Making it Cool VS making it Real

Anuxinamoon

I was wondering this today, how many people like art to be cool, or those who like art to be real.

Are you the kind of person who thinks:



Dude thats ridiculous. No way can that dude pick up that sword, let alone kill things with it. Its 100% inefficient and could not work in real life.

Or

Dude that looks really cool. I like the shape and the way he is holding makes him look like he's tough, and can kick a giant dragons ass.

Are you the kind of person who would prefer this over the first picture?

*Credit goes to capcom and Garage games for these links


I used to be a person who when they got a concept at work, would break it down and make sure everything is working and could be used in a real world way. Like a machine that a guy would have on his back, I had to make sure it was fully working and it had a purpose otherwise I would have a hard time modelling it.
Though nowerdays I find, I just like to make things cool. I don't really care if it doesn't work in reality, if that machine has no purpose and its pistons just shoot out the side but would do nothing in reality, I just make sure it looks cool, and I'm fine with that.

Do you think its a western thing? I see many eastern art and its way over the top but its cool and has alot of artistic flare and character.

Please discuss, I would love to hear your thoughts and your opinions!

pestibug

I like my stuff to look cool, but it has to look believable or sensible to a degree. I have to say the genre and style dictates what will work.

For me when it comes to characters I'm more focussed on, 'Does this make sense?' I'd rather have my characters tell a bit about themselves trough their characteristics. Why does he have a jetpack, how would it integrate in a way so it loosks convincing (not actually functional for that matter).

What would be the background, does he come from a tribe where at the day of comming at age he'll be scarrified as means of a rite of passage?

So, in that sense I always try to think up the hows and whys, see how it all fits with whatever style is going on at them moment and make sure it all fits together in the universe we work at.

(and yet keep it all looking cool!)

Was this a ramble? I don't know

Ged

I think theres a time and a place for both ways of working, just choose wisely according to the universe/world that the game is based in then have fun with it

that normal knight in armour wouldnt survive for a second in the monster hunter universe his sword is clearly too small :P

Mark Dygert

If its cool the feasibility can be explained away. He is assisted by magic, the sword was forged with special metals that are super light, his armor assists his strength bla bla bla.
Personally I don't think the top pick fits into the cool category and its still pretty easy to explain.

I think its important to marry plausibility with coolness. But honestly sometimes we have to make the concepts we are given with very little room for deviation.

Canadian Ink

cool

Hazardous

Ged wrote: »

that normal knight in armour wouldnt survive for a second in the monster hunter universe his sword is clearly too small :P

ROFL I agree with that man!

I have way more fun making stuff that looks cool these days, I think its because for the past 5 odd years of making stuff thats supposed to be realish, with real textures, now pretty much all realistic / photoreal stuff bores me to an extent.

Not that I disrespect the talent required, its just I think a stylised silhouette that clearly expresses the characters demeanor is more appealing to me now than it used to be.

For me personally I would choose the style of TF2 characters over the likes of Call of Duty, and would choose Monster hunters style over say The Lost planet.

Muzzoid

Really it depends on what im trying to acheive but personally i think that this is irrelevant.

What you need is consistency, if you have a world you need to make sure that everything uses the same phyical laws throughout. and that is all that really matters.

Yozora

depends if cool actually looks cool. First pic doesnt look that cool to me, not because its slightly illogical, but because it just doesnt look that cool

metalliandy

I much prefer the second image tbh.

I just cant stand the whole "sword thats bigger than bus" thing really....the knight looks much better

The FF games are cool and that but just not my thing i guess :S

Vailias

Its totally game dependent. The more real the game setting the more realistic the weaponry. If we're talking a game where your character is an impossibly proportioned hero (or even just has hair if impossible proportions (cloud strife I'm looking at you)) then let the ridiculous weaponry flow.

Its a sliding scale really. The further from reality the game concept, the further the weapons can go.

dfacto

I'm a sucker for outlandish designs that follow the rule of cool, but there's a very big spot in my heart for ultra realistic designs too. The thing is if it's a real world subject matter, such as soldiers, the world is saturated with images of soldiers, and art of soldiers that adheres closely to reality. If the "market" is saturated, it becomes commonplace and loses it's impact. I may love realistic designs, but give me a choice between a CoD4 soldier and something stylistic and exaggerated and there's no contest: cool beats realistic.

On the other hand saturation can work the other way too. Case in point is the first image in this thread, which is a mindless case of swordly penis compensation. I've seen enough anime, manga, and other media to recognize a blatant ploy when I see it, and by now the giant sword is so cliche it hurts. Yeah, it's cool, but there's saturation, and I'd rather see something different, and maybe more realistic. A good example is Bleach, where Ichigo has the giant ginsu sword, which turns into a sleak and slim katana. Oh man is it great to finally see something other than a sword getting bigger and bigger!

