Far Cry 'too stylized' - Crytek

By Games Industry.biz Published 3 October, 2006

Art chief says he's moved on.

Crytek lead artist, Michael Khaimzon, speaking at the London Game Career Fair today, has described PC shooter favourite FarCry as "too stylized" compared to current FPS project Crysis.

"Three years ago it looked amazing," he said. "Now it's too stylized, too cartoony, the colours are far too much. With Crysis we went for realism."

The 15-strong art team currently working on Crysis – to be published by EA and a game guaranteed to stop any showfloor in terms of graphics – has been forced to go to extreme lengths to model jungle locations, including taking what Khaimzon described as "millions of photos".

"If I was to tell you what I had to do to go from FarCry to Crysis, it'd take me at least an hour," he said. "It was insane… We wanted every leaf to have its own shading. It was very important for us. We have to model every leaf separately. There's a crazy amount of polygons."

Hundreds of aspiring game developers watched Khaimzon's presentation at the Café Royal on London's Regent Street this afternoon, which also included practical advice to get what he described as the "crazy" world of next gen games development.

"By far the most important thing is your portfolio," he said. "We see about 100 portfolios a week and if I was going to give you one piece of advice about getting into game art, it's to keep your portfolio simple. The last thing we want to see is a very complicated portfolio."

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Comments (59) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • kangarootoo #1 5 years ago

    "It was insane… We wanted every leaf to have its own shading. It was very important for us. We have to model every leaf separately. There's a crazy amount of polygons."

    Dude, sounds awsome, and also sweet.

    /sarcasm ends

    I don't want to worry them, but I think the guys at Bethesda could have explained that you don't need to model every leaf yourself.

    /sarcasm really ends

  • asphaltcowboy #2 5 years ago

    15-strong art team working on Crysis? Are you sure? It's not going to be out until 2050 with that many people on it! Unless they aren't people but are in fact some sort of advanced robot.

  • Carlo #3 5 years ago

    Useless without pics :)

  • Freek #4 5 years ago

    He probably diden't mean that they are literly manually modeling every leaf seperatly.

  • Azazel #5 5 years ago

    Unless they aren't people but are in fact some sort of advanced robot.

    Controlled by SHODAN.

  • PearOfAnguish #6 5 years ago

    We have to model every leaf separately.

    He doesn't mean they actually sit down and model a leaf, then do another and so on until a tree is ready, right? Because that would be a pointless waste of time.

  • Ceatlan #7 5 years ago

    Would be much more impressed if he said that they had developed algorithms that generate natural looking scenery automatically. Then they would only have had to render one of each type of plant and the rules that go with it. That would seem a much more sensible place to putting development effort these days, otherwise development costs will just continue to spiral out of control if they are still expecting to manually construct every single detail in their increasingly complex virtual worlds.

  • Machiavel #8 5 years ago

    We wanted every leaf to have its own shading. It was very important for us. We have to model every leaf separately. There's a crazy amount of leaves

    Fixed!

  • Dr.Mott #9 5 years ago

    "Unless they aren't people but are in fact some sort of advanced robot.

    Controlled by SHODAN. "

    No, by the Cell Processor!

  • PearOfAnguish #10 5 years ago

    Bang on, Ceatlan. They'd save a lot of effort with a program that allowed you to choose the plant type, select its size and density and then generated the details at random. You'd look like an idiot if you explained how you spent 90% of the development time making leaves and branches.

  • TwistidChimp #11 5 years ago

    Eventually I suppose there'l be no need for anything other than one engine. It will be capable of rendering anything from photo realism to something like Okami's Sumi-e style. Hopefully it'll be backed up with robust middleware AI aswell, As soon as this kind of tooling comes about, development costs might start coming down a bit.

  • TwistidChimp #12 5 years ago

    speedtree is the most common tree creation thing at present isn't it. Doesn't always produce the best results however. I think Crysis are quite a bit more advanced by the looks of it.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 15:12

  • Stormflood #13 5 years ago

    2D screens are the greatest hinderance to realism. Videogames can become photorealistic, but when you're looking at a flat screen what's the point?

