Why Haven't 3D Graphics Surpassed 2D Game Art? 109
Thanks to GameSpot for its 'GameSpotting' article discussing the longtime game player's "soft spot" for 2D games, and why, in the author's view, "3D polygonal graphics still haven't entirely surpassed 2D game art." He explains: "In a way... I think the cinematic power of gaming almost took a step back with the transition from 2D to 3D. 2D game characters are displayed precisely how the artist chooses to display them to you. There is no extraneous frame of animation to be found. 3D game characters, meanwhile, are yours to control, so you may rotate them and view them from whichever unflattering angle you like." It's also argued: "2D games handle collision detection (or the interaction between two characters or objects) better than 3D games do... [and] I think 2D game characters still have the capacity to display more-lifelike emotions than 3D game characters do."
Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe its me, but games like Metroid Prime aren't nearly as difficult as the original Metroid. It just seems to me that 2d games are easier to balance and whatnot, easier to see where the player is going to be and to "force" people into using a certain strategy.
As far as art, well, thats subjective. Creating an immersive 3d world is much more challenging than creating a painting. Screenshots don't often do games justice, you have to experience them, see how they move, in order to appreciate the art and work that went into them.
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:2)
I would guess that the real reasons that you find 3d games easier for you than 2d games are:
1) If you had played a lot of 2d games before getting to 3d games then you are probably a pretty experienced gamer. When you were just getting started you wer
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:1)
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:4, Insightful)
The visuals for these could be hugely tightly controlled, as the developers knew exactly where the gamer would spend most time, and need the most accurate visual queues. The big snail slowly wandering left to right could be jumped in one if you stood on THAT pixel and jumped when the snail was just about to turn... THERE!
In 3D you have wandering camera angles, zoom factors, cards giving differing qualities of representation. Everything is NOT precicely as the developer intended.
To enjoy computer games is to enjoy precision. If you cant represent a world precisely enough youd better make success a bit easier to avoid pissing people off. Your Metroid example is spot on. The visuals are far from whooly, but they lack the crispness of the original.
As for collossion detection! Theres a corner in TOCA Race Driver 2 where I keep catching the barrier - even though I can see clear air between my car and the barrier as I hit it! BASTARD thing! They better fix that in the next patch!
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:2)
Tim
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:2)
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:4, Informative)
Since it's easier to see what's going on in a 2d game since there's nothing obstructing the view you could also demand higher precision. One-hit-kill 3d games are pretty rare and 3d platformers often suffer because judging distances and such isn't easy in 3d.
Besides, the original Metroid was damn hard/frustrating even compared to Super Metroid.
Re:Difficulty of 3D Games (Score:2)
It's the level of abstraction (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's the level of abstraction (Score:2)
And you can certainly have photo-realistic 2D graphics.
So I don't think your distinction is particularly valid, insofar as the photorealism/abstraction continuum is independent of 2D/3D.
quite full of bull (Score:4, Informative)
you can use 2d very badly too.
both can be used well too.
personally do you want to go back into having 2d graphics on a 3d game? candelabras that look the same to every direction kinda suck.
Re:quite full of bull (Score:3, Insightful)
Although, I think 2D in a 3D game is great as cel-shading in proper instances. Wind Waker was appropriate because of the cartooniness they added to Link. I couldn't stop laughing when he was launched out of the canon into the wall of one of the first fortresses. Tales of Symphonia, eagerly awaiting to be
Re:quite full of bull (Score:2)
I wouldn't discount the parent too much though. He has a point. Take Warcraft 3, for instance. It's 3D, but the level of detail is quite good, and the artwork rivals that of any 2D game in my opinion. This shouldn't be surprising, though as Blizzard is known for putting a lot of effort into their games.
Now contrast that with something like SOE's Plantside. The environments feel very empty and "unlived". The same textures are used everywhere. So once you've fought inside one base, you've virtually f
Re:quite full of bull (Score:2)
if the author wanted to make a point that 'graphics were better looking when i was young' it would have even less insight(and be ~5 years late and choose to ignore the fact that there were dozens of games with shitty graphics before 3d was possible). come to think of it he seems to be making the claim that for example wing commanders were better looking when they used pre-rendered graphics - they weren't, the first few of the series were better g
Re:quite full of bull (Score:2)
Preach it! I can't count the number of times I've had to make a blind leap of faith in a bad 2D platformer.
