Do Videogames Need More Graphical Grit? 105
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing whether some recent videogames, such as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, look "too sterile and perfect" . The author explains: "The animation is fine but the world Snake runs through is too sharp edged. There's no dirt and grime in the graphics because they're perfect versions of what was seen in the original game. Somehow, these better graphics have detracted somewhat from my opinion of the newer game." He continues: "DOOM 3, for as great as it looks, suffers from a lack of grit in still shots. I'm hoping the final game will not have the plastic look of the current pictures. Even the highly polished Quake III Arena didn't come across as being plastic to me." Do other gamers share this perception of graphical sterility in some recent games?
Games need a dirt filter (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:3, Insightful)
Notice how it's usually real-time 3D that looks a little too pristine. Pre-rendered stuff tends to look much more realistic (look at Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0 on the GameCube to see what I mean - the backgrounds are gorgeous and realistically dirty where applicable). I'm not saying that it's only 3D games that do this; it's even rare in 2D games where dirt can be represented as easily as swapping the colors on a sprite. It's a matter of developers not paying attention to the same details
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:5, Interesting)
"Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human "look" . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete."
The website explains it very well, with helpful graphs. Basically, people are willing to accept unrealistic portrayal of a 'live' thing (teddy bears or straight animation). As you approach actual photo-realism people continue to accept the visual as looking 'good'. Take Toy Story or Finding Nemo for examples. But then there is a sudden dropoff where the object looks real enough to be creepy, but not real enough to be convincing. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within arguably suffered from this.
Relating it to videogames, Mario was only the vaguest representation of 'reality' and everyone was fine accepting this jumping 2D. figure. No one was saying the graphics in Mario were disturbing or whatever. Leap forward to Mario 64, and it's still cartoon-ish enough that it doesn't look weird. But games are beginning to reach the Uncanny Valley where they are real enough to be disturbingly lifelike, but where the movement animation and graphics aren't actually realistic enough to jump out of the Uncanny Valley.
This isn't directly related to what the article is talking about, as this is more about movement animation than the environment of the game world, but it's on the same topic. Games are becoming real enough that we're beginning to have problems with the discrepancies between game and reality. No one complained Mario 64 or Sonic or Final Fantasy VII looked 'unrealistic' because they were clearly only attempts to model and emulate specific parts of reality, to give an idea of the world rather than model every single blade of grass. But as graphics attempt to move towards modeling every single blade of grass they suffer the danger of hitting this Uncanny Vally wall.
-Trillian
Re: Uhhhhhhhh that's convoluted (Score:1, Insightful)
A game like Mario is cartoony. Even Mario Sunshine with its ultra cool water effects and slick graphics is still designed to be a cartoony game, and therefore no one is going to be bothered by how clean it look.
The problem is with games that attempt to mimic reality. 3D artists work hard to re-create real-world environments and objects, but the problem is that artists have to conciously remind th
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with you that this thing doesn't apply to video games - everything's either scripted or such basic movement that nobody really cares enough to get freaked out by their closeness to humans (though they can freak us out for other reasons such as jumping out from hiding, etc., but that
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:2)
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:2)
I disagree. Probably I was too vague about it, so here are some examples.
As I said, one of the reasons we don't like computer humans is that they are poorly done. But I didn't mean uncanny valley-style disgust or fear, I meant that when you play some extremely poorly done game, you are just disgusted by the game.
But the real argument was that some objects/creatures look scary not because they are too similar to humans, but because they are specifically
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:1)
However, the symptoms of which you speak show a relationship to those of the valley: playing on humans' fear of abnormal portrayals of other humans. The uncanny valley results in the same thing, though unintentionally: robots will freak people out because they look like zombies, even though they are trying to portray normal humans. So, in essence, zombies are a good way to cause us to fear in games because
Re:Games need a dirt filter (Score:3, Interesting)
Screenshots [ign.com]
Realism (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Realism (Score:2, Informative)
Blame Direct X (Score:5, Insightful)
Reflections are rarely perfect. What a lot of these new games need to take the edge off is a blurred reflection.