    Hurry the hell up and bring us HDVR!

  • asphaltcowboy #14 5 years ago

    Yeah, Crysis is looking a LOT more impressive than anything I've seen come out of speedtree - even though it is a useful program

  • Darkedge #15 5 years ago

    Oh good improvement from Far Cry - the characters looked like they were dipped in grease after going to Henchmen-r-us

  • UncleLou #16 5 years ago

    "Three years ago it looked amazing," he said. "Now it's too stylized, too cartoony, the colours are far too much. With Crysis we went for realism

    Hurray for more games that look like reality. Never needed my imagination anyway.

    /cries

    Does a highly detailed, cartoony looking game leave more room for the imagination? I'd rather have a comparatively unobstrusive photorealistic look than identikit cartoon/manga style game Nr. 628565628. And not every game can have an abstract look like Rez, Okami, or Defcon.

    Photorealism is per se "neutral", if you want, but it leaves tons of potential for style for talented artists. Half-Life 2 definitely looks "real" rather than stylised, and is still one of the most artistic impressive games I've played, easily on par with Ico, or Rez, or Homeworld.

  • TennesseeStiff #17 5 years ago

    The trouble with Far Cry was not its styling. The trouble with Far Cry was that a beautiful and capable graphics engine was mated to a game with an astonishingly insipid premiss, embarrassing story, cringe worthy and humourless dialogue and game-play which was by and large utterly derivative and unoriginal.

    Colours that were too saturated was the least of its problems.

    If you look at the games that came out around the same time, Far Cry's graphic engine was the best all rounder. Also, compared to many other games, it made much more efficient use of hardware. It was an enormous disappointment to me that the game itself was so uninspired and bland.

    I still occasionally wonder what kind of game the developers of Thief, CoD, NoLF or Kingpin could have made with that engine.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 16:20

  • UncleLou #18 5 years ago

    I don't even think YOU know what you are arguing for there... Photo-realism leaves NO room for style, how could it? It's PHOTO-REALISM. It has to look exactly like reality and any deviation from that is therefore "wrong", something to be improved on next time around

    I know it very well, thanks for asking.

    So, every movie looks the same to you?

  • UncleLou #19 5 years ago

    Imagine someone made a game with incredibly imaginative architecture that looks photorealistic.

    Or look at the Heavy Rain trailer and tell me it hasn't got style.

    And why are Oscars given for camerawork? That's not about how sharp the pictures are, you know.

    Or just take photography in general.

    Frankly, I don't think you've thought that through.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 16:35

  • UncleLou #20 5 years ago

    I ma talking about the Oscar for the camerawork, not special effects.

    And architecture isn't artistic? But I am out of my mind? :D

    Illustrating example from HL2

  • UncleLou #21 5 years ago

    Oh, and the examples "camerawork" (or how we would call it in a game) and "architecture" are of course totally different examples how photorealism allows for inifinite artistic freedom. The former being more the form, the latter being the content.

  • TwistidChimp #22 5 years ago

    er Manic, gotta say I think your way off on this one, have you heard of production design ? looking realistic does not limit the art style of a film, or of a game. Cinematography isn't just pointing a camera at something and pressing the on button. There's so much that goes into locations, architecture, costume design, everything that gives the world its visual style. Would you say Blade Runner and Fifth Element looked the same ?

    Half Life 2 was very..very well designed artistically, if you look at the work that went into the design of the city, the design of the combine technology, the work on the eastern bloc style posters and graffiti etc.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 16:48

  • Natas #23 5 years ago

    UncleLou ftw.

    /hisssssss @ manic miner.

  • UncleLou #24 5 years ago

    that ugly, poorly composed, poorly lit, grey, grey and more grey, POS image is your argument?

    Lol, ok, the discussion is useless.

