BEHOLD!! Not my preview!! New Screens!!

[Valamyr]

I disagree with claims regarding the uncanny valley. In fact, I think the phenomenon is overblown, and is not and will not be a significant factor in video game development.

 

Whats slowing the growth of 3D is in large part the fact that current consoles (esp. the 360) are late in their lifecycle, which promote games that don't use the full power of today's high end GPUs. Same thing with online games that promote lower specs in the name of broader approachability.

 

There are definitely games out on the market that blow Skyrim out of the water in terms of graphics (both PS3 and of course PC), and I'm sure that as a next-gen title on a new crop of consoles, TES6 will be a huge leap forward compared to this. We will hit a wall in terms of GPU power curve growth FAR before we run out desire to make games better looking. As for stylizied games, such as cartoony titles, their use is to reduce the amount of polygons used to make games easier to run, certainly not to avoid the "uncanny valley".

 

One thing we need to keep in mind with Skyrim is that wide open worlds demand a greater variety of assets than very focused titles, and have correspondingly greater needs for ram and vram, and development time. So its not totally reasonable to expect Skyrim to be the most beautiful game ever, but thats due to hardware limitations, not the uncanny valley. It's still very good looking for a 360 title.

 

But if someone says this is as good as its going to get, please, do save this thread in a notepad somewhere and look at it three years from now ;)

Edited October 19, 2011 by Valamyr

[Vagrant0]

As for stylizied games, such as cartoony titles, their use is to reduce the amount of polygons used to make games easier to run, certainly not to avoid the "uncanny valley".

Yes, and no. Stylized games are not trying to avoid an uncanny valley intentionally, but use their stylized graphics to promote a certain aesthetic. However, in most cases this certain aesthetic allows them greater freedom in portraying their environment outside the limitations of how photo-realistic one can make something. Once you accept that an environment won't ever be close enough to reality as you would like, you can start distracting from the realism of it, making things which aren't possible, applying a certain appearance to things to emphasize one aspect over others, and well... have fun with it.

 

It's much the same way that Realism and Impressionism led to the explosion of artistic styles of the 1900s, and why Realism in general has fallen out of favor among artists. Even the best works or Realism don't capture as much detail of a given scene as a photograph. Even Photorealism as art didn't seek to paint reality so much as paint an impression of reality.

 

 

As for the hardware thing... Yes, to a degree consoles have held back PC graphics... But even PC graphics have not had many hardware improvements in the last 6 years. Furthermore, PC exclusive titles have not really accomplished anything so far visually beyond console ports once you factor in things like total scene resource demands. It's nice to say "games" in a general sense can look better... But which games exactly are these that, by your definition are above and beyond the level of these "console ports that are holding back the industry"? If it's a universal amount of being held back, even among PC exclusives, then we aren't talking about any factor specific to consoles, but rather hardware advancements in general or the developers wishes to adopt them purely for the sake of visual fidelity. I probably don't need to remind you that the economic situation of the last 6+ years has had a dramatic impact on how much money publishers are wanting to toss at game production. Economic factors alone have been enough to stifle advancements in the past... Like how The crash of 1983 pretty much killed the industry until consoles as we recognize them came onto the scene.

[Valamyr]

GPUs have improved tremendously nonetheless. High end GPUs continue to grow at a rate far beyond the growth of CPU calculation power even if extremely few titles even attempt to take advantage of the fact. Looking at the specs of a GTX580 and comparing it to say, a 7900GTX, which is the equivalent of what we have in a 360, its blown out of the water. Comparatively, CPU progression has been more moderate, as it's running into various physical barriers (transistors arent going to become much smaller, etc)

 

And since the trend seems to continue, regardless of how well the game industry translates this amazing potential into beautiful games, we can at least be certain that we'll see huge strides sooner or later just because the horsepower is there. Near-photorealism is something we'll see in coming years, and I'm willing to bet nobody will say 'Oh gee, uncanny valley! Lets go back to 2011 graphics!'. People will love it.

 

In the console era, it certainly takes more time for super GPUs to turn into super games and the reality that nobody wants to make a game only 10% of computers will run compound this problem anyway. So the games we play are always behind the tech curve to some degree.... but there'll be catching up sooner or later, and as a fan of technology still amazed by the current rate of development, I can say without a doubt our minds will be blown.

 

In the meantime, we're going to play Skyrim and love it. For various reasons, Skyrim can't and won't be 'Crysis III' in terms of graphics, but if you look back at Oblivion, its certainly a big step forward despite being bound to the same platform.

Edited October 19, 2011 by Valamyr

[El`derina]

okay... i thought Jedi was going overboard with you saying your an idiot an all... but all i had to do was look at what you call ass, and it's obvious that your the ass... seriously? I looked at the first pic, and I refuse to look at your opinion of the rest because your opinion is THAT bad...

 

The people on this forums are very childish...Stating opinions makes people "ass"? Look at that bear/troll and tell me that it doesn't look like ass.

