The Mind's Eye and Graphics.

[Raziaar]

I'm sitting here thinking. We have progrsssively improving graphics for the games we play, getting better and better as time goes on. They are becoming more realistic and lifelike, and even though we may not achieve ultra lifelike realism in graphics, barely distinguishable from its true to life counterpart, surely we'll get far.

How far though? I am wondering... where is the point of time that game graphics develop that when we look back on them, they don't look so incredibly outdated? Take for example, Jet Moto, or any old Playstation game, or even older/new systems that aren't as advanced as modern game graphics. When we first played those, they were unbelievably awesome, and our minds never clicked(at least mine didn't), that these weren't all that realistic looking. They were the best we had, and we weren't too concerned with the graphics, because they were better looking than everything else Our mind sort of filled in all the blanks. We saw a low texture face, or a pixellated face and we thought nothing of it, because our mind completed the image for us.

However, now you go back and look at them, and you notice that "Hey, these games are pretty shitty graphically. Back when I played them, I never noticed all the pixellation, but now when I look at them all they, they're a big pixellated mess!"

How is this? Why do we not notice all the pixels back then and the subpar technology when compared to real life, yet when we look back on them, they stand out as an eyesore? Some people are able to look past this, or don't notice it at all, because they loved their games, but if you open your mind you will see that they aren't really that great looking.

To the main point of this thread though... I wonder when we'll get to the point in game graphics development that when we look back on games a few years ago from when they were created, we don't think to ourselves, "Wow, this game is painfully graphically inferior than what we have now." Will that day ever happen? Or will it only be achieved by the moment we attain true to life realism in graphics, indistinguishable from reality?


Maybe i'm thinking too much about his? Maybe not... I think it'd be cool to get to the point where all of the 'classics' don't appear as pixellated and ugly or inferior that our current 'classics' do. Sure, they'll always be classics, because of the gameplay... but i'm talking visual appearance, here.

 

[phantomdesign]

I think the core of what makes an old game good is quite simply gameplay. At first, the pixelation will scream at you, but if the controls are smooth/intuitive and the gameplay isn't frustrating, before you know it, you're sucked in and don't care/notice.

Games that are frustrating now (like BF2) or unglodly boring (Doom 3) won't stand the test of time. *puts on fire-suit* HL2 would probably die off too if it wasn't for the MOD support CS:S and the source engine's constant Evolution. The gameplay was just too stale to play through again.

 

[Gargantou]

TBH, I find many older games to be far more beautiful than current gens, specifically 2D ones, such as say X-Com imo is rather nice..
It's all about being artistic for me.

 

[Jintor]

Art style is a key thing. Personally i find Psychonauts more beautiful than Oblivion, probably because I haven't yet played Oblivion. But I do think that the art style for Psychonauts is very, very cool.

 

[Bakurei]

I remember when I saw screenshots of Max Payne for the first time. Everyone was like "omg look at that gun barel! It's like a perfect circle!!11 :OOIO~" But when you look at it know it's more like a square

 

[Raziaar]

I remember when I saw screenshots of Max Payne for the first time. Everyone was like "omg look at that gun barel! It's like a perfect circle!!11 :OOIO~" But when you look at it know it's more like a square

*THIS* is the point of this thread. When you look upon games that were created in the past, as they were created, even if they may have technically low resolution textures or low poly models, they somehow appear more realistic than they actually are. The mind seems to fill in all the blanks, because we have no other references to go off of as far as more advanced graphics.

Which is I think its weird when you thought it was a perfect circle, and it now looks like a square. That's exactly my point. This oddity.

Its not about art direction or anything... its about old game graphics looking ****ing amazing back then, but inferior now when you look back on them. And its not just because the graphics actually are superior/inferior, its how your mind interpreted them in the past when you first saw them.

 

[$kelet0r]

I'm sitting here thinking. We have progrsssively improving graphics for the games we play, getting better and better as time goes on. They are becoming more realistic and lifelike, and even though we may not achieve ultra lifelike realism in graphics, barely distinguishable from its true to life counterpart, surely we'll get far.