  • kangarootoo #25 5 years ago

    MMUK said,

    "If you think people get into the industry to spend the rest of their lives grinding away trying to make trees look like trees then you are out of your mind!"

    Although I wouldn't say it with quite so much aggression (unless it was about Burger King obviously), I would agree with that.

    Most of the artists I know would much prefer to work on fantastical environments or heavily stylised characters (think Beyond Good and Evil or Psychonauts) than photo-realistic works (which are more about scientific texture mapping than good old fashioned drawing).

  • TwistidChimp #26 5 years ago

    lol, you think thats ugly and poorly composed and lit ? what planet are you on ? Viktor Antonov's concept work for HL2 is absolutley incredible. Go take a browse through Raising the Bar.

  • kangarootoo #27 5 years ago

    Also, I would think that comparisons to film fall down a little when talking about FPS shooters such as HL2.

    Blade Runner was partly the beautiful work it was because of the scene direction. In HL2 the player controls the camera and to a great extend they also control the scene delivery (insofar as if they are looking in the wrong direction when something cool happens they have "killed" the scene).

  • TwistidChimp #28 5 years ago

    No one is claiming that an engine that attempts to achieve photorealism is the be all and end all. Obviously there are an infinite number of ways something could be represented. But claiming that there's no such thing as artistry, or any room for differing styles just because something is photorealistic is ridiculous.

    Oh and as for the look of HL2 being mostly out of the hands of the artists. Have you ever investigated what goes into making a game or a film ? Every single thing is in the hands of the artist. From the architecture of the buildings, to the colours of the bricks, to the cracks on the pavements to the logo's on the arm bands of the combine and the resistance. Every single aspect of the visual style, colouring, etc are taken into account. Thats why HL2 looks so incredible, and why some other fps's look so bland. The care that the artists at valve took shows in every facet of HL2.
    Edited by 2 at 03/10/06 @ 17:08

  • TwistidChimp #29 5 years ago

    right, but thats not what he said. He said he wants HIS engine to be absolutley photo realistic, he never said that the pinacle of video game engine production was photo realism and that any other kind of artistic expression was void.

  • samk #30 5 years ago

    "If you found Half Life 2 impressive, then hey, good for you, but I honestly don't understand at all how you could describe it as "artistic". There is no artistry in it."

    Huh? What the hell?!

    Half-Life 2 is dripping with great artistic style. That's just about the only thing about it that's better than Half-Life 1.

    "I don't even think YOU know what you are arguing for there..."

    I agree with some of the others; you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about pal.

  • UncleLou #31 5 years ago

    right, but thats not what he said. He said he wants HIS engine to be absolutley photo realistic, he never said that the pinacle of video game engine production was photo realism and that any other kind of artistic expression was void.

    Exactly. I love Rez, Defcon, and the looks of Okami or Zelda WW (although I haven't played the last two), but everything has its place.

    Generic identikit design is a problem that plagues games, independently from the style, not photorealism. I find your average JRGP just as bland as Gears of War or the stuff Rare does. True pearls come in all styles, including photorealism (or as close as we can get these days).

  • kangarootoo #32 5 years ago

    Everyone chill out a bit. MMUK made a valid point, TwistidChimp then made a valid contrary point. If we keep saying what we mean then we can discuss with interest.

    If we start getting all ratty because someone dissed our first love then we will start making incorrect assumptions about what each of us is actually saying and stop listening because we have divided into "sides". That way lies a boring thread.

    So, HL2 has photorealism at its heart, BUT it has also built a consistent world. The suits the characters wear look realistic, but their tailoring has been carefully designed to create a consistent world. The enemy robots look like they are made of real metal, but their otherwordly appearance is entirely an artistic choice.

    So where does that leave us. Maybe photorealism is only one factor in an overall art brief. Blade Runner looked photorealistic, butcause for the most part it was real, but did that inhibit its creativity when depicting future scenes and characters?