Re:quite full of bull (Score:2)
then you must hate real world candelabras as well, arent they symmetrical anyway?
if they arent, then ignore me. im just a gaming nerd, ie an uncultured swine. all i care about with candelabras is if they have a cool glass smashing effect when i shoot them
Re:quite full of bull (Score:2)
3d vs 2d (Score:2, Insightful)
However, I think 3d has come on a long way, particularly over the last year or so. Farcry and UT2k4 are stunning to look at and I'm sure
Re:3d vs 2d (Score:2, Insightful)
And here we get to the subjectiveness of what art is "better." See, I would use a game like Wind Waker as an example of how 3D is getting better, and capturing a lo
Depends on what it is (Score:1)
Having tried both forms of H-Games (IPVR and
That said, it's possible to combine both 2D and 3D together. In a not-so-recent example, Ragnarok Online [ragnarokonline.com] combines 2D sprites with
Re:Depends on what it is (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Depends on what it is (Score:1)
Re:Depends on what it is (Score:2, Informative)
Another example of 3D environment with 2D play style that I think really works is the battle system in Tales of Symphonia. Everythi
I agree (Score:1)
I played both UO and SWG (Koster follower). I know that a lot of people say that UO's graphics are awful (I'm talking about the 2D version here, not the 3D), but I still prefer them to SWG's graphics.
And here come the hypothetical examples. 3D Starcraft
Re:I agree (Score:1)
As for a not-hypothetical example, how about Age Of Empires and Age Of Mythology? The graphics in AoM are much better, and give a whole bunch more flexibility and animation the AoE just doesn't have.
I'm all for a 3D version of Starcraft and Civ (Although I can't see any real benefit for the latter.)
It's a matter of time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a matter of time. (Score:3, Interesting)
To start with, full disclosure, IIAS (i am a sculptor).
Uh, I call bullshit. The earliest examples of art we have are not cave paintings, but small carved figures. Lots of them. There is no way on god's green earth you can make a blanket-statement like "2D is more common than 3D". Show me an ethnographic study of the world's cultures (historical, too) that proves that paintings or drawings are more common
Re:It's a matter of time. (Score:1)
Video games aren't better than pinball games.
Video games are different than pinball games, and you've unwittingly proven the point of all the people who like 2D games better than 3D games. (My favorite pinballs? Addam's Family and Haunted House, most of the time those get my quarters when they have them in an arcade.)
Sculpture (Score:2)
In particular, see Balzac...
As for today's games, that's about money, not the limitations of a particular dimensional medium. Terrible games were rampant just before the big crash in the 80s... too much demand for the artists to meet well.
2D Games and Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things 3D games need (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two things 3D games need (Score:2)
You can do remarkable strange things in 2D that would just look stupid in 3D. I can't really think of any stand-out examples right now, but I'm sure you all understand what I mean.
Biggest problem with 3D games: (Score:4, Insightful)
Graphics wise, 3D games are coming back around. During the PS1 era, 3D games were generally visual crap. We went right back to "that blurry squiggly dot is a save point". Don't believe me? Try playing Twisted Metal. I never could figure out what was going on in multiplayer.
The thing that developers (including you Sony) need to realize is that you don't NEED 3D to make a good game. There's no reason to make Guilty Gear, Metal Slug, or Street Fighter into 3D. They're excellent as 2D. Besides, does milk coming out of your nose when you get stabbed in the chest look as amusing when done in 3D?
Re:Biggest problem with 3D games: (Score:2)
A good example would be Sonic Adventure. All Sonic games are classic jump & run format. With a third person camera angle, precision jumping becomes extremely difficult! In this particular game, the problems are made worse by how the controls are handled: You press "up" to run forward, then the camera sweeps around dramatically and you veer off course because "up" now means something else. It t
There is gaming outside of FPSes (Score:1)
Ease of Play? (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point: I can fire up MAME and Ghosts & Ghouls on my laptop, goof around a bit, there are about 7 controls for me to "master" (back, forth, jump, duck, up, down, fire) and my machine never grinds to halt because I don't have the latest super-duper 3D drivers installed.
