3D graphics aging faster?

[Erwin_Br]

Although people have discussed 3D graphics and the adventure genre over and over again, I've never seen anyone mentioning the idea of 2D graphic's being timeless, as opposed to 3D graphics.

I'm not talking about pre-rendered 3D graphics, such as Grim Fandango or EMI, because technically that doesn't count. (You don't need a fancy 3D accelerator card to show pre-rendered 3D artwork)

Anyway, as our 3D cards are getting more advanced so are 3D games. More poly's, bigger play area's, it's getting better and better. Hence, when looking back at older games their graphic's seem to get worse with the year. Graphics as seen in Simon the Sorceror 3D are downright horrible (it's technology was already far behind at the time when it was released, though)

Of course 2D games are aging too, we went from 16 colours to 256 and eventually millions of colours. Not to mention going from 320x240 pixels to 640x480, etc.

Personally I'm never bothered by MI2's mere 256 colours and it's resolution of 320x480 pixels. It's graphic's are hand-drawn, making it timeless IMHO.

So what's your opinion? Are 3D graphics for adventures aging faster for you too or do they age as quickly as 2D graphics do?

Discussss ;)

--Erwin

[justG]

Yes.. 3D graphics age far more quickly. 2D graphics are, for me, timeless.

[Henke]

:rolleyes:


Come on now and think for a moment.

If we step back a little more in time we will find that there was a time when computers couldn't handle hand-drawned pictures because there would be to many pixels. But as time went on we could get 256 colors in 320x480 pixels (WOW!!! :9~ ). But the technology has never stopped (and probably never will) so now we can make 3D graphics (WOW!!! :9~ ). When 3D was relatively new games in 2D looked better because a flatt image takes less computer power then one made in three dimensions (there for one could make it look nicer and it would still run all right). But now we can make 3D look equally great and because of the many options it opens up we can make it look even better.

But I fully agree that graphics as well as games can be timeless basicly because they are made so damn good. But graphicalbeauty in games doesn't lie in the ability to use the latest technology. It is a matter of using the latest technology in the best way possible. BTW Monkey Island 2 is one of my alltime favourite games (and that goes for game as well as graphics).

[James]

this could be said to be true, if the games had scaling resolutions. as it stands something like blade runner is just a mess of pixels on modern screen resolutions. its hardly a good argument in favour of 2d gaming. 3d games grow outdated with the march of technology, but are still playable. something like somi is still playable thanks to scummvm and windowed playing. sure 3d graphics will age compared to the cutting edge, but given current graphic capacity, see uru, will look as good, if not better than 2d pre-renders.

[Nellie]

I think it's true that in a lot of cases 3D graphics have aged more than 2D, but I don't think that's because of the technology. It's a matter of style, I think.

As I see it, when a game's graphics are drawn in an unrealistic style, it ages less for us because we are not unconciously comparing it to reality. Conversely, when a game's graphics are supposed to look as realistic as possible, we're more aware of where it looks bad or 'wrong' because we're surrounded by reality every day of our lives.

This is why when I look at Mosely in GK3, I'm thinking: "Damn, those arms look wrong - too stumpy...", but when I look at Laverne in Dott I'm not thinking: "Damn, those eyes look wrong - too big..." GK3 tries to look realistic and inevitably doesn't measure up to what I see every day, whereas Dott doesn't try to look realistic and so doesn't have to measure up to what I see every day.

And of course there are a hell of a lot more games with 3D graphics that try to look as realistic as possible than 2D games that do the same. In fact, the desire to make 3D graphics come as close to reality as possible is pretty widespread and longstanding, but I've never heard of any such desire for 2D graphics. It follows that there will naturally be more 3D games that look 'wrong' to us through all the little steps that have been made in the quest for greater reality, and so there are more that feel dated to us.

In summary: sure, when I look at GK3 or the original Tomb Raider the graphics have aged considerably in my eyes, but when I look at Grim Fandango or Mario 64, I don't see any ageing at all - they look as timeless to me as MI2 or Simon the Sorceror 1. It's not the technology, it's the style.

