I think it's incredibly monochromatic, and the forms aren't even that interesting. While it is a splendidly showcased thread, the work does not strike me as particularly "OMG BEST GAME EVER"; in fact, I feel most the textures in Dragon Age are dull and wonky. Rusty teeth? edit: Sigh, I feel like a jerk for this post.
Anyway, I just had that bone to pick. Thread looked like the right place to rant. As a programmer named David Rosen was once paraphrased, "There's a difference between photo-sourced and photo-realistic." I think this is the problem.
Not to be nit-picky either, but since we were arguing earlier about the whole photo-sourced and handpainting texture thing I just wanted to post this... no offense meant to Ryan Lim, personally I can only aspire to be as great as he is.
A year ago I was doing a project that included lava and was looking for references. And it only took me 2 seconds to realize the exact photo he'd taken the texture from and find it in google. I'm sure that almost no one would realize this but an Artist.
edit: more obvious on the higher rez shots on zbrush central
But I do feel that people are just criticizing certain game art because it uses a limited palette, which I think isn't entirely fair. But I guess people think their opinions are validated by what they hate, which is a pretty accurate description of the internet come to think of it.
Like saying that Oblivion is ugly because underground scenes were very dark and muddied. I think it works fantastically for that very reason because of how it contrasts with the bright and vibrant world above. I remember getting out of the starting zone, leaving the cave only to be taken aback by how rich the scenery felt in comparison.
And I will argue to the death that Morrowind still has a great style and atmosphere because of how unique it is. My problems with Oblivion was just how generic fantasy everything felt. But with Morrowind, everything from the landscape to the architecture to the creature design felt very original and well placed. I didn't find it ugly at all at the time, baring old technology limitations.
One game that always sticks out to me as having amazing (maybe even my favorite) art direction, Shadow of the Colossus, uses a very limited and subdued color scheme. It is very much just browns and greens, but I guess by a lot of your standards of requiring rich colors, it is an ugly game.
i'd say you are right in that game artists ( or any cg arists for that matter) are moving away from the traditional painter skillset and more towards the traditional sculptor skillset with a bunch of other stuff added on top. that's not to say that necessarily the artists themselves aren't able to paint stuff, it's just that it's not as needed anymore.
and that's something completly human. we always try to make stuff easier for ourselves. if it hadn't been normal maps that take care of portraying light reacting with a surface there would have been other tools to take it out of our hands to do just that, since it's probably one of the hardest things to paint.
there might even be a time where we only have to think about what we want to create and the machine will do the rest - making the artists imagination and attention to detail the most valuable skill. who knows...
it's a common thing throughout history that new technology made skills obsolete. maybe that's what's happening to hand painting. it won't disappear, just like baking bread by hand hasn't and won't disappear, it just might not be the means most of the products are produced by.
The Boss: I agree, Morrowind is one of the best open worlds ever. Even with the world mostly empty, traversing from swamps and mudbrick cities to beautiful green meadows and mushroom-house villages was an excellent experience. The character faces were pretty questionable, is all. The contrast you mention in Oblivion between a dungeon and the lush, green valley is true as well, but whereas Morrowind had a variety of locations, in Oblivion... nearly everything on top is lush and green. You'd at least expect some different types of plants and trees.
I think this was addressed in a series of unique environment mods, which is very cool, but also a sign that the game could have been improved from the start. The fountain/altar thing in the shot in SupRore posted does have some pretty awful texturing going on though, wouldn't surprise me if that was the console version (raaawr consoles).
Anyway The Boss, are people here really raging on things they hate... or is it just a discussion of things that could be improved? I think the latter. Globally desaturated gritty-grunge is more of a trend/tool to observe and use with discretion, for me.
Posting after perna says something like that makes me feel dead inside. It's all useless blathering, isn't it; make more art, etc... can't.. use general discussion... to disc..u... losing... will to live...
Vrav: I agree with just about everything you say, Morrowind never felt empty even if it was and that was the biggest thing Oblivion lost to me. With everything speed tree'd out the ass, it always felt like the land was just filler between gameplay. With Morrowind, I always felt like the world was the core of the game, with every place being unique. But that is verging into game design territory more so then game art.
But I guess my point was (as needlessly wordy as it was) that most examples of good art people presented have had lively and vivid colors, where as the examples of "the bad art" have had very muted colors or a very limited color palette.
I just get the feeling that people aren't asking for better art, but just asking for a certain art style. Especially with comments like"the hand painted ones surely stick out, and they look much more vibrant, interesting and artistic to me". I don't agree that you have to be vibrant to be interesting or artistic. There are times where loud art is great, but it can also be obnoxious and completely out of place.
I see nothing wrong with "brown and green games" as Hazardous puts it, if it is done right. Again I present Shadow of the Colossus. You can make the argument that it is too commonplace and games should strive be more original, but that is a different thing entirely from it being lesser art.