Here's a test render I did a while back comparing hard & soft reflections: Chrome_Soft_test.jpg [chromecow.com]
Much like chrome was a craze back in the early days of pre-rendered CGI, these hard reflections in real-time graphics are about to jump the shark.
Re:Blame Direct X (Score:2)
Re:Blame Direct X (Score:2)
Re:Blame Direct X (Score:2)
But I'll file "Bloody Gore-Ball" away for another day.
Re:Blame Direct X (Score:2)
Now, I haven't done any realtime rendering stuffs, but when I want to blur/soften a reflection for pre-rendered animations and stuff, it adds a noticeable to difference to the rendering time.
Re:Blame Direct X (Score:2)
Sigh. I should have gotten into hardware and graphics instead of operating systems and storage. Any game companies out there want to hire an expert C programmer with a solid math background that has only a tiny bit of graphics programming experience? I adapt quickly!
Half-Life... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Half-Life... (Score:1)
Some variation would be nice.. (Score:3, Interesting)
True (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not just dirt (Score:5, Interesting)
1.) Inconsistent lighting
2.) Fog in the air
3.) Dirt everywhere
4.) Fans that look different in the seats
Damn I can go on forever
Just like System Shock 2... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just like System Shock 2... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just like System Shock 2... (Score:2, Interesting)
Your memory differs from mine. I remember a ship littered with bodies, with bloodstains on the walls, steam hissing from broken pipes, parts of certain areas flooded, doors hanging from their hinges...
Re:Just like System Shock 2... (Score:2)
Re:Just like System Shock 2... (Score:1)
Re:Just like System Shock 2... (Score:2)
Re:Just like System Shock 2... (Score:2)
I came out a different person, I tell you.
I agree (Score:5, Funny)
BTW, if I'm responsible for getting the most GRIT [grit.com] into Doom 3, do I get some cool prizes?
You do those yourself. (Score:2)
Wait till the game is out and you wil see what I mean, theres a lot of "redecoration" you can do.
Only if it's hot grits (Score:2)
That's only if it's hot grits, preferably down natalie portman's pants.
Boxes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Boxes (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds of when I was playing Resident Evil...it wasn't the zombies, the green leapers or the Tyrant that were creeping me out the most, it was the Janitor, who would silently go in rooms as soon as I exited them and remove all the corpses.
Fast like a freak, with am insatiable apetite for zombie flesh...can't get much more creepy than that!
Re:Boxes (Score:3)
Rogue Squadron games (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Rogue Squadron games (Score:2)
It really does, and it also looks like at one point it was one of the most beautiful things you ever did see. They really nailed it with those games, I think. Much more so with the GameCube versions than the N64 one, of course, but I still think the original looks pretty damn good.
Though IIRC, the Naboo fighter in the original was pretty pristine...bah, practically nobody ever knew it was in there anyway.
double edged sword (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAGD (game developer), but I say lay the groundwork, focus on gameplay and come back to throw these details in with some market testing. Time and processor speed permitting.
Re:double edged sword (Score:1, Insightful)
Time and processor speed NEVER permit...
Half-life 2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Half-life 2 (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Half-life 2 (Score:1)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:3, Informative)
I have hope that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. [stalker-game.com] might introduce some much needed dirt and grit! Check out this picture [stalker-game.com] for instance, or the gallery in general.
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we have the technology nescicary to handle the data that would be required at the speeds that would be required, but nobody is focusing on things like smoothly increasing the resolution of a texture as it gets closer to the camera, or making it so that the edge of an object isn't a perfectly straight line, or simple curve. We could probably even work it such that an object changes from a large flat texture mapped surface to a complex object when you get close enough to know the difference with todays hardware. That's the kind of stuff that I want to see. Any engine writers out there listening?
Something else that bothers me is intersections of objects. They're all too perfect. Look at those railings in the screenshot you linked? The connections aren't mechanically believable. Sure, it would take the guy creating the scene way longer to have complex intersections, but it would add so much more realism. What I've seen of Doom 3 looks like the people there care about this kind of thing, so there's some hope, but I don't think that many developers have the same patience when it comes to setting release dates.