[remixor]

I think that in both 2d and 3d, there is a different approximate point in time at which each will start to become "timeless." I agree that 2d is more timeless than 3d at the moment, but we are talking about 2d basically after about 1989 or so. The graphics of games before then (I'm not talking about the games themselves) are not particularly timeless, in my opinion. Think about games like King's Quest 1 or Space Quest 1. Those are the equivalent of today's EMI, whose graphics DO look dated because they are still in early incarnations of their respective dimensions. However, we have MI2 in 1991 with higher resolution and more colors; at that point the technology had reached a point that is obviously inferior to the 2d of today but which still has ENOUGH technology such that it can establish a firm style without looking like it's "compromising" (original intent of the designers notwithstanding). Games like BS3 and Uru are among the first in the adventure genre at least, to really pioneer real-time 3d graphics that will be timeless. It's silly to think graphics won't get better--they will, and fast--but I think we can be confident that they will never look "crappy", which is what I think of when I look at your average 2d game of 1985.

That being said, I think a huge challenge of 3d at this point is style. It seems like just about all real-time 3d games strive for absolute realism, or at least as close as they can come to it. There's nothing wrong with this, obviously--we've seen excellent results in the aformentioned BS3 and Uru. One can say things like "Well, Uru has all these fantastical landscapes and bizarre technologies that it depicts!" and yes, that's true, but it still depicts them in a realistic way, that is, as they would truly appear if they were real. On the other hand, in 2d it is quite possible to take both routes equally well--compare the realistic and beautiful Fate of Atlantis to the unrealistic and beautiful Day of the Tentacle.

It's quite possible (and also quite likely) that 3d adventure games will some day reach a point where they can be as stylistically varied as 2d adventure games, but I don't think we're there yet. On the other hand, I DO think we're entering an era in which 3d graphics can indeed be "timeless."

[Intrepid Homoludens]

3D graphics will eventually reach the state of aesthetic crystallization that 2D had achieved years ago. We're already witnessing this process with titles like realMyst, Uru, and the impressionistic ICO, but it still has a long way to go. Ultimately, however, it's all in the hands and vision of the artists, not the programmers and other technicians who specialize in 3D, who can only do so much.

It also depends on the overall design of the game itself. Have any of you played Thief: The Dark Project? The graphics were rather outdated already at the time it was released, yet it was critically acclaimed for its gameplay and atmosphere. After only an hour of playing Thief, you'll forget the graphics and find yourself practically sinking into the depths of the gameworld. This, to me, is the most potent test of any game. Immersiveness and fun are not, and should never be, limited to graphics alone.

[remixor]

I agree with Trep's post, and (to clarify) I hope I wasn't giving off the impression that I felt graphics are what make a game timeless. Gameplay and immersiveness are most definitely the key factors; graphics was just the scope of this thread so it's what I talked about. All clear!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Graphics is simply the window into the gameworld.

[zarathustrian]

as it stands something like blade runner is just a mess of pixels on modern screen resolutions. its hardly a good argument in favour of 2d gaming. To be fair, the characters in Blade Runner were incredibly pixelated (when enlarged in the scene--when they were at the "standard" distance from the camera they looked fine) even by the standards when the game was released. They could have done a better job of scaling them.

[The Poisoned Pawn]

To be fair, the characters in Blade Runner were incredibly pixelated (when enlarged in the scene--when they were at the "standard" distance from the camera they looked fine) even by the standards when the game was released. They could have done a better job of scaling them."Incredibly pixelated" is an understatement.

[remixor]

I just started Blade Runner last week and honestly I didn't think the characters looked that bad...

[Tanukitsune]

One of my mottos is:
"Its not the graphics, its the gameplay"
I never cared about graphics, when I played Monkey Island I(Disquette version) I was horrified by the music not the graphic, but just because I was so used to the CD rom versions music...
Graphics may impress me at first, but soon I just forget about them when I've been playing for a while...
But I also think Nellie is right, the more real the graphics look, the more we compare them with reality...
But Henke is right too, just look at Mystery House Roberta Williams 1st game and the first game with graphics I think, I looks like something a 3 year old, but I'm still impressed by it... (How powerfull were computers back then, like a calculator, maybe?)
But it does seem that graphics are very important to new generation gamers, and some companies use "purdy" graphics to distract the player from noticing how good/bad the game really is... Just look at the DOA Volley game for the XBox, its just a bikini parade! But the bikinis are so distracting that nobody cared about the game itslef... :o
But I think we prefer 2d out of nostalgia, it reminds me of the time when games were made by people who cared about the games and not about making a fortune... :frown:
My "perfect" 2d game graphic wise would be Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, but how would the perfect 3d game graphic wise be? VR, i guess...
But there is one thing I noticed, the "gap" between new graphic cards is harder to notice, the difference form a TSR-80 and a PCJr is huge, but now whats the difference between you graphic card thats kinda new to the newest one? Does it make the graphic more real? Sometimes I barely notice...