SotC is beautiful and I would never insinuate that it is lacking in any way. ICO is one of my favourite games! Simple is goodsimple art for simple games with simple stories. However, it seems the consensus that busier games deserve more lively art (don't just mean colourful; variety, etc, as mentioned). Visuals should tie into the game's design as much as any other aspect of production.
The Boss: You bring up one of my most favourite games ever, Shadow of the Collosus. Its brown and green, hell yeah it is. But the palette is used in a context that doesnt consist of details ontop of details covered in detail sauce. I think the art direction calls for a very diffused yet contrasty palette to help enhance silhouette more than anything else on both the environments and the collosi themselves:
So your right, its is definately all in how its used. As clearly, green and brown works for Shadow of the Collosus.
I guess the point I was trying to make about dull colour palettes is ultimately difficult to put into words, and clearly im no wordsmith - this thread illustrates that
But the games such as brink, mirrors edge, TF2 and the others weve talked about, and now shadow of the collosus definately have created something that stands out from the norm.
I think weve almost nullified every single point I originally made, I feel even more like an asshole.
I would say it is a little more complicated then that, I would never call a Silent Hill game simple yet making it more lively would be a huge mistake. I agree with your point that game art is integral to the design and should enhance the experience, but there are many ways to accomplish it and many forms which that can take.
I just think having a thread which talks about "dull colour palettes!" like it is a bad thing for any situation is a little short sighted And I understand that this is not your thread and you aren't trying to make that point, Vrav. I'm just talking in general terms from what my impression is of the discussion thus far.
EDIT: Just beat me to the post, I retract most of this post then after reading your comments Hazardous. And I'm not even trying to attack or defend any particular work, I just get hesitant when I see people try to break down art into "vivid colors, yay! dull colors, blech!"
its 2010 , normal maps have been around for what, 7 , 6 years ? if you dont want to addapt and learn new workflows then dont cry and blame art direction beeing bland thanks to normal maps.
Not to be nit-picky either, but since we were arguing earlier about the whole photo-sourced and handpainting texture thing I just wanted to post this... no offense meant to Ryan Lim, personally I can only aspire to be as great as he is.
A year ago I was doing a project that included lava and was looking for references. And it only took me 2 seconds to realize the exact photo he'd taken the texture from and find it in google. I'm sure that almost no one would realize this but an Artist.
edit: more obvious on the higher rez shots on zbrush central
I know Ryan, I worked with him at Bioware and consider him a friend. That asset is a small asset, created in a specific time frame by him for a game that is magnitudes larger than that single asset. Its the reality of a game development that you have to work to deadlines because labor costs. In fact is one of the single largest contributing factors to game art being outsourced. Does it degrade the quality of the product or detract sales?
Would he have spent more time working on it if he had that time available to him? Would it have been worth entirely handing painting the asset when he was able to get it done within the desired time frame and to the standards required by using a photo reference?
He could have made the asset better. The forms aren't great and the texture which is clearly mirrored would completely benefit from a shader that would dynamically represent the lava rather than have it painted in.
Is there consideration that the team was developing there own tech and struggling to realize the creative vision due to the poor tools support and focus on multiple platforms? That the render engine was significantly behind the curve of more cutting edge games? That it was clear that the streaming limitations on the consoles would mean that they would have to have drastically reduced resolution and so mirroring would be a more optimal way of preserving resolution. That the shader system was still being developed by the programming team and that the character team hoped to utilize a greater range of shaders that would enable to achieve the look they so desired?
Production art is rarely ideal. We strive to make it as great as we can withing the limited time frame that we have. I havent mentioned art direction or leadership here... but they are also big factors on the final art in game. BIG factors.
BTW Ryan Lim is very happy building and designing characters and creatures for feature films in Vancouver now.
its 2010 , normal maps have been around for what, 7 , 6 years ? if you dont want to addapt and learn new workflows then dont cry and blame art direction beeing bland thanks to normal maps.
I don't think he is, look at his portfolio. He's just saying how awesome AND sexy people who can hand paint textures are. Shrines and/or statues should be built - feel free to sculpt totally ripped abs in mine, I never take my shirt off so no-one will know the truth.
Diffuse-only textures are great, but I think the sweet spot is a combination. I find it difficult to believe there are game artists who "cannot paint." For some reason I cannot understand why someone who creates two-dimensional textures would only possess mad photo editing skills. Everyone should study painting, all the time, forever.
Looked at most of the comments so here's to the op...
Brown and Green games
I'm sure everyone is aware that public demand is a major driving force of artistic direction in games. People that play more realistic games involving shooting, fighting or other violence expect darkness and grunge because it matches the mood well. I mean you wouldn't want to play say medal of honour with vibrant textures that distract you from aiming your sniper rifle at opposing players.
Not that realistic games are all brown and green all the time either but despite the exceptions and general expectations of mood, brown and green games have the ability to surprise you with vivid, vibrant images every now and again to keep you playing and discovering, at least that's how I see it.
