs take WAY longer to do in 3D than in 2D. But engineering software is a lot different than graphics software. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time understanding this.
I agree that 3D games are capable of more sophistocated effects than 2D games, which by itself is a strong reason for a designer to choose 3D. But I'd really apprecate it if someone could explain more specifically why 2D games are more expensive than 3D. Thanks.
Wow, I'm shocked to hear that 2D games are more expensive than 3D. I thought it was the other way around. I'm not a programmer, but I am an engineer who likes to analyze the nuts-and-bolts of things. Would someone who understands how video games are made please explain in detail why 2D games are more expensive?
I would think a 2D game could be cheaper than a 3D one if you kept all the backgrounds static and hand-drew everything, like they used to do for cartoons.
Time changes. It used to be that as long as the image tell the story, people accept the animation. Look at how badly drawn the old cartoons were, like Transformers, Mask, G.I.Joe for instance. If you were to use the same standard to meet today's expectation, it is just a gurantee economy failure.
No one does business expecting a loss. So in order to meet today's expectation, 2D artwork have to be done with lots of details. This will only mean that it takes longer to produce one artwork, and in order to replicate the same amount of artwork in the same frame of time, you need more labour. That will definitely cost more.
Specifically, I'd think a good artist(s) could draw very detailed landscapes of each location in a matter of weeks. Then they'd simply scan them at high resolution. Then, animators would hand-draw animations of Guybrush and all the characters walking, talking, etc. Nothing too complicated. Scan all the frames. They wouldn't have to redraw everything sprite-by-sprite on the computer using this method. Items that can be picked up would have to be hand-drawn separately and simply placed atop the background. They'd have to do simple animations of Guybrush picking each thing up and using it. There's gotta be a zillion old Disney 2D animators who are out of work since Pixar came to town who could draw all this quickly and cheaply. Graphics done! Or maybe I've over-simplified it. Please correct me where I'm wrong.
Again, it's about expectation. Today, even with 2D, you need to simulate the 3D experience. So is it possible to get away with something as simplistic as reusing frames without being called amateur.
Remember, times are different. Today, anyone can do a decent 2D animation. Anyone can do a decent 2D game. In order to convince a consumer that you are delivering a professional product that the consumer will be willing to pay for, you have to up the ante.
In relation to your point about Disney animators, there may be a lot of animators out there, but do you honestly think that they will come cheap? And remember, when you employ more staff, you need more people to manage them or to ensure that communication is upheld. All these are hidden costs within an operation that may actually kill a company.
Also, when you employ a staff, you are not just employing a worker. You are taking care of a person under your wing, which again will add on to the other hidden costs, be it in healthcare, training or welfare.
How could that method be more expensive than making it in 3D? You have to make high-polygon models of EVERYTHING, Guybrush, each person, building, tree, boat, mountain, blade of grass, etc. Then you still have to make detailed 2D textures for EVERYTHING and apply them to all the 3D models. Yes, once you do that, animation is easier. And yes, 3D can do more advanced camera rotations, lighting and special effects; but that first step of making all the 3D models seems much more time consuming and expensive than the 2D method I described above.
What happen if a hand-drawn graphics ended up not capturing the perspective that was needed to reinforce the story-telling? Most of the time, you toss it out and add it in a collection of bonus art of 'unused scene'. Sometime they are just added into the game regardless, only to face criticism from game players.
A tossed art will have to be recreated, and that will definitely increase cost. In 3D models however, the perspective could be easily adjusted during production or even near completion of the project to go back and adjust at a fraction of the cost.
BTW, that Ron Gilbert article referred to on page 1 also says 3D games are MORE expensive. He said, "Building the game in 3D is a much more costly endeavor that brings with it a whole slew of complications which I won't get in to in this article." I'm not a game designer, but he is, so I trust his opinion on this.
In my world, engineering designs take WAY longer to do in 3D than in 2D. But engineering software is a lot different than graphics software. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time understanding this.
I agree that 3D games are capable of more sophistocated effects than 2D games, which by itself is a strong reason for a designer to choose 3D. But I'd really apprecate it if someone could explain more specifically why 2D games are more expensive than 3D. Thanks.
I strongly agree that in a pure comparison between 2D and 3D, 2D will be cheaper than 3D. But reality is you can't compare things in isolation.
