Sign in to follow this  
Redwall

Crytek and the insanity of realism

Recommended Posts

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=68325

"Three years ago [Far Cry] looked amazing," he said. "Now it's too stylized, too cartoony, the colours are far too much. With Crysis we went for realism."

(on Crysis)

"It was insane… We wanted every leaf to have its own shading. It was very important for us. We have to model every leaf separately. There's a crazy amount of polygons."

Not that anyone's expecting much from Crytek, but... :(

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah I found that quote pretty disappointing. "With Crysis, we have attempted to remove any suggestion of art direction! And remember, the key to enjoying good graphics isn't to use your eyes to look at what's on the screen, it's to read and embrace our boasts about the computational complexity of the scene!"

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

:frusty:

If they really get such a boner for recreating realism, maybe they should look into this device called a "film camera". I hear it does a good job. Instead of filming what already is real, they are trying to recreate everything one grain of sand at a time. And for what? A lousy, shitty, cliche story with super restricted interactivity? What realism! :finger:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't really mind it. It's an eventuality that games are going to gun for super crazy awesome graphics. And that seems to be Crytek's MO, so I pretty much expect it from them.

And as long as it's fun enjoyable/entertaining, I'll be happy. I'll get my story from BioShock.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I usually find myself agreeing with Spector's comments; but that article is terrible and ill-thought out. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
:frusty:

If they really get such a boner for recreating realism, maybe they should look into this device called a "film camera". I hear it does a good job. Instead of filming what already is real, they are trying to recreate everything one grain of sand at a time. And for what? A lousy, shitty, cliche story with super restricted interactivity? What realism! :finger:

Heh, at my art course the other day we were discussing photorealism. It's pretty easy to draw or paint a photorealistic piece, working from a souce photograph and using the right techniques (this is different to using a photo as inspiration or a basic guide and then doing your own thing from it). However, it does take a very very long time, is very boring and is ultimately pointless, bacause it is much easier to just make another print of the photo and copying by hand has

a) only minor artistic merit

B) does even less to improve your skills in the long run.

I hadn't thought about comparing it to game graphics until now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is a good discussion and I thought exactly the same when I saw that at Eurogamer. But let's not forget that taking photographs or video also requires art direction, at least if you want to do it properly. Even though cameras produce "photorealistic" images, the way they are framed, lit and shot are extremely subjective.

So... it's a good, but not perfect, metaphor for games.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
This is a good discussion and I thought exactly the same when I saw that at Eurogamer. But let's not forget that taking photographs or video also requires art direction, at least if you want to do it properly. Even though cameras produce "photorealistic" images, the way they are framed, lit and shot are extremely subjective.

So... it's a good, but not perfect, metaphor for games.

Yes, but games have that too. The main difference, like I said, is that with film you start with the reality and then you can do the editting, cinematography, and any post-production on the final product. With games, you start from scratch. You have to spend all that time building up the illusion of realism first... when, really, if you spent half that time working on mechanics and that post-production aesthetic stuff, you'd have a game that plays and interacts more realistically than one that looks real, but plays like shit and/or tells a lousy story.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
You have to spend all that time building up the illusion of realism first...

Not to mention the ever-increasingly huge amounts of cash to boot.

Has me wondering if some enterprising souls will build some sort of virtual world and then allow dev-co's to build their games within it*. It's like taking the 'licensed 3rd party engine' idea to the next level I reckon (pun not intended).

TANGENT ALERT!

* Second Life's a bit like that, but so much of the HCI aspect is broken - as is the whole software engine itself. With a decent (likely very expensive) rewrite, I think gaming in Second Life would rocket.

But I'm not talking about the graphics here -- just the underlying character interaction processes and the physics model. If both of those got some serious, professional, game-like attention SL would be hugely more popular because it would draw in all your 'traditional' gamers. Imagine the possibility of meeting up with a group of others in-world, then having a spontaneous Counter-Strike session using the scenery of where ever you happened to be? The same could be done with racing (land, sea and air), or role-playing, or real-time strategy (from ground level right back to as far as you wanted, i.e. Defcon style). Going further, you could then build up a persistent solar system -- perhaps eventually leading to a small galaxy as things progress.

