As a style gets closer to the left, it becomes more detailed and tends to lean towards sleeker character models, but also more grit and a more drab color scheme.
As a style gets closer to the right, its color scheme tends to become more vibrant - there is an enormous difference here between even Realism and Stylized Realism. There is also a loss of detail in favor of impressionistic lines. On the far end of the scale, characters will become bulkier and/or more like caricatures or exaggerations.
So when you labelled Zelda as a Cartoon and WoW and Team Fortress as Stylized Cartoons, you were quite mistaken. In fact, Zelda is a stylized cartoon - it leans more towards the realistic side with typically sleeker characters, cleaner lines, and more detail. Team Fortress and World of Warcraft are very much straight Cartoons with exaggerated features and excessive differences in character bulk to emphasize classes.
I'm still in the All of the Above camp, but could you give examples of those last three?
How would you have all of the above in one game, that would be impossible, if you mean you enjoy all styles in different games, well yeah, me too, who wants limits? But if I ask you what your favorite color is your not gonna tell me you chose the rainbow as a color, cause its not one color, its all colors. Anyways, ahah im gonna give some examples.
Realistic games would be, DAYZ, COD, BF, ESO and the likes.
Stylized realism would be games like "the walking dead", "Borderlands" and games like that.
Stylized cartoon would be games like Team Fortress, WoW, Wildstar, and Pixar looking stuff.
Cartoon would be games like Naruto NinjaStorm, Zelda & most Nintendo produced games.
swtor for example would be a game walking the line between stylized realism and stylized cartoon.
The title of your poll is "What kind of graphic style do you enjoy?"
The answers people choose pertain to that question. To answer "all of the above" simply means that person enjoys all of the graphical styles you listed. It does not mean they want them all in one game.
I agree with your point here, I should have asked the question in anotherway, I realized that now,
"What graphics style would you chose for the perfect MMO?" would have been a smarter way to ask.
As a style gets closer to the left, it becomes more detailed and tends to lean towards sleeker character models, but also more grit and a more drab color scheme.
As a style gets closer to the right, its color scheme tends to become more vibrant - there is an enormous difference here between even Realism and Stylized Realism. There is also a loss of detail in favor of impressionistic lines. On the far end of the scale, characters will become bulkier and/or more like caricatures or exaggerations.
So when you labelled Zelda as a Cartoon and WoW and Team Fortress as Stylized Cartoons, you were quite mistaken. In fact, Zelda is a stylized cartoon - it leans more towards the realistic side with typically sleeker characters, cleaner lines, and more detail. Team Fortress and World of Warcraft are very much straight Cartoons with exaggerated features and excessive differences in character bulk to emphasize classes.
To some degree I agree with your scale Realism <---- Stylized Realism < ----- Stylized Cartoon <------- Cartoon.
I can agree with you that some zelda games are stylized cartoon and some are straight up cartoon. Depends on which of the games in the series we are talking about though.
When WoW was released it was not trying to be cartoon, it was very much stylized, it might have become cartoon now though, times change this scale no doubt. This goes for team fortress too.
I should have changed the question to be more clear. Its to late now so we might as well continue this discussion on whats what cause its pretty funny.
Im not trying to be hitler here, and I'm in no way implying that my estimates are rule, only my own personal view, a view thats based on when I was born, what refrenses I have seen, Im sure what you have seen in your life makes you see art in a different light then me and there is no absolute here, I mean the games that we call realistic today, will very much be viewed as stylized in a few years. Using your scale in mind.
Can't make something in the style of something that is not a style.
"Stylized Cartoon"
"Cartoon"
The same things as above go for these two, as well.
...Video Games are an art form (the Smithsonian Institute and any art critic worth their credentials says so). More importantly they are their own medium with their own norms, that developed on their own terms, mostly removed from the classical understanding of what is art. As such you can not sample terminology like realism, or cartoon, or stylized from the bulk of that world and expect to fairly apply them forward to video games. Dali did many surreal works...But, he was not cell shading.
Video games do have their own styles. But, it helps to learn what those are (they do have names) and what defines them before talking about what one likes best.
I do think each of those categories require some explanation as to what you intend them to represent, as I'm sure everyone who views this poll ends up with something different in mind. Some people might think a game like FFXIV would fall under the stylized cartoony category, while others would think stylized realism. The distinction there is a very fine line.
So is the distinction between Cartoony and Stylized Cartoony. After all, what cartoony MMO was not also highly stylized (ie. WoW, Wildstar)? Every game that has an art style - aka, every game - can be said to be "stylized."
