Graphical Fidelity vs Visual Style

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Xantar

I've seen anime which deal with all these subjects, and they aren't the most accurate looking representations of life.

I'm not trying to knock your point which I actually agree with. I'm just trying to get you to be more careful in your terms. And I don't mean to pick on you because I don't think anybody in this thread has been very good about defining what they mean. The subject of this thread is "graphical fidelity vs visual style." Graphical fidelity is not the same thing as realism although they overlap. Something can be realistic while not looking anything like the real world. The Lord of the Rings movies look realistic most of the time, but they also break several laws of physics.

To me, realism does not imply fidelity to the actual world. It simply means that whatever is depicted is something I can recognize and can imagine it relating to my personal experience. A character does not have to have fully rendered beard stubble to be realistic to me. He just has to be depicted with the kind of traits and details that place him within my experience so that I think of him as a "real" person instead of as a cartoon character. On the other hand, you could render him so well that he looks completely indistinguishable from an actual human being, but I could imagine doing it in such a way that he comes off as unrealistic (if we can say that some characters depicted by human actors seem unrealistic, we can certainly say that about CGI too). What we then have is graphical fidelity.

So with that said and leaving aside realism, however we define that word, how important is graphical fidelity versus visual style? I come down on the visual style side of the debate, but that's because I fundamentally don't care if videogames resemble real life anyhow. As far as I am concerned, Mass Effect could have been rendered to look like a flat shaded anime and I would have been fine with it (as long as there were no schoolgirls shooting stars out of wands at people). That's just my personal preference and I'm not saying anybody else should think the same way. Besides, it's not an either/or proposition. It's just that if I had to make the choice, I would prefer that developers spend their time on something other than making their game look as much like what I've seen with my own eyes in real life.

Let me clarify: I believe that stories with such social and moral heft benefit greatly from realistic graphics. It is not necessaary, but I am hard pressed to believe that ME2 would have impacted me as much if it had the grphical design and fidelity of World of Warcraft.

As Marchall McLuhan once said: "The medium is the message". Video games are a very visual art-form, and I believe the visuals (and sound) impact the story and experience almost as much as the writing and overall design.

[TheGame]

Eh I kinda know what BaB means, but it's also hard to clearly define. I personally prefer games that aim for their own art style opposed to trying to be "realistic". You can, and will almost always fail at being realistic, but you can't lose when you're just aiming for your own personal art style. Plus when you're going for your own thing, the game is more likely to be timeless.

The games that come to mind for me are Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraf. FFXI was an extremely beautiful game when it was first released, but if you play it nowadays it's limitations are very clear, and it looks aweful compared to newer games. While a game like WoW just aimed for the cartoonish look to start, and they chose freedom of movement over trying to make the game photo-realistic.. which helps it withstand the test of time more.

Yes Wind Waker did push the limitations of graphics in it's Gen, but because it has it's own art style, you can play that game next to any Wii, Ps3, or 360 game and it doesn't look out dated at all. While you can take some of those "realistic" games from last gen and they'll look laughably bad by comparision to current gen games (GTA games, MGS games, etc)

I've just found that todays "realistic" will be tomorrow's "unplayabe ugly".. while today's games that don't even attempt to be realistic are timeless.

I'll go whip out my streetfighter 2 sometime... but don't expect me to play Tekken 2, Mortal Kombat 2, or Virtual fighter 2.

[Angrist]

Originally Posted by Professor S

A story of political intrigue, genocide, sex and hard moral choices with life and death consequences doesn't need realism?

To me the setting is irrelevant. The themes are what dictated the style.

I guess they call that quasi-realism.

[manasecret]

So with that said and leaving aside realism, however we define that word, how important is graphical fidelity versus visual style? I come down on the visual style side of the debate, but that's because I fundamentally don't care if videogames resemble real life anyhow. As far as I am concerned, Mass Effect could have been rendered to look like a flat shaded anime and I would have been fine with it (as long as there were no schoolgirls shooting stars out of wands at people). That's just my personal preference and I'm not saying anybody else should think the same way. Besides, it's not an either/or proposition. It's just that if I had to make the choice, I would prefer that developers spend their time on something other than making their game look as much like what I've seen with my own eyes in real life.

Good separation of "realism" and "graphical fidelity", I'll accept those definitions, though I will note that one does not exist without the other on some level.

Even with your definition of "graphical fidelity", however, I still think the question as stated is moot. A game with graphical fidelity will always have a visual style, because the developers must always choose their color palette and what actual items and environments they render and so on. Take the example of Mass Effect 2, apparently considered to have high graphical fidelity with beard stubble and such, yet also has high visual style with glowing scars and so on. The two are just inseparable.

So... the question as stated (or as I assumed it was stated) of "graphical fidelity and _NO_visual style" vs. "visual style and _NO_ graphical fidelity" is moot, because you can't separate the two.