The possibilities are simply massive, but there's nothing competant enough to take on any of these just yet. Not in a way that 'traditional' gamers would take seriously.

So, my point: If what Crytek were building were to become persistent, and last longer than one title, I don't think people would be so alarmed at the minutiate detail Crytek are scrutinizing and them simulating. I think it's the simple fact that once Crysis has run its course, most of the assets, levels and characters they've built are likely to end up in the virtual bin. Just like FarCry and pretty much every other sequential game of this type.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think Crytek would be a lot more suited to simply developing engines rather than games.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Many, many, many moons ago (this was on PlanetQuake, to give you an idea of how far back we're talking), I wrote an article where I compared the art style in Myst and Riven to a Bob Ross painting. That is, they were all photorealism and no style whatsoever.

I got death threats. Seriously.

But I still say it was a valid point. Crysis is similar in a lot of ways, except what they lack in visual creativity in their world, they're attempting to make up for in some of the non-realistic elements. Like that giant spider-thingie. That was freaking cool.

I still tend to be bored by photorealism, but I think it can work and work well. Oblivion's a good example.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I got the impression he meant "We have to make sure each leaf is a separate model" rather than "We have to manually produce each leaf as a unique model".

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I had this whole diatribe going in my head about the leaf modelling comment, and then I came down here and you were already done with it. Great.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
And for what? A lousy, shitty, cliche story with super restricted interactivity? What realism! :finger:

Keep in mind that from what we have seen, this game is more interactive then most FPSs out there. You can shoot down trees and stuff.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I will shoot the leaves off the trees. I will shoot more leaves than perhaps I should, so that some animals will get up and they will find no leaves. And then some animals will die.

(Sorry. Eddie Izzard still stuck in my head.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

What's wrong with that? Izzard is the only comedian I can watch repeatedly in a short time span and still find just as funny. Anyway:

I too often find myself bored by games that go for "Photorealistic." I remember back in 2000 reading a PC Gamer article that said that Max Payne's graphics were "nearly photorealistic" and at the time it sounded great. In the end though, what was it that made Payne worth playing? The stylized noir comic panels between levels. Nothing photorealistic about them. Looked incredible due to their style though. Ever since, I've been quite skeptical about anything that claims photorealism, as today's photorealism will be tossed aside as soon as a more photorealistic world is rendered. I'll take my Street Fighter 2 cartoons, thanks. You can see photorealism any time you want if you just turn off the damn game.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Photorealistic games only seem that way when they are released, but a few years later the photorealism breaks apart when compared to the latest advances in 3D graphics, and the only thing that can keep it from looking super dated is the art direction.

maxpayne.png

Photosourced Max Payne looks laughable now (look at those hands! etc.)...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That screen still looks fully acceptable, so it might not be the best example, but yeah Remedy are doing the whole phototexture thing again in Alan Wake. In one screen you can see the engine of a car, and it's a completely flat photo layed on the model.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Many, many, many moons ago (this was on PlanetQuake, to give you an idea of how far back we're talking), I wrote an article where I compared the art style in Myst and Riven to a Bob Ross painting. That is, they were all photorealism and no style whatsoever.

I got death threats. Seriously.

While the Myst and Riven games don't have an art style 'overlaid' on top of everything (things aren't drawn to appear painted, or super-distorted, or monochromatic, or whatever) - they're pretty photorealistic - those games are dripping in unique and inventive architectural art direction, which is a very different story from Crysis, which is a game basically attempting to replicate an island with guys and some buildings on it. You see art and architecture in Myst and Riven that you would never see in another game or film because it was designed to be visually unique even while striving for photorealism. Crisis is just going for the photoreal part.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this