Technology makes art easier/blander
Since when does normal mapping not require artistic skill and what about hand painting normals?
To make a high poly model you need a good sense of scale, technical knowledge and the ability to read detail at crucial depths, those skills are some of the main components of being an artist in any field.
The thing is more and more games artists now have traditional art backgrounds than ever before simply because the scope for creational freedom is expanding which relates directly to the advances in technology. This fact should be blindingly obvious with all the art flying around in these forums alone.
I see you mentioned doom 3, I'm not 100% here but I think Doom 3 was the first ever game to use normal mapping and it still kicks major ass. This is actually one of 2 games (inc resident evil up to re3) that still scare the crap out of me, here's some screenshots in case you still think it's all bland...
Would it have been worth entirely handing painting the asset when he was able to get it done within the desired time frame and to the standards required by using a photo reference?
I think the point is that the original photo is copyrighted, but the artist most likely didn't secure the photographer's rights before using it. Copyright infringement can get a company in some scary shit.
matabus: Surprisingly even though I still suck, painting small textures is much more fun for me than anything else I've worked on as well!
Johny: You threepoint guys have made it clear you hate the thread :P Im a retarded cry-baby.
Yes I was working with Unreal Engine 3 in 2004, and with old normal map tools like caldera etc. Hell, the last game I worked on had almost 150 unique characters and creatures in which I was lucky enough to be the Lead Char Artist. Im comfortable enough to say I have at least some grasp of what it takes to work within that pipeline.
However, recently the tables have turned and Ive been stuck, its brought about a bit of a realisation that perhaps I shouldnt have ignored some key areas of being a game artist that arent related to technology or fancy shaders, or learning more tools, but learning some foundation art stuff. <-- crybaby.
SpaceMonkey: Dude there are some bombs in your response worthy of their own thread! Alot of interesting things to me that are worth exploring! This thread will be 100 pages long in no time WOOO!
Justin_Meisse: Thats pretty much it A ripped 16 pac with skin pore detail?
Vrav: I agree with you, using myself as an example haha. I cant believe I didnt learn to hand paint stuff earlier. Im a photo tweaker from way back.
GCMP: Good point about the brown and green, I agree but It makes me think about this: would Mirrors Edge have sold more, or less copies if it was depicted as a more photo realistic city as opposed to what it is now. Would more people have loved it or hated it? I guess weel never know! I also have to pay homage to those blokes who built much of those doom 3 characters without zbrush haha! * hats off *
I've been working in Zbrush/Mudbox since I was a beta tester for them. I hand painted textures from 96-2006. I would way prefer to hand paint 256 or 512 textures over sculpting. I used to make a character from start to finish in 4 or 5 days. Now it takes 4 or 5 weeks.
As for the color palette, I think it's explained fairly simply.
1. Americans like simulations. The world is generally a bit grey and brown.
2. Publishers don't like taking risks. They would much rather 3d scan and use a photo for the texture.
Hey Spacemonkey I realize the constraints he was probably under, and really mean no offense to him. With the time he had to do that I probably would've produced an utter shit pile in comparison.
The point I was trying to make was with Hand Painted Textures and Photoreferneced ones.
Is one of the reasons that games look alike because we are all using the same references/photos? I mean to a certain extent this isn't true, and yes there is heavy manipulation, but if you look hard enough in a lot of games you'll see that the person just typed in "rotting wood" into google, or "lava flow" went through 3 or 4 pages and ctrl-c and ctrl-v the image onto a texture, messed with it for a few minutes and went on.
Now granted I'm sure a lot of this does boil down to time constraints, because afterall the person could've heavily manipulated the image and done some handpainting too so it becomes unrecognizable.
But there is something about handpainting, in that seldom if ever will someone be able to point out "that's google image #5" that makes it so unique and definitely a skill that shouldn't be forgotten. Which is another reason why the games that utilize them stand out so much when thrown up against "realistic shooters" etc.
Again, not bashing Ryan... I've done the same thing, but since someone brought the link up in this thread and I instantly recognized it I thought it would make for additional discussion on the whole handpainting vs. manipulation spiel.
Also I think everyone is forgetting that back in the hand painted texture days there were only like a dozen guys internationally who were any good at it, and it took them absolute ages to make a map.
The next gen workflow is significantly faster than the old gen one. The big difference is that the quality bar has been raised. You can't get away with delivering the same crap quality anymore - THAT is what makes production take longer now.
This is so dependant on the style your project calls for.
Of course it would take someone a very long time to learn how to paint a character that absolutely photorealistic. But I completely disagree that your average character pipeline nowadays is faster than what it used to be.
To clarify, your saying that it would take longer to produce this or something like this than it would to have to run it through a next gen pipeline ?