This sort of goes into the whole difference between "casual gamer" and "hardcore gamer"--it is the same reason I enjoy Angband on the train, before a meeting, before going to sleep, whatever--the controls are more difficult and involved, but I can quickly start it up, futz around a bit, and close it when I don't feel like getting too mentally involved.
Whereas, when I start up Call of Duty or something similar, I sit down with a coke and my headphones for a few hours and really get into it, as I would with a movie. I wouldn't be able to sleep or concentrate on work after 5 minutes (good luck anyway keeping it that short) of playing the car chase missions in CoD.
It's the gameplay, Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's the gameplay, Stupid (Score:2)
Then again, they did make them play ET, Pong, and Pitfall, games before the video game crash and Nintendo's uprising.
Re:It's the gameplay, Stupid (Score:2)
This game alone is proof that just because it's old does not mean it's good. Not only that, but it also disproves the (inverse) correlation between graphics and quality.
Re:It's the gameplay, Stupid (Score:2)
Or maybe not... Yes, there was an unholy load of crap out there on the old 8-bit systems. There were also some true gems - I'd guess in about the same ratio as we see today.
What's bad here is that some entire game genres have disappeared from the face of the earth: 2D platform, 2D shooter, etc. Badly balanced, usually painfully ugly amateur efforts are appreciated, but it just isn't the same...
Re:It's the gameplay, Stupid (Score:2)
Seriously guys, its statements like this that make "retro" look like a fad for future retirement home troublemakers, is just as stupid to label all 3d games as pieces of art as it is to label all 2d games as unsurpassed quality gameplay.
I've played raiders of the ark lost and ET and believe me I had have more fun running monitor video tests than those two. Actually I think ET had a note in the manual that read: "if the ET image appears after inserting the cartridge
No, its not. (Score:2)
(Continued from previous post...)
I think each one has its share, there are a number of great 2d games (arkanoid, pacman, digdug, super mario, street fighter etc) and theres also a good lot of 3d games (doom, mario64, zelda, half life, tribes 2, silent hill, etc) each needed the features of its genere to succeed.
No medium is better than the other, is like cartoons and movies, they didnt destroyed or occluded each other, they evolved, sometimes even borrowing
Re:No, its not. (Score:2)
(No, I'm not a Chaplin fan.)
Sir, you're not a true LoTR fan either.
Re:2D games will ALWAYS look better than 3D (Score:2)
What happens when you make an error? You have to redo every single sprite that was affected by the error. While some sprites may be easily fixed by simply taking the initial image and rotating it by 45 degree increments, other problems need a bit more work.
Let's take Diablo, where the player character's are made of eight sprite sets (one per each orientation, and one sprite per animation frame.) Let's say that some high-up guy thinks that th
Re:2D games will ALWAYS look better than 3D (Score:1)
For old games like FF6, your text applies, but it was what... 32*32 sprites? not a big deal to change.
I'd have to disagree about collision detection (Score:2)
I haven't really noticed this; in some cases games use a larger transparent brush instead of the actual model, because otherwise games like FPS would become too difficult. I've never noticed a problem in any reasonable recent driving game, and in other circumstances it just doesn't apply. If I look at something like Tony Hawk's 3-onwards on the PS2, I see a wonderful example of some of the
Re:I'd have to disagree about collision detection (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I'd have to disagree about collision detection (Score:2)
Re:I'd have to disagree about collision detection (Score:2)
I'm a bit resentful of the 3-D platform. (Score:5, Interesting)
You need a GBA. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You need a GBA. (Score:2)
I too love the old-style 2d games that put a heavy emphasis on gameplay, but £30-40 a game is a bit much IMO.
If you don't buy 'em, they won't make 'em. (Score:2)
Of course, it's hard to beat "free," but remember-- if you don't buy the games you like, they will quit making the games you like. Remember that the GBA has no region-lock, and try buying grey-market from somewhere where the pricing is less awful.