    The word characature should maybe be introduced here. You could have a photorealistic characture, insofar as the GFX really looked exactly like a characature that I modelled in clay. Would it not be photorealistic just because it didn't look like a real person?

    Perhaps what is important is the definition of what you are depicting. If the brief said "create an incredible fantasy alien design, but present it on screen so it looks as real as if it were here in the room" then that is surely a photorealistic presentation of a creative work?

    Discuss, calmly :)

  • UncleLou #33 5 years ago

    Oooh, wait, wait wait... the concept art for HL2 is absolutely breath-taking and beautiful, no argument.

    but then it has to start looking real, and that's where it becomes extremely boring.

    The shot I linked to was a concept art, not a screenshot...

  • UncleLou #34 5 years ago

    Discuss, calmly :)

    Always am. Just can't stand rudeness and "OMFG!!11WTF" discussion "culture", that's where I get a little snappy. :)
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 17:16

  • Natas #35 5 years ago

    hisssssssssss!!!...................


    ................. I'm bored

  • TwistidChimp #36 5 years ago

    yeah I do try and stay calm and collected, I just get a bit fiesty when people start barking inacurate absolutes about the place is all :)

  • #37 5 years ago

    "By far the most important thing is your portfolio," he said. "We see about 100 portfolios a week and if I was going to give you one piece of advice about getting into game art, it's to keep your portfolio simple. The last thing we want to see is a very complicated portfolio."

    This may be true in some instances, but the most important thing is networking. Having a good portfolio helps immensely, of course, but networking is above anything else.

    I'd go as far as to say that sending portfolios is just an exercise you have to go through while you're a student.
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 17:39

  • Xerx3s #38 5 years ago

    Of course he has no interest in saying this now that they did a back stab and crossed over to another publisher.

    Controlled by SHODAN.

    Meh, Xerxes was the better AI imo. ;p

  • kangarootoo #39 5 years ago

    @UncleLou

    I know, I wasn't really talking to you. Plus I was trying to put out a fire before it took hold (man, that sounds cheesy as f'ck, but you know what I mean).

  • Stoatboy #40 5 years ago

    Photorealism is an icky term, because it implies that the the thing being rendered actually exists (and hence can be photographed).

    The drive to create very lifelike graphics wouldn't be such a problem with me if the devs were using them to create something artistically wondeful, but for the main part they don't - they usually end up creating rubble strewn Baghdad, graffiti-covered LA and so forth. A huge portion of the output of the games industry looks fairly similar to what I see when I look out of the window, which is a huge waste of potential.

    We've got the power to create anything we can imagine, and yet we're using it to create stuff that already exists. It's like using 3 wishes from a genie to get a fiver, a porn mag and a new hairstyle, rather than being stupidly rich, irresistable to women, and hung like a horse.

  • kangarootoo #41 5 years ago

    @ZeroToHero

    I'm not sure that is the rule. You seem to be suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong) that nepetism is the way to get ahead. To some degree in some situations that is true. Now if networking means that someone is simply aware of your experience then I would agree that it is very important, but there are plenty of people I know who interview at companies that have never heard of them (sometimes thousands of miles away) and it is their "portfolio" (be that art work or simply a varied CV) that gets them into interview.

    I think the best advice, though it might not be that helpful, is to work on everything. For an artist, your portfolio is not just a collection of your work but it is also your chance to PRESENT your work, and that is an opportunity in itself.

    A DVD of art, one movie after another, is all well and good. But if you can actually present your work in an interesting and stylistic way (without going overboard, we all know how annoying overly flashy[literal] websites can be) then you are earning extra points. Employers want to see initiative and creativity as well as raw ability.

    Not disagreeing with you ZeroToHero, just expanding on what you wrote :)

  • kangarootoo #42 5 years ago

    "Photorealism is an icky term, because it implies that the the thing being rendered actually exists"

    For sure. I think that is what was causing things to get het up for a while there. MMUK had a slightly different interpretation of the word to his juxtaposers [sic]. And I think maybe that as soon as people start disagreeing on semantics, without realising that is what is happening, things blow up pretty quickly.