* * *
As for my own preferences, I went with "stylized realism" with games like GW2 and FFXIV in mind. GW2 has simply been the most beautiful and immersive fantasy world I've ever explored. That type of setting and graphical / aesthetic look is far and above my favorite.
I can get into realism, but that generally gets boring for me after a while. I can put 100 hours into Skyrim, but I don't think I could make a world like that my virtual home.
I can likewise get into stylized cartoony, but that's usually despite the aesthetic design. For example, many moons ago I had to choose between two games that were coming out at relatively the same time: Final Fantasy XI and WoW. One of the factors that ended up tipping the scale in the favor of FFXI was its look compared to that of WoW. As a big Warcraft fan, I remember being so disappointed with the style they chose for WoW. Anyway, FFXI ended up releasing almost a full year before WoW anyway.
Shortly after WoW released, however, I was persuaded to try it out with some friends. It wasn't long until that world had me thoroughly in its grasp. I went on to play WoW for about 6 years, through vanilla and 2 expansions, and it ended up being on of the most immersive gaming experiences of my life. At first the game's aesthetic style was something I had to get passed. But eventually it was something I adored. Indeed, Blizzard did a great job updating its engine over the years, while Square never once touched FFXI's. The result is WoW now looks 10x better than FFXI.
But then there's a game like Wildstar, which, despite loving some of its gameplay, I think I ultimately ended up being completely alienated by it's graphic and aesthetic style that I could never get into.
Originally posted by Quizzical I like high frame rates, and I like being able to tell what is going on. Both of those are far more important than what the poll asks about.
Yes I should have stated in the original question that this was for a perfekt MMO with all features and mechanics you wish for, and that it was the most fun we could possible have and that we all ran supercomputers where framerates was no issue, this was a hypothetical question in my mind, I just did not get that accross in the original phrasing.
Originally posted by Gravarg As long as I'm having fun, I don't really care about the graphics style. I grew up when your character was a big pixel on the screen XD
I grew up playing textbased MUD's, I get your point, my question phrasing was off and im sorry for that now, I wish I could change it so it was more clear what I meant.
In a perfect MMO where everything is running smooth and your having fun, what style most fits your personality?
Can't make something in the style of something that is not a style.
"Stylized Cartoon"
"Cartoon"
The same things as above go for these two, as well.
...Video Games are an art form (the Smithsonian Institute and any art critic worth their credentials says so). More importantly they are their own medium with their own norms, that developed on their own terms, mostly removed from the classical understanding of what is art. As such you can not sample terminology like realism, or cartoon, or stylized from the bulk of that world and expect to fairly apply them forward to video games. Dali did many surreal works...But, he was not cell shading.
Video games do have their own styles. But, it helps to learn what those are (they do have names) and what defines them before talking about what one likes best.
I want you to imagine a MMO in the future where it can either look as real as real life, no game can do that yet, but thats what I meant when I said realistic, this was supposed to be a hypothetical question on your prefered style in a perfect game environment.
I do think each of those categories require some explanation as to what you intend them to represent, as I'm sure everyone who views this poll ends up with something different in mind. Some people might think a game like FFXIV would fall under the stylized cartoony category, while others would think stylized realism. The distinction there is a very fine line.
So is the distinction between Cartoony and Stylized Cartoony. After all, what cartoony MMO was not also highly stylized (ie. WoW, Wildstar)? Every game that has an art style - aka, every game - can be said to be "stylized."
Yes, I would redo this whole POLL again with a correct phrasing and with accurate explanations to the different categories, this is already the second thread I make on this subject cause my first thread got heat because it had to few options....
I'm sorry this whole thing turned out to be so confusing.**
Perhaps the community can help me sort this whole issue out cause its obvious i'm not smart enough to do it properly.
Can't make something in the style of something that is not a style.
"Stylized Cartoon"
"Cartoon"
The same things as above go for these two, as well.
...Video Games are an art form (the Smithsonian Institute and any art critic worth their credentials says so). More importantly they are their own medium with their own norms, that developed on their own terms, mostly removed from the classical understanding of what is art. As such you can not sample terminology like realism, or cartoon, or stylized from the bulk of that world and expect to fairly apply them forward to video games. Dali did many surreal works...But, he was not cell shading.
Video games do have their own styles. But, it helps to learn what those are (they do have names) and what defines them before talking about what one likes best.
I want you to imagine a MMO in the future where it can either look as real as real life, no game can do that yet, but thats what I meant when I said realistic, this was supposed to be a hypothetical question on your prefered style in a perfect game environment.
