Rendering styles of Games

Hi together,
A few weeks ago I started a little project and now I thought about how the game should look like..

Realistic? Toon? And so on..

What I will ask you, and maybe it helps a lot of people for their own inspiration, what Rendering technics you're knowing.

A screenshot and a little description how the shading/graphics are made of (SSAO, GLOW, EDGE-DETECT, TOON SHADING etc.) would really help a lot!

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But first I want to start with an interesting and inspiring one, to demonstrate you what i mean:

TEAM FORTRESS 2

Read PDF:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2007/NPAR07_IllustrativeRenderingInTeamFortress2.pdf

Watch Video "Illustrative Rendering Featurette" on Gametrailers.com:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/illustrative-rendering-team-fortress/23520

 

Everything Valve does is the ugliest, most boring thing I've ever seen. Please do not follow in their footsteps.

I'm watching that video.

"By maintaining a minimal level of visual noise in our world design, we employ an almost impressionistic approach to modeling."

Ug. What a pretentious way to say, "we make games that look extremely bland because we don't put any time into the art".

 

I totally disagree with Jessy. The main reason I bought team fortress 2 was because of its beautiful and fresh style.

Generally I would say Valve puts great effort into the visual design and I would like to see more game companies do the same.

Hey taste differs but to say that Valve doesn't put any time into their art is obviously as far from the truth as one could come and I think most people are aware of this.

 

I think Valve does a great job but this shouldn't be a thread in which we are talking about the good and the bad Game Companys - It is a thread in which we should talk about rendering styles .. :wink:

 

The question of the games art style always is answered by the game itself actually.
Because the art style is a direct consequence of "what atmosphere do you want to create?" or "How far away from the reality do I want to take them?"

The more realistic, the closer to reality it is and the harder it is to create an immersion that will take their mind to your world (I hate this reality replication insanity outside of sports games, because they don't help anyone but hardware manufacturers and naturally them when they have to find excuses why the game is 5h in length instead of 30h where they will use the cost for the art as the common excuse).

I'm personally more than fine with art styles a la Aion, WoW, GW, TF2 or Assassin's Creed.
Those have some real world references but aren't targeted to be realistic, in none of them

 

Sorry, I'm used to looking at video games where every section isn't visually interchangeable with every other. Valve games seem to be pretty popular, so I'm guessing most people probably are not?

You asked what rendering style to use. I said that you picked a terrible thing to emulate. Just pick anything else. You can't do any worse. :wink:

But anyway, here's a rendering style I thought looked great.

 

I think picking a style is all up to what you want to convey with your game and what limits the game design sets for you.

If assets will be re-used a lot they need to be able to fit nicely in many different areas and be highly mod-able (I guess that's what Jessy means in visually interchangeable, right?) and might therefor call for an approach that might limit your options somewhat.

Consistency I think is one of the most important aspects in keeping you immersed in a game. So pick a style that will work throughout the game and will serve its purpose in setting the mood you want.

Borderlands got lots of heat for its graphical style. I on the other hand think it looks great on really conveys a cool comic style look that fits nicely with the tongue-in-cheek post apocalyptic theme.

Trine is a nice little game I played recently which has rich saturated colors and a bloomed look that fits its fairytale theme.

The gritty, desaturated and highly contrasted look for the silent hills games (old as they may be) created a very uncomfortable environment and scared the S*** out of me from time to time so I guess that was a good approach for its purpose

On the other hand you can't go wrong with just copying a style from one of Valve game regardless of what some other people might say

 

I agree with everyone that the rendering style should reflect the overall feel for the game. For example, TF2 is a bit wacky, and the style reinforces that imo. And Borderlands has a unique cell shaded look that goes along with the game much better than something completely realistic looking imo. So the look should reflect the feeling you want players to have as they play your game.

 

At least we can agree on this. Silent Hill 1-3 are awesome.

 

In terms of render style (in future games), Brink has really caught my attention.

