View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yus11G5C5l8
50 minutes long, grab some popcorn.
Great video. Loved the section near the end about how the chase of ultra realism for AAA has lead
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Internet Pitstop: The Appeal Of Older Graphics
- Thread starter stopmrdomino
- Start date
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yus11G5C5l8
50 minutes long, grab some popcorn.
Great video. Loved the section near the end about how the chase of ultra realism for AAA has lead
I like and dislike parts of retro and modern aesthetic. Can't really see old style of rendering as a net positive if you're only looking at the top examples of games like Zelda/Mario and forget how utterly hideous N64 games could get. Like Hi Fi Rush has more personality than just about any old game I can think of, but that's also an outlier. For realism, I think Remedy has a good balance with the way their games have looked since Control, making great use of performance capture and mixed media.
I think it could be much worse, but now the teams are much larger so more people suffer through it.
Guess i'll close the tab now then...
I think it could be much worse, but now the teams are much larger so more people suffer through it.
Guess i'll close the tab now then...
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I think crunch was worse, yeah, but it's hard to compare deadlines between the nineties and now because the budgets and scales of major releases are completely different. The faster releases they had then didn't result primarily from them rushing the games out the door, there was just rarely reason for them to take years like they do now.
OP
OP
That's... a pretty reductionist take on what he said. He says the game is beautiful and has its own art style, but the sections like New York and Bright Falls don't look much different than the forests and cities in other AAA games like TLOU and RDR2 - because all of these games are chasing hyper realism. Which is right.
AW2 is arguably my favourite game of all time, but a lot of the game visually IS incredibly good looking realism.
This is not unique to current games. Old games could also look very, very similar to each other.
Great YouTuber... Also recommend is his nearly 5 hour look at Anime Backgrounds across the last few decades.
www.resetera.com
Man it's so annoying to preface every single discussion with these kinds of conditions.
Sometimes you just gotta let the topic speak for itself to lend to an example; coming in with millions of counter examples for the sake of being pedantic.
Anime Backgrounds – An Imperative and Somewhat Underappreciated Art (Internet Pitstop vid)
https://youtu.be/2MAA-LxLScI It's so easy to forget that animation is only possible thanks to the incredible efforts of creating countless images and sounds that bring these worlds to life. Whether based in reality, or based in fantasy, or based on anything the plot requires – backgrounds are...
www.resetera.com
Man it's so annoying to preface every single discussion with these kinds of conditions.
Don't have time to watch, but for a variety of reasons the takeaway OP gives strikes me as dubious.
Crunch is an institutional problem that exists independently of what graphics and aesthetic style you're going for. Some of the worst stories about crunch I've ever heard come from the 90s and early 00s, when you had small enthusiastic teams of people making games on short deadlines.
Secondly, graphics are only one of several factors that lead to longer development times. One of the biggest ones is a desire (driven by years of gradually ramping audience expecations) for huge amounts of content. Another is competition around game quality directly. Games are, on average, iterated on many, many more times than they were in the 90s and early 00s, and this is expensive and slow. This is a big reason why indie and AA development teams have inflated development times alongside larger productions. It's not enough to just do a games jam over a week and fart out your product (which is nearly equivalent to games you'd get from PC magazine subscriptions in the 80s). You have to make sure it's good, iterate the game loop to be tight and fun, spend ages getting your levels right. Playtest the difficulty to make sure it's a smooth curve. That kind of stuff. The more good games come out, the higher the bars raise for any given genre, and the tougher it is to nail making a great standout product in that genre becomes .
Thirdly, audiences generally are ok with bad graphics, which is why they spend 1 trillion hours every day playing Minecraft and mobile stuff. And why old games that haven't been state of the art for a decade or more like Fallout 4 or GTAV is still so popular. People being "ok" with bad graphics isn't enough - there would have to be no large number of people who can even appreciate technically sophistecated and photorealistic graphics. Because if there is, then there will always be an incentive for some games to focus in those areas - because if two games exist, and you're "ok" with the graphics in both, if one looks much nicer than the other, then it will stand out.
Crunch is an institutional problem that exists independently of what graphics and aesthetic style you're going for. Some of the worst stories about crunch I've ever heard come from the 90s and early 00s, when you had small enthusiastic teams of people making games on short deadlines.
