Theory

[BlackerOmegalon]

Funny part from the interview:

IGN: This is a full-on retail game, right? Is there any worry with "perceived value" since it's in fact 2D, and has an old school look?

We're still hearing this so many years after the Playstation One era?

After they answered that question, IGN asked them this:

IGN: What are you doing to ensure players get enough for their cash?

[Nervicide]

Well shit, that question answers itself, they'll split their ass wide open like liz vicious and take in the pooper from each and every sucker who bought their bastard child.

Western developers tends to photorealistic graphics because it's cheaper, faster and easier.

Um, no. It is not cheaper, it is not faster, it is not easier. It's not easier because creating a high poly mesh in the millions requiers serious knowledge of anatomy and doesn't allow any kind of sloppiness, it's not faster since creating said high poly mesh asks for many hours of work, it is not cheaper for the same reason. Not to mention the character/vehicle/object has to be textured with great attention to detail(again, time/money) and animated, probably wiht mocap, which has to be cleaned up and edited in the dev's 3D prog of choice(time/money). And even though you might think objects such as vases and stools are not animated with mocap I assure you that behind the bolted doors of EA and Ubisoft that is exactly how they are animated. It is called "new mocap animation".

The japanese developers graphical art is mainly based in a insane capacity of working

Um, no. The japanese developer's "graphical art" is mainly based on a good grasp of the three most important elements in graphic arts, the stain, the line, and the dot(each element being a variation of the other). These three elements dominate their artistic heritage up to present day , as we can tell from the well known likes of Katsushika Hokusai to the more recent lesser known Takato Yamamoto and the not known well enough Ishikei...

The point being that any one of their artists, even a hentai artist(a very skilled one, granted), will exhibit some understanding of these elements. Whilst in most western arts our quality varies frighteningly from one domain to another, it has come to my knowledge that some of the best motherfuckers out there are actually whoring themselves to advertising more than dedicating themselves to their incipient love affairs, such as comickbookery or cartoonery, or better yet, concept-designery for games.

I'll get back on the subject later today. I have school in the morning and rumor has it our new assignment is HAMMERS; I can hardly stop punching my testicles which tremble with excitement at the thought of struggling to somehow, falsely innovate an item (which has reached it's peak of evolution in a time when fire horses and rubber barons still roamed the earth) solely for the sadistic amusement of my retarded mentors...

bonus

[BlackerOmegalon]

Do you think that western artists would not mind whoring themselves out to game companies if they bothered trying to hire them? It looks like even in this case only Japanese game developers are willing to do this. For example, Ashley Wood's work is heavily featured in Metal Gear Portable Ops.

[Nervicide]

The above about western artists and their career decisions was a gross generalization I must admit, sorry for that. The thing is, that many game companies want to hire FULL-TIME, not make per-project contracts. Someone said that comick book artists would fit quite well in working with game-design companies, very true. Check out E.Kohler's concept work for blood2, pretty bitchin', yes? Especially if we ignore what came of them in the actual game. Kohler was not hired full-time as a slave-monkey by monolith. It was a one-time contract type of thing, we can tell since that is the only game he worked on for monolith.

Artists require this freedom, they want to be able to work on a game and, if the company treats them like lackeys, or if they don't get the satisfaction they seek, they will simply leave with whatever they got payed for the amount of work they did until their breaking point. But who wants THAT?! Does the resource manager want to rehire staff and eventually be left out of a fucking job? HELL NO! Does the producer want his studios workflow interrupted and his game hampered by staff leaving? HELL NO! Does the designer want to spend more time managing another pencilspanker and indoctrinating him in their flavorless studio-look? HELL NO! Can we blame them? HELL NO! No one wants this hassle, so a concept designer for a game studio will be a full-time worker for that company... Which in this day and age of outsourcing is pretty fucking medieval, but necessary from the producer's/designer's perspective.

It's easy to outsource a 3D model, because you give the modeler the necessary front/back/side arts of a character and he really can't stray away from that. But in order to create that very sketch, you need an artist you can have control over, preferably someone who cannot risk loosing his job, someone who is payed monthly, not someone who is rewarded per-sketch or per-batch-of-sketches. Because he must draw something according to the latest focus group data, the latest market research, or whatever latest shit gimmick the producers come up with and manage to impress upon the designer, you need some sort of chain and ball to hold him in place.