I always wondered if developers like Valve intentionally choose a different style than you would see on concept arts for their games.

I guess it's in part a choice. But it also wasn't possible to get not only the mood of a good concept art over to a scene but also the exact visuals. Because post-processing effects weren't possible to this extend on old hardware.

Brink seems really like a playable concept art to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebx2TYCsyaI

 

Wow Brink looks fantastic. Lightning, colors, backdrops. Everything blends together really nicely. Very rich settings

 

You clearly have not a whole lot of understanding when it comes to color theory and design Sir. To say that Valve creates bland games is pretty much an insult to every artist including myself. I very much like what Valve does and my work is influenced by their works. Their work is thought out and well crafted for the most part. Show me anything that you have done Sir that can even compare.

Thomas P.

 

That's a falsity. There are plenty of beautiful video games out there, but Valve hasn't made any. I'm unhappy if your artwork looks anything like Valve's, because they have added nothing but ugliness to the world, but I'm certainly not insulting every artist.

My artwork is amateurish. But that doesn't mean I don't know what's hideous.

On the other hand, my girlfriend makes beautiful artwork, and has the same opinion that I do. We'll have our next game out soon, and see what the public thinks of the visuals.

 

So let me get this straight, you're an amateur artist who goes around bashing others people work claining that your opinion is the one that matters and also claiming that your work is better. Pretty bold Sir. To be honest, the most ugliest thing I see here is your character. That said, I leave this silly discussion to yourself. Go ahead making a fool out of yourself...


Thomas P.

 

My opinion matters. Everyone else's opinion matters. But if you think Valve's stuff looks good, I don't want you working on my video games. Fortunately, there are a lot of other people to work with. I have no problem with everyone having complete freedom to make a steaming pile of garbage.

Nope. That didn't happen. Comparing the quality of two completely different things is a waste of time.

 

To have the last word on this ( I know I shouldn't). You said you don't want me working on your video game. Well I doubt you could afford me and secondly I would refuse to work for somebody such as yourself who believes his opinion is the only right one. I have a lot of very talented friends in the industry and they all respect each others work. We don't always agree on everything but at least we "respect" what has been done.

You won't make it very far in this business with your attitude. Good luck finding an artist if you ever need one with talent.

Now, on to more important things... work/art.. as that is what I am getting paid for.

Thomas P.

 

Ok guys. I'm sorry I got into this debate about Valve. You don't like Valves artwork Jessy, we get it. The world will live on and Valve with that.

Now lets move on and continue filling this thread with inspiring artwork from games instead.

 

And I would refuse to work with someone who believes that you need to produce a type of product to be able to judge its quality, and who makes up lies about people to increase unnecessary negative sentiment.

I respect the work that was done to finish the product, and I respect the ability to learn to get better. I'd wager that the people working at Valve have the ability to make beautiful art. Valve's products simply don't showcase it.

Fair enough!

Let us marvel at the color harmony. Please, observe the way the blue of Samus's visor denotes her dissonance with the bestial dragon, who is shaded in that color's complement.

 

Well spoken.

Has anyone played Batman (Arkham Asylum) on PC or Console?

I think they found a very interesting and spot on style for a comic scenario that is to serious and gritty for toon shaders. (same for Ghostbusters)

The world looks very realistic and they use impressively high texture resolutions (at least on PC). But the comic origin shines trough at the character designs and reminds you, as the player, that it is not entirely set in reality.

I like this approach very much and I'm considering it for a game concept of mine, too.

 

The thing about art is that everyone's perception is different.

Last night I played borderlands, and in my opinion the art style is simply not my taste - however I can understand how others might like it.

Unchartered 2 - now that was great, so was Metal Gear Solid 4. Some people would disagree with me.

In a similar vein - I bought my wife a couple of Doug hyde works (http://www.doughyde.com/) and although I think they are ok, I'd much prefer to see some Rothko (http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/markrothko/default.shtm) on the walls - but I respect her taste in art.

