Graphics Are Not Aesthetics

[Christopher Fisher]

So, I was watching old episodes of the Jimquisition tonight (because I've been in work all day and need to watch a fat countryman ranting to unwind) and the 'Photorealistic Sociopathy' episode got me thinking. 2K's assertion that we need photorealistic graphics to create emotional connection with games struck me as really dumb, and Crytek's claim about graphics being the key to further advance video games struck me as even dumber.

For me, games can be truly emotional as they are, and beautiful aesthetics can be achieved without thousands of dollars worth of graphics cards.

As an example, Shadow of the Colossus, with its PS2 graphics, is one of the most emotional games I've ever experienced, and Okami is probably the most beautiful game I've ever played from an aesthetic standpoint.

Crysis has amazing graphical fidelity, but for me the game is rather uninteresting aesthetically. I actually think Skyrim is a better looking game.

I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on graphics/emotion and graphics/aesthetics.

Have you actually played Crysis 3, because I have, and it's fucking amazing. And I mean, it IS FUCKING AMAZING LOOKING. Everything about the game looks utterly fucking gorgeous--the art style, the graphics themselves, EVERYTHING. It may not be the best game in the world (I am actually really enjoying due to the emphasis on stealthplay--I loves me the stealth games), but one thing I can most certainly say: this is easily the most amazing looking game I've ever played--EASILY.

What did you play the game on? Just out of curiosity.

I am using a GTX560Ti/FX6100/8Gb RAM, and here are the settings I have it on:

Ani Filtering: 16x
AA: 1x SMAA Low
Game Effects: Medium
Object: High
Particles: Medium
Post Processing: Low
Resolution: 1920x1080
Shading: Medium
Shadows: Medium
Texture Resolution: High
Water: high

I could probably raise or lower a thing here or there, but I am getting a good steady framerate, however around 40fps when outdoors and in grass (when it's most demanding), and 60fps when inside. Even at my settings, the game is amazing looking. You just have to come to the game knowing that unless you have some crazy expensive rig, you're not gonna max it out. You need to tweak your settings. AA, Post Processsing, and Shadows seem to be the biggest FPS droppers.

 

[Xanadu84]

Aestetics are how good a game looks. Graphics are the TOOLS that make the aesthetic, and that is not insignificant.

An Atari could not have rendered the environments of Journey. A Sega Genesis could not have captured the Aesthetic of The Walking Dead. And the next gen, crazy advanced, photo realistic graphics of the next big platform advancement will open up the possibility for Aestetics that we havn't been able to unlock just yet. This is a good thing, and having people push the graphics envelope is decidedly a good thing. So cut these developers pushing hardware a little slack. Sure, they are wrong, and miss an absolutely essential aspect of the art of game design that deserves a good criticizing. But maybe the game that THEY have in mind requires an aestetic that requires a graphical ability that our hardware just hasn't reaches yet/

Or to put it another way, a master Carpenter may be able to make some amazing things with a few pieces of wood and some nails, but no matter how good he is, he won't be able to make a very nice window until he gets some glass.

 

[snekadid]

They spend 1/3 of the movie showing wall-e to let people make the connection themselves. There wasn't an instant emotional connection. They spend so many minuts of "this is him lonely" to hammer it through.

Which is the aesthetics of the movie. Look a bit up, I posted a link to an extra credits video where they talk about graphics vs aesthetics. They explain it a lot better than me.

No you are missing my point here.

You need a certain amount of graphical fidelity in order to translate picture into emotion. Some things will do instantaneously. Some will need a bit of build up and supplements from its surroundings. Some things will need a complete secondary science in order to be able to translate.

It is the concept of "Thomas was alone". You can apply a emotion to a square, however doing so is a longer process.

This is extremely flawed. You dismiss the wall-e example because it required time to build him as a character but no matter how amazing the graphics get, you could have photo realistic people come on screen and then suddenly get misted by a bus in the most graphic detail possible and all you would get is a combination of WTF and laughing because there is no emotional connection. You just made a really pretty crash test dummy that has no connection to us.

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements, infact the "uncanny valley" effect can actually hinder the other elements.

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements....

What is my emotion now?