"I believe 'digital sculpting' allows an artist a much quicker way to become an 'artist'"
I gotta passionately beg to differ with this statement Troy! There's a couple of things about your overall sentiment that strike me:
1) It depends what you mean by 'artist'. Artists have some very distinct strengths, and not all are well rounded. There may well be some amazing zbrush sculptors out there, who don't have a clue about color theory, and vice versa. As far as the digital sculpting of characters go, I think the opposite from you. I think it sorts out the men from the boys. A lack of fundamental understanding of anatomy becomes rapidly apparent in a Zbrush model, because there are no limits. There is only one reason why a human face isn't convincing in Zbrush, and it's not a lack of polygons, or shitty animation, or low rez textures, it's just one, solitary thing: your ability. There is something sort of pure about that, you know? In an elitist way? There are so many people out there that noodle around in Zbrush, but the people that really know what they're doing with the human figure really stand out, as do the ones that don't.
2) Many games are extremely artistic and stylish, but games aren't Art, they're entertainment. Modern Warfare 2 for example, is a visceral, high adrenalin 'meant to feel as real as possible' experience. Play it on a pc plugged into an HDTV with the nVidia ambient occlusion setting on, and it looks amazing. There is arguably not a more 'real' looking game out there, and it's in significant part due to the lighting and shaders. The way that light bounces off of surfaces in that engine is really impressive. The physics of light are extremely immersive. The lighting is incredibly good. It's clear they really put a ton of thought into lighting and the surface properties of objects, and that's a choice you have to respect If you know anything about lighting and shaders and play it. Never for a moment did I stop in the middle of playing it and think 'hhhhmm, I wish it were more colorful'. It's just not the point. They designed an experience, not something that was meant to stand out as a small image amongst other small images.
Ultimately there is absolutely no reason that a 'next gen' game be less colorful, or less artistically impressive than an 'old school' one, and yes there are trends in color styling, but more amazing things can always be done with 'more'. Just ask Pixar.
Daz: Haha you got me! My first post came off.... not too well - I guess I didnt really discover what I was looking to uncover until the last couple of pages, which was, having coming heavily from a normal mapped pipeline history - I'm finding it of recent times much tougher to grasp hand painted stuff and do it well. And Its something I REALLY want to master and have a good command of as an artist, and I really wondered if I'd somehow taken a shortcut - to my own detriment !! What I failed to mention in my first post was that the digital sculptour style 'artist' im talking about was me :P
Perna: Steam or no, What you said was that current gen pipelines are much faster. I want to know why - it could valuable information... and I'm here to learn. But fair enough if you cant be bothered.
Because I cant speak for anyone else I can only take a stab at how long he actually spent on the texture ( oldschoolers feel free to correct me )
Im assuming we have a concept to begin with and that each stage would be locked off before continuing so that iterations and all that crap doesnt interfere ( if it did, next gen would loose out big time - you know this perna! a change in the design can totally destroy your timeline as youll be going back to the high, rebaking, possibly messing with your uv and retexturing. )
Typical 'last gen' Pipeline:
Low poly = 2 days
UV = 1 day
Paint Texture = 5 days
8 working days...
Typical Next gen pipeline:
High Poly -> 5 days
Low Poly / retopo -> 1 day
UV -> 1 day
Bake Normals, AO etc and Textures -> 5 days
12 days... and YOU KNOW that timeline is tighter than a fishes bum for a full next gen rat-man character like the above.
What you have described about one clicking a depression in some digital clay is beyond words...... though if you MUST use that, lets get fair about it.
Your forgetting that your one click is only one part of the next gen equation - the high poly sculpt. Highlights and shadows are not done yet, contrary to your statement that they are. You need to retopo that clicked depression to create a low poly, or hell forget the retopo and use a flat plane. UV the plane, bake out the normal and ao maps ( all the rage these days ) and then whack a flat diffuse colour on it, and setup the shader and throw a light into the scene. NOW you have your highlights and shadows.
Not even that would be faster at all to be quite honest..... However.... it will be realtime and dynamic and all that jazz!
Ok np, you and your buddies are right, I'm wrong. Please show me a next gen character created frome scratch in 5 working days, I'm keen to see an example of what your talking about.
Hazardous, I don't want to sound like a dick here but perna's just written that huge post pretty much explaining everything and your still asking for clarification?
which AFAIK is about the same time it took to make characters for Assassin's creed
Erm, because assassins creed characters arent created from scratch in 5 days... they kit bash the shit out of nearly every part of their characters.... but anyway, nothing intelligent left here. You win
sounds like PS2 pipeline versus 360 pipeline. which doesnt make sense, why would you argue that point? Unless there were games out there that used hand painted textures at 12k tris and the same rigging etc. its only a texturing technique which yes is a skill and when done right is jaw dropping but is null and void in next gen games. Its like comparing god of war 2 Kratos to God of war 3 Kratos. Yes it takes a little bit longer but thats because its 10x more complicated and 10x better looking with all its fancy surface shading etc.
Haz you know I love you but let it go
edit; sorry you posted before I finished typing seriously though, 6 pages of waffling on!!!!!
Not the ass Not the ass! THE BREAST! big juicy tender breast, SO CLOSE, yet so far!