Secondly, graphics are only one of several factors that lead to longer development times. One of the biggest ones is a desire (driven by years of gradually ramping audience expecations) for huge amounts of content. Another is competition around game quality directly. Games are, on average, iterated on many, many more times than they were in the 90s and early 00s, and this is expensive and slow. This is a big reason why indie and AA development teams have inflated development times alongside larger productions. It's not enough to just do a games jam over a week and fart out your product (which is nearly equivalent to games you'd get from PC magazine subscriptions in the 80s). You have to make sure it's good, iterate the game loop to be tight and fun, spend ages getting your levels right. Playtest the difficulty to make sure it's a smooth curve. That kind of stuff. The more good games come out, the higher the bars raise for any given genre, and the tougher it is to nail making a great standout product in that genre becomes .
Thirdly, audiences generally are ok with bad graphics, which is why they spend 1 trillion hours every day playing Minecraft and mobile stuff. And why old games that haven't been state of the art for a decade or more like Fallout 4 or GTAV is still so popular. People being "ok" with bad graphics isn't enough - there would have to be no large number of people who can even appreciate technically sophistecated and photorealistic graphics. Because if there is, then there will always be an incentive for some games to focus in those areas - because if two games exist, and you're "ok" with the graphics in both, if one looks much nicer than the other, then it will stand out.
This is a complete and utter fabrication. The crunch back in the 90s and 2000s was omnipresent at literally every studio. For all the horror stories you hear now, it was so much worse back then.
Listening to children talk about why things "are bad now compared to before" will never not be hilarious.
OP
OP
Ok, he was wrong about crunch, and I was mistaken for believing him. Sorry
The edit is super fucking condescending, though
Sure, I just don't think it has similar direction to TLOU games, so its almost like saying movies don't look much different, which is really underselling the talent behind them? I don't think anyone would suggest that early 3d rendering isn't very distinct, its just weird how its been deemed this bastion of a better time, diverse styles and seemingly also "anti-crunch". Its cool as a throwback that's also been replicated on newer engines, just not really something I care for lots of games to look like since they can also start to look very similar and I literally lived through that era already.
In alot of ways yes though maybe it was more of 100 hour weeks for a month or 2 type stuff.
I remember even insomniac Talking about crunching on the PS2 ratchet and clank games and lead to a low crunch culture on PS3 days.
Sorry, but there's been a couple videos by popular youtubers lately that have hinged on the "if we could just go back to the way things used to be then the industry would be better" and it's like "you would actually like to kill us?"
Obviously it's a knee jerk reaction from me but it's bound by such ignorance. It's like people wishing we could go back to the 50s American culture when every family was happy. It's not based on reality.
I liked their systematic takedown of how shit a lot of modern pokemon routes/levels have become.
Will have to watch later but for me it was always that abstractions let me fill in the details with my imagination and the result was often more engrossing than any kind of attempt at realistic presentation.
This can also extend to even shit like camera perspectives and genre. To take Pokemon as an example, when you have a top down view, you never know what you'll come upon. When you have an open world, you often know at least the broad strokes of what you'll see at journey's end. Obviously there are differences, but Goldenrod is a surprise in a way that whatever the skyscraper town in SV is isn't.
Will have to watch later but for me it was always that abstractions let me fill in the details with my imagination and the result was often more engrossing than any kind of attempt at realistic presentation.
This can also extend to even shit like camera perspectives and genre. To take Pokemon as an example, when you have a top down view, you never know what you'll come upon. When you have an open world, you often know at least the broad strokes of what you'll see at journey's end. Obviously there are differences, but Goldenrod is a surprise in a way that whatever the skyscraper town in SV is isn't.
for me i could give or take the aesthetic, what matters is if it works in the context of the game
there's lots of indie horror games that use the PS1/VHS style simple because its popular instead of using it to enhance the game or supplement what you are expected to get out of it
Puppet Combo leans heavily into it because their games are based on 80's B-tier horror grindhouse schlock you could only ever find at Blockbuster
there's lots of indie horror games that use the PS1/VHS style simple because its popular instead of using it to enhance the game or supplement what you are expected to get out of it
Puppet Combo leans heavily into it because their games are based on 80's B-tier horror grindhouse schlock you could only ever find at Blockbuster
The one where all the devs had secure jobs, got paid a lot, only worked 40 hours weeks, but also exclusively only released genre defining games for low prices that could be played for hundreds of hours.
I completely agree with the bit about industry attitudes re:modern graphics and the perpetually banal quest for hyper-realism. It's honestly weird the industry keeps trending in that direction and doubling down despite how frequently that philosophy fails to profit.
thanks for sharing.
