These aren’t mutually exclusive
High-fidelity and artfully stylized aren’t, but photorealism is like… a photo.
Photo realism still requires art direction.
Think of a movie.
aight this scene takes place in Mexico so lemme color grade it very Mexican, but also it’s a flashback to the 50’s so I’m gonna dial down the color saturation and digitally add some film grain
What if it was neo mexico city? Need some cyberpunk chihuahuas
I was in a bluegrass band called Cyberpunk Chihuahuas. We offended many cultural sensibilities.
Albuquerque?
Yup. Take that one body cam game. Making an object look realistic is a matter of slapping a high resolution texture on it. Making a game look realistic involves a lot of prop work and stage setting. Making a game look realistic and still be playable is insanely difficult. Pay attention to the size of the doors in the next “photorealistic” game you play, and laugh at the fools who say photorealism doesn’t require art direction
I think we’re talking about different things, but I see your point.
By stylized “graphics” I took it to mean like the actual resolution, polygons, draw distance, etc, and then aesthetics goes on top of that.
Art direction isn’t purely aesthetics either. There’s so many things that go into makeing art, be it a game or something else.
Art should help us feel what the artist intended or sometimes something more personal to ourselves. Many aspects will facilitate or detract from that.
You can have stylized photorealism the same as other styles of art. You mght see pixel art of a realistic scene. Or you can have extremely detailed animation.
I think the better question is does the community allow for and reward that expression? Are there trends we don’t find too appealing universally? Are there styles of art that maybe seem overused?
OK we’re definitely talking about different things when we say photorealism. I see stylized and photorealistic almost as on a linear spectrum. I realise there are more dimensionz to it than that, but that’s the usage I think the meme is critiquing. That’s how I took it, anyway.
What they’re talking about is what I call “The Wind Waker Effect.” When the GameCube was first announced, they showed off a trailer that included a realistic looking Link fighting Ganondorf to show off the power of the system. When the Wind Waker was announced and shown to the public, fans were furious. They didn’t want some cartoony Zelda game, they wanted that photo-realistic Zelda game that they had been teased with years before! When Wind Waker came out, it was universally criticized for its graphics. Today, it’s considered one of the best looking Zelda games of all time and was the main inspiration for the art direction of almost every Zelda game after it - including Breath of the Wild.
If Nintendo had made that “photo-realistic” Zelda game, it would look nowhere near as good nor be as fondly remembered today, because “photo-realistic” in terms of video game graphics is an obsession with graphical fidelity, not artistic quality. That’s why photo-realistic games from the same era are remembered as the “real = brown” era of games. It’s a technical or hardware question of “how many polygons can we fit in this character’s facial pores”, not taking something fake and making it seem real through art direction.
The Neverhood literally consists of photographs, it is as photorealistic as it is possible to be, and yet it has a very strong art direction. More modern titles like The Midnight Walk, Keeper, and Felt That Boxing are similar, though they are actually rendered rather than consisting of photographs and video. On the other side of the coin there are some visual effects that are quite abstracted from real life, but are also very GPU intensive, showing that just because an image doesn’t look like a photo doesn’t mean that its necessarily easy to render (note, that video is a human authored algorithm, not AI, though they do compare it to AI video generation).
I used to have the same opinion that you express, but I think this was only ever really true in practice during the brown era, and not before or after. In fact some games like Thief 1&2, Half Life 1&2, and the Chronicles of Riddick were trying to be as photorealistic as possible at the time of their release, but are now pretty commonly praised for their “stylization” today. For example, the deep blacks and stark contrast of stencil shadows vs what you get with more modern lighting. I am reminded of a Brian Eno quote:
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.
We are even seeing some nostalgia now for the pissfilter era, though that’s not an enthusiasm that I share. I suspect that we will eventually see TAA ghosting and ray tracing artifacts, that are currently much hated, be recreated in a controlled way as a stylistic choice. In particular I think that Control will eventually be praised for the way that it basically incorporated ray tracing artifacts into its art style, by using sparkly mineral walls and a dreamlike atmosphere.
What I was trying to say was that they were making two completely different points. When companies talk about “realistic” graphics in games, it’s always about the graphical fidelity, not about art style, direction, or aesthetic, and that steers the entire narrative of the conversation around “photo-realistic” games.
