Not impressed with modern graphics

[BlackAdderBG]

Except 2-3 years old strategy games like Shogun and Wargame having more impressive graphic engines with hundreds of units on screen or Arma and Stalker

all cutscenes are rendered on game engine (which means what you see in cutscenes is what console needs to render)

 

[A horse of course]

This is joke right?First one is tech demo with UI slapped on top,second is per-rendered cutsceene and last is 30fps driving game.

And all of them are couple of interactable objects moving thru corridors.

Fist one is alpha of deep down played by actual people.
Second is The Order in which all cutscenes are rendered on game engine (which means what you see in cutscenes is what console needs to render)
Last one is really really really really good loking 30fps driving game that you can play today

Like it or not those are the best looking games that came out or be coming out closely in few months and there doesn't seem to be anything on horizon that can match them.

TW3 seems to look good but will be uneven like most of open world games

Literally every single "nextgen" game that has actually been released went through a mysterious visual "downgrade" - AA was removed, the resolution was lowered, physics were simplified, particle effects were scaled back, LoD scaling became more aggressive, foilage was reduced, entire models were replaced, etc. - between the time it was showcased at controlled events like E3 and TGS, and when it was released to the public: Killzone Shadowfall, Infamous 3, Watch Doges, Assassin's Creed Unity, Dead Rising 3, Dark Souls 2, Far Cry 4, Halo 1-4 HD and so on. And those are just games that have actually been released. Deep Down's original reveal and the most recent TGS trailer look completely different. The Order 1866 is clearly using less detailed models in more recent footage, not to mention the fact that a quarter of the damn screen is cut off by "cinematic" black bars. Bloodborne has also taken a hit (and still runs at something like 20fps, based off the 18m footage). Uncharted 4 reveal was totally legit and we just changed the time of day, honest guys.

"In-engine" or "in-game engine" are universally regarded as obfuscations for "tech demo", which is a worthless illustration of hardware capabilities for actual gameplay. There are PS3 tech demos and pre-2006 nvidia/radeon GPU test drives that still look better than modern graphics.

Racing games have always pushed the boundaries of graphics for obvious reasons (and recent titles were STILL downgraded from their original trailers).

Face it, everything is shit

 

[Kem0sabe]

Driveclub? Hahahahaha

 

[Perkel]

Literally every single "nextgen" game that has actually been released went through a mysterious visual "downgrade" - AA was removed, the resolution was lowered, physics were simplified, particle effects were scaled back, LoD scaling became more aggressive, foilage was reduced, entire models were replaced, etc. - between the time it was showcased at controlled events like E3 and TGS, and when it was released to the public: Killzone Shadowfall, Infamous 3, Watch Doges, Assassin's Creed Unity, Dead Rising 3, Dark Souls 2, Far Cry 4, Halo 1-4 HD and so on. And those are just games that have actually been released. Deep Down's original reveal and the most recent TGS trailer look completely different. The Order 1866 is clearly using less detailed models in more recent footage, not to mention the fact that a quarter of the damn screen is cut off by "cinematic" black bars. Bloodborne has also taken a hit (and still runs at something like 20fps, based off the 18m footage). Uncharted 4 reveal was totally legit and we just changed the time of day, honest guys.

Those gifs which i posted are real. Not faked. You can argue about "cinematics" and so on but we don't talk here about gameplay or games content but purely about graphic and graphic progress.

Not a single one of games i mentioned is something i actually want to play. I's rather spend my time playing Assetto Corsa than Driveclub.

 

[Declinator]

Like it or not those are the best looking games that came out or be coming out closely in few months and there doesn't seem to be anything on horizon that can match them.

How about Project Cars:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G--dcN7nWwo&t=0m24s

 

[Perkel]

Looks good but not Driveclub good. They target 60FPS which means they couldn't put as much as driveclub.
It has PC version but since they build one game as multiplatform they couldn't go wild on PC. And they still have racing games trick problem which driveclub doesn't have environments being on other level than cars.

This is what i mean by driveclub environments (all from gtplanet driveclub thread)

 

[Perkel]

hell now i want to play assetto corsa.. ehhh gotta set up my g25..

 

[Machocruz]

Most recent Deep Down play footage showed noticeable downgrading. Light and shadow contrast looks to be a consistent fumble lately. They're showing these deep, black shadows in reveal footage, then we get washed out final product. That amounts to a significant hit in art direction for some of these games.

Anyway, Persona 5 trailer came out and blew new gen away in the art department using style and color. Even if you hate animu, you have to admit it stands out.

 

[Perkel]

Most recent Deep Down play footage showed noticeable downgrading. Light and shadow contrast looks to be a consistent fumble lately. They're showing these deep, black shadows in reveal footage, then we get washed out final product. That amounts to a significant hit in art direction for some of these games.

Anyway, Persona 5 trailer came out and blew new gen away in the art department using style and color. Even if you hate animu, you have to admit it stands out.

Making shadows and dark places dark isn't a problem.
Problem is when you tell players to play in that dark as night corridors and they can't see shit.

I prefer dark nights being dark but you can't really find 3D game with some sort of exploration beside maybe amnesia that has actually dark places being dark.

 

[Machocruz]

Making shadows and dark places dark isn't a problem.
Problem is when you tell players to play in that dark as night corridors and they can't see shit.

I didn't see this problem in the early Deep Down or Bloodborne footage. The only game I played where darkness obscured direction was Shadow Tower Abyss, and that is because of lack of light contrast.