 

This (PS2)

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Alv5uQaDcDs/TjMofkWbqCI/AAAAAAAAG_w/O_tUYANkt78/s400/God-of-War-II-starts-off-on-the-right-note-with-an-epic-boss-battle-featuring-the-Colossus-of-Rhodes-which-last-pretty-much-the-entire-first-level%252CJ-9-94005-13.jpg

 

looks better than the creature in this

 

http://videogamewriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/screenshot_268654_thumb_wide940.jpg

 

That creature's teeth aren't even modeled. They're just textures onto a flat surface....

 

That was the picture and your opinion of it that provoked my response and immediate agreement with Jedi actually,.. but your right, that was childish, my apoligises.

 

Now, Perhaps you should read Vagrant0 post related to your opinion regarding the matter. I was fine with your opinion until you posted examples and it was apparent that you were making very poor comparisons. But then.. that would just be my opinion, >.> (and apparently a few others)

[Sprouts]

Has this ripten fella posted his preview yet?

[ShadowscaleB1980]

As for stylizied games, such as cartoony titles, their use is to reduce the amount of polygons used to make games easier to run, certainly not to avoid the "uncanny valley".

It's much the same way that Realism and Impressionism led to the explosion of artistic styles of the 1900s, and why Realism in general has fallen out of favor among artists. Even the best works or Realism don't capture as much detail of a given scene as a photograph. Even Photorealism as art didn't seek to paint reality so much as paint an impression of reality.

 

 

As a professional photographer I can expand upon this point by saying that even a photograph makes use of creative license, a photograph is a 2D representation of 3D space - everything in a photograph is accurate, none of it is true. Within all modes of expression there are always going to be people who will try to find ways around any limitations imposed by their chosen mode*. Photography works by reduction of the scene to it's key elements, painters work in the opposite direction - additively. Personally I consider all games to be stylised to some degree, some game developers are more subtle about it and some are more overt about about how the game will look, but the important thing is how it suspends belief and makes a connection with its audience.

 

I personally consider KOTOR II to be extremely effective at this - the dialogue, voice acting and a sense of causality within the game world is what makes KOTOR II so effective, the animation isn't anything to write home about, and neither is the texturing...but it works.

 

* especially when taking into account the ubiquitous use of Adobe photoshop amongst professional photographers.

Edited October 19, 2011 by shadow_scale9180

[Tuco404]

I'm surprised a professional gaming artist hasn't come to this thread to respond to / laugh at the accusation that they would be unable to make a better looking object with a higher polygon and texture budget.

 

Has this ripten fella posted his preview yet?

 

Nah. He'll probably never do it. I heard he isn't a real gaming journalist and has never even played Skyrim.

Edited October 19, 2011 by Tuco404

[Vagrant0]

I'm surprised a professional gaming artist hasn't come to this thread to respond to / laugh at the accusation that they would be unable to make a better looking object with a higher polygon and texture budget.

And with infinite time, infinite resources, you could build the entire contents of the library of congress one atom at a time, provided you had a good enough representation. However, infinite time and infinite resources will never exist. Even without infinite time or resources... Better, maybe, but only until someone with a higher budget comes along and has the time or financial budget to make use of it. To put it another way, the definition of good, or better is always based around what was previously achieved, and achieved right. As long as there is any movement, it will appear better than what was before. But the differences between the stages of "better" are getting smaller and smaller.

 

Also, graphics are only one aspect of realism. There's also environment, movement, interaction, reactivity, and unpredictability. Games in general are getting better in those areas, in some cases far faster than graphically... But people keep sticking to this mindset of "if the screenshots don't look better than life, then the game must suck and be a pain to play.". Need I dig up that youtube commentary by some schmuck who spent 10 minutes ranting and criticizing about how rocks were still jagged from the E3 gameplay footage?

[Iv000]

Need I dig up that youtube commentary by some schmuck who spent 10 minutes ranting and criticizing about how rocks were still jagged from the E3 gameplay footage?

This one?

 

:hurr:

[Tuco404]

I'm surprised a professional gaming artist hasn't come to this thread to respond to / laugh at the accusation that they would be unable to make a better looking object with a higher polygon and texture budget.

...

 

But the differences between the stages of "better" are getting smaller and smaller.

...

Need I dig up that youtube commentary by some schmuck who spent 10 minutes ranting and criticizing about how rocks were still jagged from the E3 gameplay footage?

 

Yeah, he complained about a lot of things ( I liked his video a lot). One of which was the polygon count on the rocks. "I don't like what I see on the stone... namely, polygonal edges. Too little detail. I expected somehow the game engine would make use of tesselation" Guess what a higher polygon budget would do for those rocks. Or tesselation/displacement maps.

 

I'm not sure if you've abandoned this point yet

 

Graphically. games won't get much better than they are now because rendering and design limitations are hitting that edge of the Uncanny Valley.

 

But I think you're getting there. Games have a long way to go before they run into any real graphical walls and the biggest impediment is artistic skill (Artists are getting better, especially over the last few years where they've had a stagnant budget), budget (getting bigger every year with the base of gamers increasing) and machine's power (Moore's law holds true today, even if it only has 6 year increments for consoles).

Edited October 19, 2011 by Tuco404