Cartoon graphics vs Realistic Graphics in video games

Chinese cartoons can have overly stiff animation, and for vidya, fluid movement is a lot more important. PSG is a good midpoint for more cartoony 2d shit, while something like wakfu would do well for 3d shit.
>PSG vidya never ever
>PSG season 2 never ever

I agree with you. I loved the sober aesthetics of Diablo 2, and I fucking hated the Lords Of Destruction concept art for the Druid and Assassin classes. That makes me wonder if you could possibly make the old Diablo 1-2 style work in 3D (Path of Exile could be a decent reference)

But doesn't Homeworld mainly show spaceships? There isn't much to fuck up is there? The problem with portraying things realisticaly is more down to the characters and not items/vehicles/environments.

F.E.A.R and S.T.A.L.K.E.R seem to be surprising exceptions from the rule. Also, unrealistic cartoony/comicbook/anime stylistic has a lot more styles than just Warcraft III. I would argue that Thief is a comicbook-styled game when it comes to presentation, just with a very grim aesthetic.

What other styles of stylization could work for a more gritty game then?

Define gritty, personally I think that cartoony look can still works for darker games, but I think more comicbook-inspired stylistic works the best.

D3 looked revolting. So does Torchlight, even though it has solid gameplay. I absolutely love Path of Exile, both mechanically and graphically.

Planetary Annihilation is a good example of what I'd call a fuckup for spaceship design. It's not actually THAT bad overall, but I do dislike it.

wouldn't say cartoony graphics are better but games with stylized graphics definitely age better than games that strive for realism. Could change soon though

That's because both have a somewhat distinct style to them. F.E.A.R. uses lighting and color to give a somewhat dirty and stark look to everything. Also the darkness looks like actual fucking darkness, not that low visibility blue darkness like in Dark Souls 3.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is kind of cartoony, but it uses real life equipment and spices it up with some touches (the shoulderpads in the Stalker suit, the exoskeletons, the anoraks, sometimes the real stuff is used to spice up the fantastic like the snorks GP-5 gasmask, etc).

The only gaming generations that haven't held up visually well are 1st gen, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th.
Before the 4th generation's beautiful 16 bit graphics hit the scene, 3rd gen and under graphics were passable at best. Primitive at worst.
Because this is where gaming started going HD, a lot of realistic HD characters from that era have held up rather well. Not 8th gen levels of 4K goodness well, but they're still visually ok for the most part.
Here is where cartoony and stylized characters shine best. Games like Wind Waker (the cartoony gamecube Zelda) still looks miles better than its successor, Twilight Princess (the realistic gamecube Zelda). And some cartoony character models in 5th gen games (like Mega Man Legends or Ocarina of Time) look noticeably better than the "realistic" James Bond in GoldenEye. Proving that in regard to these two eras, cartoony designs were the more timeless choice.

In any case, yes. Cartoony graphics can hold up better than realistic graphics. Especially within the older spectrum of 3D games.

Starcraft, and most if not all Blizzard games for that matter, were always cartoonish. Take a look at Warcraft 2. The art itself is not cartoonish, but in-game units were always cartoonish of sort for it to work, and in that order of ideas, a more cartoonish approach is always the best approach for limitations or workarounds. Take a look at W40K DoW agains DoW2.
It's more of a debate about 2D vs 3D. 2D will always be better.

heresy

handdrawn =/= cartoonish

Source engine games almost never age poorly; I don't know whether it is something about the way textures are wrapped on the models or if it's something about the way Hammer handles geometry, but I cannot think of a single Source game which had any problems beyond a low polygon count. Half-Life 2, in particular, still has facial animations better than most AAA garbage.

It is easier to have a depiction of a mechanical thing age better due to the prevalence of hard lines (especially a fictional mechanism which you can design to mesh with both your art style and your technology). That doesn't mean it isn't impressive: there are plenty of poorly designed spaceships and machines in video games, and designing a world with enough coherence to stand the test of time - such as F-Zero or Metal Slug - is an accomplishment.

Jesus, kill yourself.

My bad

It's so graphically limited that it might as well be cartoonish. It reminds me to Tzar.

Consistent and striking art style. It's that simple

Why? Diablo 3 looks ugly, and Torchlight 1 looked ugly as well (at least Torchlight 2 was better in that regard). Path of Exile looks quite good and seems like a better succesor to the DIablo 1-2 style.

No, God, you must kill YOURself.

