Murdoc

I know my lengthy gibberish wasn't too clear, but most of my original point was that comparing it to traditional cel animation is pointless, since the term no longer reflects the origin it came from. Agreed that it does create a bit of confusion, but I think a lot of that has to do with the nonacceptance of the societal use of the definition. This, specifically, might be a separate study on the English language, but if the majority of society is using a word, whether it's to the proper definition or not, then the definition in my eyes has changed. This is the case for cel shading, I believe. Rather then make up 100 different terms for several little variations in shader properties, it's easier to use a blanket term and get most people on board with what you're trying to convey. So even if everyone gets on board with one definition, it's still a bit confusing since it's a blanket term; but what other way in human history is there? We need to categorize these things some how. Because it's easier to remember instead of memorizing jargon? I'll be less discriminatory in my comments and say people, not just artists can't/shouldn't be bothered. It's like when people say painterly style or comic book style; what does this even mean? Is it Rapheal, Rembrandt, Van gogh, Sargent, or Rockwell style? Is it Kirby, Ross, McFarlane, Lee, or Miller style? They may use a similar medium, but the results are incredibly different, so we need to categorize it somehow or we'll go insane trying to remember everything. Kind of see what I'm getting at here? Also on a technical side, you might be overly simplifying what's going on with the shaders in some games by narrowing it down to contrast of colour and specular. While the output might look like that's what's going on, you can really delve deep into it and as I mentioned there are infinite possibilities with it. Again, see Valves GDC talk(their notes are posted up somewhere online) about TF2 to get a bit of an idea as it was a pretty tech heavy discussion. Somewhat disagree with this, most of the goals for a lot of games with the "new combo 3d look" are actually trying to mimic rules, processes, or general "look/feel" of already established methods used in illustration, painting, animation, etc... So yeah, the attempt is going after something more then the origin of cel shading, but again, blanket term is easier, even if some people consider it incorrect. No arguments here. However, to defend my usage, Chris used the term Disney, so I was following an example to get everyone on board. Once again, a blanket term that helps convey a message most people can understand even if it is incorrect to the origin. Hard to say, but I bet it would end up being called a mix. As mentioned cel shading is just a valid blanket term as "comic book" style or painter style, so if a game could convincingly combine all these together you could call it a mix of cel shading, comic book, painter styles... but at that point maybe we could just use the word surreal. On second thought maybe not; what would south park be called as a style? It uses all of those + live action video and/or photos. Sort of, but that depends what traditional animated look you intended it to look like; also besides my original point that I didn't get across that the term cel shading no longer means mimicking traditional cel animation. It sort of actually is necessary and I have no intention of being rude or insulting when I say this, but I don't think if you've looked into the technical side of things enough based on your comics. You could argue that phong is not a good setting for cel shading, but you would be wrong (I know that may have been an arbitrary example and I'm not taking it literally) but without looking at the underlying mathematical equations that fuels a shader, there is literally no difference in the output of a blinn, phong, lambert, or "cel" shader, only the inputs and values associated with them. And just to define what I mean by "output" in that last paragraph, is what you call "the cohesiveness of the look in the end" there is absolutely no difference between the shaders if you go beyond the preset input and values; except in the back end (code). Also, I'm not a programmer or a technical artist, so my understanding to achieve a final result (good looking game art) could be completely wrong and scewed; but the technical side to what we do is more then a job or hobby so I feel fairly confident in my answers being correct on the tech side of things. As far as the "what's in a definition" that's mostly opinion on the English language, but also from my experience with other artists, teaching, and working between various engines and programs; definitions are a completely grey area in 3d right now. *** Also I have started it up, finally, to play some more. I've never really had a fps disorient me so much and make me feel wobbly(with the exception of stalker before I modded the headbob stuff) So I'm unsure if it's camera, fov or the style they went with. Presentation wise it's pretty low brow and semi annoying, but I am enjoying the game and they aren't smashing me with boring details so I don't mind. As I described the starting to a friend "So I'm in this bus with cousin roman listening to some crap rock from 1995 watching the credits like in gta4 when some live action photoshop filtered girl starts talking to me in a window, then I get off the bus to meet GIR from invader zim so he can give me a tutorial." (A bit harsh, but those were my first thoughts, honestly) Also, I agree with everything toblix said; except the shooting part taking me back to R6 (never played it enough to remember) However, it reminds me more of mass effect shooting since it has that rpg element to it; only this time it's a lot more frustrating since I can see exactly what is happening in first person. Overall kind of liking it, but feel disoriented enough to not play for long periods of time right now.