I know, we're pretty fucking far away from discussing style and stylization(I'll get to that very soon in a serious manner, we must also mention technique, and we must also tackle semantics, which is always fun around here!), but we have to understand a bit of what the devs go through too, in order to delve deeper in the whole artwork in western games situation.

We have to understand that western artists live and work in an environment in which someone who worked for motherfuckin' pizza hutt goes up on a stage and talks in the name of a multi million dollar gamedesign company.




...




A JAPANESE gamedesign company! oh boy. This really takes the "when in rome" shit to a whole new level.


So if we can't really blame the producers and designers(we can call them names though, as we should) for their staff-hiring methods, since, by the end of the day, they are thought out to their best interest, who can we blame?


The answer is mind numbingly simple, their parents(LOL!).

[JoshF]

pretty bitchin', yes?

Yes.

Ashley Wood is a funny case. His artwork already has all the rocket launchers and often times is nothing but brown, and still he's yet to be touched by a Western developer.

[Recap]

So if we can't really blame the producers and designers(we can call them names though, as we should) for their staff-hiring methods, since, by the end of the day, they are thought out to their best interest, who can we blame?

Blame me, because I fail to see your point once and again.

Um, no. It is not cheaper, it is not faster, it is not easier. It's not easier because creating a high poly mesh in the millions requiers serious knowledge of anatomy and doesn't allow any kind of sloppiness, it's not faster since creating said high poly mesh asks for many hours of work, it is not cheaper for the same reason. Not to mention the character/vehicle/object has to be textured with great attention to detail(again, time/money) and animated, probably wiht mocap, which has to be cleaned up and edited in the dev's 3D prog of choice(time/money).

The thing is that [good] stylization requires talent and inspiration. And those are so rare these days that getting the proper person (=artist) HAS to be more expensive, slower and harder. And I believe the freelance scenario thingie you explained somehow proves that. We can, later on, discuss techniques and whatnot but the point resides in the aforementioned.

The point being that any one of their artists, even a hentai artist(a very skilled one, granted), will exhibit some understanding of these elements. Whilst in most western arts our quality varies frighteningly from one domain to another

= Western artists are incompetent?

it has come to my knowledge that some of the best motherfuckers out there are actually whoring themselves to advertising

= Western [video-game] artists are the incompetent ones.

A JAPANESE gamedesign company! oh boy. This really takes the "when in rome" shit to a whole new level.

And yet, they have revealed themselves as the only ones capables of good art/stylization/abstraction/whatever. !

[icycalm]

= Western artists are incompetent?

He says "quality varies frighteningly". This does not imply incompetence. It implies a great variation in competence.

A JAPANESE gamedesign company! oh boy. This really takes the "when in rome" shit to a whole new level.

And yet, they have revealed themselves as the only ones capables of good art/stylization/abstraction/whatever. !

He hasn't made clear what he meant by this statement, so perhaps you are not disagreeing with him. We'll wait for him to make his meaning clear.

[Nervicide]

It took me five hours to write this crap so please don't skim through it, read it in it's entirety. So yeah, thanks...

So if we can't really blame the producers and designers (we can call them names though, as we should) for their staff-hiring methods, since, by the end of the day, they are thought out to their best interest, who can we blame?

Blame me, because I fail to see your point once and again.

Ok, first off I would like to apologize for my apparent twitch-insane way of writing, it is that age, thanks for understanding.

What I am trying to say in that paragraph is that you cannot blame anyone from the dev team for their decisions regarding the way their games look (they are perrrrrrfectly calibrated for western consumption), and of course, the way they hire staff. This topic is a disguise, you're actually more interested in blaming someone than discussing about style and stylization (and technique) even if you don't know it (I think icy figured it out since page 2 though). I think I do, from the general vibe I get from this topic. If you want to blame anyone... you have to blame the US of flippin' A... and their parents (LOL!) Because that's why they don't make games that are stylized, it goes as deep as the entire hivemind of their nation. It's not "the western incompetent devs" it's not the "western incompetents", it's simply "those meddling kids and their westerners". You are admiring the ENTIRE nation of japan in your posts, but you are hating only on the western DEVS, instead of the ENTIRE Amerikas.