How far though? I am wondering... where is the point of time that game graphics develop that when we look back on them, they don't look so incredibly outdated? Take for example, Jet Moto, or any old Playstation game, or even older/new systems that aren't as advanced as modern game graphics. When we first played those, they were unbelievably awesome, and our minds never clicked(at least mine didn't), that these weren't all that realistic looking. They were the best we had, and we weren't too concerned with the graphics, because they were better looking than everything else Our mind sort of filled in all the blanks. We saw a low texture face, or a pixellated face and we thought nothing of it, because our mind completed the image for us.

However, now you go back and look at them, and you notice that "Hey, these games are pretty shitty graphically. Back when I played them, I never noticed all the pixellation, but now when I look at them all they, they're a big pixellated mess!"

How is this? Why do we not notice all the pixels back then and the subpar technology when compared to real life, yet when we look back on them, they stand out as an eyesore? Some people are able to look past this, or don't notice it at all, because they loved their games, but if you open your mind you will see that they aren't really that great looking.

To the main point of this thread though... I wonder when we'll get to the point in game graphics development that when we look back on games a few years ago from when they were created, we don't think to ourselves, "Wow, this game is painfully graphically inferior than what we have now." Will that day ever happen? Or will it only be achieved by the moment we attain true to life realism in graphics, indistinguishable from reality?


Maybe i'm thinking too much about his? Maybe not... I think it'd be cool to get to the point where all of the 'classics' don't appear as pixellated and ugly or inferior that our current 'classics' do. Sure, they'll always be classics, because of the gameplay... but i'm talking visual appearance, here.

I find that interesting as well - how the mind seems to gloss over the technological shortcomings and fill in whats missing
Quake is a great example of this for me as i remembered how it looked but got a huge shock as to how pixellated and blocky it was when i played it again last year -my memory was of actual soldiers and enemies when in fact the enemies had square heads and all of 100 pixels of texture o.0

 

[Raziaar]

I find that interesting as well - how the mind seems to gloss over the technological shortcomings and fill in whats missing
Quake is a great example of this for me as i remembered how it looked but got a huge shock as to how pixellated and blocky it was when i played it again last year -my memory was of actual soldiers and enemies when in fact the enemies had square heads and all of 100 pixels of texture o.0

EXACTLY. That's what i'm trying to get across here. Its amazing isn't it, how the mind is filling in all those shortcomings from the past?

I don't notice them doing it as much nowadays...

 

[$kelet0r]

its also interesting how in other circumstances that it doesnt work
halflife for example was pixellated and technologically backward in 1998 particularly compared to Unreal and my memory of that is as vivid as ever - my mind hasnt prettied up the graphics there while Unreal is a whole lot prettier in my memory than it actually was
I'm not clear on that trend - is it that darker grpahically games help the mind blur textures
i mean halflife was the ultimate immersive experience so surely i should have been more likely to remember it as much better looking
Maybe time has a huge amount to do with it, if you played doom 5 years ago and then play hl2 will you remember doom more fondly for its grpahics then you actually should?

 

[Raziaar]

When I was younger, I used to think that because of this fact, like maybe my game cartridges deteriorated over time or something, and caused the excess pixellation.

 

[$kelet0r]

When I was younger, I used to think that because of this fact, like maybe my game cartridges deteriorated over time or something, and caused the excess pixellation.

lol
halflife 2 in 5 years time

 

[ríomhaire]

I re-played Deus Ex and GTA1 a while ago, the graphics didn't bother me in the slightest.

 

[Shippi]

.

 

[tvharti]

I re-played Deus Ex and GTA1 a while ago, the graphics didn't bother me in the slightest.

Same thing with System Shock 2 - the more you get sucked into a game's atmosphere, the less the graphics count.

 

[Llama]

The reason I love HL so much (Not in that way though ) is I can play the original CD-Version at 640x480 res...and I dont care about the iamge quality. Its because its just such an awesome game.

 

[Naudian]

HL2 is already starting to look crap to me D: D: