What makes a great Game Environment? (Aesthetically)
polycounter lvl 12
So I'm doing some research into Environment Art for games. I wanted to ask the simple questions:
What makes a great in-game environment?
What hooks you in?
What about it enhances your time within the game?
What halts your enjoyment?
What's your thoughts?
What makes a great in-game environment?
What hooks you in?
What about it enhances your time within the game?
What halts your enjoyment?
What's your thoughts?
Replies
EDIT: This is almost identical to this thread: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125807
zazz
rocket-sauce
I mean what about an environment captures you? is it the narrative that it portrays? the Realism? small details? or even just the simplicity? or something else entirely...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles
Without that, it doesn't matter how realistic or stylized you're environment is. It doesn't matter what props you use, or what details you include.
In short,"something else entirely". Careful application of the elements and principles of design.
Obviously someone could make an environment that is technically sound and looks decent, but might be missing that element that makes YOU think "WOW!"
What's that extra thing that pops out to make it stick in your memory, so to speak.
It's hard to give a more specific answer to such a vague question.
^^^100% This
The only solid answer you're gonna get is about the Principles of Design. Anything else is just personal preference...no solid answer in that perspective.
What makes you go wow is when every design principle is sound and it's working together really well with all the other departments but that's a thing that's really hard to get. There is no magic sauce solution to these things so you shouldn't expect an answer that will solve all problems.
Usually Environment Art for games is about compromise. You need to satisfy a lot of people making your environment. So the most important thing is harmony, ie the balance of both art,narritive, sound, level design and gameplay. These are usually the ones you spend most time with making the environment.
There'll be times where you have to raise mountains because of technical issues and you need to hit that 30fps mark. In a city you might be forced to place a building that messes up your composition because of the same reason.
You might artify a whole area and then level design comes and say that you have made it too cluttered and it doesn't work for gameplay or the AI need a 5 meter radius around every cover to be able to move around so you have to remove ever little nice detail you made for that particular scene. That is environment art in games, compromise and hard work making shit work.
Other than those types of technical awful situations, you have the good stuff which is narrative and try telling a story with each crook and canny in the game. Which is usually impossible but a hand-crafted sense of story within the environment is really good for immersion. To make it really good though it needs to be a lot of unique content which these days, we usually don't have time for.
Making art for a portfolio is one thing, making art for a game is another. Art for games is really restricted, but very rewarding since you get to see the completed process of people running around, fighting, shooting, exploring your environment.
:thumbup:
The most important Piece.
:thumbup:
For me... A Story and some good background music gets me to love certain environments.
The Torvus Bog of MP2 for example.
That's what I'm after. Personal preference.
If I gave you two environments to look at and they were both equally as well designed as each other and all the technical stuff was there. What would make YOU pick one over the other?
@chrisradsby.
I know that there are several limitation and all the technical side that comes in to play in making a game environment for any game. Sometimes I know that can get in the way of making the environment the best it can be as well as make it look that even more impressive. Like I said above what would make you pick one other the other in that scenario?
@SHEPEIRO, Cibo and GrevSev.
I would agree with with that as well, and from my posts on other forums I have found that a lot of people agree.
That's why when I ever post something, I make sure there always is some crap in it, just to keep the flow going.
But you are right, when you post something for others to check out, you would post if there was something wrong or something that could be improved, and actually those kinds of posts are the useful ones. Of course it's nice to get the whole "Looks cool!', 'Great work!" ect, however its only useful in it's feeling-good-kind of way, while the others helps you.
This is so arbitrary though. If you're looking for an answer so that you can learn to make amazing environments, this isn't the best way to go about it. Unless, if all you want to do is make statistical data and see what percentage prefers scifi, fantasy, realistic, etc. than that is fine.
Take Fallout 3 for example, the asset quality is pretty bad and the composition is average. The game doesn't even have shadows, yet its probably one of the most immersive environments I have ever played.
The success of an environment boils down to its level of immersion, you can make the most visually stunning game around. But if you break that immersion for even a split second you lose your audience.
Yeah this is going to go towards my Master's research but is not my main Question for the thesis/project.
that is what I'm aiming for, but more along the lines of elements of the art, rather than genres.
Think of questions like why this location exists? What was it's past and what happened here? What did people use the location for, and how did they mark it or leave things behind etc.
Think of games like portal 1 and 2, and left 4 dead, portal has pretty much a 2nd story about a other text subject like you, that tried to escape if you look at parts of the levels. l4d has no narrative in the traditional sense, but looking at the art in the levels there is a clear sense of progression, and you can see past things that happend and learn more about the environment by looking at things.
Many games do the same thing with there envirmenats.