This is something we have been through many times before. There is no Perfect MMORPG. While perfection exists. It is also relative. And, what you are talking about is not possible (because, it's trying to make perfection not relative). You can not give everyone the experience they want and have them all be part of the same experience (And, insisting that this can be done would only demonstrate a complete ignorance of how games are made and what is and isn't possible on a technical level). A hypothetical is basically a scenario based on hypothesis. And, hypothesis must have some basis within reality to work in the first place. Your asking people to seriously discuss the impossible on terms that are both non-existent and too open to interpretation to be taken seriously.
Can't make something in the style of something that is not a style.
"Stylized Cartoon"
"Cartoon"
The same things as above go for these two, as well.
...Video Games are an art form (the Smithsonian Institute and any art critic worth their credentials says so). More importantly they are their own medium with their own norms, that developed on their own terms, mostly removed from the classical understanding of what is art. As such you can not sample terminology like realism, or cartoon, or stylized from the bulk of that world and expect to fairly apply them forward to video games. Dali did many surreal works...But, he was not cell shading.
Video games do have their own styles. But, it helps to learn what those are (they do have names) and what defines them before talking about what one likes best.
I want you to imagine a MMO in the future where it can either look as real as real life, no game can do that yet, but thats what I meant when I said realistic, this was supposed to be a hypothetical question on your prefered style in a perfect game environment.
This is something we have been through many times before. There is no Perfect MMORPG. While perfection exists. It is also relative. And, what you are talking about is not possible. You can not give everyone the experience they want and have them all be part of the same experience (And, insisting that this can be done would only demonstrate a complete ignorance of how games are made and what is and isn't possible on a technical level). A hypothetical is basically a scenario based on hypothesis. And, hypothesis must have some basis within reality to work in the first place. Your asking people to seriously discuss the impossible on terms that are both non-existent and too open to interpretation to be taken seriously.
I know, this is part of my point, to show that we will never find a perfect MMO, but I wanted some statistics on what style gamers in this community would want in their vision of a perfect game, I myself would want a stylized cartoon world. I find real life aesthetics dull and boring.
As a style gets closer to the left, it becomes more detailed and tends to lean towards sleeker character models, but also more grit and a more drab color scheme.
As a style gets closer to the right, its color scheme tends to become more vibrant - there is an enormous difference here between even Realism and Stylized Realism. There is also a loss of detail in favor of impressionistic lines. On the far end of the scale, characters will become bulkier and/or more like caricatures or exaggerations.
So when you labelled Zelda as a Cartoon and WoW and Team Fortress as Stylized Cartoons, you were quite mistaken. In fact, Zelda is a stylized cartoon - it leans more towards the realistic side with typically sleeker characters, cleaner lines, and more detail. Team Fortress and World of Warcraft are very much straight Cartoons with exaggerated features and excessive differences in character bulk to emphasize classes.
To some degree I agree with your scale Realism <---- Stylized Realism < ----- Stylized Cartoon <------- Cartoon.
I can agree with you that some zelda games are stylized cartoon and some are straight up cartoon. Depends on which of the games in the series we are talking about though.
When WoW was released it was not trying to be cartoon, it was very much stylized, it might have become cartoon now though, times change this scale no doubt. This goes for team fortress too.
I should have changed the question to be more clear. Its to late now so we might as well continue this discussion on whats what cause its pretty funny.
Im not trying to be hitler here, and I'm in no way implying that my estimates are rule, only my own personal view, a view thats based on when I was born, what refrenses I have seen, Im sure what you have seen in your life makes you see art in a different light then me and there is no absolute here, I mean the games that we call realistic today, will very much be viewed as stylized in a few years. Using your scale in mind.
Certainly something like The Minish Cap (sp?) would come across as pure Cartoon, but I imagine you've also classified the Wind Waker under these lines. That would certainly be tempting, but Wind Waker falls into the "Painterly" sub-genre, which tends to fall into one of the Stylized sections. Whereas something like Team Fortress 2 is very much exaggerated and simplistic, Wind Waker is impressionistic - which actually leans towards a cleaner style, despite a somewhat weaker graphics quality.
Now, I know that you also said that Nintendo falls into Cartoon, but is that actually the case? F-Zero GAMES (which kind of aren't really a thing anymore) tend towards Cartoon, but its characters, as they are portrayed in newer media (like Captain Falcon in Smash Bros) tend to be more along the lines of Stylized Cartoon or even Stylized Realistic. Fire Emblem is straight up stylized realistic in every definition. Even Star Fox could be considered a Stylized Cartoon.
