   Next-Gen graphics too CG looking?
  In general if you go outside on any sunny or cloudy day, you dont have all this HDR/bloom and overly specular objects. Just by observation, it seems in games that we are using too much color when the world seems dull. That sounds dumb, but if you snap a picture and look at some stunning game graphics, it seems like we are too focused on certain new effects. The only thing I can think of that is a really good step towards more photo realistic is Ambient Occlusion.   
  I don't think CG should strive to be photo realistic. Why? They aren't simulations. I like the stylized look of CG and video games. It should be it's own art style.Personally, I prefer when cg uses it's own stylized look as opposed to trying to mimic reality because it's easy to maintain consistency and keep the same feeling and suspension of disbelief throughout. Maintaining photo realism is very hard and it sets a very hard bar to maintain. It just sets itself up to scrutiny on how real everything looks, and the second you have a problem with an object that can't be shown in perfect photo realism, it can kill the feeling of the whole scene.Look at Street Fighter 4. The art is amazing. It's very stylized and expressive and it gets the job done while defining it's own unique look. While photo realistic graphics are often just trying to prove some kind of superiority.And just in closing, I've never seen dull colors in the real world in my life. Even on an over cast day, everything I look at is full of rich color.   ;  yes I agree realism is boring, give me something stylized anyday.though in saying that Ive just been checking out some pics/vids of killzone2, Ive gotta say Im impressed (which doesnt happen often),   ;Quote:Original post by dpadam450In general if you go outside on any sunny or cloudy day, you dont have all this HDR/bloom and overly specular objects. Just by observation, it seems in games that we are using too much color when the world seems dull. That sounds dumb, but if you snap a picture and look at some stunning game graphics, it seems like we are too focused on certain new effects. The only thing I can think of that is a really good step towards more photo realistic is Ambient Occlusion.Agreed. I've posted about this before, games are too focused on making things look ridiculous just because they have buzzwords attached to them, and no one focuses on making the games actually fun to play anymore.   ;  I find some materials look wrong in games. They add more shininess, to materials than there are IRL, or the wrong type of shininess, making things like bricks look like plastic.I would also love to see games with large landscapes, to always render landscapes far away, instead of stopping at a certain distance. There are still games that do that. But come on, it doesn't have to be rendered with many triangles, just rendering something there instead of nothing is better.   ;  As state above, games aren't reality simulations.Where can you see imps, orcs, aliens and similar creatures in real life... so when in fantasy world you need a fantasy ambient setting. Similar with all other genres, I doubt many of them simulate real-life scenarios  so they create their own universe and own mood setting.<br>And from practical POV these kind of effects are the easiest to cut out when scaling and they remove very little from the actual gameplay. &#79;n the other hand they add those cool "subtle" effects, like DOF in a game dialog, inside a room full of characters, and someone comes closer from behind, and you can't see who it is until he is close [from Mass effect]… it's very "cinematic" and entertaining effect IMO.;Quote:Original post by Lodemaking things like bricks look like plastic.A few weeks ago I was walking my dog through my neighbourhood late at night, and the light was at just the right level outside, that everyone's garage lights were shining on the bricks EXACTLY like you'd see in those shiny spec map / normal map graphics demos. It was a weird feeling.I dismissed the sidewalks in SKATE as being too shiny too. After all, who has ever seen a shiny sidewalk? Until a month later on a walk back from the store, the sun was setting, and it was reflecting off the shiny rocks that were mixed into the sidewalk's cement, creating the exact same effect. Completely unnoticeable at the other times of the day.This just goes to add to my previous point. When you get too realistic, you open yourself up to scrutiny on all your graphics that wouldn't be there otherwise. When you see something in real life, you accept it, but the same things in cg can often get dismissed because you haven't seen it before.The guy who designed that level in Skate may see shiny sidewalks every day, but until I walked down the same one I did everyday at just the right time, I dismissed his art work, even though it was highly accurate. ;Quote:Original post by zedzyes I agree realism is boring, give me something stylized anyday.though in saying that Ive just been checking out some pics/vids of killzone2, Ive gotta say Im impressed (which doesnt happen often),That doesn't come as a surprise; Killzone 2 is pretty heavily stylized. Unfortunately because the style includes a lot of grime people assume it must be trying to be "realistic". Especially since the whole grey/brown look is poorly done so often.Example. Really brown cliche next-gen stuff, right? But check out where all the colour is actually used: enemy in the sky, enemy on your left, enemy on your right, teammates in foreground, grenades, and muzzle flares. All the important things you want to see at a glance are splashed with intense colour while keeping the gritty, oppressive setting.Seriously, look at this and tell me it's not stylish.What it is is good use of contrast for gameplay. It breaks from realism when it needs too to make target recognition faster, which ties back to the OP's "too much color when the world seems dull" comment. A dull world doesn't make for a good game!   ;  This is akin to the debates about Diablo 3's graphics.  Some people object to the fact that it uses bright colors, saying it's not in the tradition of the older ones (which I don't get: I played Diablo 2 a bit the other day, and it seems to use fairly bright colors).I understand where they're coming from, but I agree with the developers: for a fast paced, click-fest game, I'd rather be able to clearly see what I'm targeting than have realism.GTA4 is another example.  Graphically, it's environments are stunning.  But there are times when I'm playing it when I wish it was a little LESS realistic.  Like, when I'm getting shot at and I can't freaking SEE who's shooting at me.  Or when I can't see where I'm going, and wind up cranking up the gamma temporarily.Hopefully it's just a phase, like we've seen before.  Same thing happened with bloom, some games seriously overused it (Guildwars springs to mind).I'm also a firm believer in not overdoing special effects in order to keep a game's requirements modest.  I respect companies that choose to use simpler graphics to maximize the number of potential customers.  It's just good business sense.Besides, gameplay > graphics any day.   ;  Well what are everyone's thoughts on Half-life 2's graphics?  On a scale of 1 - 10 for realistic graphics, I'd give it an 8, yet the game is great and I don't think the realism ever gets in the way.   