A JAPANESE gamedesign company! oh boy. This really takes the "when in rome" shit to a whole new level.

And yet, they have revealed themselves as the only ones capables of good art/stylization/abstraction/whatever. !

Ok, what I meant with the whole reggie fils aime reference is to further illustrate the atmosphere, of the western culture gaming scene, and how it affects the way western games look, to some extent atleast. We are talking about a country that can convert the utmost stiff and HO-NO-RA-BLE type of human (japanese businessman) into hiring a guy that sold pizzas angro for fuck's sake.

So if someone like Nintendo can be assimilated so easily, what can you expect from a dev that was rasied and grew up in that culture if not total submission to it's whims?! Even Deus Ex, an amazing game, is built on all that is american (it ooooozes amerikana from every seam), just like Fallout, that is why they are so fucking amazing, right? They are honest up to the point where one can say they are the product of an entire continent... you cannot expect these people to make something that is not linked with THEM. Whereas stylization, as in the visual technique of rendering things, is LINKED with Japan down to it's very fucking roots. You want western devs to fucking lie to you (all devs lie, and they must do a damn fine job of it, but we are not talking about tricking you into thinking that their game is the only one that realistically depicts the piloting of a ten ton giant robot, we are talking about something much deeper, something they should never fucking lie about) , and then you want to spit in their faces for daring to lie. Oh come on...


Let's talk a bit of semantics...

Gears of war is not made in a different style from, let's say, killer7. As most people would think. It is made in a different TECHNIQUE. Style is something that is grafted to one's composition, intellect, genetics, etc.


An artist's style will evolve over time, but only after he has reached a critical point in his artistic growth will it truly begin evolving. Until that critical point he was "learning", after the process of learning slows down to a crawl, and he is no longer conscious of the fact that he is learning (he thinks he knows how to draw, he doesn't, no one fucking does) he starts learning without being fully aware of it when it actually happens. Ok, really retarded, I know, bare with me.

When a student sits down and draws a sketch in class, he does it in an awakened stance, he knows he is here to learn how to draw and he struggles to learn. He draws his figure carefully, he watches his lines, his proportions, etc. He si fully awake. Style cannot evolve when you draw in such a stance... although, most of the solid concrete block from which the artist will cut away eventually is materialized while in such a stance.

The block is built out of many other things, it has been with him since the beginning, but t.v., junkfood, fucking, fighting, etc will also enlarge the block. In order for style to evolve though, one must ensure that something in particular in which style can manifest itself is dominant in the block. In order for a combat style to evolve, one must study fighting in some way, in order for a flute singing style to evolve, one must study flute-ing (lol) etc. How one identifies the shit which should be dominant in said block, means one must know oneself very well... or simply make a lucky pick. One might say beethoven knew himself, whilst hendrix was just one darn lucky sunnovabitch.

When a student is at home, and starts doodling (without having the worry of learning), and then finds he likes his doodle, and begins working more seriously on it... he will gradually leave the awakened stance and enter the Zone, like a Tetris player does. Only when within this semi-retarded stance kicks in can style evolve. It is NOT concentration, concentration is needed when learning. semi-retardation is needed when actually drawing.


But the evolution of style needs more, the kid has to be tricked in thinking he knows how to draw (this happens when he graduates college and gets a cookie in the form of a diploma) so he can begin the more subtle learning process, so he can begin developing his style... this can only happen after he chills the fuck down, finishing college will give him the necessary confidence to do so.

That's why teachers tell you not to try and create your style, or steal/imitate someone else's, because they want you to learn. Problem is.... they are fucking morons. Firstly because one cannot CREATE style, he can only dig it up from within, and one can "steal" or "imitate" another's style as well as one can steal or imitate another's FUCKING SOUL... and secondly, because they teach you all the WRONG shit. But that goes without saying ROFL!

HOWEVER! (hah, always wanted to say this, ever since I started reading dinosaur comics)

Style needs something deeper in the long run, It needs the aging of the body, and the mind of course, style can evolve only with maturity, and oh boy, who the fuck can say what maturity is (those older and far smarter than me, basically)? I'll try and take a crack at it anyway...