As for the shifting of styles, you aren't referring to art style, you are referring to graphics. Graphics influence the visuals of a game, but they are a facet of technology, not art.
I added this to the original post if that made things more clear?
**EDIT**
Realistic = game looks like real life does (yes i know no game does that yet, but imagine if it could.)
Stylized realism = It looks like real life but has over-exaggerated features.
Stylized cartoon = Its got a cartoon feel but leans towards stylized realism.
Cartoon = Its fullblown overthetop visually colorful and has left the realm of realism totally.
Please discard my attempt at tying current games to the different styles and imagine a perfect game with all the features and mechanics you want, oh and its fun too!
Im aware that this thread has derailed somewhat due to me being unlcear to begin with. =/
I added this to the original post if that made things more clear?
**EDIT**
Realistic = game looks like real life does (yes i know no game does that yet, but imagine if it could.)
Stylized realism = It looks like real life but has over-exaggerated features.
Stylized cartoon = Its got a cartoon feel but leans towards stylized realism.
Cartoon = Its fullblown overthetop visually colorful and has left the realm of realism totally.
Please discard my attempt at tying current games to the different styles and imagine a perfect game with all the features and mechanics you want, oh and its fun too!
Im aware that this thread has derailed somewhat due to me being unlcear to begin with. =/
**END EDIT**
....Borderlands 2
And now, your argument for how to define style in video games (even one that doesn't and moreover cannot exist) is invalid.
I added this to the original post if that made things more clear?
**EDIT**
Realistic = game looks like real life does (yes i know no game does that yet, but imagine if it could.)
Stylized realism = It looks like real life but has over-exaggerated features.
Stylized cartoon = Its got a cartoon feel but leans towards stylized realism.
Cartoon = Its fullblown overthetop visually colorful and has left the realm of realism totally.
Please discard my attempt at tying current games to the different styles and imagine a perfect game with all the features and mechanics you want, oh and its fun too!
Im aware that this thread has derailed somewhat due to me being unlcear to begin with. =/
**END EDIT**
....Borderlands 2
And now, your argument for how to define style in video games (even one that doesn't and moreover cannot exist) is invalid.
Do not understand, what do you mean? I would put borderlands2 under stylized cartoon.
My favorite category isnt up there, I like Realistic Anime
Example:
Things like Appleseed and lets say Resident Evil 4 (as an additional example). These are photo realistic.
And, if they happen to use a lot of mocap. It could even be called Neo-Rotoscope. Notice that it is primarily the characters that have a distinctly Japanese influence. Were we to insert more westernized characters into it. We would just think of it as Photo Realistic. The major factor that keeps us from doing this, is that the focus of any scene is going to be the characters (for the most part). And, the characters have large ears and eyes, small noses and mouths. And, attire that is designed to set off sex appeal (more fashion then function). All staples of the Manga style of Japanese comic book art. Additionally high saturation of colors in the characters and surroundings make color pop over detail.
So, that same thing would look entirely different to us (even though it would basically still as it was). If we just lower the saturation (A screen effect filter can do that) and replace the characters.
Art with me matters the first 20 minutes. After the first 20 minutes as long as everything is consistent, I don't notice the artwork any more. Minecraft is a good example of a game with poor graphics that I don't mind playing.
The artwork is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Gameplay is far more important.
If the game is good, I will play it no matter the graphics style.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I think my favourite would be stylized realism. In consideration of video games as a whole, I like to see a world that I can believe, and then when you add that stylized touch I think it knocks it out of the park. ESO does a good job
It's rather difficult to pick an art style, because every game has a different theme. Imagine a game like CoD with a cartoony style, or Borderlands with an ultra-realistic one. Neither one would work because of the overall feel, theme, and mood of the games themselves.
If I absolutely had to pick one, I suppose I'd go with stylized realism as it was done in the game Dishonored. Real enough for the world to come across as fairly grim and gritty, yet somewhat exaggerated character proportions (especially in faces) and good use of contrasting color to prevent the world from feeling too oppressive.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
Art with me matters the first 20 minutes. After the first 20 minutes as long as everything is consistent, I don't notice the artwork any more. Minecraft is a good example of a game with poor graphics that I don't mind playing.
The artwork is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Gameplay is far more important.
Minecraft is simply genius, lol. When you talk about consistency in appearance. That game has to be mentioned as a prime example. It's really a great thing. Minecrafts style at it's core, is pixel art. And pixel art is basically a digital art where the artist takes control of what is going with a graphic on at the pixel level. There is nothing that is allowed to auto correct itself. Every pixel is the exact shade/tint, hue, saturation, and x-y position that the artist intended. It's micro managed art.