Egg white Egg white! Pasteurize one, FOR SHAME. Awww
U remember NOTHING! I cant teach u anything anymore. FAILURE PER! FAILURE!, Just bring the cintiq in bed and WORK. How come you have a bed btw? they have thoses in spain? WTF
one key problem in discussions like this, is not only mixed opinions, but people having different experience and therefore different definition of "how things are". Different views about quality, efficiency...
So when you guys talk about models, and next-gen vs past-gen, there is so many levels of quality for either and inbetween, that it is nearly impossible you guys actually talk about the same "stuff" on the same level.
I think Per makes strong points about the "you can't manually paint shading faster than what shaders and actual geometry gives you". And Daz's statement that sculpting also isn't easy to master. But I guess everyone here knows that quality and efficiency are key aspects of every craft, and both have to be taken into account.
you can't compare apples with oranges.
but the hi-poly workflow allows you to scale down, you can bake the lighting of a normalmap you can play with shaders as you bake... whilst the old-gen workflow doesn't really scale up. What is more cost efficient in the end depends on the people and budgets and goals and and and...
Regarding next gen workflow, obviously the textures aren't handpainted from scratch, but there is still a skill in manipulating a photo and making it look good as a texture and not out of place right? IE not just a photo lazilly slapped on. The photos must still be worked on to a decent extent, or not?
One thing I saw mentioned that surprised me was painted lighting. Now painted lighting would be lighting hard baked into a texture right, not allowing for the possibility of dynamic lighting.
When I hear people talk about baked lighting, I thought this would be the texture imported into the 3D program after the whole UV map is finished, lighting effects applied, then hard baking that lighting data onto the actual bitmap you're using as a texture. I thought this was how it was done, not hand painting lighting.
I think CrazyButcher explains the disconnect in the timelines best. Clearly we're not all talking about the same assets. I've not yet come across two artists of equal skill that have a 4 week difference in the time it takes them to make a character.
I've made nm characters in a week before yes. Are they as good as the main or player character that I spend 4+ weeks on? Not often. Only when I can heavily re-use assets.
I always made hand painted characters in less than a week including rigging them and putting them in an engine.
It's really about workflow, knowledge and practice. I've spent the better part of 10yrs painting textures "old school" and I'm unpracticed in the new generation of artwork so I'm slow as shit.
But people like Per, Josh, EQ, etc - all have years of experience with this. They have their pipelines and workflows established, much how you have your "old school" methods established. I've seen the same thing happen to hipoly modelers who tried making low poly optimized models back in the day - it just didn't work, haha.
This is all just the same bs as most of the art topics here. You need to practice the fuck out that shit. Burn it into your brain. Map your shortcuts ergonomically so you have faster and faster response times. Try new tools, new scripts, anything to speed up your workflow.
Just want to say a quick thanks to all who visited this public flaying of my sorry corpse, and a special thanks goes out to all of those who did some flaying, Perna, MoP etc, consider me schooled.
Replies
Not to be nit-picky either, but since we were arguing earlier about the whole photo-sourced and handpainting texture thing I just wanted to post this... no offense meant to Ryan Lim, personally I can only aspire to be as great as he is.
A year ago I was doing a project that included lava and was looking for references. And it only took me 2 seconds to realize the exact photo he'd taken the texture from and find it in google. I'm sure that almost no one would realize this but an Artist.
edit: more obvious on the higher rez shots on zbrush central
Yeah okay
*sticks to pimping artwork instead*
But I do feel that people are just criticizing certain game art because it uses a limited palette, which I think isn't entirely fair. But I guess people think their opinions are validated by what they hate, which is a pretty accurate description of the internet come to think of it.
Like saying that Oblivion is ugly because underground scenes were very dark and muddied. I think it works fantastically for that very reason because of how it contrasts with the bright and vibrant world above. I remember getting out of the starting zone, leaving the cave only to be taken aback by how rich the scenery felt in comparison.
And I will argue to the death that Morrowind still has a great style and atmosphere because of how unique it is. My problems with Oblivion was just how generic fantasy everything felt. But with Morrowind, everything from the landscape to the architecture to the creature design felt very original and well placed. I didn't find it ugly at all at the time, baring old technology limitations.
One game that always sticks out to me as having amazing (maybe even my favorite) art direction, Shadow of the Colossus, uses a very limited and subdued color scheme. It is very much just browns and greens, but I guess by a lot of your standards of requiring rich colors, it is an ugly game.
and that's something completly human. we always try to make stuff easier for ourselves. if it hadn't been normal maps that take care of portraying light reacting with a surface there would have been other tools to take it out of our hands to do just that, since it's probably one of the hardest things to paint.
there might even be a time where we only have to think about what we want to create and the machine will do the rest - making the artists imagination and attention to detail the most valuable skill. who knows...
it's a common thing throughout history that new technology made skills obsolete. maybe that's what's happening to hand painting. it won't disappear, just like baking bread by hand hasn't and won't disappear, it just might not be the means most of the products are produced by.