Red Dead Redemption = Fallout + horses = (Oblivion + guns) + horses meets Dead Space, in Hell, something about Rape - the space and hell if you consider new mexico hell. You play John Q. Cowboy fighting in Hell (New Mexico) where you're uncovering the ancient ruins of the Alamo. You fight off demonic spirits of mexican soliders with your trusty knife imbued with the soul of James Bowie (and side kick, it's a sarcastic talking knife). You are searching for the corpse of your father, Davey Crockett, who was rumored to have died in battle. There, using the magicks of the ancient Navajo you will restore him to corporeal form and together will bring clean water to the desert wastelands. Oh wait, this is EA's THE ALAMO not Red Dead... they're so damn similiar.

Sure; how long did it take with that bullshit in the vault in fallout 3? Maybe not 6 hours, but from memory it felt like it.

Honestly I've tried playing that game 3 times, the last time was pretty recently a month before Dragon Age came out I dumped in for the special super better edition because people told me they really made it that much more awesome. Not the thread for it so I'll keep it short, but I don't get that game, it's not for me, I think it's really, really dumb. Yeah the missions in Red dead seem to be rob a train, kill lots of guys, ride a wagon, etc.. Mini games seem to be the police system from gta; I think the surprising thing is if it comes off less like Gta and more like something else, but really I'm expecting gta4 with horses; which is a lot like Fallout 3 with horses if you think about it.

Since I am so undecided, I concur. With movies I can decide a movie that was awesome and impacted a majority of other movies over the next ten years ... I can't seem to do this for games; one that has outstanding quality over others and completely revolutionizes most games around it in a positive manner. I can see how HL or HL 2 could be tip toeing around this definition, but I don't think it or anything else really met that criteria.

Ok, got a scoop from Forgotten Sands, as I had little to no interest about it from that trailer, but someone wanted to sell me on it. The trailer was some sort of revived corpse from marketing, like literally very little about it represents the actual game in it's current form. The game itself actually now has me excited; basically it's Sands of Time, take sands of time + improved mechanics and features. I think the big win would be to get the SoT voice actors back, because, god damn it, the guy was 1000x better then 2009's asshole. Either way, I'm pretty curious about it now.

yeah I'ma huge HL fan and I wouldn't know where to begin to pick a game of the decade, but I know Hl2 wouldn't be it; I loved it a lot, but something about it bugged me (the one free-man would be starters)

Lol at ign quote. There was one thing(really small I know) that I really liked about Red Dead when I saw it and I don't see it in this trailer, but for the revolver "cross hairs"(it was a circle they had dots around it that represented the bullets that would deplete and rotate like a real revolver when you shot... I thought that was so cool.

Yeah, that paragon/renegade system was a bit odd. Like you didn't turn evil or anything, but I would have liked there to be a little more from it, because at the end of the the day the results are pretty much the same, so the choice was if you want to be a dick about it. I was kind of hoping that the more renegade I'd get the more of a problem for the human space marines I'd be. Your a spectre and can do anything you want, but you were still "reporting" to the human military, I cut them off, didn't tell them stuff, but that all kind of lead to nowhere. It would have been cool if it opened up different quests and the military would generally be extremely annoyed with me; essentially you become a renegade. They had that parellel between you and Saren; so honestly it would have been cool tosee the renegade path go down the road of pre-indoctrinated Saren; and really that's how my game played out, just no one bothered to take notice or point that out, like the game didn't really react to it. Personally I liked the male voice acting, I should really check out the female to see what that's about, but the dude sold me on that character being likeable.

I dunno; it's a pretty grey area, at an intial glance there seems that the descendants that live today come from several seperate races; which in my books is still classifys them as a race, even if using the term irish race isn't really accurate (kind of like saying there is an asian race) http://homepage.eircom.net/~kthomas/history.htm

It's being developed in Vancouver by Propaganda; the Turok guys (Yeah I know that spells doom) However, I can say the team (well, whats left of them) is actually amazingly talented on the art and animation side; not so much on the design side. But it's really Disneys filter that kind of grinds things up there and from the sounds of it, this game isn't really large in scope; which could mean good or bad things depending on how you look at it. I'll say that I'm more interested in the movie more then the game. Idle Thumbs talked about it when they were talking about the first one; and even they were skeptical of that claim; also they poitned out his AA joker was different from the WB joker; so maybe he made the distinction and said no more Wb joker, so Aa joker was ok. I dunno. I'm sure he's proud of it because it kicks ass, but also employs him; so I'm not sure where he said it or why; I just heard it on one of the thumbcasts.

