[article] Game Graphics

[ihoss.com]

Found this (2 year old) article about video game graphics. Its a pretty good read if you are interested in making more realistic games.

Realistic Graphics?

[walnoot]

I always thought that I liked old-fashioned cartoons better, because I was just getting old. I thought the generation of the kids nowadays would have the same feeling in twenty years with the more realistic toons they watch today. But I guess they don't. They just have a lack of good TV . Good read.

[walsher]

Nice find there ihoss. I really like how he compared it with a robot/andriod. It does seem that nowadays people are looking for the more realstic games. Even with cartoons too, there seem to be alot more going the route of 3D.

[cadin]

There was a short article last month in Game Developer about this too. "Invisible Monsters: Tales from the Uncanny Valley". It doesn't seem to be online though.

[Ray Beez]

Wow. I read this exact article 2 years ago.

The way 3D artists and game devs are handling the problem is with more realistic eyeballs. (They make them glossy, and blink and look around now). That's one of the MAIN reasons of the "uncanny" problem.

It's actually no different than what illustrators, painters and artists in OTHER mediums face when trying to create realistic human protraiture. The biggest thing to learn is proper eyes, otherwise you get what my old life drawing teacher called the "dead fish eye" look. Just screwing up the eyes can ruin the entire portrait.

[cadin]

I think you're right that it is the same problem that other artists face, but it's compounded by the fact that games are not only striving for a realistic portrait, but also realistic movement and speech.

[walsher]

That is so true. Movement and showing off emotion is very hard too do in 3D. I face that problem anytime I work on a new 3D project. The industry is really stepping it up with there 3D movies, Pixar, Dreamworks and the other company's.

[Fall_X]

I'm just happy I read this because it talked about the Roomba, which I didn't know of. I thought vacuum-cleaning robots still costed a lot more. I will need to get one of those now, if I can find one here in Belgium.

[mr_malee]

i agree with that article, nice read. But i think half life 2 pulled it off. The people seemed to look real and didn't freak me out, not sure how they did it, but their renderer worked real nice