WC3 honesty has some of the ugliest graphics in video games I've ever seen.

No and no. Path of exile is a fucking mess. Is not only a shit game, it also looks like shit. Path of Exile is the prime example of how not to make realistic games: Don't fucking make realistic games at all. Characters usually blend with the enviroment and it's simply ugly to look at. Diablo 3 isn't the best looking game ever, but characters are distinctive from each other and the enviroment.

I never said that but it clearly look better than PoE will ever look like.

I'd say it's quire the contrary and it looks better than most if not all 3D RTS games, including Starcraft 2. The absolute peak has to be DoW, though.

Operation Flashpoint.

Warcraft II was a special kind of well designed. Warcraft III looked good, but it couldn't capture the same atmosphere, and it has all been downhill for Blizzard since then.

They realized going for that kind of design was a lot easier and better. Sure, they fucked up, but doesn't change the fact. I wouldn't blame W3 for shit like Heroes of the Storm, particularly in design, specially when the same heroes appear in WoW and they simply look better.

Are you really sure you actually played Diablo 3 and not some other game?

What about cartoony realistic?

It's the colors that put me off. There is just way too much contrast. Also 3d rts' are rare. The majority of the iconic ones are 2d.

Yes, I'm sure, I'm also sure I played PoE and it was terrible, even though I really really wanted to like it, and settled with Torchlight even though it wasn't that good. I understand not liking D3, but thinking PoE is any better is retarded.

True enough, and again I don't really know a really good 3D RTS game because DoW has it's flaws. 2D serves better for RTS, regardless of style. That reminds me of Rising Kingdoms.

Age of empires really hit a home run with the style. Realistic enough not to be fucking gay (looking at you, warcraft) but stylized enough that a swordsman is easily identifiable from a pikeman.

Spellforce 1 starts out really strong then takes a nose-dive.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. isn't really cartoony at all, with the possible exception of some mutants, and that's just because they're meant to look freakish. The devs actually went to the real-life Zone and took photographs to use for texturing. Combined with a good lighting system and a washed-out, dreary apocalyptic feel to everything in the game, the result was really cohesive.

gas yourself.

Age 3 also did a good job with graphics for its era, it aged surprisingly well as long as you don't zoom in.

Seriously, neck yourself.

Do you have bad eyesight? Are you unable to easily distinguish between objects if they don't have drastically different shapes and colors?

The problem is not whether or not I'm able to do it, the problem is that good games are designed with that in mind, particularly RTS where units are usually small. In ARPGs you have to be fucking careful about the enemies around you and what they do, specially when there's a lot of chaos going on on the screen at times.
Considering this fact and the fact that D3 do it marginally better than PoE, Diablo 3 is a better game particularly on consoles where they don't shove all the shit the PC version did.
Faggot.

AoE3 has good graphics. The game itself sucks.

Remember when GTA was actually good?

Still look great today.

Look like shit, and I'm saying this as a huge fan of Quake's gameplay.

There's absolutely a middleground for "realistic + cartoony". Ultima Online was gorgeous without being too unrealistic for the era. Others have already posted Age of Empires, Pharaoh, etc. The best of these are usually 2D games.

The only game series I've seen pull off realistic + cartoony is Metal Gear Solid. MGS2 and onward in particular still hold up super well while depicting very realistic environments.

In general, the problem is games that try way too hard to be "gritty". It's not the color palette, like many point to, although too much gray and brown sucks. No, the problem is the textures. Bad art design leads to texture artists slapping these strange black marbling patterns all over their textures to make them look "gritty", but all it does it make tiling obvious and ages the textures when you can clearly see every artifact and pixel.

A cartoony style allows a game to be distinctive while covering for technical flaws that are bound to exist. The more realistic you try to make it, the more obvious it becomes that it's not quite there. You can only fudge so much detail, and as time goes on it becomes more and more obvious that you were trying to cover for lack of detail by spamming arbitrary detail all over the place instead of actually building it.

Oh, and cartoony is better for games just because of visual cues. You can tell everything that's happening in a screenshot on TF2 and you know what game you're looking at. Overwatch looks like a generic shooter with tons of effects and isn't that appealing at all. Clear art direction can be used to aid gameplay and it should be.

DoW came a whole year prior and looks better.

Even though VC is one of my favorites, I really like GTAV style and gameplay.

This whole thread reminds me of embed related. It should be well known by now, but here it goes
Cartoonish > Realism.