Wait, what? I didn't play it, but I thought it was like all starwars things where they were trying to cram in everything into the same time line they have been going with for the past 40 years. Did they decide to f@#$ it and make their own stuff up with the characters finally? Also, kind of sounds like the game will be about chosing a side considering yoda(or whatever) has some talking points in it.(again I didn't play the first one, so maybe thats what it was already about, but I didn't think so).

Out of all that I was pretty impressed by that Halo trailer; I mean theyr eally have a slick look and mood going there and I haven't played a Halo game since the first. I see a lot of people(elsewhere) shitting on the graphics, I have no idea why, it's conistant with the style they set in Halo 3 but just a lot sharper with a different tone/palette... so that's cool. Also, Rockband Greenday? Next up, Nickleback! I mean really, they went from the Beatles to a band that was barely relevant 15 years ago? weird. Star Wars: robes, lightsaber, yep, starwars trailer. Batman: Didn't dig the first, don't care, but didn't Hamill say he was never doing that voice again? TrueCrime: (only commenting on this because I know a ton of people working on it) but really if the main character doesn't say "Kung pow" every time he kicks someone in the head, I'm not in.

HOLY COW I love this game! Just got a PS3 around uncharted 2 so I never played any of the pixel junk stuff(I did watch mosnters for a bit) but these cats know how to make a game. Art Style: Great. Presentation is like a cartoon alien with a subtle flavor of nes nostalgia(metroid maybe?) Game: Controls are literally perfect. Contextually is awesome, it feels really really good, all the little subtly in the rumble, sound fx and movement is really cool. Little hints of movement in the environment when you brush by them adds a lot too. Shooting is also enjoyable... want more destroyable bits!(maybe later levels) Sound: I really love the sound design and music, its really cool. Yep, thats it, its pretty damn cool.

Not my point, he's the "prince" character that I don't know the name of, but from now on I'll refer to him differently

I really, really hate to bring up this old discussion, but was reading through this thread and just after examining Pop I have a bit to say on the subject. The problem with 3d art and game art in general is terminology, each program will use different terms for nearly the same thing, so various terms will get merged or be interchangable even if it isn't 100% correct. We take that one step further when we go into a real time engine, because a lot of the time the shader set ups are doing fakes based on the look of an a more sophisticated algorithm in processed rendering. (Unreal 3 is horrible for this, by not only using different names for common processes, even if they are simplified hacks to achieve the same thing, but they go on to use terms that mean other things for their shaders, making it very confusing at first glance) edit: Funny thought too, is that most of this stuff is made by a math programmer wiz, then they name it; but hand it off to some idiot kid who likes to make pictures; so we tend to either forget the terms and make our own up, or do a micheal bay style description of what we're trying to do (reference southpark mb pitches a movie solution) 3D art has been around for maybe 50 years, which has extremely distinct eras that make previous ones fairly obsolete (meaning, methods used are no longer applied and it's essentially a dead language that has little to no applicable merit in modern work). However, the terminology has kind of stuck through the whole thing, so it isn't out of the question that a term can have a lot of different meanings attached to it as the art evolves (and it has extremely rapidly). Anyway, to bring this back around to cel shading; the same thing is happening here. The origin is like what Chris mentioned; trying to simulate cel-shaded art, but that doesn't mean the old definition should still apply today. Essentially, other modern methods are being created, don't have definitions, or the artists can't be bothered adding more to their dictionary. Since they use the similar methods of achieving a goal and the output of that goal is pretty much the same; they get lumped into a single definition. I agree that there is a difference between using ink lines and and classic cel shading. You can have cell shading without ink lines, and you can have traditional lambert/blinn shading with ink lines. Also, just because Pop and possibly Borderlands (I haven't seen it in motion, but from the look of screenshots, I'll include it in this example) aren't trying to match the visual style of their ink to tradition 2d animation doesn't mean it should be excluded from the term cel shading. That wasn't Chris' point (but it may be others'), his, instead, was that the traditional blinn/lambert shading with ink lines isn't Cel Shading. Somewhat true, but I have to disagree with the example of Pop(and again, maybe borderlands, I need to play it to know for sure) but I'm pretty sure there are some shaders in Pop that would be considered "cell shading". To get the look of "Cel shading" (We're ignoring the ink lines remember) is basically just a way of clamping how light values react with a surface and how the diffuse texture (yes texture, even if your texture is one rgb value to simulate Disney's 2d look, there is still a texture technically be considered; with obvious memory benefits) is displayed. Probably coupled with something similiar to some fresenel effects (like an incidence(rim light?) or really however the hell the rendering programer/shader artist work it out, you can play with the look quite a bit. Anyway, this type of effect is totally going on in Prince of Persia on some objects and, for necessity of cost performance or visual style (like many modern anime movies, contains super simple shaded characters and amazing painted backgrounds), probably not on others. Also I just need to throw in this tidbit, because someone mentioned something about other shader attributes not working on "cel shading" which isn't necessarily true either. The whole cartoony look is strictly diffuse; depending on how hard you clamp certain values you can totally still have specular, normal, and reflection work with it. Notibly, TF2 is cell shaded(well their characters and weapons are) under the terms I just described, they even have a paper on the net about it that describes some crazy intelligent stuff using the same methodology of what I described. It's also using bump/normal, spec, and possibly reflections on these shaders; but like pop(and maybe borderlands) it's using a mix ( I assume the world art in TF is using their standard shaders in a lot of parts) Also once you set up one of these shaders you can't expect your other maps(spec, bump, reflec) to react like they normally would, so theres a chance they need to be manipulated differently to work properly. Also, in my limited experience on the topic; 3d packages may have a specific cel shader you can use, either offered by the package or rendering system (in the case of max, mental ray has one across all platforms) I find most of these offerings are just derived from blinn or lambert (or a phong instead of a blinn, one of these is just a mild rip off of the other, I'm pretty sure its phong) and stripped down; so the cel shader in these packages are just restricted, easy to access shaders for people, but a more controllable result can be made on your own to get a better more specific look (like what game programmer/artists usually do) Anyway, sorry to bring it up, but there seemed to be a lot of talk without a lot of technical backup, and I have like zero experience using these shaders, I just happen to have some info/opinions about it. edit: as pirate pointed out I'm a shitty writer but I hope some of it made sense