You got no graphical reference here, but you have a text one.

Crap response, there is no aesthetic or any other values here, not even a intellectual one thus your emotions would be absent from even a picture, continuing your trend on this forum, you try and say as little as possible in an attempt to create a false sense that you are saying more than you are. Apply something of value or stop trying to fabricate evidence.

 

[Monster_user]

I guess graphics are like the toolbox that an artist has to work with. A truly great artist can create art with just the basics, and all the tools in the world won't make a bad artist produce something good, but given more tools to work with a good artist can at least theoretically create better art than he could have without them.

I'd also caution that better graphics can be hindrance as well though. Artists usually thrive when working within tight boundaries because when forced to work within limitations they have to be creative to try and try to find ways to push the envelope and overcome them. However, when given total power and freedom artists often set their aspirations too high, far above what they're realistically capable of creating, and the project turns into a huge burdensome mess that doesn't go as planned.

I think for some developers higher end graphical capability starts to seem less like an opportunity and more like a responsibility and ultimately a burden. A burden that can make games take longer to develop than they should, make creators scared to take risks because of how much money is being spent, and ultimately stifle the creativity that it's supposed to encourage.

Developers need to understand that just because their hardware has a certain advanced feature, that doesn't mean they have to, or even should try to find some way of implementing it into the game if it's unnecessary. However, companies need to advertise whatever sexy new features their systems come with to justify asking you to buy it, so they'll cram this new hardware into every launch game and pretend like it'll completely change your experience and in the end a valid tool starts to look like a tagged on gimmick.

So basically as always the problem is marketing.

/Thread.

That's it, we're done here. Everybody pack up and go home.

I agree that artists work better with limitations, not with limitless options. The limitations give the artists a challenge, which causes them to push for greater. If an artist can snap their fingers and create a photorealistic work, why bother?

 

[WoW Killer]

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements

I had chicken for dinner. The meat was plentiful, and nicely moist. The potatoes were my mums usual roasts, a bit salty, not much skin, but soft and well cooked. The veg was a bit soggy, and mostly a disappointment. An abundance of gravy made the meal an overall success.

Now, please paint me a picture of how I looked eating that meal.

I'm really not a graphics person in the slightest, but you can't say there's no point where graphics allow for more immersion. There's obviously something to it. I mean I've been a critic of graphical prowess, and the gaming industry's obsession with it, since at least the 5th generation. But I can't possibly look back and say there's nothing at all that's been gained from it. I'd say more that the focus on graphical fidelity hasn't given us as much for the money invested as could have been done had the focus been on gameplay. That's not the same as saying nothing at all has happened because of graphics.

 

[Wafflemarine]

I may be weird but for me the graphics of today I see not needing much more of an improvement except being more efficient like load times or something. For me aesthetic is how things react when I do something in game. If I pull the trigger on a large rifle I want to hear a loud bang and when that bullet hits an object I like to feel like I shot a 50 cal bullet. Some games you aim and shoot a hail of rounds at the npc and its like you are shooting pellets and once they die they ragdoll a bit and collapse onto the ground. If I lay a C4 charge and detonate it I like to see debris and whoever it was unlucky enough to be near it go flying and actually change a game world.

Games like Max Payne 3 did a great job in regards to how people react to being shot with people stumbling being hit in the legs or their body reacting to impacts from bullets.

For environment I still like playing Red Faction Armageddon to be able to impact the game world as much as that game allowed me to was so amazing. Have an issue with people shooting at you from a window in a building, just collapse the building on them by taking out the supports.

 

[Starik20X6]

I know a couple of people to whom anything other than bleeding edge realistic graphics are enough to turn them off a game entirely. And every time that subject comes up I have to fight the urge to find the biggest piece of metal I can and beat them around the head with it.

 

[spartan231490]

How about books? They create one of the most powerful emotional connections in all of artistic expression and they don't even have images. Graphics are irrelevant to emotional power of a story. No one ever cried because of how real a piece of art looked.

Graphics are irrelevant to emotional power of story....

I think there are few museums with paintings that may disagree.