As an artist grows older, he will start searching for purity in his work, we are talking about a truly good artist, one that will gradually shed what he admires and steals (steals in technique, you cannot steal style, we've already established that) from other artists, and he will begin STYLIZING his work. As Icy says, style DOES equal stylization. But this stylization is very hard to observe, highly hard to identify. As an artist lobs off all that is unnecessary from his paintings, be they created in any technique, hyperrealist, surrealist, whatever the fuck, he is stylizing, he is searching for a purity of form and color relevant to him (his aesthetic sense), so yes, he is stylizing, even though he may not be drawing in a stylized technique, he is drawing in a stylized manner. Also, to people who have a very close composition as him, he seems to be drawing better and better. Critics who click! with him, will recognize his evolution, and they will probably be the only ones to recognize said evolution...

Maturity is needed for one to search for something that is relevant to him, not for his peers, or for the chick he really wants to fuck. I'm not so sure, but I think maturity, is linked to purely not giving a fuck about anything but oneself. The thing is, it is very important one learns to not give a fuck, not just... not give a fuck from the beginning.

So in order for this maturity to exist, one must give a fuck about something other than himself in the beginning, be they parents, family, friends, pick your own. People that simply don't give a fuck since birth, will be merely assholes and dicks and as we know from Team America, assholes only shit and dicks only piss...

In order for an artist to evolve, he must learn to be honest about his love for those he admires (if it's someone from the present, it is probably comic book artists; they are pretty much the only ones worth loving these days, question is which ones) in order to learn from them not just by jealousy, but mainly by adoration (jealousy itself will only impede growth due to a constant state of uneasiness)... and honest about his hate for those he loathes (college teachers, mainly) ... and learn from them mainly by hate, not only by obligation (college teachers rock at teaching by being a counter-example).

All these feelings that insure growth can be felt only if the kid is built to care about others than himself (how to hate, love, and subsequently, be indifferent towards) . As he ages he will care less and less about other artists and their techniques, and concentrate more and more on finding his own formulas of rendering... whatever shit he thinks is worth rendering in whatever way his entire composition (age,life,country,global economics,etc) dictates to him.

Note that all this applies to civilized man only, fucking cavemen inspired themselves directly from mother nature. Shit is more complicated now. You don't see icy re-discovering shit that has already been discovered, he is pushing things forward from where others left off. That is why savages, as noble as they may be with their masks and wooden statues or whatever, don't really fucking count in the grand scheme of things. None of those motherfuckers will design the next moon rover or space shuttle or ipod for you to shove down your urethra.

Stylish is a word used to illustrate a lesser form of stylization, it is stylized to "some extent", but not so much as for it to be considered stylized. It's because those fucking retarded bretons like the thought of being able to put a fucking ISH at the end of any word. We don't have it in romanian, and I'm quite sure other latin based languages don't have it either, because there is no use of it. Something is either stylized or not, for fuck's sake. One could use the word stylish to illustrate his admiration for the newest fab skirt designed for white trash and preppies, I think, but those people aren't worth talking to anyway so fuck them.








Icy likes Gears not because it is stylized in it's visuals per se' (it's not, it has merely some exaggerated proportions in anatomy) I think he likes it because it's stylized in the more subtle way, it is testament to the evolution of a company's style. Because companies, just like people, have a style of their own, built and meshed from the minds of the many within it.

Read Pauline Kael's extract on the site, she'll tell you about the look of movies coming from various studios, and how studios have a certain way of flushing out flicks, flicks that you can tell come from THAT studio, even though you didn't catch their logo in the intro. And just as then current technology affected the way the movies from these studios looked, so does current tech affect how games from various companies look. But just like in the movie biz, it was more apparent in the beginning than now. In the end, only style will be the true factor of diversity.

He also likes the game because it shows PASSION from it's creators. Passion that somehow you think is available only to the japanazis or some shit lololololol! Gears may be retarded, it may be utterly moronic, but it's a work of passion. You cannot fucking doubt that, those people put all their love and sweat in that game. It was the day Epic Games stopped wanting to be Id software. Every fucking game they made was them wanting to be Id. With Gears that stopped. A tip of the virtual hat to them... they grew up, basically, now you will see them evolve more and more in style (look at gears, then look at gears2).