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I think it looks pretty good compared to the current crop of games.
- The people throw shadows.
- There's a leaf floating in one of the barrels (look carefully).
- There's random crap lying around down below. (I think this is really important to have).
On the other hand, there are some problems:
- Shadows may be too crisp. Is everything under a spotlight? Either soften the shadows or (preferably) throw multiple shadows. There can't just be one bright light in that scene.
- The people should throw shadows onto themselves.
- The railings, among other things, appear as if they are held together by superglue. How about rivets? Screws?
- The flying debris resulting from the gunshot doesn't appear to have broken off anything. It just magically spawned there. Also the flash of light from that doesn't seem to throw a shadow.
- The pattern of rust on the platform the soldier is kneeling on is duplicated in the platform directly below.
- Do doorframes exist in videogames? Electrical outlets?
- Mortar lines in brick walls are not carried all the way around.
- The background should be just slightly out of focus.
- Et cetera ad nauseum.
I realize it's easy to say these things from the comfort of my non-game-developer chair. But I'd be surprised if I didn't see these things happen as technology catches up. It's the little things (and there are a lot of them) that will make all the difference.
My guess is that this sort of thing will move into the procedural realm. Developers will license libraries that do nothing but generate nice-looking world geometry procedurally, as well as textures, physics, etc., and plug into the rest of the game engine. When you upgrade to the Geforce42, you'll be able to display 2x the screws in metal structures and 3x the litter on the street.
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:1)
The real issue I have with that screenshot is that everything is perfectly straight. I don't care about the textures, no fire escape is that straight in real life!
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:3, Informative)
The problem here is that you can't know at which part of the screen the player's eyes are focused. In real life, if you were staring at the railing, then everything behind it would be out of focus. But if you were staring at the ground behind the railing, the railing would be out of focus.
Just a standard problem when trying to render a 3D scene to a 2D surface.
If you just assumed everything out a cert
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:2)
Good point! I didn't think of that.
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:2)
Not a perfect solution, as usually in 3d FPS games I don't always move the crosshairs to exactly where I want to look, instead I move it to generally where I want to look and then use my eyes to actually look at the screen. This could however add an extra element to gameplay that could make it more exciting.
How suitable is hardware these days for doing real time depth of field?
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:2)
All of that stuff is already done, more or less. It's all variation of the basic level of detail concept, with LOD increasing as you
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:1)
Re:S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (Score:2)
And how can that other guy say the brick wall is too straight? Those are some nice damn bricks.
I especially like the peeling paint in the building.
artifacts are a feature! (Score:5, Funny)
I predict that nVidia's next driver release actually adds back in some of artifacts that their old drivers used to leave all over the screen. They will claim that this is their new Enhanced Reality Engine and sic lawyers on any site that bitches about the artifacts.
Quake 3 not too polished?? (Score:2)
Blood! (Score:1)
Doom 3 not... gritty? (Score:3, Interesting)
You didnt saw the trailer or the quakecon videos have you? Well just picture this? Zombie, shotgun, "clean background" behind, press trigger BAM, zombie with a large hole, red splattered wall and ceiling with little pieces of meat, get the idea? seriously some scenes from Doom 3 are more than enough to make certain people sick. The bathroom cut where "pinky" is eating a zombie is.. well disgusting, the scene is as gruel as can be I felt physically ill the first time I saw that.
However if grit is what you want, go and play any silent hill game, it has more than you bargained for and it also features a grain filter.
By the way a lot of people prefer to see quality in their images than "grit" not just as a visual preference, is also easier to spot a hidden area or an item that way, thats the reason why almost everyone turns the grainy filter from silent hill 2/3 off.
Good examples (Score:2)
Contrast with Halo or Half-Life, which were very sterile, esp. Halo.
Bullet marks and blood splatters are one thing, but the rest is harder to achieve. Lets hope Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 work on that, but I doubt they'll get the full effect to work.
CoD (Score:2)
Runing through shelled buildings, there was phenomenal amount of stuff strewn around, and touches like the glowing embers on the wooden structuring post shell hit were nice touches.