Everyone concur that it is time-consuming to come out with 3D graphics, but the flexibility and power of changing perspective is the key in the money equation. No one can visualise everything perfectly from scene 1 to the last scene. That is why editors everywhere are paid highly, even more highly than artists.
With the power of 3D, much more time is saved when certain changes need to be made (within limits), as compared to 2D. Again, time is money.
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Wasn't there some talks in 2004 or 2005 about how computer graphics is in the danger of resembling too much to reality, thus making people got all turn-off by it. Something about a gulf or something...
I am not talking about the Purcell stills, they still scale, I am talking about the in game live animation graphics. It has huge problems to scale well to big monitors with high resolutions. It looked good back then because we had small monitors with blurry masks, but they look not good anymore on newer beasts, and even scalers do not really help or only can help to a certain degree.
It is one of those things why I am so grateful about the remake Lucasarts did, the game still is excellent but I cannot get over it playing it anymore because it looks terrible on newer monitors.
I think the entire resolution and monitor issue is one of the reasons why Lucasarts went with bigger characters for their later adventure games, (one thing having to use such small characters was the limits induced by the amiga anc c64 support)
Still going on, I guess...
But the matter of fact is that games depending on the style nowadays either are stylized or realistic. Just 2d was once they hit the 1024x768 + 16 mio colors. graphics mark, which was the one, 2d came to a standstill with aging.
We have reached a similar point in 3d now, with gradual improvements, one probably will be voxels in the near future.
Look, I'm not trying to bash 2D or anything, I grew up with those games, I just think these days 3D really can do everything 2D could and and even top it with things 2D can't do, so why the hate towards 3D?
That said certain games like the old Sam and Max Game and DoTT really aged well, even with the low resolution.
If there's anything I learn about IT, it's this. Never underestimate advancement.
Years ago when Pixar came out with the (then) jaw-dropping 3D animations, people were quoting about how expensive it was to produce them. Most still stuck with 2D animations, leaving 3D only to specialised companies with strong financial backing. Now what's happening? Almost anyone can run a 3D animation.
I think the next step in 3D will be actually playing the game like how the rendered animations are. Can you imagine playing Final Fantasy for example, in the entirety in the consistent display like the cutscene?
Again, it is not all that new too. Quantic Dream for instance, have been making games in nearly consistent quality between their rendered animation scenes. I am so looking forward to Heavy Rain.
Um, wouldn't that be "watching" rather than "playing"?
Or if you prefer this joke instead.
That already exists. It's called Metal Gear Solid 4.
I dont think so but the improvements will be less. The next step obviously will be the reintroduction of Voxels, but in a proper manner. The Voxel games of the past were rather limited, but there is a load you can do with Voxels (they have been in usage in the medical area for ages) but until now there was a problem that they suck up ram like nothing.
Voxels would be awesome for textures for instance, currently tricks are used to produce 3d like images on textures to reduce polygons, voxels would eliminate that, or even entire surroundings made of voxels replacing the polygons.
Also with the improvements in speed ray tracing and other stuff will become important again. But none of those measures will again make a new wow effect like it was when Doom or Quake was introduced on the PC or when you saw the first accelerated 3d racer with your 3dfx card or the PS1, it will be just another evolutionary step.
Voxelstein 3D is an attempt at remaking Wolfenstein 3D, but with Voxels. It's rather bloody.
Does anyone remember the Daedalus Encounter? Or Toonstruck? ;-)
Um, I think you need to define 2D here... Do you mean, anything that isn't being rendered in real time using polygons?
Ah! So voxel is the culprit for the demise of Duke Nukem Forever.
Mystery solved.
Don't forget that voxels are basically a 3D texture. So if todays high-res 2048x2048 textures at 32 bits, i.e. 4 bytes (R,G,B, Alpha) per pixel take up about 16 MB you're looking at a whopping 32GB for a 2048x2048x2048 voxel object; and it doesn't look like we'll see a breakthrough in memory technology (space, heat production and cost) similar to the parallelization that's possible in computation technology.
And since just having it in memory isn't enough you'll have to still render that into a 2D buffer - but without any of the shortcuts rastering triangles gives you. Also, if you want to simulate complex surfaces you're probably better off with DX11's geometry shaders, or parallax mapping which works fine on today's hardware...
np: Tosca - Ambient Emely (Opera)
Hehe I count here on good functional description of voxel patterns in conjunction with the fact that modern graphics cards are nowadays highly parallel vector processing units instead of polygon pushers can go miles.