Iv'e looked at some of the textures for mine craft. Any instance of Minecraft (I know different people tend to have different texture mod packs), only has to have about 1-3 actual textures. Those textures are also pallets though. Which means a single texture is broken up into a grid. And every cell space within that grid has a different appearance. So, instead of loading 10's if not 100's of textures in multiple resolution. You can load just a few textures, in a single resolution. and to make things look different. You simple change the offset.
You can think of it as a bunch of little pictures glued to a paper as being the texture. And the surface they appear on as being another paper of the same size, with a hole cut to the size of one of those little pictures (the hole itself is the face). Slide the pallet behind the paper vertically and horizontally. And, in the window, you end up with entirely different images. Even though it is all one thing....Older video games for the 8 and 16 bit era, use this same strategy for allot of their assets (like Super Mario Bros. for the NES). they also tended to use sprite sheets. Which are similar but for different purposes (namely characters in the world and things that those characters do).
People have tried to make pixel art 3d in the past. The genius of Minecraft's style is that it does it, and it does it well. Just like there may be as little as one texture. There is also as little as one object to deal with. And that is a cube. Simple object. even on all sides, with right angle planes. Minecraft achieves such a high level of consistency in aesthetic, By keeping everything as simple as it can possibly be. And, many simple elements are a lot easier to run 1000's of instances of in the same environment.
A lot of the work out machines have to do in starting up and running games is loading and displaying assets and changes to those assets which must be displayed. Minecraft has so few actual assets. That it takes the heavy lifting out of it (for the most part it does suffer in some areas like physics). It achieves high complexity through utmost simplicity.
[edit] What is Borderlands art style?
The simple answer is that borderlands style is cel shaded. But, Borderlands cel shading departs from the normal way it is handled (The legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a good example of standard. And, something like Okami would be half way in between really good cell shading like Borderlands 2 and really basic like Wind Waker. But they are all cel shaded). And, even in basic form. The development team did a really great job. And, I'll attempt to give decent explanation of that below.
Okay...So, below I have gone ahead and thrown together a tree base (a very common item in a lot of games...basically the non-foliage part of a tree).
Now this is normal. Or rather, standard hemispherical lighting and shaders with a texture. There is a lot of detail in the shading...think of it like like a gradient that very smooth transitions from one level of darkness to another. So much so, that the lines where it actually changes in how dark it is are hard to make out.
Now, in the picture below...I've changed this to look cel shaded (it is actually "cel" and not "cell". Which I typed earlier. Bu,t it was quoted a few times so I didn't edit it)...
In this version we see an object not unlike something we might see in one of the borderlands games (note: this is rushed for the topic so it's not that good). So, what is the difference? The way the shading is rendered really...In this version it is choppy. And, the amount of different levels of darkness that are displayed has been reduced significantly. You can clearly see the transitioning from one level of darkness to another. Almost as important, this shading is not well blended with the texture. It sort of sits on top of the texture.
So, why? Well the idea is that from any fixed angle. We end up making something that is in fact 3D, appear as though it is 2D. And, that is the point of cel shading. To pull off a comic book look in a 3D environment. The border lands games are... well superbly done. Normally in a cell shaded world. the lighting is very consistent. Things don't typically reflect light. And so everything appears to be of the same...material, just different colors. Borderlands doesn't do this. Surfaces reflect light to different degrees really well. They also let underlying textures bleed through more. And everything is a lot more high contrast. It makes for a cel shaded game series that is absolutely stunning.
But, it is cel shaded none the less. And, this is one of the points I was making...These styles already have names. Giving them new ones on the fly (and so few) lumps things together. And, confuses what is actually being talked about. Moreover, it causes a break down in communication with those who use these preexisting terms (the game designers we would like so desperately to listen to us) when we use terminology that isn't recognized buy the industry. as a real thing.
Comments
You've got it a bit backwards.
There's a realism scale at work here.
Realism <---- Stylized Realism < ----- Stylized Cartoon <------- Cartoon
As a style gets closer to the left, it becomes more detailed and tends to lean towards sleeker character models, but also more grit and a more drab color scheme.
As a style gets closer to the right, its color scheme tends to become more vibrant - there is an enormous difference here between even Realism and Stylized Realism. There is also a loss of detail in favor of impressionistic lines. On the far end of the scale, characters will become bulkier and/or more like caricatures or exaggerations.