I think Call of Duty was one game that really started to raise the bar for realism in gaming, on all fronts really.
Stalker looks like it could do the same again.
my .02 (Score:2, Insightful)
Grit? Not REALLY necessary, but D3 has it. (Score:1)
I didn't find Twin Snakes to be all that bad graphically; there's not a whole lot of dirt to get around because the ground is most likely all hardpack. If anything, Twin Snakes is a huge improvement because of the vast resolution upgrade it got over the original. There were times you weren't
This sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
A game ahead of its time... ZERO TOLERANCE (Score:2, Informative)
: the wall when you shoot somebody?
Blood running down a wall? Hey, I know a first-person shooter that had this effect - back in 1994! It is Technopop's Zero Tolerance for the Sega Genesis.
Shoot an enemy close to the wall: blood stain. Shoot the wall: damage texture. Animated wall textures. An animated, interactive landscape. Tons of weapons and various items like motion scanners, fire extinguishers, and bulletproof vests. Immense, multi-floor levels. That game - along
Re:A game ahead of its time... ZERO TOLERANCE (Score:1)
Sadly my Mega Drive (UK version of the Genesis) died a little while back and I'm left with just the ROM, which doesn't quite *feel* right for some reason.
It's a shame Technopop are no longer with us. An update of this on modern hardware would have been wonderful.
Re:This sounds like... (Score:2)
A really great demo of DX9 procedural textures I once saw was a fractal zoomer, where the fractal was rendered in real-time by the graphics card. With my Radeon 9600, there was no percievable lag and almost no CPU usage to be abl
It's not about grit (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying every game should be cell shaded, but developers should more often utilize the limitless possiblities of style in modern games.
Grit is nice but not necessary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Grit is nice but not necessary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Grit is nice but not necessary (Score:1)
For today's breed of 3d games, the answer is not in analyzing the player's eye to determine the object of focus, but rather the character's "eye" (usually will be the
Re:Grit is nice but not necessary (Score:1)
And if you add eye-tracking...well, you might as well use 3D glasses or implants : )
Hot grits, anyone? (Score:2)
I'm surprised that more people have made jokes about grits especially hot grits placed in various people's pants. It's a story about grit for god's sake. This is like having a story about computer clusters and not seeing any jokes about beowulf clusters.
Steel Battalion/Steel Battalion: Line of Contact (Score:2)
Re:Steel Battalion/Steel Battalion: Line of Contac (Score:2)
It's got an interesting "TV interlace" effect, but that's hardly a substitute for dirt.
You don't appreciate... (Score:2)
Morrowind I felt, was actually the first 3D game, that didn't feel 'bare' to me.
So many FPS have environments that are SO stark. Part of what gives a house so much charm, is all the junk that is in it !
I agree, something as simple as even a "noise" texture overlaid on top of evertyhing helps.
Re:You don't appreciate... (Score:1)
Borrow from the horror genre (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps it is because these games take a closer stab (pun intended) at getting into the gamer's sense of reality and trying to really get into their mind, versus the seperation between player and story in other games, in a visual sense anyway.
Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it does look better. Yes, it does look more lived in. Yes, it does take away from the 'perfection' that computers achieve and look more like we expect. Is it the right thing to do? Well, interestingly enough, I'm running into this problem right now. I'm working on a 3D rendering of a futuristic particle cannon. Right now, I'm building a room around the machine. While texturing this bad boy, I realized something. You see, when I originally built the machine, I used Lightwave's more advanced rendering features. This means more time to render, but it looks more realistic. There is radiosity rendering, and subtle blurred reflections (you'd be surprised how much rendering time that eats up..) area lighting, the works. And you know, by the time I've got all these on, it is startlingly good looking. However, it was taking FAR too long to render an animation of, so I had to find ways of dirtying it up. Well, that's what I've started doing. Instead of using reflective chrome like you'd see in the CERN laboratory for its machines, I grittied it up. No more expensive reflection blurring there. Some of the photos I'm using for textures have some of the effects of 'realistic light' baked into them anyway, so I can stop using area lights and go back down to spotlights. Radiosity? Well the dirt on the machine gets so dark that radiosity wouldn't make a huge difference, so bye bye lengthy render times.