It's obvious where the path leads in this picture. Now you wouldn't paint your entire environment in shadows these deep, but I was talking about contrast, not coverage.

 

[Perkel]

Making shadows and dark places dark isn't a problem.
Problem is when you tell players to play in that dark as night corridors and they can't see shit.

I didn't see this problem in the early Deep Down or Bloodborne footage.

Deep Down is considered to be dudebro medieval F2P action RPG which i presume is created for retards that don't want to double check every shadow because they can't see shit.

 

[Siobhan]

Anyway, Persona 5 trailer came out and blew new gen away in the art department using style and color. Even if you hate animu, you have to admit it stands out.

Not quite sure what you find so impressive about the art design. The trailer is standard anime with a veneer of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Beck - Mongolian Chop Squad. There's also a dash of Killer 7 and the menu theme from Evil Genius. Maybe not a very common style for video games, but not exactly what I'd call inspired. Now if the mixing of realistic and more stylized art will be tied into the gameplay in some way that would be quite something, but the trailer suggests nothing like that.

 

[Metro]

Wasn't Derp Down announced like... three fucking years ago? Seems like it. Anyway, most modern games hold this axiom: the prettier the graphics the shittier the gameplay.

 

[Perkel]

Wasn't Derp Down announced like... three fucking years ago? Seems like it. Anyway, most modern games hold this axiom: the prettier the graphics the shittier the gameplay.

True to that. Crysis was definition of that.

 

[Machocruz]

Not quite sure what you find so impressive about the art design. The trailer is standard anime with a veneer of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and Beck - Mongolian Chop Squad. There's also a dash of Killer 7 and the menu theme from Evil Genius. Maybe not a very common style for video games, but not exactly what I'd call inspired. Now if the mixing of realistic and more stylized art will be tied into the gameplay in some way that would be quite something, but the trailer suggests nothing like that.

Every thing from the menus to color palette to animation oozes style compared to anything coming out of new gen. Did Evil Genius have menus with characters whose bodies flowed from one pose to another as you leafed through them? What new gen games are doing anything visually interesting at all with interface. How many new gen games have anything but the most conventional third-person camera placement i.e. we never see anything but the characters backside during play? How many are doing anything more than "How real can we make this look?"

When an effort is made at all, it's not hard to blow away the field or stand out. I travel in several creative scenes, and people are talking about the trailer, whether they be graphic designers, illustrators, art directors, film and video directors.

 

[Metro]

Oh and apparently Deep Down is going to be F2P? What the fuck?

 

[Perkel]

Oh and apparently Deep Down is going to be F2P? What the fuck?

Yeah it will be online only F2P game. Remember that this is not created by capcom but capcom online something it is under capcom but they only do online games.

F2P scheme is not yet reveled but it will be F2P which probably means shit

 

[Tehdagah]

Wasn't Derp Down announced like... three fucking years ago? Seems like it. Anyway, most modern games hold this axiom: the prettier the graphics the shittier the gameplay.

True to that. Crysis was definition of that.

Stop playing it on the Normal difficulty.

 

[Metro]

 

[Tehdagah]

Crysis 2

 

[baturinsky]

I, for one, was impressed with Dishonored graphics.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

So when non lethal runs became negative?
Also they should had made you die faster so you can enjoy the masterpiece gameplay of going behind wall and poping them moles.

 

[Siobhan]

I travel in several creative scenes, and people are talking about the trailer, whether they be graphic designers, illustrators, art directors, film and video directors.

Fair enough, I have no formal training in graphics or design whatsoever, so I'm happy to concede that the art style may feature some impressive bells and whistles that my plebeian eye can't pick up on. That said, a game is not an art book, the first criterion is how the art style benefits the gameplay, just like a movie's cinematography should complement the narrative rather than just look fancy (Zack Snyder syndrome). So I don't see the point of "menus with characters whose bodies flow from one pose to another as you leaf through them". What I would find noteworthy:

- a modern stealth game that makes heavy use of dynamic lighting, realistic shadows, physically accurate reflections, but also deliberately ornate and lavish interior design, all of which can make it a lot harder for the player to move around undetected and find secrets and loot
- a Lovecraftian horror game where the art style becomes increasingly erratic, sketchy and disorienting as the player descends into madness (Malkavian run of VtMB meets A Scanner Darkly)
- a dungeon crawl through ancient ruins of a lost civilization whose rise and eventual demise is told in a completely non-verbal fashion via wall murals, sculptures, relics, fossils, and even differences in architecture, with the majority of puzzles and riddles revolving around these artefacts

Also, good art design for games doesn't need to look particularly stylish. Outcast doesn't have an extravagant or highly abstracted style, but it does an excellent job creating a cohesive yet genuinely alien world (partially due to the fact that voxel engines look very unusual to the polygon-trained eye). Alpha Centauri's eye cancer inducing color palette still effectively conveys which areas are more dangerous than others (neon purple fungus fields vs lush forest tiles with a river).

I know I'm mixing up a lot of things here that should be kept separate --- enabling new gameplay styles, effectively conveying information, art design VS graphics engine --- but the bottom line is that if Persona 5's art direction turns out to be just style without substance, then I will rank it just as low as any other AAA game that doesn't even try to look unique.

 

[Skunkpew]

 

[Nomad_Blizz]

Some older games like GTA IV looks downright amazing when modded: http://imgur.com/a/DKK1O

I agree however, that devs should focus more on art style and less on realism cause they actually make it harder to see (e.g. Battlefield) and tax the gpu.