Originally posted by lizardbones The second person and the first person are the same person. The process of making a high poly model and the process for making a low poly model isn't radically different. If someone is capable of making good looking high poly models, they will be capable of making good looking low poly models. It just takes a lot longer to make the high poly model.
Maybe someone will show up who can explain it better than I. I'll just disagree and leave it at that.
Lizardbones, I think you'd be surprised at how many surfaces that you see in 3D objects don't really exist.
Anyone (you and I, included) can make a good looking brick wall with unlimited polys at their disposal. Someone that really knows their stuff can achieve the same results with a 12-poly box. I want that second guy on the team because he just made everyone else's work a whole lot easier.
Quality low poly models is an art.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I see the following argument all the time on these forums:
"I'm tired of AAA themepark games like WoW, GW2 and FF XIV. Developers should start making niche games for niche audiences. They should make a game for people like me, who want [insert niche here]."
Vanguard actually had faction and FFA pvp at launch, got merged to ffa, then they stopped supporting it, when they cut the dev staff, that pretty much finished it off. So they were not missing it, just they didn't want to spend the time/money later to make sure pve tweaks weren't throwing pvp out of balance. IT did have horrible code/optimization, but hey, so did TOR.
An Indie Niche game called XYSON is a sandbox game worth checking out. there are no stupid NPC's standing around with signs over their head. When you login there is nothing telling you what to do. Everything is up to you.
We really need to support Indie games like this one. Winter is now over, so you can now see the Lake Tahoe basin in all it's glory.
I think that's ultimately more positive per player. But it's more fragile to minimum viable population that is the cause for mmorpgs to require as many players (quality or not) to be playing and paying.
Originally posted by Loktofeit Originally posted by RamanadjinnOriginally posted by lizardbonesThe second person and the first person are the same person. The process of making a high poly model and the process for making a low poly model isn't radically different. If someone is capable of making good looking high poly models, they will be capable of making good looking low poly models. It just takes a lot longer to make the high poly model.
Maybe someone will show up who can explain it better than I. I'll just disagree and leave it at that. Lizardbones, I think you'd be surprised at how many surfaces that you see in 3D objects don't really exist.
Anyone (you and I, included) can make a good looking brick wall with unlimited polys at their disposal. Someone that really knows their stuff can achieve the same results with a 12-poly box. I want that second guy on the team because he just made everyone else's work a whole lot easier.
Quality low poly models is an art.
Well yeah you're going to hire the best artists you can, but the decision on whether to go with a high poly or low poly engine is based on budget constraints. If a game designer has a plan for a game, they aren't going to scrap it because one guy is really good at low poly models. It doesn't matter that the one guy is really good at low poly models, because game development, especially on MMORPGs is done by teams not individuals. You can get by with one guy on a really small indie project, but it's not going to happen on an MMORPG. Even Perpetuum had five guys working around the clock on the game.
So you're going to hire that low poly guy, but if you've decided on a high poly engine, then that guy is going to work on a team of people and he's going to produce mostly high poly models, because otherwise the game will look weird.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I do have played niche games before, like Meridian 59 back in the days.
Frankly put, if a niche game get a good lead programmer I would have no problem with playing it. Less than high end graphics and slow updates is fine but I wont play a buggy mess that makes Vanguards or AOs release look like heaven.
Most MMO:ers have something that is a deal breaker and mine is bad coding. The worst I could live with is around EQ2 even if the game otherwise is awesome. And a talented programmer could actually pull that off on a small budget, the original Guildwars had close to zero issues on a very tight budget at launch.
Maybe the whole problem is the fact that the industry has turned mmorpg's into mmog,'s. Mmorpg's started out as nitch. Interestingly enough, these games are turning into the thing that you guys hate, console games, lol
This is actually wrong. The decision is based on what kind of target audience you want to aim at. Is it the minority of hardcore gamers with top notch computers who will be able to run your game with millions of polygons per character, or the majority of "normal" people who also buy and play video games?
Most games target the second audience, and therefore having artists able to create good looking models with as little polygons as possible is essential. All games won't have the same constraints, but generally, developers want their games to run on an as large array of different computers as possible.