How does a company reach the Zone and grows in style you ask? Crunch times, that's how. They are indispensable for a studio's evolution, they also shorten the employee's lifespan considerably, and they pay that price willingly and lovingly. During the Crunch the most mind blowing shit goes down, some games are completely scrapped, some games are completely re-routed in design. Also, as the people that work in the company age, and evolve, so does the hive along with them, makes perfect sense.

One must be seriously challenged in the mental department to say that companies like Id, or Valve, or Epic, or even Bungie, do not have passionate people that click their fingers to the goddamn fucking bone for their work. They are as hard working and as dedicated as the utmost loyal japanese developer. Every one of their games is THEM, Halo is Bungie, Gears is Epic (indeed it is) , Half Life is Valve, and Id... man... Id is all of the previous and then some. What more can you ask of men and women that are themselves in a day and age in which everyone tries to be someone else, oh right... you can ask them just that, to be someone else. Well shit. And you're supposed to be the gaming elite.

So man the fuck up and admit that western devs aren't to your liking simply because their technique is not to your liking. Not because they are incompetent, or because they aren't passionate, or because they don't have that mythical japanese capacity of working.


Even if comics and the like are stylized in western culture, that is not enough. Because AMERICA has more in common with Whistler's Mother than goddamn fucking WOLVERINE. And games siphon that shit out, they siphon it from the fucking veins of everything that is their country. They are the most honest stuff that has been barfed out of that continent in the last century besides tomahawk missiles.

But that's not enough for some elitists, you want more, some sort of ultimate fucking game designer that doesn't siphon shit from his life/nation/whatever. The only way something truthful that is not-linked to any nation or time-frame could come into existence is very simple, you're basically asking for a designer who knows himself so well that he needs only to siphon shit from within...

[icycalm]

This is seriously retarded. The sort of thing the fuckfaces at Select Button would say:

So man the fuck up and admit that western devs aren't to your liking simply because their technique is not to your liking.

That's what we ARE SAYING for fuck's sake, you moron!

Not because they are incompetent

If I don't like someone's technique, it means that, as far as I am concerned, they are incompetent.

or because they aren't passionate

No one really cares if they are passionate or not. There are retarded kids in orphanages who are passionate -- who gives a fuck? The point is whether you can draw or not.

or because they don't have that mythical japanese capacity of working.

There's nothing mythical about this capacity. It is ingrained in their culture.

So yeah. It would be a good idea for you to stop posting in this thread. And in the future, put more effort in understanding what people are saying here before you start writing several thousand off-topic words.

And let me repeat for you and the other people reading this thread who are suffering from attention deficit disorder, that we have already said that there are many excellent Western artists -- the problem is that none of them are working on videogames.

EDIT: Also, next time you use the word 'elitist' as a pejorative you are banned.

[milkycha]

One of the main reasons there are so few stylized Western games is that the target demographic doesnt care about or want a stylized design. Icy noted that Western audiences cannot discern between parody and simulation nearly as well as the Japanese, and this statement rings ever true; as long as there are enough polygons to make something/someone look realistic, your typical Westerner will be impressed. As soon as you stylize it, that same Westerner will be turned off.

This has a lot to do with the attitude that anything cartoonish is immature. I remember recommending Jet Set Radio Future to a friend of mine. He said it was a game for kids. I have another friend who loves Soul Calibur and Tekken, but when I tried getting him into KoF, he told me "it looks like a fucking cartoon."

This is the attitute of the majority of the mouth breathers. They cannot see the personality present in great character design and presentation, nor do they care to. Do not expect this to change.

Also, next time you use the word 'elitist' as a pejorative you are banned.

I had a good lol when I read this.

[cool_breeze]

I can think of two enjoyable examples of western comic book artists working in games: Benoît Sokal in "Syberia", "Syberia II", "Paradise"; Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley in "Ultimate Spiderman" on Xbox.

I can also think of several best-selling games from western studios, widely accepted as having strong art design features (characters, background, colouring, et cetera):

1. Halo: Combat Evolved
2. MDK series on PC, PS1, PS2
3. Medieval II on Playstation
4. Rayman on PS1.

This thread may have identified a trend, but not a rule.

[icycalm]

Read the forum rules and re-format your post accordingly. You have 12 hours.

