Merging styles

[lordcookie]

As the graphical capabilities of consoles gets greater and greater we start to see a greater divide between realistic and cartoony (for want of a better word) styles. Are developers missing something though? Why cant they start to blend the 2. The only game I can think that is trying this is Fierce fight professional baseball and it looks really stunning. I think it would also allow a lot more flexibility in the designing of games too. Realistic games are always confined to real world physics (barring stuff like the over used bullet time technique). By mixing the 2 it would allow you to do anything but in a real world setting.

Anyone else think that developers should start messing around with trying to merge the 2 styles?

[Molloy]

I think many developers are striking a good balance between realism and artistic liscence.

Ico has a relatively realistic environment but the use of light, wind and ambient sound elevate it above the ordinary. The characters are realistically proportioned but the animation gives them a certain character that motion capture could never achieve.

Vice City is a rather blurry world with a poor refresh rate but it's also very glamorous. They haven't slavishly copied Miami from an ordinance survey map. They've filled it with yellow sunsets, swaying palmtrees and varied scenery.

I think cartoon and manga asthetics can be much worse when done badly. For every Mario there were a thousand Bubsy 3D's with a complete void of visual creativity.

Real doesn't work in games. What we get, in an ideal situation, is one persons interpretation.

I think already in the 128bit generation our capacity for being wowed by high resolutions and lens flare is diminishing. In future games are going to need more than technically good graphics to distinguish themselves from the crowd. The quality of the graphic design could become far more important.

[lordcookie]

You are right about Ico, but I was talking more about contrasting the 2 styles within one game. Ico's characters are consistent with the game world as is the GTA series. I was trying to say (rather clumsily) that maybe a developer would be brave enough to have a very real world setting yet have cartoony characters, or over exaggerated actions (and I am not talking about bullet time). What got me thinking about it was an episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets sucked into a real world setting at the end (it was a Halloween special). I think a talented developer could really play around with the idea.

[Molloy]

Hmm.. that would perhaps be a little hard to pull off. It was impressive in the Simpsons because of the novelty factor of the technology. If you look at the Scooby Doo movie things begin to get less appealing.

I think Square are trying something using a new Photoshop technology. They're going to put sketched 2d characters with exceptionally good animation in a 3d world and try and integrate things as well as possible. Hopefully it won't end up looking like Parappa.

[lordcookie]

http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/viewtopic.php?t=1894&highlight=baseball

Well I think this game pulls it off quite well at least.

[Fuddle]

what we need is something based in the 'who framed roger rabbit' world

[lordcookie]

what we need is something based in the 'who framed roger rabbit' world

Now your talking.

What was that point and click adventure starring Christopher Lloyd called? That had a similar style.

[Fuddle]

did that have a detective cartoon cat in it?
or am i thinking of the one that appeared in 'last action hero'.

[Tig]

Timesplitters 2 went for an interesting 'caricature' of reality with semi-cartoon characters. Another example of this I can think of is XIII, which looks tread the path laid by those 'realistic-style' comic books. I think the styles are definately emerging, and we'll probably see more as photorealism becomes less interesting.