Plenty of people have seen the benefit improving graphical techniques in order to make paintings look more like the world. You never heard of 3 point perspective?

what? Paintings and video games are completely different. I'm talking about games, which carry emotional weight through the story. You could carry emotion with a series of images or a single image, but that's not much of a game. Now, I would also argue that the emotional weight in painting is carried by the subject matter, not the realism of the image, but as painting has many fewer tools to work with to impact the viewer than games, more realistic images are much more important. Still not necessary, but not completely irrelevant as in games.

 

[snekadid]

They spend 1/3 of the movie showing wall-e to let people make the connection themselves. There wasn't an instant emotional connection. They spend so many minuts of "this is him lonely" to hammer it through.

Which is the aesthetics of the movie. Look a bit up, I posted a link to an extra credits video where they talk about graphics vs aesthetics. They explain it a lot better than me.

No you are missing my point here.

You need a certain amount of graphical fidelity in order to translate picture into emotion. Some things will do instantaneously. Some will need a bit of build up and supplements from its surroundings. Some things will need a complete secondary science in order to be able to translate.

It is the concept of "Thomas was alone". You can apply a emotion to a square, however doing so is a longer process.

This is extremely flawed. You dismiss the wall-e example because it required time to build him as a character but no matter how amazing the graphics get, you could have photo realistic people come on screen and then suddenly get misted by a bus in the most graphic detail possible and all you would get is a combination of WTF and laughing because there is no emotional connection. You just made a really pretty crash test dummy that has no connection to us.

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements, infact the "uncanny valley" effect can actually hinder the other elements.

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements....

What is my emotion now?

You got no graphical reference here, but you have a text one.

Crap response, there is no aesthetic or any other values here, not even a intellectual one thus your emotions would be absent from even a picture, continuing your trend on this forum, you try and say as little as possible in an attempt to create a false sense that you are saying more than you are. Apply something of value or stop trying to fabricate evidence.

What a cop out.

Really your logic is flawed and you just dismiss it in ad hominem attack in an effort to try and cover it up.

Fact of the matter is you even defeat your own argument by bringing up the uncanny valley as if it is something that cannot be crossed.

Really Ill stop wasting my time on people who's response is just ad hominem and give it the report it deserves.

Except you have STILL never provided more than "your viewpoint" and attacks with no evidence and misleading examples with no basis in the discussion. Again, there was no detail in your post so your ENTIRE point was that your post was empty so we should make a picture of that.... which would be a picture of a white wall.

It's almost like you took a single class, learned a single word and then tried to use it to make yourself look more intelligent. You say Ad hominem but all I'm saying is that anyone can look at your entire post history and see the same pathetic ploy.

 

[snekadid]

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements

I had chicken for dinner. The meat was plentiful, and nicely moist. The potatoes were my mums usual roasts, a bit salty, not much skin, but soft and well cooked. The veg was a bit soggy, and mostly a disappointment. An abundance of gravy made the meal an overall success.

Now, please paint me a picture of how I looked eating that meal.

I'm really not a graphics person in the slightest, but you can't say there's no point where graphics allow for more immersion. There's obviously something to it. I mean I've been a critic of graphical prowess, and the gaming industry's obsession with it, since at least the 5th generation. But I can't possibly look back and say there's nothing at all that's been gained from it. I'd say more that the focus on graphical fidelity hasn't given us as much for the money invested as could have been done had the focus been on gameplay. That's not the same as saying nothing at all has happened because of graphics.

This asking to draw a picture argument is the problem with the viewpoint. Drawing a picture isn't the goal< especially since I have no clue how to draw a stick figure chicken dinner >, the goal is forming an emotional connection with the subject matter.

Now getting emotional about dinner would be weird but its very easy to form a preconception about the dinner itself as it would relate to a scenario in a book. Because when reading you have no visual to attempt to represent a person, place or thing, your mind creates one and that makes the the entire scenario much easier to connect to on an emotional scale.

When we are told something is/represents something else the human mind makes it so and that's why games with an "artistic" flow maintain far better visually than games that simply strive to be "pretty". It's for this reason that last generation games that went for the realistic approach look terrible while the ones that took a different look still look really good.

 

[snekadid]

They spend 1/3 of the movie showing wall-e to let people make the connection themselves. There wasn't an instant emotional connection. They spend so many minuts of "this is him lonely" to hammer it through.