What memes like this are trying to say is that having a good style and strong art direction trumps pure graphical fidelity every time. Whether your game looks like Crysis or Super Metroid doesn’t matter as much as having clear design direction, and conversely, slapping 4k textures on everything won’t matter if your game has no design direction.
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I think they mean that you can like both, you don’t have to choose only one to like
Oh well then there is no conflict at all, yeah
Don’t make me point at the TitanFall 2 and MGSV sign again.
Its just that that’s hard for developers to develop, for management to allow, so, instead, use horrifically unoptimized UE5!
artfully stylized graphics will always be better because they will look timeless
There are several games who we’re just “this looks like reality” when they released who have aged well too. Half-life 2 (even without the updates) being the first one I think of, but I also think the first Far Cry and Crysis look amazing even now. Good design will age well no matter, the only thing that goes away is the immediate excitement of how impressively real it looks for the ones that went for that, but they still stir something inside people who experience them for the first time decades later.
Psychonauts!!
I would be happy if they stopped making everything look somehow both covered in vaseline while also being more reflective then a fucking mirror.
Just look at this shit in the demo:
When reflections became a thing in graphics, they were the new hotness. But unfortunately they’re overused because people seem to think that reflections are the best indicator of graphical realism. They’re a factor for sure, but overly reflective isn’t the same as realistic reflections
Like 3d tv, this is just a fad. Most people I know turn off raytracing in a few min (even though they spent $1000s on hardware to do raytracing). The generated frames and full ray and pathtracing have such low payout vs the cost. Unless something changes this is all pointless waste.
Best example I can think of is the rtx portal looking and running like ass compared to the now very old original.
This has been going on since before ray tracing.
Also ray tracing is the future for realistic looking games because it’s easier than all those shader hacks. Just needs to get a lot cheaper in terms of fps lost
Sure its the future, from years ago. One day for sure…
This works for a tech demo if you want to show off a new rendering engine or a new GPU. But yeah, if you base the whole game around that, it’s like those movies with more CGI than plot.
In this world, there is no dust or dirt and everything looks like an early 2000’s Apple product.
And if there is dirt, its glossy and reflective. I swear they are trying to give uncanny valley vibes on everything now.
I mean, effects like these have their time and place as well. Looking for a sci-fi setting in a distant future where these robots coming fresh out the factory like that? Cool. But I get your sentiment, if everything just looks like this because it just can and no conceptual thought goes into it, it’s crap.
Oh yeah, for sure there is a place for it. But a big part of the whole selling point for raytracing is it will just do its thing and look good. However it looks like this.
Hah. Remember in the Xbox 360 era when everything looked like it was wrapped in saran wrap? I hated that so much. It’s like - some if not most objects are not that reflective. Yes light bounces off of things, but it’s such an “all or none” solution. Things in real life are so much more diffused.
Its odd that things become shiny and greasy everytime the industry pushes graphics. I want to play a game that is by it’s very nature not the real world. If you want to do a photo realistic game then bring back FMV.
Mirror’s Edge is still beautiful to this day, despite being 17 years old
Dear AAA game studios: Just look at Hades II.
LOOK AT IT. A good chunk of the art you see on every playthrough isn’t even animated.
I’m probably going to clear 300+ hours on this thing before I put it down, and I’ll likely tell everyone to buy it because it’s that good. Photorealism is the last thing I care about.
Similarly Schedule I. Tyler optimized TF out of the very unrealistic graphics in that game, and is only hiring an artist so that the expansion looks pretty.
So I remember playing xenosaga 3 on the PS2. The visual effects on some of the mech attacks were absolutely stunning. It was sooooo pretty.
I like both, they each have their place
I wish they’d make more games like Disco Elysium where the whole thing looks like a painting.
I wish they’d make more games that have unique art styles.
The indie scene is where you’ll find the most creative takes. There are some truly stunning styles that mainstream games would probably never try.
Totally agree, indie devs need more artistic freedom to flourish.
It’s like you’ve never even played Persona 5.
Persona has a unique look for sure. Some AAAs do look neat, but it is very, very, rare. On the whole they don’t come close to the indie scene.
you know what, I’ll just keep playing the same old decade old games I’ve been playing
No matter who denies it, this is peak artfully stylised graphics for any game ever made.deleted by creator
But Clair Obscur, tho.