So when you labelled Zelda as a Cartoon and WoW and Team Fortress as Stylized Cartoons, you were quite mistaken. In fact, Zelda is a stylized cartoon - it leans more towards the realistic side with typically sleeker characters, cleaner lines, and more detail. Team Fortress and World of Warcraft are very much straight Cartoons with exaggerated features and excessive differences in character bulk to emphasize classes.
Guild Wars 2 classifies as "Painterly."
It's a very distinctive form of Stylized that captures a very specific theme - capturing the developer's love of the arts and, of course, paint.
If Okami is a painterly stylized cartoon, Guild Wars 2 is a painterly stylized realism.
And yes, it's very, very pretty.
I agree with your point here, I should have asked the question in anotherway, I realized that now,
"What graphics style would you chose for the perfect MMO?" would have been a smarter way to ask.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
To some degree I agree with your scale Realism <---- Stylized Realism < ----- Stylized Cartoon <------- Cartoon.
I can agree with you that some zelda games are stylized cartoon and some are straight up cartoon. Depends on which of the games in the series we are talking about though.
When WoW was released it was not trying to be cartoon, it was very much stylized, it might have become cartoon now though, times change this scale no doubt. This goes for team fortress too.
I should have changed the question to be more clear. Its to late now so we might as well continue this discussion on whats what cause its pretty funny.
Im not trying to be hitler here, and I'm in no way implying that my estimates are rule, only my own personal view, a view thats based on when I was born, what refrenses I have seen, Im sure what you have seen in your life makes you see art in a different light then me and there is no absolute here, I mean the games that we call realistic today, will very much be viewed as stylized in a few years. Using your scale in mind.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
"what graphic style do you enjoy more?"
Don't you mean visual aesthetic?
"Realistic"
Not an actual style.
"Stylized Realism"
Can't make something in the style of something that is not a style.
"Stylized Cartoon"
"Cartoon"
The same things as above go for these two, as well.
...Video Games are an art form (the Smithsonian Institute and any art critic worth their credentials says so). More importantly they are their own medium with their own norms, that developed on their own terms, mostly removed from the classical understanding of what is art. As such you can not sample terminology like realism, or cartoon, or stylized from the bulk of that world and expect to fairly apply them forward to video games. Dali did many surreal works...But, he was not cell shading.
Video games do have their own styles. But, it helps to learn what those are (they do have names) and what defines them before talking about what one likes best.
I do think each of those categories require some explanation as to what you intend them to represent, as I'm sure everyone who views this poll ends up with something different in mind. Some people might think a game like FFXIV would fall under the stylized cartoony category, while others would think stylized realism. The distinction there is a very fine line.
So is the distinction between Cartoony and Stylized Cartoony. After all, what cartoony MMO was not also highly stylized (ie. WoW, Wildstar)? Every game that has an art style - aka, every game - can be said to be "stylized."
* * *
As for my own preferences, I went with "stylized realism" with games like GW2 and FFXIV in mind. GW2 has simply been the most beautiful and immersive fantasy world I've ever explored. That type of setting and graphical / aesthetic look is far and above my favorite.
I can get into realism, but that generally gets boring for me after a while. I can put 100 hours into Skyrim, but I don't think I could make a world like that my virtual home.
I can likewise get into stylized cartoony, but that's usually despite the aesthetic design. For example, many moons ago I had to choose between two games that were coming out at relatively the same time: Final Fantasy XI and WoW. One of the factors that ended up tipping the scale in the favor of FFXI was its look compared to that of WoW. As a big Warcraft fan, I remember being so disappointed with the style they chose for WoW. Anyway, FFXI ended up releasing almost a full year before WoW anyway.
Shortly after WoW released, however, I was persuaded to try it out with some friends. It wasn't long until that world had me thoroughly in its grasp. I went on to play WoW for about 6 years, through vanilla and 2 expansions, and it ended up being on of the most immersive gaming experiences of my life. At first the game's aesthetic style was something I had to get passed. But eventually it was something I adored. Indeed, Blizzard did a great job updating its engine over the years, while Square never once touched FFXI's. The result is WoW now looks 10x better than FFXI.
But then there's a game like Wildstar, which, despite loving some of its gameplay, I think I ultimately ended up being completely alienated by it's graphic and aesthetic style that I could never get into.
Yes I should have stated in the original question that this was for a perfekt MMO with all features and mechanics you wish for, and that it was the most fun we could possible have and that we all ran supercomputers where framerates was no issue, this was a hypothetical question in my mind, I just did not get that accross in the original phrasing.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
I grew up playing textbased MUD's, I get your point, my question phrasing was off and im sorry for that now, I wish I could change it so it was more clear what I meant.
In a perfect MMO where everything is running smooth and your having fun, what style most fits your personality?