But the best is really a solid mix of cool and realistic. Realism grounds the design and shows care and attention to detail, while exaggeration and stylization make it stand apart.

Farfarer

It's all about consistency, really. Not having unrealistic things in a realistic universe and vice versa.

I've never been a fan of the Final Fantasy stuff of swords more massive than the person who carries them rubbish, though. Just because, as evidenced in that photo, it's evidently unrealistic even in an unrealistic universe.

Muzzoid

Btw if you love cool, and you at least like anime. Go watch gurren lagann. It will blow your freaking minds!

i really agree with what dfacto says. Look at how much people love tf2, okami and katamari damacy. All with different levels of rediculousness but are all successful because they are unique and fun.

pior

I love cool, but I hate people saying "huuuuh just make it look cool y'know"
And yeah for what Muzz just said - a little bit of ridicule goes a long way.

Also, texture resolution stretched like crazy is UNcool (like on that first crappy pic)

Lamont

I can't stand the majority of the stuff Bandi puts out on video.

My opinion is: It just needs to fit.

Kevin Johnstone

Reality, shown correctly, IS COOL

Its always the interplay between realism and stylization that makes for good art in games.

dejawolf

realism. i hate it when something that should take 2-3 moving parts consists of 150 little moving parts moving in all directions.

Ghostscape

I like cool, but I hate unrealistic mechanical bits on stuff stuff - pistons that don't actually function, etc. The fiddly bits are what make it cool for me, and I don't mind if mechanical bits are over-wrought or hidden, but show me something that flat out won't move and it drives me nuts.

I think the sword for that guy in the OP is a bit large and a bit too soft looking for a "cool giant sword" but I have no problem with something like Nightmare's sword in Soul Calibur.

Cybroxide

cool wins everytime but, that first picture isn't cool cause it doesn't look good. If they put more time and effort into that sword instead of just scaling it up then it might be cool.

cw

both are cool!

monster hunter is special though. it has special logic and special rules.

Sandbag

Kevin Johnstone wrote: »

Reality, shown correctly, IS COOL

Its always the interplay between realism and stylization that makes for good art in games.

Watch the world collapse in upon its self as I agree with you 100%.

I will always favor functional over "just make it cool." Functional IS cool to me...even if it's ridiculous or not very plausible, as long as the attempt for functionality is there it makes me happier.

I think it's very important to distinguish "functional" from "realistic" though. Something can have a logical working order and still be deep into the world of fantasy or science fiction. The guns from Aliens, the bikes in Akira (and the laser gun in akira, finally a laser gun that shoots a laser!), Big Guy from Big Guy and Rusty, even the airships from Howl's Moving Castle. These are all believable mechanics and devices that are beyond the realm current feasibility.

That said, I love the Katamari series, I love soul caliber, I love Gun Grave, etc. Something like Katamari is such an obvious departure from reality that logic really becomes unimportant, but even in fantasy or science fiction games I love it irks me when stuff just makes zero sense for the sake of "being cool."


ps - even though I wasn't a huge fan of the game as a whole, and even though I died because of it, I shit my pants with happiness when my flame thrower didn't work in space in Dead Space. I clicked and clicked as those little boogers came at me and thought "WTF?!....Aw damnit!"

dejawolf

yeah, dead space was steaming with awesome. i loved how the sounds were all dulled out when you were in outer space. really made you feel like you weren't inside the ship anymore.

Zwebbie

Reality is much more interesting than people give it credit for - but most people don't do their research and come up with standard knights and legionaries. A similar sword to the one that knight on the second picture has, the Zweihaender, was used by the Landsknecht and Doppelsoeldners. Just google Landsknecht. Those guys were the pimps of their days and wielded sword 2 meters long - legends say multiple people could be beheaded in one stroke.

bounchfx

Over the top please. I like my mix of both, depending on the game I guess, but there's way too much 'real' in real life already.

It's a fucking game, do shit we can't do in real life.

same with trying to make art and games as real to the source as possible. It has it's places but overall go for cool ass ideas.

dejawolf

Zwebbie wrote: »

Reality is much more interesting than people give it credit for - but most people don't do their research and come up with standard knights and legionaries. A similar sword to the one that knight on the second picture has, the Zweihaender, was used by the Landsknecht and Doppelsoeldners. Just google Landsknecht. Those guys were the pimps of their days and wielded sword 2 meters long - legends say multiple people could be beheaded in stroke.

they did that multi-head-lop thing on deadliest warrior.
reality is stranger than fiction?
oh, and more zweihander:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFAKTjOQJwQ[/ame]
stabs right through a car hood.