However, a valid question then is:

"fantastic graphical fidelity and _POOR_ visual style vs. "fantastic visual style and _POOR_ graphical fidelity"

I can imagine a game with great graphical fidelity and poor visual style, but I'm having trouble imagining a game with great visual style and truly poor graphical fidelity. What would be an example of that? I guess World of Goo and WoW and Wind Waker count?

In that case, if I had to live in a world of only one or the other from now on, I would have to choose visual style. A game with great graphical fidelity but poor visual style has something noticeably bad about it (see Everquest 2 and Medal of Honor below), but a game with great visual style and poor graphical fidelity has nothing noticeably bad about it. So the choice seems obvious -- one with something bad, and the other with nothing bad. Uhh... the one with nothing bad, please?

[Xantar]

Originally Posted by manasecret

Even with your definition of "graphical fidelity", however, I still think the question as stated is moot. A game with graphical fidelity will always have a visual style, because the developers must always choose their color palette and what actual items and environments they render and so on. Take the example of Mass Effect 2, apparently considered to have high graphical fidelity with beard stubble and such, yet also has high visual style with glowing scars and so on. The two are just inseparable.

Well here's a thought experiment: I'm sure that if Infinity Ward had the technical ability to do so, they would have made Modern Warfare 2 completely photorealistic in every way so that the game looks just like it would appear to you if you were a soldier running around shooting people. Would that game have visual style?

[manasecret]

Originally Posted by Xantar

Well here's a thought experiment: I'm sure that if Infinity Ward had the technical ability to do so, they would have made Modern Warfare 2 completely photorealistic in every way so that the game looks just like it would appear to you if you were a soldier running around shooting people. Would that game have visual style?

It's an interesting question and one I'm grappling with. My answer is yes, because in reality, there is a choice of what goes into that scene, and what the weather is like at that moment which changes the color palette, and so on.

Put another way, would such a scene not created in a video game, but filmed _not_ have a visual style? There are plenty of movies to choose from like this, I guess one example being Hurt Locker, though I haven't seen it.

[incredibledave]

@Teuthida: The Spider-man movies look alright considering Spidey wears a spandex costume. But I do agree that most of those Alex Ross Golden Age pin ups look kinda ridiculous.

Now for my own (delightfully uniformed) opinions:
I that a game should have a strong visual style regardless of whether they use a realistic or stylized graphics. Though I don't play many games nowadays, all my experience with world war 2 shoots blends together but I still have vivid memories of GTA: Vice City

[playa_playa]

Originally Posted by manasecret

My answer is yes, because in reality, there is a choice of what goes into that scene, and what the weather is like at that moment which changes the color palette, and so on.

Put another way, would such a scene not created in a video game, but filmed _not_ have a visual style? There are plenty of movies to choose from like this, I guess one example being Hurt Locker, though I haven't seen it.

this post brings up a point worth touching on: even when the medium seems bare, it is a product of a visual style. the example with movies are telling; where different direction of cinematography results in different visual experiences. take The Shawshank Redmeption, for example: the subject matter in the first act painted a gloomy picture, contrasted by the bright, well-lit cinematography - highlighting Andy's dogged hope and foreshadowing the redemption to be realized in the final act.

but I think what's being lost in this discussion is the distinction between having a style and being stylized. I think TS meant more the latter. it is one thing to say lighting, camera angle and editing denotes a visual style, but entirely another to say that videogames like Viewtiful Joe merely has a different visual style.

[BreakABone]

Video Games | Best of E3 2010 Awards | Best Graphics

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

I think this is somewhat important to the debate.
I think the reactions explain the point better, but in a category dubbed best graphics, Kirby: Epic Yarn beat out Rage, Crysis 2, Gears of War 3 and Killzone 3. So the comments break down into fact that graphics mean a more technical prowess and Kirby has art style.

Curious, do folks see graphics separate from art/presentation/style?

[v1zzy]

as a game designers point of view I think "high end extreme graphics" like killzone 2 is not always a good thing....Too be honest the reason why I havn't been playing killzone 2 ever since I bought it (look at my trophies lol) is because I can't freekin stand that game...

Everyone praises it for its "graphics" But am I the only one who finds that the graphics are waaay too overwhelming? It's hard to find your way to the next room / stage, the escalation sucks too. Everything is all guns / crazy structure / firefight / buildings / large doors, all of a sudden you're forced to go through a small entrance in order to get to the next "stage"

Also the graphics makes it very hard for me to spot ammo / guns lying around, because of the contrast and "fireworks" As an fps game Killzone 2 lacks a lot on direction....

Somtimes you have to rely on your AI team members to tell you where to go, I think that's a flaw, because in a crazy constant firefight game such as killzone 2, you need clear vision in where to go with or without the AI's hints

But that's just me...different strokes for different folks