There was an interesting article a few months ago in german CT and it basically gave an overview on what people like Carmack are working on, and it indeed is voxel support, but the memory problem is definitely there, but there are ways to bypass it with certain limitations.
Kinda like how I look oh-so-dashing when I look at myself in the morning in the bathroom mirror without my glasses on.
edit:
honestly, Guybrush in Monkey 1 and 2 are so pixellated that it's your imagination that makes him handsome, not the actual image itself.
wow, that's a major fail at editing, pushed the quote button instead :P
But anyway - if they bring down the memory usage by compressing the data structures so the insides consisting of same-y stuff get squished... they're basically leaving only the surface.
Which - incidentally - is exactly what today's 3D graphics cards do so well...
np: Tortoise - Gigantes (Beacons Of Ancestorship)
But as far as TMI goes, I think they did a great job with their 3D animation. And I know it's been said before, but once you have made the models, the animating side of 3D is much quicker than, say, 2D frame-by-frame animation. They really made good use of their camera angles and perspectives too, which I think is the best part of 3D.
I certainly wouldn't say everything needs to be in 3D though. You'd be surprised how many 2D frame-by-frame animators there are out there looking for a bit of action. But yes, for small companies like Telltale, making a game with high quality 2D graphics would be a long and expensive task.
There's a bit of pressure with 2D animation these days though, which might put some companies off of starting such a project in the first place. Take 2D animated TV shows for instance; it seems that half the audience are only interested in saying, "cartoons aren't as good as they used to be." They don't even give a reason, that's just something you can guarantee someone will say every time a 21st century 2D animation airs on TV. On the other hand, there seem to be a lot of people who still love 2D over 3D. Those involved in the gaming industry could well be worried that, if they start employing 2D animators, they will start getting negative reviews about how their games aren't as good as games from the 20th century. Basically, 2D animation is seen as a somewhat nostalgic technique in the present day, and there's always someone who'll accuse it of being a rip-off of "the older stuff that was better anyway".
Whatever the technique, if you put personality and atmosphere into your animation work, then you're probably going in the right direction. And Telltale are succeeding in these areas, no doubt about it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mIjseFBqxo
Then again... 3-D monkey island would rock!
I think Paper Mario is a better example of 2D and 3D combination.
Actually, in this case 3D seems a little unnecessary. I havn't played the game, but hand drawn 2D could have given the same visual result.
I remember reading an article on Gamespot.com once about some sort of trait in humans that allows us to spot how "human" something looks by how well it meets a certain criteria. If it didn't meet enough of the criteria, we psychologically deem it "not human" and don't like looking at it very much and reject it as looking human. (This was an actual study. I wish I could link to it, but I haven't been able to find it again.)
I've not read a study about graphics, but I'll say this: I much prefer creative, styalised graphics to realistic, 3D graphics.
I can understand why people want realisim, but at some point, I think you lose one of the main advantages of games: you don't have to be real. You can create something that you usually wouldn't experience in reality. For me, that's one of the interesting thing about games.
Examples of games with awesome styalised graphics:
Notable 3D games that manage to do lots of good-looking things with styalised graphics:
Honestly, I'd rather play a lot of the 2D games than many of the 3D games. I've never really been able to care much for "realistic" 3D graphics since, really, they just have nothing when you compare them to real life. I think some of the *best* looking games have used cell shading (see Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3; Okami).
One game that I think used 3D graphics well was Shadow of the Colossus. The Zelda games (for Nintendo 64 or Gamecube, or the most recent Zelda for the Wii) also use 3D graphics well (the cell shading in the Gamecube Zelda games was okay, too, but I wasn't a major fan of them... but I wasn't their target market, I think, so the Zelda game for the Wii would be more appealing).
Overall, I think a game is best graphics-wise when the developers realise it can't really compare to real life, release those constraints (or unrealistic standards), and open up to the wonderful creative space that a game provides (since, as I said earlier, games have a wonderful potential to show us what good-looking, non-realistic worlds look like). When I look at a game, I don't really marvel at the graphics, but the unique, creative, imaginative style and presentation of the game. The technology is just a medium for that message, and I think when you focus on the medium at the expense of the message, you get graphics that "look good," but have no heart or spirit--no ability to endure like all the of the classic games that get remembered and somehow manage to live on through the ages (even managing to be re-created many times).
No, what people are talking about is an effect called the 'uncanny valley'.