If I am stating the obvious then sorry - but art moves our senses - and in each individual the feelings touched are different.

 

I'm actually interested in what critiques you have of Valve's game art, Jessy. They've got a few modern games under their umbrella now, each with fairly distinct visual styles. Are there actual problems with execution or is it just a matter of taste? The TF2 levels and characters do a pretty good job of matching the style, mood and theme of their concept art(which I'm a huge fan of. Very illustrative and similar to what Pixar has been doing). L4D is close enough to realism that discussion about style is somewhat irrelevant. HL2 is aging now, but looked fantastic for its time.

I'm not a fanboy of Valve by any means, but I'm a little surprised by the enthusiasm behind your distaste. Valve isn't normally a company that comes up when people get on the topic of bad game art.

 

I thought Borderlands got really close to something great, but still missed the mark. The art is fine. It's all technically well made and everything fits into one nice coherent scene. However, I don't think they made it to the style they were trying for. When you take an individual asset by itself, the texturework and modeling have aspects that appear hand-drawn in an attempt to make the world seem more exaggerated and cartoony. Squint your eyes and all those illustrative textures and the ink hatching on the rocks blur into something that just looks like a generic game world. All they amount to is a coat of paint on a generic video game landscape. I wonder if that's a relic of the game's art direction being changed so late in development or just a straight-up inability to translate the visual language from concepts into an interactive context.

 

Oh, mostly taste, to be sure! I don't believe at all that art can be bad. A ton of people can just think it's bad. My biggest gripe with their games is a lack of hue contrast, and lack of saturation. All of their environments look the same to me, which is certainly related. They couldn't hold my interest long enough to find out if they reuse assets as much as it looks like they do to me, though. I played everything on the Orange Box (I only finished Portal. The visuals were complete tedium in that.), I tried the demos of Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, and I've watched videos of a lot more of their stuff. It's all very boring-looking to me.

EDIT: Even within the confines of their consistently drab color schemes, there's a lack of value contrast as well, over large areas of the screen. They might as well just skip the underdeveloped texturing altogether and use vertex colors.

I did think that the Left 4 Dead 2 zombies looked like they were ice-skating though, instead of running realistically on the ground, so that's an execution problem, as I see it. They can patch that whenever they want, though, which is nice.

I think that's an insult to PIXAR :wink:, but I agree on the cohesive style. I think it's a horrible style, but it is cohesive!

I know! It's sincerely very strange to me. I generally find my own taste pretty in-line with review scores in terms of graphics, for instance. It's clear that the people who make it are competent; it honestly bugs me that their talent is wasted on such mediocre products.

 

The first game that I can remember which had a distinctive visual style was a product called "Out of this World."



One of my all time favorite games that had the perfect convergence of story, look and gameplay. Don't think I've run into anyone who's played the game which wasn't similarly enthralled.

And don't worry about Jessy. He's not really upset about L4D or TF2's amazing art. It's more about the fact you have to kill other folks in these games. His favorite color is tye-dye and his most cherished possession his flip-flops!

 

Now there's a beautiful example of how to use desaturated colors. Also, that game's art was done by one person. And he programmed it himself, too. Love that game, and its sequel.

I'm not a hippie but I do think it's stupid to work against other humans instead of with them, true.

 

I was JUST looking at Out of This World last night! I've been referencing it a lot lately, actually. I love the flat silhouetty blocks of color.

 

That was a long time ago. Loved that game. Flashback was another game that was very similar in style which was great also.

If that is what you refer to as desaturated colors Jessy I can understand that you find quite alot of
games lacking in saturation though

Nonetheless it was a cool game with nice artstyle.

 

Here are some distinct visual rendering styles of games that I remember.

Fat Princess


DeathSpank



Torchlight


Killer 7


Viewtiful Joe


Streetfighter 4


Zone of Enders


Battlefield Heroes


Stella Deus


Shadow of the Collossus