Re:If you don't buy 'em, they won't make 'em. (Score:2)
I have bought a few grey market games (though mainly ones that weren't released over here like Tactics Ogre). The very favourable £1 to $1.75 exchange rate makes that very enticing, (what's with your economy?!?) but often not as enticing as downloading them.
If it's a game I do particularly like I will buy it anyway so that I can play it on the train, play multiplayer, etc. Then it's well worth it.
Incidently, you never seem to see very cheap GBA games over here. You often get b
Re:If you don't buy 'em, they won't make 'em. (Score:1)
Re:You need a GBA. (Score:2)
Re:I'm a bit resentful of the 3-D platform. (Score:2)
Collision detection easier (Score:2)
3D...FPS only please! (Score:2)
3D racing=third person viewpoint. (Score:3, Insightful)
If there's any genre that's benefited from 3D the most, it has to be racing games. Collision detection has improved from where 2D games ever were, there's no sprite scaling issues, jumps are really jumps, and hills are really hills. And the cars look fantastic!
Re:3D racing=third person viewpoint. (Score:1)
In the world of flight sims (I play IL-2), the TrackIR [naturalpoint.com] is amazing. You move your head, the view moves. Very natural, and makes the first-person view the best. And SimBin's GTR [simbin.com] will support TrackIR.
Re:3D racing=third person viewpoint. (Score:1)
Re:3D...FPS only please! (Score:2)
I disagree, strongly. I find 3rd person games work so much better, especially for platforms, not being able to see your feet really sucks for 1st person games.
The only gripe (and it is a very valid one) for 3rd person is the camera. The problem is that too many games treat the camera like a real object. Meaning if you back up against a wall, the camera swings out to face you, which is retarded, it should either go th
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Facial expressions (Score:3, Informative)
It makes a huge difference. You can see characters looking at each other. NPCs look like they're actually engaged in conversation because they make eye contact with each other.
Re:Facial expressions (Score:1)
Look at Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII. Sure, there were some huge technical leaps in the latter, but if you consider the facial expressions of VI, the physical reactions.. 3D games just don't tend to have it.
The sad thing is that it isn't a technical issue. It is a matter of crafting. Often many studios do not take the time and money to craft the added emotion into the 3D animation that would bump
Graphics Vs Gameplay (Score:3, Insightful)
Early 3D looked terrible. Just think. Street Fighter II(any of them) or Tekken One. Which looked better. Crash Bandicoot or Super Mario World. FF6, FF7. OK FF7 looed better, but only because of its pre rendered backgrounds.
Game companies figured that people would say, "2D graphics. That's lame!"
And guess what. They DID!!
The new wave of casual gamers snubs 2D like the plauge. They must have the latest and flashiest, regardless of the gameplay. Essentially games companies now sell the game's image. Not the game itself. Case in point. Need for Speed Underground. Ick. Lovely cars, but awful game.
The sad thing is, this will continue forever. Just look at the movie industry. Only the flashiest survive, regardless of actual merit.
NFSU wasn't a bad game, just not entirely new. (Score:1)
NFSU was more of the same yes, but the control was tight and the tracks were good and they did try to come up with new gameplay modes (drag, etc). Although I think Midnight club II is a game that is really pushing the gameplay department but it lacks atmosphere and different tracks (besides just going aroudn the same citi
Dumb questions, simple answers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, this is true. It was easier to fill up those pixels when you had low resolution images to fill. Kind of like how it's easier to fill up a lite brite than it is to make a full color painting that will stand close up scrutinizing.
"There is no extraneous frame of animation to be found. "
None of those extraneous weird things like rotating cameras to worry about, etc.
"3D game characters, meanwhile, are yours to control, so you may rotate them and view them from whichever unflattering angle you like"
I'm not sure if he's pointing out that there's only so many polygons you can put in something, or that something doesn't look 'cool' from every angle. If it's the latter, the answer falls neatly under 'duh'. It is VERY hard to design something that looks cool from just about any angle. A lot of times, you just can't reasonably do it. It's not like living in the wonderful very limited world of 2D where you nudge the proportions around until each frame looks decent.