Yeah I fucking love these old graphics. I've particularly become enamored with games that try to emulate PS1 graphics recently. It just brings out more abstraction and gives the mind space to fill in the blanks, and it's just more pleasant and cozy to me.
Yeah I fucking love these old graphics. I've particularly become enamored with games that try to emulate PS1 graphics recently. It just brings out more abstraction and gives the mind space to fill in the blanks, and it's just more pleasant and cozy to me.
It was something talked about a lot in the 7th gen but only now is the irksome effect of the Uncanny Valley starting to hit me. Metahuman especially. I'm not sure, even if done really well, that I actually like or care for realistic, animated, fully voiced games. Whatever Baldurs Gate 3 was doing is like as far as I need for character animation, the peak without triggering that irksome feeling. That Marvel 1943 trailer, while impressive, also looked wrong, especially the facial animation. Maybe I'd get used to it but I do not vibe atm.
Drawing conclusions on how it affects budget or creates crunch (especially relative to how bad it used to be) is beside the point to me, though it is clear that striving for fidelity at the cutting edge is a very difficult, expensive target and a big factor in what would lead to crunch on large projects with high expectations as release dates loom.
Drawing conclusions on how it affects budget or creates crunch (especially relative to how bad it used to be) is beside the point to me, though it is clear that striving for fidelity at the cutting edge is a very difficult, expensive target and a big factor in what would lead to crunch on large projects with high expectations as release dates loom.
Ya know it was probably the dev's weakest game but playing something like Open Roads after the umpteenth standard AAA open world experience of "foliage everywhere!" was a very nice palette cleanser for my eyes. Very crisp, clean, and minimalist while also retaining a semi realistic approach at conveying these lived in environments (think Gone Home, same dev):
Botany Manor deserves a shout too, really one of the most eye pleasing games I've played. Witness vibes:
Botany Manor deserves a shout too, really one of the most eye pleasing games I've played. Witness vibes:
Holy guacamole I know some of you aren't using the "crunch used to be worse" argument, right? Right? Crunch is bad period. Right? C'mon now. Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey.
Maybe a game's graphics should depend on what it's trying to be? If it wants to be hyper realistic then that's fine, if it wants to be cartoonish then that's also fine. I dont get why these styles are being pitted against each other?
Also I gotta lol at the idea that games back then didnt have crunch because they werent chasing realistic graphics.
Lol. Lmao even.
Also I gotta lol at the idea that games back then didnt have crunch because they werent chasing realistic graphics.
Lol. Lmao even.
Ya know it was probably the dev's weakest game but playing something like Open Roads after the umpteenth standard AAA open world experience of "foliage everywhere!" was a very nice palette cleanser for my eyes. Very crisp, clean, and minimalist while also retaining a semi realistic approach at conveying these lived in environments (think Gone Home, same dev):
Botany Manor deserves a shout too, really one of the most eye pleasing games I've played. Witness vibes:
this is honestly my favourite kind of game nowadays and i'm so glad we get a few every so often
Even if "crunch used to be worse" is true and I don't know that it is, because it's hard to compare, and shit is shit, older style graphics are easier to make in 2024 than in 1997. You don't need genius level programming to make modern hardware do stuff that was nearly impossible in the "olden days".
So, it's not the same, and that's easy enough to see, because many indie games are done in the style of older styles of games, and it's not because they're harder to make.
So, it's not the same, and that's easy enough to see, because many indie games are done in the style of older styles of games, and it's not because they're harder to make.
While I do think hyper-realism can be beautiful, I kind of always get drawn to games with strong artstyles. Sonic Frontiers looks better graphically, but Sonic Heroes or Sonic Aventure DC just have better artstyles and feel warm for lack of a better word. I feel this is in part the draw of "anime" games, they don't rely as much on realism, I mean the painterly style is one of the best things about Shin Chan me and the Professor on SUmmer Vacation
That's the reasonable take. This video is good fun until the last 10 or so minutes where there's some laughable side by side comparisons between AW2, TLOU and RDR2. Like RDR2 was researched and developed to hell and back to look the way it does. That is the perfect aesthetic for what that game was, so seeing it treated like just another realistic game or something somehow lesser for it just makes me wonder if they're just conflating realism with a lack of strong visual direction or aesthetic. Im guessing pitstop wasn't even born before the SNES or N64 gens which makes the heavily reminiscent vibe kinda odd