*spin-off* Art vs Tech... and stuff.

[L. Scofield]

p.s. I did not start the mentioned argument, I only participated in it because I wanted to see if the 'critics' could back up their claims about the game being nothing impressive.
If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen basically

Except that the point of not being impressive was directed to a single screenshot, not the whole game. But that's how defensive people see it

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Even if the texture detail came at a trade off, you could compare it to games in the same genre, and check other things: Lighting, AO, OBM, DOF, which would still be favorable for the discussed game. So objectively it was looking like a technological masterpiece that could not be debated, because almost every single comparable aspect from competing games would fail in comparison.

No-one was saying it wasn't a technical masterpiece. The original quote in the U3 thread was something like "ND are pushing new boundaries in multiplayer." That's when the whole issue of trade-offs came into being. And regards texturing in that one example, exactly as Joker says, how do you compare different use of tectures? Or to extend his options, what about developers who spend more on textures because they don't have as many models to texture? A simple statement like "best ever textures" is impossible to confirm or deny across different games. The statement should be left at "best looking textures I've seen" or "superb texturing" or other compliments that recognise the achievements of the game without turning it into an impossible competition.

Surely, you should be required to compare more than one or two pieces of the whole against another game. Otherwise, you can belittle the game as a whole because of picking only one piece of a large puzzle. Would you like your work as a whole to be belittled because of one aspect being pulled out and compared to another?

That's what I was saying in the rest of my post, that the whole has to be considered, which isn't really possible. Hence these kinds of 'technical' comparisons that look at individiual components tend to turn to noise. When it's a clear metric, like resolution, than piecemeal comparisons are valid. When it's something vaccuous like 'best textures' or 'best lighting' then no from of meaningful comparison can be gained. Again, this whole issue would be dropped naturally if people didn't make hyperbolic claims, or people didn't respond to them. AFAICS there's no way hyperbolic claims followed by debate of them can work.

 

[Billy Idol]

Posted this in the Uncharted 3 thread, with the same bickering about tradeoffs, and feel it warrants an appearance here:


I think the primary complaint, one I subscribe to, is that seemingly with every exclusive on every platform there'll be a number of fans claiming the developer is godlike, doing more with the platform than any other developer and putting all other developers to shame. This is disingenious to other developers, irrespective of platform. And most of the time the developer of choice is placed on a pedestal not because of their superior technical accomplishments but because they work the whole package, or some key element of it. I can point to the lighting in LBP2, and say MM are technical gods better at using the PS3 than anyone else, but there the choices are quite obvious in the game's restrictions enabling this choice of lighting model. It's not that no other developer could possible get the same lighting, but that no other developer is going for that look or style.

ND are incredible at what they do. Why is that not enough, and people feel compelled to say they are better than everyone else (or other developers making excellent use of these consoles)? We've had a few pages of crap in this thread as a result, same as every exclusive. Okay, the likes of Scofield should learn to just ignore the gushing, but the incessant arguments do my head in! Especially when the whole discussion of tradeoffs is then referred to as a fanboy excuse.

hm I don't agree with you, I don't aggree with most of you guys, except I understand you all in the wrong sense:

you say that every developer out there is the same? has the same talent and the same skill? what we see as a final result (i.e. the game) is just a result of tradeoffs of the actual hardware or the "developers focus" and not the result of the developer competence??

this seems not right and I have the feeling that overall its a bit naive, as in this case: game development seems to be the only job in the world where talent and skill does not play a role! Come on, we know that in every industry there are 'smart' people and the ones you really cannot compete due to lack of talent and skill!

People should accept that there are better developers than other developers out there...it's natural imo.

How to judge which developer is ace and which is lame is on the other hand kind of a difficult problem, as no scientific measure is available (except "profit" if you are a suit )

 

[Shifty Geezer]

hm I don't agree with you, I don't aggree with most of you guys, except I understand you all in the wrong sense:

you say that every developer out there is the same? has the same talent and the same skill?

No. Read everything I've said on this matter:

To no-one in particular:

The evaluation of developers as doing a good job or not is a legitimate one, and one that can be qualified through various analyses. Even non-technical ones - ND are clearly worlds better than, say, ZootFly when you compare Uncharted with Ghostbusters. Uncharted trumps Ghostbusters in pretty much every way. You don't even have to count pixels and measure textures. There's nothing wrong with these sorts of comparisons.

The rest goes on to explain further....

 

[Jedi2016]

Yes, there are differing degrees of skill and talent amongst developers, I think we can all acknowledge that.

But, in regards to the topic, how do you define that? By technical prowess, pushing the hardware to its limits and eking out every ounce of power? Or by artistic merit, and making it look good regardless of technical know-how? IMO, what makes Naughty Dog good is how they can balance the two.

Oh, and the arguments about textures is just stupid, IMO. Textures are only one tiny aspect of what makes a game look good, and not even the most important one, not by a long shot. Take metal, for example. You can't do good metal with textures. You need a whole array of shaders and reflections to even remotely look like actual metal. The only use textures would be used in situations like that is adding scratches and dirt, which aren't even noticeable most of the time unless you stop and look. Come to think of it, I haven't really seen good metal this generation.

 

[Turok]

Come to think of it, I haven't really seen good metal this generation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ez7iNjoVg

The best I saw was in the Halo: Reach reveal trailer, but for some reason that material shader didn't make into the final game. Shame, it looks so damn good.

 

[Arwin]

I thought Uncharted's metal was actually really great, but I may have lower standards.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Metal is a complex thing, for a start you need an energy conserving shader to get proper diffuse-specular separation, you need proper intensities for the various texture channels, some kind of Fresnel curve for the reflections and so on. It's actually a bit counterintuitive for the artists who grew up on blinn and phong shaders but it's worth it.