    Good points, I think you and MMUK are saying similar things. Photorealism "sometimes" removes imagination from the equation, but it doesn't have to.

  • UncleLou #43 5 years ago

    Photorealism is an icky term, because it implies that the the thing being rendered actually exists (and hence can be photographed).

    Agreed, there's room for debate whether something that doesn't exist at all can be portrayed photorealistically.

    The drive to create very lifelike graphics wouldn't be such a problem with me if the devs were using them to create something artistically wondeful, but for the main part they don't - they usually end up creating rubble strewn Baghdad, graffiti-covered LA and so forth.

    But like I said a few posts above, in my opinion, your typical generic Tolkien fantasy world or spikey-haired Manga-style hero is just as bad. It's a general problem in games, not exclusively one of photorealistic ones. And a distinctive cartoon style game like Bad Day L.A. portrays graffiti-covered L.A. as well, and falls into all the traps. :)

  • UncleLou #44 5 years ago

    For sure. I think that is what was causing things to get het up for a while there. MMUK had a slightly different interpretation of the word to his juxtaposers [sic].

    Got to disagree here. I think MMUK and me both had the same understanding of photorealism in the discussion.

    It's an interesting point though nonetheless. Does a photorealistic Crysis become non-photorealistic as soon as the monsters that don't exist, but look real, apperar? Is the forest still photorealistic, then? ;)

  • kangarootoo #45 5 years ago

    "But like I said a few posts above, in my opinion, your typical generic Tolkien fantasy world or spikey-haired Manga-style hero is just as bad"

    I guess once a genere becomes established, originality requires more effort to apply. So in that sense even a wholly fantastic setting can become unoriginal in appearance.

    "Got to disagree here. I think MMUK and me both had the same understanding of photorealism in the discussion."

    Well, fair enough. There wasn't just you involved. Plus I was 4/5 making chit chat and 1/5 being the chill out police :)

  • kangarootoo #46 5 years ago

    One thing I would say in the context of the article is that I am not keen on people dissing their previous works in an supposedly objective manner. The style of Far Cry was great.

    Now I understand that this chap has a new game to sell, but he shouldn't have to be saying stuff like "Three years ago it looked amazing," he said. "Now it's too stylized, too cartoony, the colours are far too much.".

    What he really means is "our new title looks very different to the previous title we worked on". There is no criticism needed. Saying stuff like "bright colours are so last season" is poor form and a mildly insulting to those that worked on it (so says me anyway).
    Edited by 1 at 03/10/06 @ 18:10

  • #47 5 years ago

    @kangarotoo

    No, I'm not saying portfolio isn't important (it is, extremely). And also, you can get a job on a portfolio only basis. When I say networking, I mean it in the way it is used in the advertising and videogame industries (and probably other, but I don't know): that is, far from nepotism (although nepotism, of course, exists, but isn't that important).

    And I, too, am not disagreeing with you, just expanding on what you wrote. ;) (although I haven't expanded much).

  • dudefella #48 5 years ago

    Hey I'm all for contrasting opinion, but MMUK was really, really out of his depth there. Saying that a realistic setting does not allow for artistic creativity is the biggest load of bull. So, those striders, Combines and vehicles just invented themselves? The decision to set the game in a Eastern-European style setting just floated along? No one was needed to make the game appear cohesive, stylistically? Half-Life 2 may not have a sense of style that's as immediately apparent as a game like Okami or Psychonauts, but it is no less for it, on the contrary. A (team of) artist(s) that can make a realistic setting that still feels imaginative and cohesive deserves just as much praise, if not more, than an artist who makes something completely off-the-wall.

    Anyway, I agree with the person who said that Far Cry was a good engine mixed with an extremely derivative game. It has its moments, but compared to HL2, released the same year, it's a laughable game. Horrible character design.