It is a little more complicated than that. With a good engine you can actually run rather high polygon count models on a relatively humble system. GW2 runs fine on my crappy laptop as example.
If you on the other hand use your own cheap engine or, say, a crappy beta version of the HERO engine you would be forced to lower the count.
The right use of colors, art and effects do make it possible to make a low poly count game look pretty well though but if you can afford buying a good engine or have the talent and money to make one yourself you prefer at least something midrange if not more if you only have the money.
Then again, some games do target the people with really old computers, or are webb based and they have other reasons than money to have the low polycount so you are partly right but most MMOs on this site is mid to high range.
I still play and have played most of "the games we talk about" over the years. But it never hurts to have some variety now does it? Or are you trying to say people are supposed to play only wow (currently best themepark) forever? I dont think even the most diehard fans want to play the same game and only that forever.
Originally posted by lizardbones Well yeah you're going to hire the best artists you can, but the decision on whether to go with a high poly or low poly engine is based on budget constraints. If a game designer has a plan for a game, they aren't going to scrap it because one guy is really good at low poly models. It doesn't matter that the one guy is really good at low poly models, because game development, especially on MMORPGs is done by teams not individuals. You can get by with one guy on a really small indie project, but it's not going to happen on an MMORPG. Even Perpetuum had five guys working around the clock on the game.
So you're going to hire that low poly guy, but if you've decided on a high poly engine, then that guy is going to work on a team of people and he's going to produce mostly high poly models, because otherwise the game will look weird.
This is actually wrong. The decision is based on what kind of target audience you want to aim at. Is it the minority of hardcore gamers with top notch computers who will be able to run your game with millions of polygons per character, or the majority of "normal" people who also buy and play video games?
Most games target the second audience, and therefore having artists able to create good looking models with as little polygons as possible is essential. All games won't have the same constraints, but generally, developers want their games to run on an as large array of different computers as possible.
JLP is spot on. Even if a game is going to have high poly final art, they're also going to have richly textured low poly versions of their major or most prominent models. Having them not look like ass is rather important. But, on the high poly front, just because you *can* do it doesn't mean it's smart... at all... ever for an MMO. Resource management for each scene or environment is much more difficult than in a single-player game, and there are so many better places that memory and processing power can go to.
Or, you can make Vanguard.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by Jean-Luc_Picard Originally posted by lizardbones Well yeah you're going to hire the best artists you can, but the decision on whether to go with a high poly or low poly engine is based on budget constraints. If a game designer has a plan for a game, they aren't going to scrap it because one guy is really good at low poly models. It doesn't matter that the one guy is really good at low poly models, because game development, especially on MMORPGs is done by teams not individuals. You can get by with one guy on a really small indie project, but it's not going to happen on an MMORPG. Even Perpetuum had five guys working around the clock on the game. So you're going to hire that low poly guy, but if you've decided on a high poly engine, then that guy is going to work on a team of people and he's going to produce mostly high poly models, because otherwise the game will look weird.
This is actually wrong. The decision is based on what kind of target audience you want to aim at. Is it the minority of hardcore gamers with top notch computers who will be able to run your game with millions of polygons per character, or the majority of "normal" people who also buy and play video games?
Most games target the second audience, and therefore having artists able to create good looking models with as little polygons as possible is essential. All games won't have the same constraints, but generally, developers want their games to run on an as large array of different computers as possible.
In this example, even if it is not driven by budget constraints, the decision is made before the artists are hired. The decision isn't driven by the artists, it's driven by the game. After the decision is made, then the artists are hired.
My point is that people are making a big deal about this one guy who's really good at low poly art when there are tons of them. Thousands even. What we're calling low poly art used to be high poly art and everyone who is interested in creating art assets for video games has done low poly art at some point, and some of them have to be good at it. When a developer starts hiring artists, they aren't going to pick the guys who make really good high poly art and really bad low poly art if they need low poly art. They're going to pick all the guys who are good at low poly art and they're not going to have too many issues finding them. They may have issues finding them within ten miles of their development studio, but that's a different problem.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
Lizardbones, I think you'd be surprised at how many surfaces that you see in 3D objects don't really exist.