Oh weird, I just picked up Pop 2008(whatever its called) the other day because I needed to see what it was doing and why it bugged people.... Short story short; Holy shit I fucking hate this game and this shitty asshole character. Short story long: I played sands of time; it was amazing. I saw warrior within and thought the art direction they took was ballsy and good for them for making a different looking sequel, but then heard the story and lost interest; so I haven't played a prince of persia since SoT. The presentation is just fucking aweful from the get go, it just starts, barely introduces the characters and the plot and basically just keeps going at this really gilted pace. The prince is a schmuck and it's probably the worst choice of voice for any high profile game that I can think of in the last 5-10 years. Gameplay, I don't need to talk much, but wtf death mechanic? Platforming feels more like a rail timed thing. Inconsistant death heights, etc.. Areas are pretty mashy, paths aren't very clear, doesn't seem like a lot of thinking about set up, sticking to stuff isn't very fun, movement is as enjoyable as i remember. I am constantly snapping onto platforms or about to trigger the death save then it stops and I actually make it. Also fighting with the camera constantly. There is some weird gravity going on too, movement doesn't feel as good as what I remember it, I don't feel in control of my character(again very rail-esq) Visuals: Ugh, aweful. Textures are nice, the idea is nice, i remember seeing cocnept art and it was nice; but then there is this constant "growth" theme throughout the game that is full of that fad vector art designer root shit that, at least to me, is a fad and belongs on a hip 6 year olds wall tattoo. I don't know wtf the designs were doing when it came to the enemies, but so far I've fought Venom from Spiderman and Spawn... of course these are very rooted into middle eastern culture and history. Like the thumbs mentioned the ink shader sucks too. Animation and movement is super stiff and the facial animation is terrible; but that could be because I just hate these two peter chung proportioned assholes. The world setup kind of seems like they are shooting for a SotC thing but it's not as nice, there is no gravity to the lead up, situation, presentation, its just bland as hell. there didn't seem to be any depth in the distance, then it showed up for half a second one small cut scene... so they had the ability. The scaled of alot of things seems really inconsistant as well(I know I am getting nit picky, but this was me reference collecting, not sitting down for a weekend play and I feel very passionately towards what I thought pop was since SoT) The designs of characters and environments are all over the place that I don't get a sense of the world, of myth, of history, or anything I used to get out of the old games or anything good to replace those feelings. I understand this is a total fantasy world now, but it seems pretty inconsistant with what the title suggests. It's like clint hocking wanted to make this crazy africa shooter and they decided to call it Farcry 2; that was cool, but then some other asshole wanted to make this cheap looking fantasy platformer and they decided to call it PoP... not cool. It's like some psychology experiment where they introduce to me these vapid characters with annoying dialog and voices, but then wont let me jump this fuck face off a cliff a thousands times just to get some kind of pleasure out of it. /ugh