Anuxinamoon

Oh its really interesting reading your comments
The pictures weren't the best but that's all I could think of at the time xD

Zotter

I've always been of the mind that stylized or "cool" is better. But that's just a personal thing because I've always thought that if I wanted photo-realistic I'd just take a picture and rather do things with dynamic silhouettes. Since being given a 3D tool I feel why be restrained to realism when you're really only limited to what you're mind can come up with.

This is only a personal opinion though, if you're doing a simulator or a historical piece it may be better to keep it to the original, while in an arcadey type game you're less restrained to what was there and are more trying to see what gives the best visual impact.

Canden Picard

One of my biggest problems actually. I limit myself Creatively by trying to be mechanically accurate. I forget that things dont have to necessarily be practical or operational. But, then again, youll always get contradictory crits, someone may say that wouldnt raelly work would it? Or Thats awesome! and dont care about the functional side. Like zotter said unless its reference or historical, just do you man.

Valandar

Making it cool BY making it real is awesome, IMHO. There's so many weird, cool, and downright amazing things humans have made in the past several thousand years that it boggles the mind. And if you HAVE to go over the top, why not start with something real and then just axaggerate what makes it cool?

Also, sometimes absolute realism is preferred. Half those WWII FPS games wouldn't be as good if you were using a Flak Cannon instead of a more traditional weapon.

Then again... shooting Nazis with a Flak Cannon MIGHT be kinda cool...

Thegodzero

Anuxinamoon wrote: »

I used to be a person who when they got a concept at work, would break it down and make sure everything is working and could be used in a real world way. Like a machine that a guy would have on his back, I had to make sure it was fully working and it had a purpose otherwise I would have a hard time modelling it.

pior wrote: »

Also, texture resolution stretched like crazy is UNcool (like on that first crappy pic)

^ME
I love breaking things down giving them some quasi functionality adding detail as needed. You always end up with a better looking piece. I HATE seeing massively different pixel densitys.

Oh hi there nice crisp wall texture! Mmmm you are mighty sexy, oh who is your friend? No really what is this, why is it so blurry looking and whats the huge off colored blob in the... OH MY GOD IS THAT A PIXEL?!

ScudzAlmighty

while realism certainly has it's place, it's the exaggerated stuff like TF2 that gets my attention; but i think the best is when you get a crossover that actually works. The Alien ship in Crysis, the Half-life/L4D style, Dark Void looks like it's got a good blend and that's the stuff that really gets it for me. but then the stuff that gets it just slightly wrong i can't stand, like the main guy in Lost Oddysee, at first glance he's got some cool armour,but then you look at it and not only is it paper-thin, but he's wearing it directly on his skin; that shit would chaffe man! Arkham Asylum is another one, the idea is solid: make it look realistic and like the comics, but then somewhere along the way all the characters had to steriods? i have never seen Batman look so stiff and unnatural and Harley Quinn just looks stupid, but that's my next point. (alot of this oppinoin is based on how f***ing good the comicon entries were this year tough)

Ultimately it just comes down to what we each think is cool, and that tends to be vastly different from what the "market analyists" will let the art department put out.

crazyfingers

Sound, graphics, and gameplay are so interwoven that a game without cool graphics just isn't that much fun to play. There are a select few games that i think would still be fun if you were to replace everything with simple cubes, games like tf2, left 4 dead, starcraft. The gameplay is so strong that they don't need visuals to be entertaining. But all these games have a visual style that fits inherently with the vision of the game. Left 4 dead went for realism, but there are obvious liberties taken to make it seem like a horror movie. The way they pulled off the flashlight was genius.

So cool vs real, whatever balance brings out the gameplay best. If you're into WW2 shooters or sports games i'm sure you're probably voting for realism. If you like real games, well...

sir-knight

cool functionality is where it's at... if someone is still able to use such a weapon effectively, then the point is pretty moot. There's a place for everything. I mean if you want some comedy or special character sure you give them the giant asspaddling meat cleaver, but if everyone in the game or show has one, it kind of loses the effect of being that giant asspaddling meat cleaver.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB9pRR3bFEI[/ame]




but there's something to be said about the elegance of a simple blade and the speed it which it can be used.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky736ibFX-U[/ame]

And of course... historical asspaddlers like the zweihander and the chinese miao dao

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzG8KjPGtL0[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Q27znmM2Y[/ame]

HandSandwich

Personally I prefer cool over real just because of the visual interest you can get. Don't get me wrong, realism can be quite impressive. But seeing locales and peoples that you have never and will never see in reality is just way more motivational to me. Plus, I find it a lot more interesting to create than realistic objects.

Belias

i prefer the first image , it makes you feel surprised .