It's long been the case that we invent tools, and then tend to do the things that the tools make easy.<p>You can see that the distribution of furniture varieties changed a lot when machine tools were introduced. Furniture got a lot cheaper, but because table saws make straight cuts a lot easier than curved cuts, even in higher end furniture, we ended up get a lot more style choices that utilized what was easier.<p>I'm looking forward to seeing what stylistic changes happen in clothes, furniture and more with the rise of small-lot production, CNC, and other technologies. I expect that we'll see big changes.
This photorealism makes new games very boring artistic-wise.<p>Old games with hand-drawn graphic had some artistic value in them, they made pepole imagine other worlds etc. Now it's just photorealism everywhere.<p>I wonder, when game graphic dadaism and cubism will appear.<p>Art is not about making more realistic copies.
Great article. I've always wondered why so many games this gen are boring brown and gray. Playing through Fallout 3 makes this readily apparent.<p>The other thing I'd like to see change is the complete overuse of bloom shader effects.
I like that the article mentions the game <i>Mirror's Edge</i>. It immediately popped into my head as a counter-example when I read the article title. I hadn't known that the game's more sophisticated lighting solution was what allowed it to have the clean colorful look!<p>I've always preferred colorful games at the expense of photorealism. High quality consistent art direction can overcome a lot of the drawbacks which can be fudged by using the drab color palette so common currently.<p>I look forward to seeing the next generation of colorful titles enabled by more powerful lighting engines.
Saw this on reddit the other day and the link was to:<p><a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PhilippeRinguetteAngrignon/20090606/1708/Why_quotNextGen_Gamesquot_Went_Gray_Brown_And_Grey.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PhilippeRinguetteAngrignon/20...</a><p>I can't tell if the link posted here is to the gamasutra article author's personal blog, or if it's just ripped off content.
So he says that games are becoming more realistic in most aspects, but not in the lighting. That is probably true, but there is no reason why that should cause the game to become grey and washed-out.<p>Most CG movies and effects (from Pixar, Dreamworks, ILM, ...) also do not have anything close to photorealistic lighting (i.e. correct global illumination), but they do not look grey.<p>One common mistake that leads to washed-out images is to apply gamma correction (which is the right thing to do) but not apply inverse gamma correction to your textures. That way your surfaces are essentially gamma-corrected twice, which is clearly wrong. I don't know if they're really making such a simple mistake, but who knows...
Excellent article. Good insights into the tech that has influenced the art direction of recent games.<p>I do think though, that art directors should pull themselves out of that rut and strive for more variety in upcoming titles.
Immersion-wise, I find that realistic sound, a la EAX5 with accurate direction, occlusion, reflections, etc, are much more important than the quality of the graphics. Something about the fact that I look at a monitor makes it clear that I'm not in the environment, but sound does not have that limitation. (Relatedly, if you've ever seen the effect of using Fresnel lenses to project the monitor at infinity, that makes the immersion much more deep. Then you're essentially looking through a window, into another reality.)