Yeah I can understand that, I mean most(read: all) the situations in Biowares games have been blatantly black and white, so even if I mildly disagreed with it, I saw it coming and it really boils down to their intended choice on big situations; but I think it was this situation in Dragon Age that really surprised me and questioned if what the hell I was doing. I even loaded up previous saves to see how the other stituations played out and their blatant "good" choice was just completely wrong, yet it didn't seem to "break" the game as much, so I'm assuming that was the intended choice for them.

I've been re-listening to the thumbs and came across the Goty discussion of 08(idle thumbs XI-2) which offered some insight into my decision. Derek points out:"...IE: his actions truly reflected an aspect of himself" which was a criteria for his choice of Farcry 2(which I agree with, like everyone else should) So I'm going to pick the same criteria for my choice this year along with one other thing. I have an addiction to TF2(maybe not so much this year because I keep uninstalling it when I need to clean the apartment and bathe) while I compared my time on steam to anyone I personally know they look at me like some sorry wretch shitting into pizza boxes because I won't leave the computer to visit the restroom. Anyway, so I was tooling around steam and noticed that my play time on my choice for goty'09 is pretty much the same amount of time as my second most played class in TF2; TF2 was released 2.5 years ago, Dragons Age was released in November and I wasn't in a day one entry situation. So yep, Dragon Age wins based on play time and how my actions truly reflected an aspect of myself. I say it was kind of standard Bioware stuff; but I hit a few points in Dragon Age that kind of irritated me and kind of showed me possible aspects to my personality that shouldn't be boasted about. Without spoilers, as I may have mentioned them in the DA thread, I abandoned quests and suffered certain consequences. I could never "win" a conversation with certain characters; like I just rubbed them the wrong way even when I was making the effort to cater to the them. Pretty much throughout the game it would never, ever, ever, let me have my cake and eat it too... much like real life, so good job Dragon Age, you kind of depressed me in some ways and I think that's cool. I really felt my elf mage was more or less "me" in a lot more ways Shepherd was; Shepherd was Shepherd (and not just because he was voice acted, etc..). Oh, and one thing that still kind of confuses me, is I hit a part where I did the RIGHT thing, literally the most morally justifiable thing in a crappy situation and I believe I was punished in terms of the game/characters because to Bioware it was considered not the best thing to do. This is the first time it has happened and out of every Bioware with a clear good/bad system we've had a disagreement as to what was the right thing to do is(if I am purposely trying to play evil, I know it, here I didn't realize it because the narrative is dead wrong in my eyes) So, Dragon Age.

Actually can I add Heroes of Newerth to my most hated game/worst experiance in any game ever that at the same time wasn't the game's fault but the tool bags that play it? Not to rant, but seriously, it either made me angry or about to cry all 4 times I tried to play it depending on what happened.... knob bag community.

Little King's Story... oh right I need to try this. I downloaded noby noby last night, we'll see how it goes tonight. Honestly, still at a loss at what game is clearly better then the others so far; can I just vote game of the year is the industry? I mean nothing exceptional, but average quality this year has been top notch that they deserve an achievement; they can earn another one when they learn to spread this shit out.

Of course Disney's idea of blow you away graphics are... erm...

Anyone know what office Nick works in, we could all just send him a lump to his work... I'm going to look into this, lol. I've started to relisten from the start; that's how empty and sad my days are without new idle thumbs(this mind you I started them in august and went through them only a few months ago) ah memories.

yeah, I get everything above upto the fucking awesome part. I'm just not seeing yet and I'm not sure if something like the deserves the time put into it to get the rewards... kind of like the people I yell at when they say farcry 2 wasn't very good.

I think I played more great games this year then any other in recent memory; but when it comes down to picking my favorite of the year, honestly I don't think anything really captured me enough to push it into memorable status. Played a ton of dragons age, but I wouldn't say goty because it was kind of the standard stuff from Bioware with some strong gripes against it, Brutal Legend was a hoot while it lasted, but wasn't a full realized game or narrative, I have yet to pop in uncharted 2... but honestly it's not the genre of game I'd typically hold close to my heart as being the best of the year. Yeah I just dunno, it'll probably end up being some flash game or ps3store/xboxarcade thing when I think about it enough... something small enough to get everything right.