Nothing impressive at all?
Take a second look at the animation of the cell shaded characters (body movement, hair, clothing, as well as lip sync, facial expressions, and body gestures). It wouldn't hurt to take a look at the activity of the world either. Considering most games (not just cell shaded games) have pretty boring/lifeless worlds and poor animation those two areas immediately stand out as being impressive. "Nothing" is a pretty broad statement... Especially when attatched to "at all"... I am sure others could point out some of the other impressive aspects of the titles graphics if you are having a hard time spotting them.
No, we are not talking about 2 different things. The problem, putting aside art for a moment (which a central design point of your graphic design and technological choices!) is this: graphics are not about technology but the USE of technology.
For example, there are a host of crappy Ray Traced graphics out there. Technically impressive, yes, but graphically craptastic. I give you the technical superiority of ray tracing!
So the issue comes down to design choices resulting in the best image on screen. I don't care if a game uses realtime GI, if the end results looks worse than a rasterized image then graphically it is NOT superior.
Further, as I pointed out in my previous post, how do you begin to weigh which is technically superior?
- Are 2 256x256 parallax maps technically superior to 8 1024x1024 normal maps?
- Are 2 VF5 level figures technically superior to 50,000 3D fans in a sprting stadium?
- Are small detailed locales in DoA4 technically superior to the extremely large streaming worlds of a game like Oblivion?
What is best "technically" is what gives the best result for your game.
It is overly simplistic to say something like:
Real Geometry > Displacement Mapping > Parallax Mapping > Normal Mapping
And yet such a paradigm ignores the realities of game budgets (memory limitations, vertex processing and vertex setup limitations, hardware accellerated methods versus software, etc) and how there are very real sweet spots and areas with very poor returns. But that is effectively what you are argueing in regards to technology and graphics with how you are pointing to technology buzzwords as a single barometer. But missed in this equation would be all the pros/cons of each technique, namely that each has significant tradeoffs. In the real world there are tradeoffs.
Take the two extremes of real geometry versus normal mapping.
It is easy to argue that real geometry is more advanced/technically impressive. Until you account for the fact normal maps could allow for more characters (smaller geometry footprint and processing) or much more detailed characters in the fine areas as well as superior animation (try animating a 10k poly character and a 1M poly character... and then try having a dozen or so on the screen at a time). Effectively you are looking at a situation with comparing a couple characters on screen versus dozens, maybe hundreds.
Being more technically advanced only applies in certain situations imo.
- When games are attempting to do the same thing (e.g. two football games)
- When one technique is clearly superior to another and either is nominally expensive or would result in siginifican return on investment in the end product (e.g. a game that relies heavily on shadows could benefit from a better shadowing technique)
- When a technique (or more likely group of techniques) is better executed
- When a developer is just plain better (skill, time, resources, ingenuity) than others (AAA dev versus the Hudsons of the world)
I am sure there are other situations, but I think my examples suffice to demonstrate that how a lot of people look at graphics is pretty flawed IMO in regards to "technicals" and which has better graphics technology. Gears of War isn't anything really technically new or ground breaking but it is how the technology is used, and the quality levels at which they pushed, that is impressive. So is GOW technically impressive because it pushes the bounds in terms of quality of these techniques or not impressive technically because they are more familiar techniques.
We can all be guilty of buzzwords, I know I have been at times, but at the end of the day they mean very little in regards to how "advanced" a title is. If you are raytracing but can only have 5k polygons on screen are you really more technically advanced, graphically, than a game that rasterizes 500k polygons?
While lighting, shadowing, and filtering all seem to be very good in LBP (nice quality + nice techniques) it doesn't ace all the technical criterias as you indicate. How about low quality assets that are in a limited range for starters. Trusty Bell also has character animation in about every technical form I can think of as a "win" as well.
And comparing LBP "technical" feats is also skewed because the title has a fairly 2D fixed perspective which hides possible graphical issues as well as you are dealing with a limited number of low detailed figures so you have the resources to splurge in other areas. i.e. A game with a limited world size and fixed camera and a handful low quality assets can spend resources differently. That isn't a bad thing -- again, it is all about tradeoffs. And LBP makes a lot of tradeoffs for high IQ. Is it a win? Most here seem to think so... does that automatically mean it is the best? That other technical feats are no longer impressive?
Personally I thought the Reality Engine Backyard demo from 2004 using DX9 on a Radeon 9700 was nearly as impressive as LBP. e.g.
When you are dealing with a limited, more focused area you have the ability to make even simple assets look impressive. It is one of the tradeoffs technically and artistically of limiting or expanding your scope.
Ultimately, as I stated before, it isn't an easy 1-to-1 comparison as you are trying to make. The fact is they, Trusty Bell and Little Big Planet, have different goals and comparing them directly for technology doesn't say squat (although I am not argueing that TB has nothing cutting edge technologically going for it... we must have different eyes for technology although I am in no way slighting LBP and can conceed where it looks good). Is the PS2 Matrix Game with Neo better than GoW2 because the Matrix game used normal maps and had hundreds of people on screen at a time?
Of course not! The technology is only there to serve a purpose, and whoever uses their technology to best hit their target has the best technology. I don't care if a game uses ray casting, ray tracing, or global illumination. I see render tests all the time with these that are HORRIBLE graphics.
What makes good graphics is proper use of the technology for a great end result.
When you have a small scale world you can make things look a little more polished at little cost, but when you do a full 3D world which you can really explore, the true graphical achievement becomes evident.