I think this was addressed in a series of unique environment mods, which is very cool, but also a sign that the game could have been improved from the start. The fountain/altar thing in the shot in SupRore posted does have some pretty awful texturing going on though, wouldn't surprise me if that was the console version (raaawr consoles).
Anyway The Boss, are people here really raging on things they hate... or is it just a discussion of things that could be improved? I think the latter. Globally desaturated gritty-grunge is more of a trend/tool to observe and use with discretion, for me.
Posting after perna says something like that makes me feel dead inside. It's all useless blathering, isn't it; make more art, etc... can't.. use general discussion... to disc..u... losing... will to live...
But I guess my point was (as needlessly wordy as it was) that most examples of good art people presented have had lively and vivid colors, where as the examples of "the bad art" have had very muted colors or a very limited color palette.
I just get the feeling that people aren't asking for better art, but just asking for a certain art style. Especially with comments like"the hand painted ones surely stick out, and they look much more vibrant, interesting and artistic to me". I don't agree that you have to be vibrant to be interesting or artistic. There are times where loud art is great, but it can also be obnoxious and completely out of place.
I see nothing wrong with "brown and green games" as Hazardous puts it, if it is done right. Again I present Shadow of the Colossus. You can make the argument that it is too commonplace and games should strive be more original, but that is a different thing entirely from it being lesser art.
I think Uncharted is a well-loved example... no?
So your right, its is definately all in how its used. As clearly, green and brown works for Shadow of the Collosus.
I guess the point I was trying to make about dull colour palettes is ultimately difficult to put into words, and clearly im no wordsmith - this thread illustrates that
But the games such as brink, mirrors edge, TF2 and the others weve talked about, and now shadow of the collosus definately have created something that stands out from the norm.
I think weve almost nullified every single point I originally made, I feel even more like an asshole.
I just think having a thread which talks about "dull colour palettes!" like it is a bad thing for any situation is a little short sighted And I understand that this is not your thread and you aren't trying to make that point, Vrav. I'm just talking in general terms from what my impression is of the discussion thus far.
EDIT: Just beat me to the post, I retract most of this post then after reading your comments Hazardous. And I'm not even trying to attack or defend any particular work, I just get hesitant when I see people try to break down art into "vivid colors, yay! dull colors, blech!"
on the flip side, I'm jealous, I'm finding this normal map/photo ref stuff wayyyy harder than hand painting stuff.
Samesies!
I've found WAY less pleasure and fulfillment in normal map/photo ref stuff than I ever did painting up a nice 512 from scratch.
I know Ryan, I worked with him at Bioware and consider him a friend. That asset is a small asset, created in a specific time frame by him for a game that is magnitudes larger than that single asset. Its the reality of a game development that you have to work to deadlines because labor costs. In fact is one of the single largest contributing factors to game art being outsourced. Does it degrade the quality of the product or detract sales?
Would he have spent more time working on it if he had that time available to him? Would it have been worth entirely handing painting the asset when he was able to get it done within the desired time frame and to the standards required by using a photo reference?
He could have made the asset better. The forms aren't great and the texture which is clearly mirrored would completely benefit from a shader that would dynamically represent the lava rather than have it painted in.
Is there consideration that the team was developing there own tech and struggling to realize the creative vision due to the poor tools support and focus on multiple platforms? That the render engine was significantly behind the curve of more cutting edge games? That it was clear that the streaming limitations on the consoles would mean that they would have to have drastically reduced resolution and so mirroring would be a more optimal way of preserving resolution. That the shader system was still being developed by the programming team and that the character team hoped to utilize a greater range of shaders that would enable to achieve the look they so desired?
Production art is rarely ideal. We strive to make it as great as we can withing the limited time frame that we have. I havent mentioned art direction or leadership here... but they are also big factors on the final art in game. BIG factors.
BTW Ryan Lim is very happy building and designing characters and creatures for feature films in Vancouver now.
Anyways... I am posted out for the month
I don't think he is, look at his portfolio. He's just saying how awesome AND sexy people who can hand paint textures are. Shrines and/or statues should be built - feel free to sculpt totally ripped abs in mine, I never take my shirt off so no-one will know the truth.
Brown and Green games
I'm sure everyone is aware that public demand is a major driving force of artistic direction in games. People that play more realistic games involving shooting, fighting or other violence expect darkness and grunge because it matches the mood well. I mean you wouldn't want to play say medal of honour with vibrant textures that distract you from aiming your sniper rifle at opposing players.
Not that realistic games are all brown and green all the time either but despite the exceptions and general expectations of mood, brown and green games have the ability to surprise you with vivid, vibrant images every now and again to keep you playing and discovering, at least that's how I see it.
Technology makes art easier/blander
Since when does normal mapping not require artistic skill and what about hand painting normals?
To make a high poly model you need a good sense of scale, technical knowledge and the ability to read detail at crucial depths, those skills are some of the main components of being an artist in any field.