 

[Billy Idol]

No. Read everything I've said on this matter:

Good. Good to know. Now please tell it to those who always destract every other thread (making reading those certain exclusive game thread really tiresome), accusing everyone being a fanboy if appreciation for developers and their games is expressed! Thanks.

 

[L. Scofield]

Metal is a complex thing, for a start you need an energy conserving shader to get proper diffuse-specular separation, you need proper intensities for the various texture channels, some kind of Fresnel curve for the reflections and so on. It's actually a bit counterintuitive for the artists who grew up on blinn and phong shaders but it's worth it.

Crysis 2's is pretty decent I think. The material settings support both fresnel and energy conservation. Plus the game supports a very nice gama-correct HDR implementation.

Good. Good to know. Now please tell it to those who always destract every other thread (making reading those certain exclusive game thread really tiresome), accusing everyone being a fanboy if appreciation for developers and their games is expressed! Thanks.

Appreciation is one thing, completely dismissing the non-ps3-exclusive competition is another

 

[Billy Idol]

Crysis 2's is pretty decent I think.

...again, crysis 2, ...

Appreciation is one thing, completely dismissing the non-ps3-exclusive competition is another

Appreciation is one thing, completely dismissing the non-crysis2 competition is another


Look...my feelings are that some of you guys should not take this stuff so serious after all, it often seems to me that some kind of crusade is going on, fighting "demons" and ignoring the collateral damage in some threads...especially, reading pages of accusations fights in PS3 exclusive threads which, to be honest, you typically ignite is getting really tiresome, especially if someone like me is just interested in discussing and reading actual news and infos about the game itself.

...please don't get me wrong, most of your posts are interesting to read, and Crysis 2 insights and comparisons are always interesting and welcome, but probably in some cases it is often better to take a step back, take a deep breath and don't let oneself getting provocated so easily...just for the sake of safing the thread getting derailed!

Sorry for the OT, this is the last thing I post in this regard.
***************************



On topic:

I always wondered why Art and Tec is typically discussed as beeing two independent things, i.e. versus. My opinion is, that Art and Tec should go hand in hand...although I often have the feeling that art people doing stuff just for the sake of it, and not to improve actual immersion (although this should be the goal of art in a game)!

Example: if you use MLAA as your AA method, and you know that the limits of the tec is e.g. that "thin geometry" such as electricity cables look shit...why even include them as an artist?!
Goal of the artist: make immersion better, thus including wires...problem: tec cannot appropriately reproduce those on screen...as a consequence immersion destroyed/destracted by tec artefacts!

For me, there really is no game with good art and bad tec, as you need a certain level of tec to display the art the way it is meant by the artist to appreciate it...I think that one quality measure of good art is to hide the tec deficiencies as much as possible!

 

[Beef Stallmer]

When you want to compare developer skill/talent, look at similar games, like for example:
compare MLB the show, to MLB 2K.

They both use the same hardware, they both try to achieve the same goal, the both have the exact same source material, they should have the same look/art (reality) yet 1 game clearly stands head and shoulders above the other with every iteration. Also it doesn't stop at looks, 1 is simply the better game.

Now, unless the lesser game was made with only half the developers/ time/ budget, this should be an example of developer talent.

 

[L. Scofield]

Appreciation is one thing, completely dismissing the non-crysis2 competition is another

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=59657

 

[ERP]

When you want to compare developer skill/talent, look at similar games, like for example:
compare MLB the show, to MLB 2K.

They both use the same hardware, they both try to achieve the same goal, the both have the exact same source material, they should have the same look/art (reality) yet 1 game clearly stands head and shoulders above the other with every iteration. Also it doesn't stop at looks, 1 is simply the better game.

Now, unless the lesser game was made with only half the developers/ time/ budget, this should be an example of developer talent.

No it's more a reflection of the set of constraints on the developers, and the set of choices someone (who may no longer even be on the project now) made years earlier when the original engine was created.

If the distinction is clear (and I haven't seen the games) you can certainly state than one is better than the other, although even then it's hard to separate individual components from the whole. You'd be stunned how much one superb technical artist can affect the look of a game even with technology changes.

Annual releases/sequels by there very nature are rushed, you can't revisit existing code above and beyond small portions, usually the decision on what changes has as much to do with what differentiates you from the previous years title.

Here's my experience on developer skill/talent, pretty much every team delivering B or better titles has between 1 and 3 great technologists, what they build has more to do with the direction they receive than it does their skill level. Art styles are selected by artists, in well run companies, engineering will dictate polygon/shader budgets, but not in a way to restrict the artists, gameplay is driven by designers.

I worked on one title that I would consider to have been "OK" when it shipped, certainly not something anyone would have called technically brilliant, the team was built by taking the best and most talented people from the other teams at the company in question, arguably the most talented set of individuals I've worked with on a single project, and yet it's still just average.

Another case in point tools are often the difference between a really good looking project and an average one, and more often than not they are built by the less technically competent developers on a team because none of the senior people want to do it.

Back circa 1983 games were purely about technology, you build some cool technical trick and had an artist make it look good. Now I honestly don't think you can separate technology from the other components, you can only see the whole.

How a team is run and the interaction between the technology/art/audio/gameplay groups is in someways much more important than how good a particular group is. And there isn't one correct solution to this, different teams function well with different structures.

 

[Beef Stallmer]

..

really insightful, thanks for sharing your view as someone working in the industry!