How it works is... well, first assume that someone was trying to make a 'realistic' game in 1999. The visuals would simply be not technically proficient enough to look real, but you could probably get away with a half-decent looking pseudo realism. Like, say, Counterstrike. You know it doesn't look like real life but the imagination bridges the gap.
The problem comes when game graphics get so detailed that there's no room for the imagination to fill in the gap. Suddenly the weirdness of a particular animation, or an out of place texture or a strange bit of lighting or bad lip synching is amplified many times.
In other words, nowadays if graphical realism is what is intended things that are unrealistic about an otherwise realistic looking character or scene will seem all that more unrealistic.
This may be a good reason for games to use a stylised graphic approach as heavily stylised visuals do tend to have a timeless quality. Doesn't seem to make much difference whether it's 2D or 3D though - I still think Psychonauts looks fantastic, and same with Windwaker and several other games.
Thanks buddy! That was the phrase I was looking for. Hadn't read much of uncanny valley in years. Here's the wiki link for uncanny valley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley I remembered the graph distinctly.
Think there was an article earlier also on how Madden games are getting too realistic that some critics got turn-off by the realism of the game. Need to dig a bit for that writeup.
I'm aware of the whole uncanny valley thing. I was referring to the post directly above mine where Bruce Achterberg said;
as an argument against realistic graphics. The only way this would be a relevant argument is if we assume that realistic graphics and unrealistic experiences are mutually exclusive, which is of course absurd. For proof just look at any major blockbuster title.
Since you are name-dropping, some of the more best looking game thus far are Valkyria Chronicles and Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy).
Possibly because 3D is cheap and can be created and adjusted very quickly to the desired environments, whereas 2D Drawings take a lot of time for professional artists to work on. If you wanna rush out your games, 3D definately seems the way to go.
Really, whats so great about 3D anyway? The Camera Angles in 3D Games are usually awful. ToMI didnt have a good start either, being on the ship its all hectical, and the angle sucks most of the time. Where are the days as you could just sit down and relax while playing your adventure games?
if you don't like it, don't buy it, Telltale is doing great
Would have been more work if you have to support different resolutions, unless you want to live with downscaling artefacts.
Yeah. A common trait of these "good looking" games seems to be that they exist in their own rich, immersive world.
I quite liked the HD art in MI1:Special Edition, too (although it's not as awe-inspiring to me as say, the art in CMI. CMI was just very impressive and had such a distinct style. Really made you feel like you were in the world of Monkey Island. I guess the fact that it was 2D also helps).
I think an interesting question is: what type of business model (or style of development... or something) would be conducive to making games with really nice, high quality 2D art?
I think it's a shame that people can't really explore an entire realm of expression (i.e. 2D games), or at least, that the barriers to do so are so high.
Licensed products will have a lot to gain from high quality 2D art. Adaptations from comics and graphic novels, and famous flash designed characters have often disappointed their fans when they jump into the realm of 3D. So, by sticking with high quality 2D, the original artist could be very much involved, giving it a more accurate translation than any 3D models ever will. I would really doubt an Emily game will benefit in 3D.
Other than licensed product, like any art-form, the experiemental artist will find a niche within the 2D games. Whether they will be successful or not as a business venture is another totally unrelated question.
Like anything in life, you can't possibly have everything. You can't blame the majority of the people for going back the more reliable (read: safe) forms to ensure at least a relative business success. Most people do what they do because they have to put food on the table.
Furthermore, for someone who is serious in appreciation of certain expressions, they have to be resourceful themselves and find other means that are present, though normally hidden from view from mainstream media. The indie 2D games are still here, and will remain here for years to come. A connoisseur of game design need not look further than these ingenious gamemakers.
Triangle rasterization does not parallelize well at all, where something like ray tracing is trivial to parallelize. It's very likely that within a couple decades, each pixel being rendered to your monitor will have a dedicated processing core responsible for tracing its ray.
Then you can simulate complex surfaces through mathematical formulae and Boolean geometry operations!
Is this a fancy way of saying that 3D graphics in the future may be less reliant on textures and more on modelling the way in which surfaces reflect light mathematically?
Because I've been thinking things might go that way for a while....