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
I want you to imagine a MMO in the future where it can either look as real as real life, no game can do that yet, but thats what I meant when I said realistic, this was supposed to be a hypothetical question on your prefered style in a perfect game environment.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
Yes, I would redo this whole POLL again with a correct phrasing and with accurate explanations to the different categories, this is already the second thread I make on this subject cause my first thread got heat because it had to few options....
I'm sorry this whole thing turned out to be so confusing.**
Perhaps the community can help me sort this whole issue out cause its obvious i'm not smart enough to do it properly.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
This is something we have been through many times before. There is no Perfect MMORPG. While perfection exists. It is also relative. And, what you are talking about is not possible (because, it's trying to make perfection not relative). You can not give everyone the experience they want and have them all be part of the same experience (And, insisting that this can be done would only demonstrate a complete ignorance of how games are made and what is and isn't possible on a technical level). A hypothetical is basically a scenario based on hypothesis. And, hypothesis must have some basis within reality to work in the first place. Your asking people to seriously discuss the impossible on terms that are both non-existent and too open to interpretation to be taken seriously.
I know, this is part of my point, to show that we will never find a perfect MMO, but I wanted some statistics on what style gamers in this community would want in their vision of a perfect game, I myself would want a stylized cartoon world. I find real life aesthetics dull and boring.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
Certainly something like The Minish Cap (sp?) would come across as pure Cartoon, but I imagine you've also classified the Wind Waker under these lines. That would certainly be tempting, but Wind Waker falls into the "Painterly" sub-genre, which tends to fall into one of the Stylized sections. Whereas something like Team Fortress 2 is very much exaggerated and simplistic, Wind Waker is impressionistic - which actually leans towards a cleaner style, despite a somewhat weaker graphics quality.
Now, I know that you also said that Nintendo falls into Cartoon, but is that actually the case? F-Zero GAMES (which kind of aren't really a thing anymore) tend towards Cartoon, but its characters, as they are portrayed in newer media (like Captain Falcon in Smash Bros) tend to be more along the lines of Stylized Cartoon or even Stylized Realistic. Fire Emblem is straight up stylized realistic in every definition. Even Star Fox could be considered a Stylized Cartoon.
As for the shifting of styles, you aren't referring to art style, you are referring to graphics. Graphics influence the visuals of a game, but they are a facet of technology, not art.
I added this to the original post if that made things more clear?
**EDIT**
Realistic = game looks like real life does (yes i know no game does that yet, but imagine if it could.)
Stylized realism = It looks like real life but has over-exaggerated features.
Stylized cartoon = Its got a cartoon feel but leans towards stylized realism.
Cartoon = Its fullblown overthetop visually colorful and has left the realm of realism totally.
Please discard my attempt at tying current games to the different styles and imagine a perfect game with all the features and mechanics you want, oh and its fun too!
Im aware that this thread has derailed somewhat due to me being unlcear to begin with. =/
**END EDIT**
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
....Borderlands 2
And now, your argument for how to define style in video games (even one that doesn't and moreover cannot exist) is invalid.
My favorite category isnt up there, I like Realistic Anime
Example:
Falls under Stylized Realism. But yeah, more specific options would have been nice.
that would be stylized realism would it not?
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
Do not understand, what do you mean? I would put borderlands2 under stylized cartoon.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
Things like Appleseed and lets say Resident Evil 4 (as an additional example). These are photo realistic.
And, if they happen to use a lot of mocap. It could even be called Neo-Rotoscope. Notice that it is primarily the characters that have a distinctly Japanese influence. Were we to insert more westernized characters into it. We would just think of it as Photo Realistic. The major factor that keeps us from doing this, is that the focus of any scene is going to be the characters (for the most part). And, the characters have large ears and eyes, small noses and mouths. And, attire that is designed to set off sex appeal (more fashion then function). All staples of the Manga style of Japanese comic book art. Additionally high saturation of colors in the characters and surroundings make color pop over detail.
So, that same thing would look entirely different to us (even though it would basically still as it was). If we just lower the saturation (A screen effect filter can do that) and replace the characters.
Art with me matters the first 20 minutes. After the first 20 minutes as long as everything is consistent, I don't notice the artwork any more. Minecraft is a good example of a game with poor graphics that I don't mind playing.
The artwork is a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Gameplay is far more important.
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You should have an "I don't care" option.
If the game is good, I will play it no matter the graphics style.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
It's rather difficult to pick an art style, because every game has a different theme. Imagine a game like CoD with a cartoony style, or Borderlands with an ultra-realistic one. Neither one would work because of the overall feel, theme, and mood of the games themselves.