The thing is more and more games artists now have traditional art backgrounds than ever before simply because the scope for creational freedom is expanding which relates directly to the advances in technology. This fact should be blindingly obvious with all the art flying around in these forums alone.
I see you mentioned doom 3, I'm not 100% here but I think Doom 3 was the first ever game to use normal mapping and it still kicks major ass. This is actually one of 2 games (inc resident evil up to re3) that still scare the crap out of me, here's some screenshots in case you still think it's all bland...
I think the point is that the original photo is copyrighted, but the artist most likely didn't secure the photographer's rights before using it. Copyright infringement can get a company in some scary shit.
Johny: You threepoint guys have made it clear you hate the thread :P Im a retarded cry-baby.
Yes I was working with Unreal Engine 3 in 2004, and with old normal map tools like caldera etc. Hell, the last game I worked on had almost 150 unique characters and creatures in which I was lucky enough to be the Lead Char Artist. Im comfortable enough to say I have at least some grasp of what it takes to work within that pipeline.
However, recently the tables have turned and Ive been stuck, its brought about a bit of a realisation that perhaps I shouldnt have ignored some key areas of being a game artist that arent related to technology or fancy shaders, or learning more tools, but learning some foundation art stuff. <-- crybaby.
SpaceMonkey: Dude there are some bombs in your response worthy of their own thread! Alot of interesting things to me that are worth exploring! This thread will be 100 pages long in no time WOOO!
Justin_Meisse: Thats pretty much it
Vrav: I agree with you, using myself as an example haha. I cant believe I didnt learn to hand paint stuff earlier. Im a photo tweaker from way back.
GCMP: Good point about the brown and green, I agree but It makes me think about this: would Mirrors Edge have sold more, or less copies if it was depicted as a more photo realistic city as opposed to what it is now. Would more people have loved it or hated it? I guess weel never know! I also have to pay homage to those blokes who built much of those doom 3 characters without zbrush haha! * hats off *
I've been working in Zbrush/Mudbox since I was a beta tester for them. I hand painted textures from 96-2006. I would way prefer to hand paint 256 or 512 textures over sculpting. I used to make a character from start to finish in 4 or 5 days. Now it takes 4 or 5 weeks.
As for the color palette, I think it's explained fairly simply.
1. Americans like simulations. The world is generally a bit grey and brown.
2. Publishers don't like taking risks. They would much rather 3d scan and use a photo for the texture.
The point I was trying to make was with Hand Painted Textures and Photoreferneced ones.
Is one of the reasons that games look alike because we are all using the same references/photos? I mean to a certain extent this isn't true, and yes there is heavy manipulation, but if you look hard enough in a lot of games you'll see that the person just typed in "rotting wood" into google, or "lava flow" went through 3 or 4 pages and ctrl-c and ctrl-v the image onto a texture, messed with it for a few minutes and went on.
Now granted I'm sure a lot of this does boil down to time constraints, because afterall the person could've heavily manipulated the image and done some handpainting too so it becomes unrecognizable.
But there is something about handpainting, in that seldom if ever will someone be able to point out "that's google image #5" that makes it so unique and definitely a skill that shouldn't be forgotten. Which is another reason why the games that utilize them stand out so much when thrown up against "realistic shooters" etc.
Again, not bashing Ryan... I've done the same thing, but since someone brought the link up in this thread and I instantly recognized it I thought it would make for additional discussion on the whole handpainting vs. manipulation spiel.
This is so dependant on the style your project calls for.
Of course it would take someone a very long time to learn how to paint a character that absolutely photorealistic. But I completely disagree that your average character pipeline nowadays is faster than what it used to be.
To clarify, your saying that it would take longer to produce this or something like this than it would to have to run it through a next gen pipeline ?
If so, please share why ??
I gotta passionately beg to differ with this statement Troy! There's a couple of things about your overall sentiment that strike me:
1) It depends what you mean by 'artist'. Artists have some very distinct strengths, and not all are well rounded. There may well be some amazing zbrush sculptors out there, who don't have a clue about color theory, and vice versa. As far as the digital sculpting of characters go, I think the opposite from you. I think it sorts out the men from the boys. A lack of fundamental understanding of anatomy becomes rapidly apparent in a Zbrush model, because there are no limits. There is only one reason why a human face isn't convincing in Zbrush, and it's not a lack of polygons, or shitty animation, or low rez textures, it's just one, solitary thing: your ability. There is something sort of pure about that, you know? In an elitist way? There are so many people out there that noodle around in Zbrush, but the people that really know what they're doing with the human figure really stand out, as do the ones that don't.