This is why FF7 is already dead.

Turn off texture filtering and say that

Not only that, is the very same reason why FFIX is better than VIII and X.

Shit taste tbqhwyfamalam

The usual complain I get from GTA V is physics and the ending, but other than that, I don't see what the problem might be. It looks good for a realistic game. Can you provide a reason as to why it is bad.

Agree. I replayed Divine Divinity and was mesmerized with the graphics. I prefer good aesthetic over hyper realistic graphics any day.

Yeah, for some reason source games just still work in the aesthetics department, even when you can tell it's a bit aged. Look at E.Y.E..

I think you can make a "Realistic" aesthetic age well.
I think low poly modeling is just as much an art, as Pixel art is.

But the ones that age the WORST are the ones that mainly MARKET on looking "WOAAAAH GRAFIX".
Far Cry 1 is a joke for instance despite "WOAAAH REALZ" whilst Shadow of the Colossus still feels great to look at.

If you're talking about adventures, 1 looked like hot garbage. Graphical glitches and shit everywhere. They made an HD version later. Warcraft 3 also looks like garbage

The character models and maps had used good texturing skill. Unlike the automated high-poly nonsense these days.

its fun with friends tbh

Enjoy your suspension of disbelief being shattered all the time, the less realistic it looks the less you give a shit if you can't jump a waist high fence or walk past an invisible barrier.

FEAR is an example of graphical quality regressing then progressing, the idea things have plateaued is bullshit it's actually declining. STALKER is an old game so it has a mild cartoonish quality without the fan mods giving it a graphical overhaul.

It's more like taking a fantasy painting and resizing it to fit low poly 3d models tbh

The early maps that were constrained by hardware look shit. Enemy models look great and maps that take advantage of modern source ports and hardware look incredible. If you haven't already, check out Arcane Dimensions.

There should be diversity. Too much of one style gets old and the more developers who try their own style instead of getting on latest hype the better.

It's nice to have varying kinds of graphics for more variety.
While most of Holla Forums hates CoD and muh realism graphics,
Most of Holla Forums also hates cartoonish-looking Torchlight games.

No.

Also, is that a new edition or something in the screenshot? I don't recall the SCV driver being black. Diversity patch?

- retarded AI
- copy/paste and chance sprite balance

No

It is. You can tell by how the buildings look like shit and floaty instead of molded with the ground.

Final fantasy 8 looks fine though even with more realistic graphics
Final fantasy 7 was just an overrated meme-game

I've always been surprised by how well it holds up every time I play
the graphics for shadow of the colossus are pretty timeless
meanwhile I see things with more detailed graphics that just look like trash now

feels like comparing skillfully done practical effects to expensive CGI

homeworld still looks great too

Torchlight fucking sucks dick.

So does your mom, what's your point?

So you're a blind faggot.

Im usually not a weeaboo….But maybe the Japanese understand how to model realistic characters without longterm aging or the whole thing degenerating over the years?

Metal Gear, Shadow of the Colossus, Resident Evils…

How do they do it?

They usually idealize character's looks. Maybe it's to the fact that slanted eyes look better with polygons and that's why Shadow of the Colossus looks good

Depends on platform you're targeting and the kind of game you're making.

Also there is just something about western games where they just have incredibly shitty art direction, not always there are many western games with amazing art direction, but just look at what happened between Heroes 2 and Heroes 3 another example of cartoony>realistic. Heroes 2 looks absolutely stunning even today but it's as if the motherfuckers completely forgot how to make things look good in Heroes 3. Everything just looks muddy and ugly.

By copying the work of French people at Infogrames note for note.

opinion discarted

Its a graphic quality over graphic design thing. Good design does not require high specs or fancy materials. You can easy say who is a good artist from a little doodle on a piece of restaurant tissue. Its a problem when developers try to push technical boundaries with graphics when its completely unneeded. As some anons pointed out FEAR actually has shit textures but what actually add to the textures and gives them their shading is the lighting and actually by removing lighting imprinted on texture it actually looks more natural. Aside from the plastic faces FEAR will always look good.

user, don't lie to yourself, some units have cool design ideas but the execution is absolutely awful. The colour pallette is awful and units and heroes just look fucking akward and goofy at times. It is far worse than 2.

I started playing Dishonored last night, and I think the most impressive feat of the game is how they managed to make character's facial structure both cartoonishly overexaggerated, and still look photorealistic. I'm not saying every game should copy this style, but it's definitely worth considering in any video game. It lets you have high fidelity graphics while still giving characters that guttural "oomph" that comes from recognizing who they are in an instant.

