Haoshiro
Jan 19, 2007, 07:04 AM
IGN recently posted and interesting article which interviews a couple developers (from Pandemic) to get their comments on next-gen graphics.
IGN: Next-gen Graphics Roundtable (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/756/756135p1.html)
Here are a few highlights I found particularly interesting, especially considering some of the discussion on MR:
In the great hierarchy of things, Designers are god - they're number one; artists are second because art needs to support design; engineering are third because they build the tools to support the artists who support design. In that configuration you get the best results - of course, everyone is important.
Seems like a well listed hierarchy, as evident by killmomz rabid praise of Fumito Ueda; as well as the success of Shigeru Miyamoto. Designers are obviously king, even if many gamers don't readily notice that as much as they should.
How important are graphics? It'll lure you in, but it won't hold you. It's the eye-candy that gets people in initially, but it will peter out if there isn't substance there.
On the flipside, look at Civilisation - what were those graphics? They were crap! But I couldn't put the thing down. So it works both ways.
Gameplay vs Graphics, they both matter but graphics alone won't necessarily keepy someone playing; gameplay will.
If you look at the on-paper specs, the PS3 doesn't have this mythical, untapped reservoir of power. There's been a lot of talk about that, but it doesn't seem to be there. I have yet to see the evidence of this. It's always hard, a generation out - I'm not suggesting it won't happen, though.
A small bit of developer proof to support what many people thought true all along? Plenty of people on this forum fought about this very subject, specifically in favor of PS3 (Ed H, darkwing, etc etc). Interesting to see some evidence directly from a developer that so far it's unfounded to say that, which was my basic argument all along.
I think it's interesting, in this age of high definition, that a TV's standard definition is 640 x 480 - and it looks real. So what are we doing wrong? The answer is very complex and goes into a bunch of things; but there's no theoretical reason why we shouldn't be making realistic games in 640 x 480.
I've often wondered about this myself. People knock Wii for only outputting 480p, yet we've all watched TV and movies on 480p TVs for a long time and even at this "low" resolution we've never seen a game that look as real as a tv/movie that plays at that same resolution.
Seems to me resolution is definitely not the issue there, we can't even do photo-realism at low resolution and we're already moving on. Which is fine, but let's be honest... if a game looked photo-real at 480p, it'd look better then all those games out there that run at 720p/1080i/1080p.
Extra clarity is definitely nice, but it's not necessarily what is going to hold back graphics quality. Wii just my prove that, if a developer really wants to try there really could be Wii games that compete with the graphics quality of 360/PS3. Less power at a lower resolution could get equal results, just with lower fidelity.
Interesting article all around I though, read the whole thing via the link up top, it's 4 pages but actually pretty short.
IGN: Next-gen Graphics Roundtable (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/756/756135p1.html)
Here are a few highlights I found particularly interesting, especially considering some of the discussion on MR:
In the great hierarchy of things, Designers are god - they're number one; artists are second because art needs to support design; engineering are third because they build the tools to support the artists who support design. In that configuration you get the best results - of course, everyone is important.
Seems like a well listed hierarchy, as evident by killmomz rabid praise of Fumito Ueda; as well as the success of Shigeru Miyamoto. Designers are obviously king, even if many gamers don't readily notice that as much as they should.
How important are graphics? It'll lure you in, but it won't hold you. It's the eye-candy that gets people in initially, but it will peter out if there isn't substance there.
On the flipside, look at Civilisation - what were those graphics? They were crap! But I couldn't put the thing down. So it works both ways.
Gameplay vs Graphics, they both matter but graphics alone won't necessarily keepy someone playing; gameplay will.
If you look at the on-paper specs, the PS3 doesn't have this mythical, untapped reservoir of power. There's been a lot of talk about that, but it doesn't seem to be there. I have yet to see the evidence of this. It's always hard, a generation out - I'm not suggesting it won't happen, though.
A small bit of developer proof to support what many people thought true all along? Plenty of people on this forum fought about this very subject, specifically in favor of PS3 (Ed H, darkwing, etc etc). Interesting to see some evidence directly from a developer that so far it's unfounded to say that, which was my basic argument all along.
I think it's interesting, in this age of high definition, that a TV's standard definition is 640 x 480 - and it looks real. So what are we doing wrong? The answer is very complex and goes into a bunch of things; but there's no theoretical reason why we shouldn't be making realistic games in 640 x 480.
I've often wondered about this myself. People knock Wii for only outputting 480p, yet we've all watched TV and movies on 480p TVs for a long time and even at this "low" resolution we've never seen a game that look as real as a tv/movie that plays at that same resolution.
Seems to me resolution is definitely not the issue there, we can't even do photo-realism at low resolution and we're already moving on. Which is fine, but let's be honest... if a game looked photo-real at 480p, it'd look better then all those games out there that run at 720p/1080i/1080p.
Extra clarity is definitely nice, but it's not necessarily what is going to hold back graphics quality. Wii just my prove that, if a developer really wants to try there really could be Wii games that compete with the graphics quality of 360/PS3. Less power at a lower resolution could get equal results, just with lower fidelity.
Interesting article all around I though, read the whole thing via the link up top, it's 4 pages but actually pretty short.