    I also agree with kangarootoo, dismissing Far Cry's style simply because we're 2 years down the line is a bit condescending to the original team.

  • Stoatboy #49 5 years ago

    re: "But like I said a few posts above, in my opinion, your typical generic Tolkien fantasy world or spikey-haired Manga-style hero is just as bad. It's a general problem in games, not exclusively one of photorealistic ones."

    Oh, definitely. I'd cite Morrowind and Oblivion here. Oblivion has a much more powerful engine, the landscapes are chock full of trees and bushes and shrubs and flowers, and yet the majority of it looks like it could be in Warwickshire. Rolling hills, woodlands, quaint little towns and so on. Even a lot of the wildlife is real world stuff - deer, wolves, bears etc. Very accomplished, but very mundane. OK - there were a few nice bits of architecture here and there, but the majority was pretty much vanilla flavoured.

    Morrowind, on the other hand, whilst not having the same graphical oomph, at least has an art style to call its own. It's a very brown art style, admittedly, but at least it's a style. I really like the strange domed buildings, and the houses made out of giant shells or animal carcasses (or whatever they are). I still remember turning up at one of the towns by Silt Strider in a blinding ash storm - the entire place felt blighted.

    And brown.

  • chupachups #50 5 years ago

    "Would be much more impressed if he said that they had developed algorithms that generate natural looking scenery automatically"

    Why don't more devs do this? It worked wonders for Elite, it managed to fit a whole 3D galaxy into an 8-bit game by doing the design entirely through algorithms. The 3D 8-bit game Mercenary did the same thing.

  • SimonM7 #51 5 years ago

    There's a huge number of valid points strewn about the comments.

    Realism - in regards to things looking like they would in reality, be it a person or a 20ft killer robot - is a stylistic choice like any other, and shouldn't be some kind of holy grail. Way too often do guys like this write of more stylized things as if they were products of neccessity back when hardware wasn't powerful enough. This, I think we all agree, is bollocks.

    Now, in regards to Far Cry, that was a heavily stylized game, and I think anyone saying they weren't impressed by it visually is lying. This Crytek person quotes colour as one of its bad traits, but that's just stupid. Colour, if anything, made it look infinitely more vibrant and interesting than any generic space shooter before it.

    When people say realism with a sigh of dismay, they're most likely refering to its habit of making everything look predictable. Content can change this of course, but you'll still be blind to about 60% of the things on screen because you take their look for granted. That's pretty depressing really, considering - as many pointed out already - we can do absolutely anything. If you flip the coin though, I don't think anyone would want a celshaded Silent Hill.

    I think perhaps the "nucleus of a hydrogen atom" example isn't entirely applicable here though. Crysis is a template FPS, and whether it's colorful not isn't gonna change the fact that you'll be running around, shooting... soldiers of some kind I wager.

    The issue of games catering to *realistic* scenarios still exists though of course. Evident perhaps by the fact that people argue that you can depict some made up stuff realistically- they're assuming everything takes place in a physical world where up is up and down is down. I get that your whole point is that games don't have to be bound by the restrictions of reality, and I agree with that and share your concern, but that's not entirely a matter of art style - it's a difference in fundamental design philosophy.

  • dudefella #52 5 years ago

    Bezzy, have you even bothered to read any of the posts or absorb their points?

  • Sl1pstream #53 5 years ago

    Surely we can't have stylized graphics when we can go for graphics that have you prostitute yourself to be able to pay for the system it demands, can we?

  • Genji #54 5 years ago

    I don't particularly care whether it's photorealistic or not, as long as it doesn't stop the game from being enjoyable.

  • Talha #55 5 years ago

    Gosh - what a boiling pot of a thread. I just skimmed through a few comments and most seem substantial. But what got my eye was @Kangarootoo's comment - and I wholeheartedly agree, since that is what I was to write in the first place.

