Is photo-realism all that exciting a concept?

Hydrosylator

Picked up (actually bought) some pc games for the first time in years yesterday, stuck one in and fired it up (Thief 3), and something seemed odd.The amount of polygons, mostly. I sat looking at it, having gorged myself on next-gen teasers in the past while, alternated with 3dsmax renders of my own devision. I'd forgotten what a FPS actually looks like on a good monitor, having been treated to the fuzzy disguise of a console through a TV for the past while.

Within an hour I was immersed in a way I hadn't been by a game in years, don't ask me which game did it last either. I was in the game. As a result of what? Shadows. Sounds. Scripted AI. Clever level design. In fact, all the same things I loved about the first Thief game, except with slightly better graphics. Which brings to an important point to consider on the eve of the so-called next-generation, in games,just how important is the holy grail of photo-realism?

I'm as guilty as anyone else of getting excited when I see some of the fancy stuff Microsoft and Sony are waving at us these days, but all it is is fancy stuff, it's not games, is pictures of what games might look like. And who really gives a damn what a game looks like when the moment a controller is in our hands, we can tell how good a game is, and all the sparkly bits in the world won't save a **** game, you can supply your own exmples for that one, you know what I mean.

Development teams are getting bigger and bigger, yet in a strange way all the biggest projects are, for the most part, getting ****ter and ****ter. My friends go out and buy some of the best looking crap I've ever seen, and it gets tossed to one side after a week or two to be replaced by an older, better game.

Now, as someone working towards a future in 3d modelling, I can see huge benefits in the new technology. A modeller is now expected to model more things than ever, but to make a realistic model is som much easier now that we have machines that render polys like nobodys business, with as many maps as you need.

But there's a reason all these retro games packages and devices are so in vogue now, and it's not just nostalgia. The fact is, we're having games shoved in our faces on their aesthetic merits alone, and nothing new is happening with the way we play, and what is new gets put to one side to make room for a floor to ceiling stand packed solely with EA's latest piece of glossy excrement.

And think of how we view games, take a photo from a war and a picture from a wargame, for example. After a while you notice somethin. Reality is more ambiguous, less cut and dried, than video game worlds. we have to squint to tell what's what. Photo-realistic games will be harder to play, or will need artificial embellishments to make them playable. How much fun would it be to have to find someone on Grafton St in a game if they didn't have a corresponding arrow over their head, or a dot on some practically useful, but theoretically ludicrous, GTA style radar. Realism will only benefit simulation games, and even then, it still won't make up for bad code.

I have to get out of here now, so you'll have to continue for me. Do we really care about photo-realism?

RicardoSmith

Theres always been games that emphasis graphics over gameplay. But the great games have great gameplay, not always great graphics. Very poor graphics can interfer with gamplay too so theres a balance to be stuck.

stevenmu

It actually kinda reminds me of the cosmetics industry, we're being convinced that we need something that we don't nessecarily want all that much. Just as we've all seen stunning looking girls, further enhanced with a little makeup tastefully done, compared to ..erm.. less stunning girls with inches of makeup slabbed on, we also have great games made even better by good graphics where it's appropriate to compare to pieces of s**t that have 'photorealistic' graphics.

Kristok

At some point photo realism will kill the consoles and graphics card markets.

Jimi-Spandex

Good post OP. Apologies for length of this post, if you are lazy skip to the bold bit at the end.

I think that this pursuit of "photo realism" is a bit misguided. This standard of looks will suit certain genre's, tactical FPS type games, racing games etc but still only on the simulation sides of these genres. These are the areas most likely to find it useful.

There is a lot to be said for the importance of art direction/style in games as opposed to merely bumping up the poly count/whatever it is those boffins do. I fell that a coherent visual style or ethic adds more to the game "experience" than realism per se.

That said, realism undeniably adds to the whole sim experience and definitely improves it, mostly because the whole point of a sim is of course, realism in every aspect of it's presentation. Personally speaking, I've never really been interested in the simulation side of things. I've tried to persevere with the likes of GT just to see what the fuss is about but frankly to me it just feels more like a chore than a game. To me the "simulation" side of gaming, and by that I mean those whose objective is "realism" as opposed to "fun", is frankly boring.

For games to have that immersive quality for me it helps that it doesn't look like "Generic FPS 4: Haha! You payed $50 for this!" but has it's own character, now while the technology advances this does open up more doors making it possible that they can actually put on screen what originally started in the developers head, unfortunately alot of developers don't seem to have the balls to take the chance to develop something a bit different looking.

To sum up: Better graphics are good because they can open up more possibilities to realise the developers original vision, but due to the very large financial risks involved in large development projects I can't see it happening too often

That post was a tad incoherent methinks. Ah well.

Cake Fiend

Well, when photorealistic computer graphics are the standard, hopefully designers will have to rely on gameplay to sell games again.

KdjaCL

All well and good having a gigaflop and a 1024mb gpu but if the games are ****e who cares.

Gameplay will always win over graphics but some people wont play a game cos it looks ****.

kdjac

Zillah

Jimi-Spandex wrote:

if you are lazy skip to the bold bit at the end.

I love you.