Anyone (you and I, included) can make a good looking brick wall with unlimited polys at their disposal. Someone that really knows their stuff can achieve the same results with a 12-poly box. I want that second guy on the team because he just made everyone else's work a whole lot easier.
Quality low poly models is an art.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The only thing I want with ANY game is good, fun game. If "niche" mean all but this then for sure I'm not interested.
I think that's ultimately more positive per player. But it's more fragile to minimum viable population that is the cause for mmorpgs to require as many players (quality or not) to be playing and paying.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Lizardbones, I think you'd be surprised at how many surfaces that you see in 3D objects don't really exist.
Anyone (you and I, included) can make a good looking brick wall with unlimited polys at their disposal. Someone that really knows their stuff can achieve the same results with a 12-poly box. I want that second guy on the team because he just made everyone else's work a whole lot easier.
Quality low poly models is an art.
Well yeah you're going to hire the best artists you can, but the decision on whether to go with a high poly or low poly engine is based on budget constraints. If a game designer has a plan for a game, they aren't going to scrap it because one guy is really good at low poly models. It doesn't matter that the one guy is really good at low poly models, because game development, especially on MMORPGs is done by teams not individuals. You can get by with one guy on a really small indie project, but it's not going to happen on an MMORPG. Even Perpetuum had five guys working around the clock on the game.
So you're going to hire that low poly guy, but if you've decided on a high poly engine, then that guy is going to work on a team of people and he's going to produce mostly high poly models, because otherwise the game will look weird.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I do have played niche games before, like Meridian 59 back in the days.
Frankly put, if a niche game get a good lead programmer I would have no problem with playing it. Less than high end graphics and slow updates is fine but I wont play a buggy mess that makes Vanguards or AOs release look like heaven.
Most MMO:ers have something that is a deal breaker and mine is bad coding. The worst I could live with is around EQ2 even if the game otherwise is awesome. And a talented programmer could actually pull that off on a small budget, the original Guildwars had close to zero issues on a very tight budget at launch.
Mmorpg's started out as nitch.
Interestingly enough, these games are turning into the thing that you guys hate, console games, lol
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
It is a little more complicated than that. With a good engine you can actually run rather high polygon count models on a relatively humble system. GW2 runs fine on my crappy laptop as example.
If you on the other hand use your own cheap engine or, say, a crappy beta version of the HERO engine you would be forced to lower the count.
The right use of colors, art and effects do make it possible to make a low poly count game look pretty well though but if you can afford buying a good engine or have the talent and money to make one yourself you prefer at least something midrange if not more if you only have the money.
Then again, some games do target the people with really old computers, or are webb based and they have other reasons than money to have the low polycount so you are partly right but most MMOs on this site is mid to high range.
JLP is spot on. Even if a game is going to have high poly final art, they're also going to have richly textured low poly versions of their major or most prominent models. Having them not look like ass is rather important. But, on the high poly front, just because you *can* do it doesn't mean it's smart... at all... ever for an MMO. Resource management for each scene or environment is much more difficult than in a single-player game, and there are so many better places that memory and processing power can go to.
Or, you can make Vanguard.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Most games target the second audience, and therefore having artists able to create good looking models with as little polygons as possible is essential. All games won't have the same constraints, but generally, developers want their games to run on an as large array of different computers as possible.
In this example, even if it is not driven by budget constraints, the decision is made before the artists are hired. The decision isn't driven by the artists, it's driven by the game. After the decision is made, then the artists are hired.
My point is that people are making a big deal about this one guy who's really good at low poly art when there are tons of them. Thousands even. What we're calling low poly art used to be high poly art and everyone who is interested in creating art assets for video games has done low poly art at some point, and some of them have to be good at it. When a developer starts hiring artists, they aren't going to pick the guys who make really good high poly art and really bad low poly art if they need low poly art. They're going to pick all the guys who are good at low poly art and they're not going to have too many issues finding them. They may have issues finding them within ten miles of their development studio, but that's a different problem.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.