Like, damn.
Anyone who says photorealism and stylized art are mutually exclusive needs to play Clair Obscur, then delete their comment
I watched my friend play Mall Simulator, and in spite of it not being graphically intensive, the game breaks down when there are too many assets in the world. Absolute respect to the people that optimize games.
Well… Ontologically speaking…
Plague tale (requiem in particular) is also ridiculously beautiful on mid range GPUs. I couldn’t believe my graphic card was able to do that. It’s a shame games reviews and screenshots don’t account for average setups because that’s what most of us have and some developers deserve praise to make it work for us.
Hand draw each frame. Now do it 60 or more times per second.
Yes, you only have to replace your GPU with about 800 000 artists (assuming the take four hours to draw a frame)
And since they have to do it 4 hours in advance, it’s technically using FrameGeneration predicting what the next frame will be in advance. 😏
There’s a guy in my computer doing that for me
The trouble with photorealism is that you very easily stumble into the uncanny valley. In addition, something that often looks “photorealistic” today will look really dated in a few years.
If you go with artfully styled games, it can actually be much harder. You need to adopt a consistent artistic style and have that style be used by many different artists. Unlike with photorealism, there isn’t always going to be a reference available. You have to watch that over time, and as the scope of the game grows, the style remains consistent. But, when it’s done well, it can be amazing.
One of my favourites in terms of artful styling is the game Interstate '76. It came out at a time when full motion video cutscenes were the style of the day. You’d have low resolution graphics, and then come in with a VHS-quality cutscene with real actors and real sets. Then back into low resolution graphics. Interstate '76 chose an amazing artistic style, then did in-engine cutscenes, which kept the style consistent.
The other master of this, IMO, is World of Warcraft. It must be a gargantuan undertaking to have a game with that many different models and to have a consistent style for all of them, but they mostly do. They often do out-of-engine cutscenes, but their style is so consistent that their cutscenes just look like even more detailed shots from that same world.
something that often looks “photorealistic” today will look really dated in a few years
Check the overall vibe of game cube games VS ps2/xbox. N64 VS PS1. Colourful pretty games stand the test of time way better than realism.
Rule #1: Never get out of the car
What was that?!
Flying saucer.
Oh.
something that often looks “photorealistic” today will look really dated in a few years.
I’m fairly certain that with AI framegen and he hyperfocus on raytracing this paradigm is broken. Were going from consecutive titles looking better to stagnation while only projects with some breathing room in production will advance visually. (E.g. new witcher).
Wow had been interesting lately. The last expansion I played, there were legitimately zones that I thought “I can’t believe this is wow” compared to the vanilla zones. You can still tell after a moment, but it is just a lot more detailed. I do love the point you make here. It reminded me of my first experience with uncanny valley in a game. I prefer not to have that experience tbh.
Were you thinking “I can’t believe this is WoW” or “I can’t believe how good this looks?”
Because, I haven’t experienced the first one. To me, once I’m in the game, there really seems to be an amazing consistency in how things look. After a while things look “realistic” but in a “realistic for WoW” way. Like, obviously Orcs and Demons are not realistic, but the consistency is so strong that how things look, and move, and behave is so strong and predictable.
The initial impression of the new Arathi zone, before really getting close enough to see details was a “I can’t believe this is wow” moment on first impression. There are a couple areas like that where it really throws me. But in a way, yes, it looked so surprisingly good and a tad different.
Depends. Some horror games really sell the value of photorealism well
Meh, I like high fidelity graphics. Most “artfully stylised” games are not to my taste either - pixel graphics do nothing for me and nor do a lot of flat 2D graphics. Stuff like GRIS is beautiful, but it seems to be an outlier. So for visually engaging stuff I find it’s AAA mostly realistic graphics - if not “photorealistic” - for me.
A person with different tastes than me, grrrr. It’s diametrically opposite for me. All AAA, no matter what studio, not ID, not Lorien, their graphics just never look as vibrant as lo-fi graphics of a game made by, at most, 5 people. They do have some impressive aspects but, overall, because they try to look more “”“real”“” they end up looking more mundane and boring to me. Nothing will ever compete with artistic abstraction of lo-fi games 🥀