It's a shame that the game's story kind of sucked dick. Even if it by itself was an alright game

The fact that it influenced so many games shows just how powerful it is. But I agree that too many games copied it later on.

Personally, I always thought that WC3 had amazing style. It was something almost never seen before and incredibly impressive for the time when it was released.
I am amazed to this day whenever I start it up because it works so well. It doesn't look or play like a 15 year old game.

You do know they were taken from the original Might & Magic games, right?

If you judge it solely as a "stealth game" its genreal "okay," with the lore and world making it pretty neat. If you judge it more as a "fucking around" game where you get to be whatever kind of badass you imagine it's pretty great.

Just like II's were. The same thing applies to the original series, the sprites just looked far better. The art direction of those games worsened.

You know the funniest part about Overstrike? It was EA's last chance at making an original fun game. It would have been the Overwatch before Blizzard even got the chance to announce it, it would have created the genre that plagues us today.
But thanks to their own retardation, they lost the chance to not be complete shit.

Half-Life 2 is AAA garbage. That said, its level of graphical fidelity is starting to falter in 2017 when it held up pretty well around 5 to 7 years ago, textures on anything that's not a wall or character are fucking awful. CS:S looks fine (generally has higher textures and models for unique map props, but the unique map props are usually also larger than some milk cartoon you'll find in HL2.) HL2 is aging poorly now because it's literally a glorified tech demo, gameplay is shit and completely stripped down compared to HL1 in terms of weapon variety and enemy variety
fuck off

fuck off

Unlike HL1, HL2 never sold itself on good gameplay, it sold itself on good graphics and a worthless physics system that harms gameplay in hindsight much more than it adds to it, which is why HL1 is infinitely more playable in modern times. TF2 also still looks fine though, as does Left 4 Dead 2.

Cartoon graphics are good when you don't have resources to do realistic graphics. Realistic are nearly always good once you can do them properly.
I am not saying stylized games are always bad but you also can fuck yourself nicely with them like WoW and Diablo 3 did. Absolutely serious games with threat of human extinction being constant that look like children cartoons.

All of them looks like shit, besides Torchlight.
PoE because its graphics suck, same for Mount and Blade. Diablo3 because they only retarded people work in Blizzard nowadays.

It is realistic. Shit like Settlers is cartoony.
And really it comes down to how good 2D sprites are. 2D is pretty much artstyle where everything works as long as it is done properly.

No, I don't blame Warcraft III for what came after either.

We're discussing visual design and neither of those are relevant to the overall atmosphere which is the point I was making.

I don't think its real or unreal. I think its akin to the difference between Gothic and Kitche. Original Diablo was GOTHIC and went Kitch plastiky…Just like everything else at Blizzard.

Fixed

Fixed
Also fixed. It was made by former Thief developers who forgot how to make a Thief game.

How long before the shills start pushing that it's the best stealth game of all time. Simply because Thief is too hard.

Art in the west in general was destroyed by Jewish postmodernism.

What's cartoony about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

Here are my 2 cents on the subject: If you are going to do the realistic graphics, you better a divine lighting engine under your sleeve, otherwise you game will be dated within 5 years or less. Cartoon graphics only work when it fits the overall theme of the game (Assault Android Cactus vs Diablo 3).
Now Torchlight and Borderlands are interesting cases imo, because their graphical style doesn't really fit into the overall theme of the game. While I personally don't hate either game or how it looks, it is jarring sometimes to see splatters of blood in an otherwise kid friendly Blizzard-y environment of Torchlight. Borderlands went with more of a comic book styled theme and while cel shading doesn't look all that bad, it can be obtrusive when aiming at great distances. I think both of these games would've benefited from a more original style rather than what they went with (but not realistic ones, that's for sure).
Diablo 3's environments can look like gorgeous paintings at times, when the screen isn't filled with overly bright enemies and effects and it falls flat on its face when it comes to filling the shoes of Diablo 2.
This seems to be a repeating offense here: sequels changing their styles unfitting to the original concept. I guess that's why people dislike how Torchlight looks (I think it looks just fine).

Cartoony graphics > Realistic graphics
Realistic graphics age really fucking poorly. A nice artstyle like Jet Set Radio and Paper Mario TTYD age really well that they could be rereleased today and no one would complain