Which is the aesthetics of the movie. Look a bit up, I posted a link to an extra credits video where they talk about graphics vs aesthetics. They explain it a lot better than me.

No you are missing my point here.

You need a certain amount of graphical fidelity in order to translate picture into emotion. Some things will do instantaneously. Some will need a bit of build up and supplements from its surroundings. Some things will need a complete secondary science in order to be able to translate.

It is the concept of "Thomas was alone". You can apply a emotion to a square, however doing so is a longer process.

This is extremely flawed. You dismiss the wall-e example because it required time to build him as a character but no matter how amazing the graphics get, you could have photo realistic people come on screen and then suddenly get misted by a bus in the most graphic detail possible and all you would get is a combination of WTF and laughing because there is no emotional connection. You just made a really pretty crash test dummy that has no connection to us.

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements, infact the "uncanny valley" effect can actually hinder the other elements.

There is no point where graphics allow a closer, faster emotional connection than other elements....

What is my emotion now?

You got no graphical reference here, but you have a text one.

Crap response, there is no aesthetic or any other values here, not even a intellectual one thus your emotions would be absent from even a picture, continuing your trend on this forum, you try and say as little as possible in an attempt to create a false sense that you are saying more than you are. Apply something of value or stop trying to fabricate evidence.

What a cop out.

Really your logic is flawed and you just dismiss it in ad hominem attack in an effort to try and cover it up.

Fact of the matter is you even defeat your own argument by bringing up the uncanny valley as if it is something that cannot be crossed.

Really Ill stop wasting my time on people who's response is just ad hominem and give it the report it deserves.

Except you have STILL never provided more than "your viewpoint" and attacks with no evidence and misleading examples with no basis in the discussion. Again, there was no detail in your post so your ENTIRE point was that your post was empty so we should make a picture of that.... which would be a picture of a white wall.

It's almost like you took a single class, learned a single word and then tried to use it to make yourself look more intelligent. You say Ad hominem but all I'm saying is that anyone can look at your entire post history and see the same pathetic ploy.

And again you cant argue the point so you just blame the man. Waste of time to talk to.

Lot of hot air and then just "I look at your history". Really You got nothing just like when you started. Really when the best you can do in order to defuse my argument is go "You post history means you are wrong" then you should spend a second to rethink your argumentation.

And again, you still haven't said a thing or responded to the post at all, all of which stated something before pointing out your deeply flawed argument style. Get off your cross and put together something, anything other than "I'm right and you're all stupid for not realizing it".

 

[afroebob]

In some cases graphics can help deliver emotion but it is not a necessity and sometimes it doesn't even matter. But there is no denying that good graphics that help build a good aesthetic is amazing, Crysis is a great example of that (and yes, photorealism is an aesthetic design).

 

[Atmos Duality]

"Polished Turd" has become an increasingly common phrase in recent years for a reason.
For the sake of avoiding redundancy, that's all I'll say on the matter.

Edit: Oh fine.
As for "Graphics not mattering".
They do matter. They have since the very beginning.

It's called a video game. Graphics are a primary avenue of information; there is no way around that.

Graphics are neither the most important element, nor the least.
I've seen and experienced great games made entirely from low-fidelity sprites; even just pixels, but only because the rest of the elements come together.

Tower of Doom remains one of the few Roguelikes that ever actually scared me, and it did so using 16 colors and 3-channel sound. It's still a fairly solid game on its own.

Graphics and animation are tools, and with added processing power we have the ability to create NEW experiences by expanding those.

But the mistake so many people make is assuming that better graphics automatically means a better experience all else being equal, and that just isn't true. (look at those HD Remakes of old games. Not all of them retain their charm when given a technical facelift. *cough*Baldur's Gate*cough*)

And unfortunately, that mistake has been reflected in purchasing habits to the point where so many people are willing to endure derivative, shallow, mediocre or even bad gameplay as long as it looks great and produces shiny combinations of colors on their TV or monitor.

Hence "Polished Turd".

Based on statements from the publishers, we, as consumers, have convinced them that presentation (graphical and audio fidelity) is to be prioritized ahead of all else.