[remixor]

the difference form a TSR-80 and a PCJr is huge, but now whats the difference between you graphic card thats kinda new to the newest one? Does it make the graphic more real? Sometimes I barely notice...

Well, yeah, but you're talking about the difference between entire systems and the difference between one component of a system.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

I think it's true that in a lot of cases 3D graphics have aged more than 2D, but I don't think that's because of the technology. It's a matter of style, I think.....It's not the technology, it's the style.

Yep, this is what I meant when I stated that "it's all in the hands and vision of the artists, not the programmers and other technicians who specialize in 3D, who can only do so much."

As I see it, when a game's graphics are drawn in an unrealistic style, it ages less for us because we are not unconciously comparing it to reality. Conversely, when a game's graphics are supposed to look as realistic as possible, we're more aware of where it looks bad or 'wrong' because we're surrounded by reality every day of our lives.

And of course there are a hell of a lot more games with 3D graphics that try to look as realistic as possible than 2D games that do the same. In fact, the desire to make 3D graphics come as close to reality as possible is pretty widespread and longstanding, but I've never heard of any such desire for 2D graphics. It follows that there will naturally be more 3D games that look 'wrong' to us through all the little steps that have been made in the quest for greater reality, and so there are more that feel dated to us.

Yep, very good point. The more realistic looking a game becomes, the more it must rely on the quality of its key elements - gameplay, story, character complexities, details, atmosphere, etc. - to sustain it beyond its aesthetic expiration date.

[Tanukitsune]

Well, yeah, but you're talking about the difference between entire systems and the difference between one component of a system.
OK, bad choice, how about the difference from a EGA and VGA graphics?

[Igor]

"Its not the graphics, its the gameplay" might be true to some point, but at the same time, the look of games is always the most debatable thing on forums- this speak for itself :)
In my opinion it's not important how beautiful graphics are, but how appropriate they are. That's the only reason why we still love graphics in first Monkey Island games. They might not be technicaly advanced, but they create perfect atmosphere. That's what matters.

3d games, on the other hand, are right now entering the stage equal to the era of 320x200 and 256 color 2d games. They will look dated in a couple of years, but because of style (that is slowly working its way through technical limitations), they will be still enjoyable in years to come. I'd say ICO is without a doubt one of such games.

[Erwin_Br]

OK, bad choice, how about the difference from a EGA and VGA graphics?

I agree that graphics aren't the key element of a succesful adventure game, but they do contribute to the atmosphere. Furthermore, I think the better a game looks the more you're willing to forget minor flaws.

The first impression always lasts. I mean, when you start playing a new game you can't really say much about it's story, puzzles, dialogues and characters yet. The only thing you have is graphics, music and sound: the rest comes later.

--Erwin

[twifkak]

Graphics is simply the window into the gameworld.
Careful, there...

[Marek]

If 3D ages more quickly that's usually the fault of the artist, not the programmer of the engine. Simon the Sorcerer 3D is as ugly as a monkey's ass, but only so because of the artists. So I agree with everyone who said things along those lines.

As for how 3D is maturing as a technology, pretty soon polygons are not going to matter anymore. In about two years we'll have so many polygons, and so many level-of-detail technologies, that they are no longer an issue at all. In fact, we might soon be talking about millions of polygons per scene, so much so that there'll be nearly a polygon for every pixel on the screen. Photorealism has already been achieved in pre-rendered 3D, and will be attainable in real-time in about five years. It's really closer than you might think.

Soon 3D will have reached a point equivalent to "true color" for 2D. When that's happened, artists will gain more influence over programmers, and we'll start seeing a broader range of styles.

[Nellie]

Just an addendum: Blade Runner's graphics are a bit of a curve-ball in the 2D graphics debate...

The characters were drawn with voxels, and the designers used voxels that were bigger than individual pixels for extra speed, which is why the characters look blurry up close.

[Erwin_Br]

If 3D ages more quickly that's usually the fault of the artist, not the programmer of the engine. Simon the Sorcerer 3D is as ugly as a monkey's ass, but only so because of the artists. So I agree with everyone who said things along those lines.

That doesn't always have to be the case, Marek.