If I absolutely had to pick one, I suppose I'd go with stylized realism as it was done in the game Dishonored. Real enough for the world to come across as fairly grim and gritty, yet somewhat exaggerated character proportions (especially in faces) and good use of contrasting color to prevent the world from feeling too oppressive.
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Minecraft is simply genius, lol. When you talk about consistency in appearance. That game has to be mentioned as a prime example. It's really a great thing. Minecrafts style at it's core, is pixel art. And pixel art is basically a digital art where the artist takes control of what is going with a graphic on at the pixel level. There is nothing that is allowed to auto correct itself. Every pixel is the exact shade/tint, hue, saturation, and x-y position that the artist intended. It's micro managed art.
Iv'e looked at some of the textures for mine craft. Any instance of Minecraft (I know different people tend to have different texture mod packs), only has to have about 1-3 actual textures. Those textures are also pallets though. Which means a single texture is broken up into a grid. And every cell space within that grid has a different appearance. So, instead of loading 10's if not 100's of textures in multiple resolution. You can load just a few textures, in a single resolution. and to make things look different. You simple change the offset.
You can think of it as a bunch of little pictures glued to a paper as being the texture. And the surface they appear on as being another paper of the same size, with a hole cut to the size of one of those little pictures (the hole itself is the face). Slide the pallet behind the paper vertically and horizontally. And, in the window, you end up with entirely different images. Even though it is all one thing....Older video games for the 8 and 16 bit era, use this same strategy for allot of their assets (like Super Mario Bros. for the NES). they also tended to use sprite sheets. Which are similar but for different purposes (namely characters in the world and things that those characters do).
People have tried to make pixel art 3d in the past. The genius of Minecraft's style is that it does it, and it does it well. Just like there may be as little as one texture. There is also as little as one object to deal with. And that is a cube. Simple object. even on all sides, with right angle planes. Minecraft achieves such a high level of consistency in aesthetic, By keeping everything as simple as it can possibly be. And, many simple elements are a lot easier to run 1000's of instances of in the same environment.
A lot of the work out machines have to do in starting up and running games is loading and displaying assets and changes to those assets which must be displayed. Minecraft has so few actual assets. That it takes the heavy lifting out of it (for the most part it does suffer in some areas like physics). It achieves high complexity through utmost simplicity.
[edit] What is Borderlands art style?
The simple answer is that borderlands style is cel shaded. But, Borderlands cel shading departs from the normal way it is handled (The legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a good example of standard. And, something like Okami would be half way in between really good cell shading like Borderlands 2 and really basic like Wind Waker. But they are all cel shaded). And, even in basic form. The development team did a really great job. And, I'll attempt to give decent explanation of that below.
Okay...So, below I have gone ahead and thrown together a tree base (a very common item in a lot of games...basically the non-foliage part of a tree).
Now this is normal. Or rather, standard hemispherical lighting and shaders with a texture. There is a lot of detail in the shading...think of it like like a gradient that very smooth transitions from one level of darkness to another. So much so, that the lines where it actually changes in how dark it is are hard to make out.
Now, in the picture below...I've changed this to look cel shaded (it is actually "cel" and not "cell". Which I typed earlier. Bu,t it was quoted a few times so I didn't edit it)...
In this version we see an object not unlike something we might see in one of the borderlands games (note: this is rushed for the topic so it's not that good). So, what is the difference? The way the shading is rendered really...In this version it is choppy. And, the amount of different levels of darkness that are displayed has been reduced significantly. You can clearly see the transitioning from one level of darkness to another. Almost as important, this shading is not well blended with the texture. It sort of sits on top of the texture.
So, why? Well the idea is that from any fixed angle. We end up making something that is in fact 3D, appear as though it is 2D. And, that is the point of cel shading. To pull off a comic book look in a 3D environment. The border lands games are... well superbly done. Normally in a cell shaded world. the lighting is very consistent. Things don't typically reflect light. And so everything appears to be of the same...material, just different colors. Borderlands doesn't do this. Surfaces reflect light to different degrees really well. They also let underlying textures bleed through more. And everything is a lot more high contrast. It makes for a cel shaded game series that is absolutely stunning.
But, it is cel shaded none the less. And, this is one of the points I was making...These styles already have names. Giving them new ones on the fly (and so few) lumps things together. And, confuses what is actually being talked about. Moreover, it causes a break down in communication with those who use these preexisting terms (the game designers we would like so desperately to listen to us) when we use terminology that isn't recognized buy the industry. as a real thing.