I can also think of several best-selling games from western studios, widely accepted as having strong art design features

No one in this forum gives a flying fuck about "best-selling" and "widely accepted" games. The only things that count here are individual people's opinions. If you do not have an opinion or are too ashamed of it to express it, then do us all a favor and do not say anything. We do not need to be reminded what the rabble thinks. And, by the way, all the games you mentioned have execrable art design. Rayman is the least ugly of them, but it's still far too gaudy for my tastes.

This thread may have identified a trend, but not a rule.

Keep this retarded bullshit for your blog or gamefaqs. Thanks!

[Recap]

widely accepted

I laughed at that. But I see Icycalm already did.

The graphics of the already mentioned Ivanhoe from the 80's were entirely created by some popular names in the animation industry, and looked gorgeous. Concept design is just a small part in the visual aspect of video-game graphics creation. Who cares if a good 2D artist designed the conceptual part if it isn't translated by proper artists and get the fugly 3D treatment. Sprite artists will never get the acknowledgement they deserve, it seems.

[A.Wrench]

I came up with a couple of examples, though it's definitely true that stylish western games aren't released very often.

Psychonauts for PS2/Xbox:



Braid on Xbox 360:



De Blob for Wii:



and World of Goo for Wii/PC:

[icycalm]

Yes, if only more games looked like this:

[A.Wrench]

that was sarcasm, right? I had about three other images I could have used for Psychonauts that are probably... prettier.

But I dunno. It seems to me that that stretchy, malformed, off-kilter look is one of the few things that western style, at least modern American pop art, can really call its own. I wouldn't really call it attractive, but it's definitely significant. Grotesque, you know?

Then again that might be part of the problem. The dash of "grotesque" integrated into the character designs for Guitar Hero III make me sick. That's part of the problem you were talking about in Brutal Legends screenshots, wasn't it?

[icycalm]

"Guitar Hero III" lol. As if the previous two installments were not already part of the top 3 worst looking games in history.

The very fact that I need to employ sarcasm in order to show you the ridiculousness of linking Psychonauts in a thread asking for examples of pretty Western games, highlights the problem. Which is that Westerners have no visual taste. Anything that looks "wacky" is high art to them.

[Muzozavr]

Some of my favorite graphics are in "Within a Deep Forest" but you have to play the game to see them. They rely on animation A LOT, and no still pictures can do them justice.

[Worm]

I checked out Wipeout XL last weekend and was pretty impressed.
(EDIT: I meant Wipeout HD; thanks. I just wish it was a retooling of XL/2097 instead of the PSP ones.)





Not much competition in the genre, though. Even the PS1 Wipeout games pulled off the look better than, say, F-Zero GX. That one just felt like a gaudy, futuristic Las Vegas. My taste seems a bit off from most of the regulars here, so maybe you'll say the same about this game.

I can't think of any other racing games this stylized, except for maybe some of those lame go-kart ones.

[EightEyes]

I checked out Wipeout XL last weekend and was pretty impressed.

I think you mean "Wipeout HD". But yeah, this is one of the best-looking games of the generation, no question. It seems to be a combination of strong art direction and knowing very well which (technical) battles to pick.

[Worm]

This, from Gearbox Software's upcoming FPS Borderlands:



Kinda ugly and stupid-looking, so I wouldn't say it's good style, but I'm impressed by how much this looks like a hand-drawn picture (particularly the veins and other small details). I wonder how much it's been touched up.

[Molloy]

One of the more unusual looking western games I think I've seen in recent years is Space Giraffe. It's built around a light synthesizer and the graphics are created with algorithms, rather than by an artist churning out traditional art assets. It's hard to get a feel for how the game looks in motion with Youtube videos but when it's displayed at the right resolution, and you've had enough practice to be able to recognise what you need to keep track of and what's just visual 'noise' the end result is quite spectacular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lbEAf3l ... re=related

[Beakman]

There's a lot of attention to detail and cohesive style in the Wipeout series. Especially in the first 3 games which had assistance from The Designers Republic. Latter games tried to imitate the TDR influence with varying success. Wipeout fusion was fugly as hell but is about the only failure. Wipeout HD, as shown above, fared pretty well.

I'll give another vote for Another world.

[zinger]

Speaking of Lucas Arts games, I didn't know there was an official remake of The Secret of Monkey Island, Special Edition:

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/monkeyisland/



Making progress... :?

[icycalm]

lol, not from where I am standing.