I mean, artists are bound by the capabilities of the 3D engine. It's up to the artist to get the most out if this engine (so here we agree) but I'm not sure if the artists are the ones to blame for the horrible Simon 3D graphics, for example. I mean, what could you possibly improve on a character that only consists of 10 poly's (ok, I exaggerate) Not to mention the lack of proper shading and light effects. The programmer of the engine is to blame here, IMO.

But in other cases you're right, like the sometimes awful texturing in Gabriel Knight 3. Surely that's not the programmers fault.

--Erwin

[twifkak]

To nitpick, and ignore the larger issues... (The usual, Sam.)

In fact, we might soon be talking about millions of polygons per scene, so much so that there'll be nearly a polygon for every pixel on the screen. Photorealism has already been achieved in pre-rendered 3D, and will be attainable in real-time in about five years. It's really closer than you might think.
Photorealism of a still requires at least a polygon per pixel (because flat is very rare), and photorealism in motion requires at least a magnitude greater. Moreover, while that covers the geometry, there is quite a bit involved in lighting: so far, we've been faking local illumination pretty harshly, and haven't even gotten to covering global illumination in realtime.

Soon 3D will have reached a point equivalent to "true color" for 2D. When that's happened, artists will gain more influence over programmers, and we'll start seeing a broader range of styles.
I started to ramble about gamuts and HDRI, but then I realized noone would care. ;) I may later return to the "artists gain more influence over programmers" subject (whether it's feasible, desirable, etc.).. but not now. :P

[remixor]

Soon 3D will have reached a point equivalent to "true color" for 2D. When that's happened, artists will gain more influence over programmers, and we'll start seeing a broader range of styles.

I don't agree with the entirety of Marek's post, but the above quote is essentially exactly what I was saying in a more concise form.

[Marek]

The Simon 3D engine is fine. In fact I think they used it for a while for the Call of Ctulhu games they did later on, and they look very good.

http://i2r.rusfund.ru/static/538/imgs/quests/sts4.jpg
Look, that's just the result of a total absense of art direction. Windows 95 has better textures for the desktop wallpaper! They could have at least tried to develop a consistent and interesting style for this game. It's totally possible to do that even when the engine is so-so. I don't see how the artists should not get all the blame for Simon 3D :)

I would have liked to see them do better (ho-ho!)

Anyway, about photorealism. There's not really a definition of that term, but I say when you can take a screenshot of a game, and the untrained eye can mistake it for the real thing, it's photorealistic. So something along the lines of Final Fantasy: The Movie, I guess? That's going to be possible in real-time very soon (about 10 years I would guess). In about 5 years from now, polygon count will gradually stop being relevant, and the increasing processing powers of the CPU and video cards can be put to use for lighting and complex shaders.

I've seen some real-time demos of HDRI that ran well on a 2 gigahertz computer. Granted, it was only a house with some glass tables and windows, and a glass sphere in the middle, but it was totally realistic and could have easily been mistaken for the real thing, even though the underlying models might not have been that detailed. Assuming Moore's 'law' will continue as usual, we should be able to do that kind of stuff about two id software productions down the line. That's just my guess, so feel free to debunk that if you have any facts.

By the way, I always welcome discussion on HDRI. If you have any links to impressive demos or videos let me know, cause I'm really really interested in this tech. It's just so freaking gorgeous.

[twifkak]

If you have a Radeon 9700+, you can get a realtime HDRI demo from ATi's webpage. Other than that, I don't know. I've recommended this page (http://graphics.ucsd.edu/~henrik/) for cool graphics movies and stills, and I'll do it again, but I don't think it has any HDRI. Honestly, I don't know anything about HDRI. I know that it obviously requires floating point internals rather than the current fixed point standard (floating point is slower, but allows the "infinite" range of values). I don't know how they make that cool shiny blurry effect, and if it's principled or faked.

On gamuts, that's just to say that certain shades of visible light (a certain green, I think) aren't representable on RGB that are representable on film. A further range isn't even representable on film. Remember, when your eye sees light, it basically sees a continuous spectrum of all visible frequencies of light in different proportions, and the reason we can't really notice when our monitors and TVs only output a grand total of 3 frequencies is that those are the only 3 freqs that our rods (or cones, I forget) can detect in any sort of abundance. We have rods (or cones) that can detect other frequencies of light, but they're not in much abundance in our eye. Also, 1)IIRC, the exact freq that you can see differs from person to person, and 2)it's rumored that some people can see a fourth color, though all we've got is anecdotes and theoretical plausibility. In any case, I'm no expert, so don't take my word.