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What is important?

garrettia
polycounter lvl 2
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garrettia polycounter lvl 2

Good evening. I'm sorry if my question may be silly, please. What is important in games, vfx, renders?

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  • kanga
  • JulezKaidy

    I would recommend Googling what the basics of game art are, what makes a game, level design, Art (character, prop, environment, etc) VFX, and so on. From there you can dive deeper into each topic and see what suits you. :)

  • garrettia
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    garrettia polycounter lvl 2

    Thank you both :)

  • another caveman
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    another caveman greentooth

    in games: performances

  • Eric Chadwick

    Also, digging around in our wiki might help you

    http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Rendering

  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter

    Game design.


    If it isn't designed you have no idea what it is you're supposed to be making and you piss millions down the drain.


    Ask me how I know :)

  • garrettia
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    garrettia polycounter lvl 2

    How you know ? :)

  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter

    Very good 😜

    If you've got running costs of 15million a year a 3 month delay is pretty expensive and nothing delays production like having no solid idea of what you're making when the pre prod stage ends.

  • Eric Chadwick
  • kanga
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    kanga quad damage

    Amen to that Eric!

  • Tiles
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    Tiles greentooth

    For a game it's the mix of it all. A game is a multimedial product. It has to be consistent in itself. And when just one component sucks, then the whole game sucks. This can even be a single wrong sound fx. And same goes for VFX and renders. The people will not see the thousand things that fits. But the one that disturbs.

    So to answer your question, everything is important.

  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter

    It's not though is it.


    DayZ - half the art is recycled from 2006 arma and it's buggy as shit . 7/8 years since standalone released and it's still growing new players

    Minecraft - looks ropey as fuck, sounds awful . 11 years in and still growing.


    Battlefield 5 - looked great, sounded great, failed because they forgot to put a game in behind the item shop


    I'm pretty sure an expert could write a whole book about why those two examples still work after all this time.

    I'm not an expert but I'll go out on a limb and suggest that their longevity and success is due to very solid and well thought out base gameplay loop and mechanics that have them been sensitively built upon with the aim of expanding the game for the player's benefit.

    As opposed to the EA/Ubisoft approach of boring the player into buying stuff.

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter

    Yeah I couldn't disagree more.

    I dont think there is any correlation that can be made between quality and financial/critical success. I am sure artistic integrity won't harm a games ability to sell but it will certainly explode the production cost, while there is absolutely no indication it has more of an impact than any other component of the game.

    Of course I like nice looking game like probably everybody here but I think attitude of "things must be perfect" is extremely dangerous. Number one problem I actually have with hired help if they waste too much time on trying to make things perfect - fighting wrong battles at wrong time even if I try to explain clearly the primary goal. (and same problem with myself too, always the biggest challenge is "where should I focus?")

    Assuming the goal of the game is to sell copies, retain players, and attract new ones, then I think the primary important factor is addictive gameplay loop - and then marketing has to know the audience and reach them. Everything else is way way below.


    But... I think OP was asking more about what is important technical considerations for graphics in the different mediums. To which I'd say, it has to look good, run without crashing, and get made on time. No big deal.

  • Tiles
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    Tiles greentooth

    I think you both misunderstood my answer.

    [quote]Of course I like nice looking game like probably everybody here but I think attitude of "things must be perfect" is extremely dangerous.[/quote]

    I said consistent, not perfect. That's two completely different things. And nearly the opposite.

    When you make a low poly style game with stylized graphics, then you can be as successful as when you make a AAA title with all the bells and whistles. A good example is Valheim here. Nearly a one man show when it got released. And one of the most popular games at Steam. Or the fact that even nowadays a Super Mario is still lots of fun. The game has to be consistent in itself. These games are. Their components fits to each other. There is nothing negatively sticking out and disturbing.

    As told, one wrong sound fx is already enough to ruin this consistency. It is a multimedial product. There is not one thing responsible for being successful or not, but the sum of it all.

    [quote]Battlefield 5 - looked great, sounded great, failed because they forgot to put a game in behind the item shop[/quote]

    This is what i mean. One component sucks, all the perfect other components did not help ... :)

  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter

    Then yes, I misunderstood.

    I think where we may differ is that I believe you can get away with an awful lot of suck in other areas if the design is strong but the opposite is not true

  • Tiles
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    Tiles greentooth

    Well, i think you are right in that some parts have more weight and influence than others. But which part this is is hard to nail down, and even differs from case to case. Dependant of what kind of game it is. The art is to find the right balance here, and to make the right parts shine.

  • kanga
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    kanga quad damage

    Alex_J is right. Your question got morphed into: is vfx and rendering important, instead of :'What is important in games, vfx, renders?'.

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