Yes. Ray tracing has been around forever, it's just computationally expensive. The idea is that for every pixel, you shoot a ray into the game that determines what color that pixel should be. When it hits something, it picks up a little bit of color from it and then reflects and/or refracts into new rays and so on and so forth. Once you decide you're done, you set the pixel color and that's that. Each pixel's ray is independent of every other ray, which means that each ray (or a collection of rays) can run on its own thread/processor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing_(graphics)
And just to reiterate:
Question: "Why does everything need to be in 3D??"
Answer: Because it's 2009 and not 1992?
I would think a 2D game could be cheaper than a 3D one if you kept all the backgrounds static and hand-drew everything, like they used to do for cartoons.
Specifically, I'd think a good artist(s) could draw very detailed landscapes of each location in a matter of weeks. Then they'd simply scan them at high resolution. Then, animators would hand-draw animations of Guybrush and all the characters walking, talking, etc. Nothing too complicated. Scan all the frames. They wouldn't have to redraw everything sprite-by-sprite on the computer using this method. Items that can be picked up would have to be hand-drawn separately and simply placed atop the background. They'd have to do simple animations of Guybrush picking each thing up and using it. There's gotta be a zillion old Disney 2D animators who are out of work since Pixar came to town who could draw all this quickly and cheaply. Graphics done! Or maybe I've over-simplified it. Please correct me where I'm wrong.
How could that method be more expensive than making it in 3D? You have to make high-polygon models of EVERYTHING, Guybrush, each person, building, tree, boat, mountain, blade of grass, etc. Then you still have to make detailed 2D textures for EVERYTHING and apply them to all the 3D models. Yes, once you do that, animation is easier. And yes, 3D can do more advanced camera rotations, lighting and special effects; but that first step of making all the 3D models seems much more time consuming and expensive than the 2D method I described above.
BTW, that Ron Gilbert article referred to on page 1 also says 3D games are MORE expensive. He said, "Building the game in 3D is a much more costly endeavor that brings with it a whole slew of complications which I won't get in to in this article." I'm not a game designer, but he is, so I trust his opinion on this.
In my world, engineering designs take WAY longer to do in 3D than in 2D. But engineering software is a lot different than graphics software. Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time understanding this.
I agree that 3D games are capable of more sophistocated effects than 2D games, which by itself is a strong reason for a designer to choose 3D. But I'd really apprecate it if someone could explain more specifically why 2D games are more expensive than 3D. Thanks.
Time changes. It used to be that as long as the image tell the story, people accept the animation. Look at how badly drawn the old cartoons were, like Transformers, Mask, G.I.Joe for instance. If you were to use the same standard to meet today's expectation, it is just a gurantee economy failure.
No one does business expecting a loss. So in order to meet today's expectation, 2D artwork have to be done with lots of details. This will only mean that it takes longer to produce one artwork, and in order to replicate the same amount of artwork in the same frame of time, you need more labour. That will definitely cost more.
Again, it's about expectation. Today, even with 2D, you need to simulate the 3D experience. So is it possible to get away with something as simplistic as reusing frames without being called amateur.
Remember, times are different. Today, anyone can do a decent 2D animation. Anyone can do a decent 2D game. In order to convince a consumer that you are delivering a professional product that the consumer will be willing to pay for, you have to up the ante.
In relation to your point about Disney animators, there may be a lot of animators out there, but do you honestly think that they will come cheap? And remember, when you employ more staff, you need more people to manage them or to ensure that communication is upheld. All these are hidden costs within an operation that may actually kill a company.
Also, when you employ a staff, you are not just employing a worker. You are taking care of a person under your wing, which again will add on to the other hidden costs, be it in healthcare, training or welfare.
What happen if a hand-drawn graphics ended up not capturing the perspective that was needed to reinforce the story-telling? Most of the time, you toss it out and add it in a collection of bonus art of 'unused scene'. Sometime they are just added into the game regardless, only to face criticism from game players.
A tossed art will have to be recreated, and that will definitely increase cost. In 3D models however, the perspective could be easily adjusted during production or even near completion of the project to go back and adjust at a fraction of the cost.
I strongly agree that in a pure comparison between 2D and 3D, 2D will be cheaper than 3D. But reality is you can't compare things in isolation.
Everyone concur that it is time-consuming to come out with 3D graphics, but the flexibility and power of changing perspective is the key in the money equation. No one can visualise everything perfectly from scene 1 to the last scene. That is why editors everywhere are paid highly, even more highly than artists.
With the power of 3D, much more time is saved when certain changes need to be made (within limits), as compared to 2D. Again, time is money.