Maybe the dirt etc helps reduce the need for fancier renderings? Maybe, though it helps sell the idea that something is used, it's really covering up something that'd be more expensive to render? I say maybe because this may not be true in every artist's experience. I just found it interesting that when it came down to getting the rendering done in time to get an animation done, the grit texturing has saved my rump.
Yes! (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't really have a solution, as the advances in lighting and level design, not to mention the increased amount of art that can be packed into a CD nowadays have taken care of all my ideas, apart from having an artist draw every single wall uniquely to start out with (ridiculously time consuming). Well, maybe have something like Diablo's random level generator, where a key is stored that is used to generate consistent (within the game) dungeons, but basically uses the same elements. Use it to modify certain parts of the panel, like maybe a few pixel wide micro-scratches or discolorations that you really only notice on a subconcious level.
Oh, and I'm sure someone's mentioned this already, but stop making everything look like plastic! Even plastic doesn't gleam like that, as there's dirt that settles on it (and settles in an uneven way). Materials might actually have whatever index of refraction your physics engine is set to, but if there's 50% dust, or 25% wear, that part isn't going to gleam like it was just polished yesterday. And I don't think sewers get polished very often.
Now that I'm rolling, do game publishers only work in brand-new office buildings? For those of you who are in a building a few years old, look down at the ground next time you walk around (no, not just to avoid eye contact, but actually pay attention to the ground). Notice how the carpet/tile is more worn in high-traffic areas? How next to the water cooler it's a little bit darker, due to splatter over the years? How the edges of wide hallways look like they were installed yesterday? How there are always marks on the walls in stairwells? And how even door handles start to show wear after a few years? It's the little things that we see but don't process that really make things look real - the wrinkles in people's faces. We just need "wrinkles" in our textures.
Herein lies the problem... (Score:2)
So somebody needs to come up with a way to automate the randomization of object models, textures, etc. in such a fashion that all that data doesn't have to be stored, but can be generated at run time to within defined limits. The key is making s
Check out Resident Evil 4 (Score:1)
It's not grit, it's focus... (Score:2)
When you're looking at a scene in reality, your eye naturally focuses on the object you are observing, and that object will appear nice and sharp. Objects in the background will appear blurred and darker as hilights are flattened.
When a scene is rendered in a game there's no way the computer can predict what object someone is paying attention to so it must render everything in focus. As a result, the scene seems unnaturally sharp and bright, especially when the scene isn't
MGS: TTS Goals (Score:2, Interesting)
MGS Twin Snakes goals were basically 1.) the remake of the game with all the high res graphics and higher-poly count models, 2.) the MGS 2 game play and 3.) a complete and honest reproduction of the Metal Gear Solid (PSX) story line.
So yeah, it does look a bit sterile in the sense that things did look perfect. After the first Ninja fight, the room gets messed up bad. It looks fine when you walk in and during your fight, though some glass panes can be shattered. Snake now looks more alive than he did in
What? (Score:2)
Is the hardware here yet? (Score:2)
I've seen a few games that feaures some of these effects, for example in Metroid Prime rain drops will hit your visor when it's raining, or your visor will steam up and collect condensation if you walk through steam, or in Resident Evil the dust that comes up when you walk and the light
Found this out long ago. (Score:1)
ok people for the trillianth time (Score:1)
Shiny textures. (Score:1)
What's for? Where's the real fun? (Score:2)
You want ultra realistic pictures go look out your window whilst your eyes are still good. Go to an art gallery.
Or go download some demos or machinima.
What's with all the 3d shooters - you can hardly tell the difference between them all.
Then again perhaps there really are millions of people who would spend money to buy a new game which has the gameplay of the older version, more realistic graphics that require them to spend yet more money on hardware.
At least pacman was diffe
nVidia presentation (Score:2)
I would certainly say that the lack of grit is not a huge problem that gaming industry faces today. It's just one of the things a pro
Star Wars (Score:2)
yes (Score:1)
talk, writing, poems, journals, news, and more! [nervalhi.net]