"It's also argued: "2D games handle collision detection (or the interaction between two characters or objects) better than 3D games do..."
Right... that would be because of the limitations of 2D, makes it MUCH simpler to detect what part of the sprite is touching what part of another sprite.
My responses are a little half assed here, so I'll put it together in a nice little summary: 2D graphics make the world simple enough that these challenges are much easier to overcome. 3D graphics need a LOT more work to accomplish the points this person brought up. Why haven't they done it yet? For the simple reason that in some cases you need more talented artists working on it (more in this context means both quantity and higher level of talent. Not a bash against 2D, but a lot more has to be considered...) and you also need hardware capable of it. It's like comparing a comic book to a live action movie.
"[and] I think 2D game characters still have the capacity to display more-lifelike emotions than 3D game characters do."
This is plainly untrue. Play Mario 64 or Wind Waker, then find a 2D game that's just as expressive. I'll concede that 2D games in a lot of cases had more character, but this is strictly a 'talent of the team' sort of thing.
2D or not 2D (Score:2, Funny)
Why this article? (Score:4, Interesting)
In this summary statement, the author himself states that he is comparing basic graphics to art. Nobody cares that bout this - what needs to be done is either a comparision between 2d graphics and 3D graphics, *OR* a comparison between 2D Art and 3D Art.
The only advantage of 2D movies is the fact that you can draw fancy art to as high as a detail as you want. 3D sequences, while not looking as fancy, do not require as much space as their 2D counterparts (by reusing models, textures and so on), and can be consistantly modified without having to redo many frames of work. Also, I am finding that modern games have cinametics comparable to how it should look like - it's a big jump from Dark Forces (an old Dos game that used simple cinamatics) or Jedi Ourcast (3D cinamatics don't look ultra-fancy, but get the job done.)
Not only that, but there are ways to convert 3D-graphics into pre-rendered 2D movies without problem. From there, it's quite easy to do the "editing" that the author seems to want. Not that it matters, since I have very rarely seen an issue with 3D graphics in the games I've played. The closest thing would be those "classy" screenshots posted on PlantUnreal, and those could be pulled off in a 2D game with the same complexity.
Besides, the author ignores the "rotating-corpse" issue that was visible in Doom where you could only see one side of the body after it was killed.
This is easily countered by using Wing Commander 1 compared to X-Wing. While X-Wing might not have looked fancy, you could easily tell when you were about commit suicide by ramming a Star Destroyer. In Wing Commander 1, the collision box was independant of the sprite, and you could thus accidently bump into a Ralari without knowing it (not only that, but the collision box was based around a static box rather than the visible model/sprite.)
Now the other problem with collision detection in 2D games - in the games where collision means death, you either have a per-pixel collision detection, or bounding box collision detection. In the former, you die as soon as one pixel nicks whatever you are supposed to avoid. In the latter, you can't tell if that tight squeeze is fatal or not, let alone know the tolerance for that squeeze.
Mabye this was true in the era of Quake 1, but not anymore. 3D games have evolved since then, and are much better - either through graphics or some other complaint based on the difference between 2D and 3D.
The reviewers whining about this sort of graphics is just superficial. The real quality of the game is not how it appears on screen, unless there are glearingly major problems that interfere with gameplay (either through obscuring critical information, showing information that should be hidden, or by being distracting).
soul caliber (Score:1)
Repeat after Me.... (Score:2)
Hang on.. (Score:1)
Without the passage of time (the extra D) 2D and 3D games are what we commonly call 'screenshots'.
Oh, and while I am moaning; as the 3rd dimension (depth) in 3D games is faked (meaning you can 'see' Lara Croft's curves but not 'feel' them) 3D games should be called 2.5D games (or 3.5D if you include the aforementioned dimension of time, possibly even 48DD if you count the Lara Croft dimensions).
Seriously thoug
Have you ever done 3D? (Score:2)
The artwork. (Score:4, Interesting)
I love oldschool 2D games, and I think there is still a place for some of that in the indie scene. You need really good artists to make it worthwhile, though.
