Crytek Dev On Fun vs. Realism In Game Guns 324
An anonymous reader tips a post from Pascal Eggert, a gun enthusiast and Crytek developer, who sheds some light on how weaponry in modern shooters is designed. Quoting:
"Guns in games are like guns in movies: it is all about looks, sounds and clichés. Just like in the movies, games have established a certain perception of weapons in the mind of the public and just like in movies games get almost everything wrong. ... The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment. ... if you want to replicate the looks of something you need to at least see it, but using it is even better. You should hold a gun in your hands, fire it and reload it to understand what does what — and at that point you will realize, there is nothing on it that does not have a function — because guns are tools for professionals. Lot of weapon designers in the game industry get that wrong. They think of guns like products for consumers or magic devices that kill people at a distance when really it's just a simple and elegant mechanism that propels little pieces of metal. Unfortunately 3D artists often only get access to the photos that Google Image Search comes up with if you enter 'future assault rifle' or, even worse, pictures from other games and movies that also got it wrong. This may explain a lot of common visual mistakes in games, especially since guns are mostly photographed from the side and egoshooters show weapons from the first person view."
This article is drawn from his personal experience in the game industry. The images shown are Pascal's personal work and are not related to his work at Crytek.
Unpossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unpossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Shocking isn't it? At least the HL gravity gun was based on solid research.
You must be mistaken. (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot prides itself on the accuracy of its headlines. I don't believe we've had a misleading one since the 2003 incident.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Funny)
Except that the "castle" is a basket mounted on top of an elephant, filled with archers and spearmen, not a fortress designed to tie up enemy troops in sieges. My problem with the realism in chess is that you cannot panic enemy troops and have them attack your their own lines -- panicky elephants/rooks could be really fun :-)
Re:Captain obvious (Score:1, Funny)
Cameras don't kill people. Journalists kill people.
Re:Captain obvious (Score:3, Funny)
Regarding the reload issue, one of my peeves in "realistic shooters" is when you reload your gun, you don't loose the ammo in the magazine.
If you loosed the ammo in the magazine, the ammo would fall out!
Re:What utter bullshit (Score:3, Funny)
There are a lot of professional tools in a gun shop.
Re:Maybe... (Score:3, Funny)
So it has potential as an MBA teaching tool, then?