    It is never a positive thing for a dev to discount their previous works. It is just like U2 coming out and saying. "Alright - POP sucked and you guys were fools to buy it'. Where's the refund, then? Far Cry is one of the most popular shooters of all time, and it has gained solid footing amongst serious gamers (for its gameplay). That it had an unparalleled visual style, that no one has been able to copy, is just icing on the cake. By pronouncing it inferior, Crytek guys are in effect denouncing their fans.

    Of course the world moves on, but progress does not mean putting previous efforts in a bad light. The proof of pudding is in the eating and if Crytek have outdone Far Cry or feel they have, fine - we'll see. Meanwhile, let US decide how shitty or otherwise Far Cry was.

  • MrWonderstuff #56 5 years ago

    Far Cry was my summer holiday ;)

  • webcider #57 5 years ago

    As far as i am concerned is im not looking forward to realistic physical impressions or realistic art work, i would love to be in my own dream world constantly not having said relations to the world i am day dreaming in, however i would just lige to say dearly that the discussion taking place is a not win situation, its just like sport some people prefer Fifa over Sensible because its more realistic, and there fore won't let go of the basically discussion but konstantly trying to prove each other points right with the current stream of words.

    It's sad really because all i really care about is that there comes more artistic games to the market and the look of things suggest otherwise, because people are not open minded to appreciate those kind of art's. I won't deny that Halflife 2 is not art but its not taking a seriously art direction because its trying to impress through stuff other peoples can put there thoughts into. Thats also why i give credits to Anime as a whole movie discussing where movies are going the more storytelling and expression to plot feeling, Anime's can be very artistic inspired beautifully mastered and otherwise just really unique in style.

    Thats my definition of actually art style its the whole unique approach, and as far as i say halflife 2 is a quiet unique game but the graphics the art is not unique in any way then you would be forced to say Prey is unique to and that would in my opinion be very sad. Of course there is still art design in those kind of games, and i did thought about games photo realism can still be like okami just not in the same sense because then it would have cartoony graphic as we know it on TV.

    and then lets discuss if that is true photo realism ??, is Donal Duck cartoons sending on a tv right now considered Photo Realism ?? or is the whole real life approach because if that is the case its the real life approach you are trying to call artistic in any sense, i will deny and defend with MMUK.

    as far as this is to debate, i will still state the artistic vision as pen and paper approach not computer graphics like shrek. as that art of hl2 was to my observation.

    But when we get to photo realism graphic will it stop artistic design hell no, just look at television american tv series like beverly hills is going to be one thing anime japanese cartoon series like Mushishi will be another thing. its a interesting debate but i must side to MMUK very valid points as far as im concerned.

    (Sorry for the bad gramma, i am from a second spoken country and i just founded this discussion very interesting, i hope however thoughts are easy to read.)

  • kangarootoo #58 5 years ago

    @webcider

    I get your meaning. It seems that we all agree that photo-realism is not necessarily the same thing as real-world.

    In other words you can represent something imagined in a very realistic way, and this might be decribed as photo-realistic. "Its looks just like that 3 headed horse is here in room" you might say.

    Alternatively, you could focus on not just presenting things in a photo-realistic way, but also staying true to real-world elements. For example, you would not just be concerned that a skin texture look just like skin (photo-realism) but you woudl also be concerned that the proportions of the face looked as much like a real person as possible (real-world).

    It seems to me that photo-realism is just one option or part of an art style. A very inventive and well imagined universe can be presented on screen in a very photo-realistic way. But I don't think that automatically makes it less imaginative than if it were cell shaded (for example).

  • Mr_Whacker #59 5 years ago

    I've always thought of photorealism as one of those invented concepts like virtual reality. It doesn't actually mean much outside of marketing where it usually just means 'camera quality graphics'. That has no bearing on art styles and if you just want a 2D jpg then you've had photorealism for years. As said above, to make a game of any style requires an enormous amount of art work and therefore imagination, even if you are trying to render your own room.