In fact, if you know of one, contact me. I may be able to offer a job.
Worse Game Series Transition? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worse Game Series Transition? (Score:1)
Re:Worse Game Series Transition? (Score:2)
Can't really say. but Rayman got the treatment and I realy didn't like it.
By the way, Wolfenstein and Catacombs were both transitions from 2D to 3D.
Unfortunately, shooting dogs and nazis with shotguns became more popular than blasting orcs and trolls with fireballs.
Re:Worse Game Series Transition? (Score:1)
That was one horrible game.
Yes, I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
It also seems that we are getting so much 3D power recently that it's no longer enough to simply have dazzling numbers of alpha-transparent triangles. 3D games are needing to resort to more interesting visual styles (cf Zelda: Wind Walker), and I think that may ultimately bring them to the same artistic levels that we see in modern "2D" games like the Capcom fighters or GBA side-scrollers.
3D hurt Diablo II (Score:2)
So, in an effort to appease the 3D obsessed masses, Blizzard included buggy, hacked, ugly 3D modes. Both Glide and Direct3D ran slower and, in many ways, actually looked worse than DirectDraw. In fact, acting as vigilante tech support, I would rec
Re:3D hurt Diablo II (Score:1)
All 'gamers' are after flashy graphics. If you say graphics don't matter, then you are lying to yourself. If I remember correctly, Diablo's graphics are just pre-reneder
Ok Simple answer (Score:2)
Per example creating a "tidal wave" in 2d simply means sketching a wave and then animate it as a fluid of sorts (of course it takes a lot of artistry to make it look natural) but in 2d it means creating a net mesh with a lot of vertices and then adding some kind of fluid equations to it (since it would be impossible to add bones) or lots of meshes with a ve
Nethack!!! (Score:1)
Re:Nethack!!! (Score:1)
Re:Nethack!!! (Score:1)
Re:Nethack!!! (Score:1)
Two words (Score:2)
Simple Reason (Score:1)
The screens we view it on are 2d. The Virtual Boy had appealing graphics, and maybe thse Sharp and NEC laptops, but a TV is 2d. The movies we watch are filmed in a 3d worrld, but presented in 2d.
My thoughts. No cash value. (Score:1)
-Funkmastaeric
_______
"I love Metal Slug...
-The Metal Slug paradox
Re:Collision detection better in 2d?! (Score:1)
Intersecting squares is much easier, and accurate, than calculating intersecting models (boxes, spheres, obsure shapes, etc.).
Those 2D games you speak of were most likely from your memory of an old system that could not keep up with the processing, and calculated the hit based upon current vectors. My 'how the heck' ratio is linear across all 2d and 3d games, the number of my screamings usually increased on crappy games
Re:Collision detection better in 2d?! (Score:2)
Remember 2D pinball games? They certainly depended on non-square collision detection and object physics.
In practice, both 2D and 3D collision detection frequently boils down to simplifying objects into a group of convex shapes, which can then easily be tested for collisions using standard algorithms.
Squares and circles/ovals are just
Re:Collision detection better in 2d?! (Score:1)
Most games use squares in 2D, and bounding boxes in 3D because they are fast and dependable. Doom3 is one of the few first games that will use per-polygon hit detection. In fact, it's the first one I know about.
As another 'example', just pick up any book on 3d programming that leads up to 3D hit detection (other than spheres), and it will 99% of the time start off by te
Re:Collision detection better in 2d?! (Score:2)
I've personally always been interested in proper collision detection because it enables you to do decent object physics (where it's not just important to know *whether* something collides but also where, how deep and at what velocity...)
Always thought that physics has been sorely neglected in games so far.
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Except..
Blade Runner (I owned) : Pre-rendered 3D graphics presented as 2D sprites, with pre-rendered cutscenese spliced in.
Siberia (in my hand) : pre-rendered backgrounds.
Longest Journey (never owned), but same as Siberia.
I agree with you that a good, or even a decent setup will give an awesome 3d experience. It's just that your last post's examplese are not 3D.