2) Many games are extremely artistic and stylish, but games aren't Art, they're entertainment. Modern Warfare 2 for example, is a visceral, high adrenalin 'meant to feel as real as possible' experience. Play it on a pc plugged into an HDTV with the nVidia ambient occlusion setting on, and it looks amazing. There is arguably not a more 'real' looking game out there, and it's in significant part due to the lighting and shaders. The way that light bounces off of surfaces in that engine is really impressive. The physics of light are extremely immersive. The lighting is incredibly good. It's clear they really put a ton of thought into lighting and the surface properties of objects, and that's a choice you have to respect If you know anything about lighting and shaders and play it. Never for a moment did I stop in the middle of playing it and think 'hhhhmm, I wish it were more colorful'. It's just not the point. They designed an experience, not something that was meant to stand out as a small image amongst other small images.
Ultimately there is absolutely no reason that a 'next gen' game be less colorful, or less artistically impressive than an 'old school' one, and yes there are trends in color styling, but more amazing things can always be done with 'more'. Just ask Pixar.
I should probably change that!
Because I cant speak for anyone else I can only take a stab at how long he actually spent on the texture ( oldschoolers feel free to correct me )
Im assuming we have a concept to begin with and that each stage would be locked off before continuing so that iterations and all that crap doesnt interfere ( if it did, next gen would loose out big time - you know this perna! a change in the design can totally destroy your timeline as youll be going back to the high, rebaking, possibly messing with your uv and retexturing. )
Typical 'last gen' Pipeline:
Low poly = 2 days
UV = 1 day
Paint Texture = 5 days
8 working days...
Typical Next gen pipeline:
High Poly -> 5 days
Low Poly / retopo -> 1 day
UV -> 1 day
Bake Normals, AO etc and Textures -> 5 days
12 days... and YOU KNOW that timeline is tighter than a fishes bum for a full next gen rat-man character like the above.
What you have described about one clicking a depression in some digital clay is beyond words...... though if you MUST use that, lets get fair about it.
Your forgetting that your one click is only one part of the next gen equation - the high poly sculpt. Highlights and shadows are not done yet, contrary to your statement that they are. You need to retopo that clicked depression to create a low poly, or hell forget the retopo and use a flat plane. UV the plane, bake out the normal and ao maps ( all the rage these days ) and then whack a flat diffuse colour on it, and setup the shader and throw a light into the scene. NOW you have your highlights and shadows.
Not even that would be faster at all to be quite honest..... However.... it will be realtime and dynamic and all that jazz!
example there?
Haz you know I love you but let it go
edit; sorry you posted before I finished typing
Weak body LAZY MIND. For shame FOR shame!
Egg white Egg white! Pasteurize one, FOR SHAME. Awww
U remember NOTHING! I cant teach u anything anymore. FAILURE PER! FAILURE!, Just bring the cintiq in bed and WORK. How come you have a bed btw? they have thoses in spain? WTF
yep, I SAID IT.
You could Per, You could, You would be so GREAT.. Maybe one day. UNITED we will. REMEMBER THAT.
one key problem in discussions like this, is not only mixed opinions, but people having different experience and therefore different definition of "how things are". Different views about quality, efficiency...
So when you guys talk about models, and next-gen vs past-gen, there is so many levels of quality for either and inbetween, that it is nearly impossible you guys actually talk about the same "stuff" on the same level.
I think Per makes strong points about the "you can't manually paint shading faster than what shaders and actual geometry gives you". And Daz's statement that sculpting also isn't easy to master. But I guess everyone here knows that quality and efficiency are key aspects of every craft, and both have to be taken into account.
you can't compare apples with oranges.
but the hi-poly workflow allows you to scale down, you can bake the lighting of a normalmap you can play with shaders as you bake... whilst the old-gen workflow doesn't really scale up. What is more cost efficient in the end depends on the people and budgets and goals and and and...
One thing I saw mentioned that surprised me was painted lighting. Now painted lighting would be lighting hard baked into a texture right, not allowing for the possibility of dynamic lighting.
When I hear people talk about baked lighting, I thought this would be the texture imported into the 3D program after the whole UV map is finished, lighting effects applied, then hard baking that lighting data onto the actual bitmap you're using as a texture. I thought this was how it was done, not hand painting lighting.
serious, then I can lulz without all this normal map stuff interrupting
NO!
NExt gen meen s peeoples ned MOAR polyguns 2 make guuder arrt!
and moree textrture sheetz sized plzz
nrroarmal maps will mekes dis all bettar!
thiss artust just need critsz plz :
Now this is art!
I've made nm characters in a week before yes. Are they as good as the main or player character that I spend 4+ weeks on? Not often. Only when I can heavily re-use assets.
I always made hand painted characters in less than a week including rigging them and putting them in an engine.
Needs moar normal maps.
But people like Per, Josh, EQ, etc - all have years of experience with this. They have their pipelines and workflows established, much how you have your "old school" methods established. I've seen the same thing happen to hipoly modelers who tried making low poly optimized models back in the day - it just didn't work, haha.
This is all just the same bs as most of the art topics here. You need to practice the fuck out that shit. Burn it into your brain. Map your shortcuts ergonomically so you have faster and faster response times. Try new tools, new scripts, anything to speed up your workflow.