2d media versus 3d games

This post I am going to talk about traditional 2d media versus the newer 3d media, where 3d games fit in.

Traditional 2d media, such as movies, animations, photography and paintings, can't be influenced by the viewer, the view and perspective can't be changed. This is my definition for 2d media in this post. Even if an animation can be made with 3d tools, the animation is still rendered as a 2d movie, in which you can't change the view. The directors of the movie have chosen the viewpoints they believe are the greatest for their movie. It is perfectioned for a fixed set of viewpoints. Same with photography, paintings, illustrations and so on, it's a view of the creator, and the viewer has to accept to perceive the vision of the creator only. Most people totally accept this, and just want to be surprised, overwhelmed by a quality movie or picture.

3d media, such as 3d games, make multiple camera angles possible, and the player can influence the view of the game by controlling the camera. This causes the game to no longer be bound to a fixed set of viewpoints according to the makers of the game. But this has a downside, it's also impossible for the makers to perfection the way the player views the game, since multiple camera angles make it impossible to make every angle look good in the game.

I also want to talk about immersion for a bit. Immersion can be described as viewers, or players, getting "sucked in" the story, they feel they are part of the story or world of the movie or game.
2d media has a quick immersion factor. People can feel immersed very quickly in a movie or picture, or even a book. With 3d games however, players first have to learn to control this world of the game. This doesn't immediately give players a feeling of immersion, not as quick as a movie or book can do. A movie is also only 1.5 hours long, and most people can afford to spend this amount of time. While a game costs alot more time to finish, if players don't immediately feel immersed in the game, they can quickly turn the game off. A book however, takes a lot of time to finish aswell, but the reader doesn't have to learn any controls. 3d games introduced alot of new buttons to control the game, so unexperienced gamers need to be persistant to learn the game, and if they don't feel the immersion factor quickly, they might consider to not continue playing the game at all. Old 2d games just had simple controls, a few buttons, and while the graphics weren't 3d or realistic, players could leave many elements of the game to their imagination, just like a book.

The technology debate

This is my first post on my blog. I am a student from the Netherlands. I like writing about games, although not in a very scientific way, but more in a laidback, my opinion and vision kind of way. I have been in the trenches of game production myself, and I like the pre-production phases the most. I played the role of gamedesigner, leveldesigner, modeler, scripter and wrote a few papers about games. Writing for me is a way of expressing myself, and I do have alot of opinions about the gameindustry, development of the newest games, and also subjects which are not related to games, such as art, design, stories (in book as well as tv/movie form). In this blog I will mainly focus on games, but perhaps use a non-gaming source for inspiration or to make a point.


Polygons
Having followed games for many years, there is one clear trend to be seen since the days of the Nintendo 64 and Doom, when 3d games were being developed for the first time. The first 3d games started to use 3d models, which are build out of polygons, todays measuring tool for detail in a game. Games try to use more and more polygons, because detailed games supposedly look better. But I do not think it's worth it to spend so much time and people on creating highpoly models. Just like film and photography was limited to black & white before being able to capture in color, which didn't automatically mean uglier, (just think of all the beautiful film-noir movies, Citizen Kane, and black & white photography which contains much more depth than color photography does), you can make a pretty looking game without having to use highpoly models, which reduces work, widens your audience on the PC platform (wider range of PCs is able to run your game), and makes your game run smoother on consoles and reduces the time needed to spent on optimalisation. Instead of focusing on polygons, focus on art-direction.

Citizen Kane, like many other film noir movies, uses black & white colors to it's advantage by creating awesome shadows with it, which results in gritty atmospheric pictures.

Technology versus art direction
Art direction is important, because it defines the look and feel of the game. Is this game going for a realistic, gritty feeling? Okay, then you might want to use a little more polygons compared to a fantasy game. But you can also make a game gritty by using colors wisely, such as in the textures. Dark colors, suggestive silhouettes of 3d models, overal consistency in the world (if models look gritty, so should the sound and music!) can create a much bigger atmosphere and style than just using more polygons could. Using detail is not a sin, it can be a worthy stylistic choice, but it is a trend in gamesland that almost every game wants to use as much polygons as possible, which is questionable for alot of styles. Why does Halflife 2 still feel realistic and immersive to me after 4 years? Good art direction, consistency in the world makes the world alot more believable, which is ultimately what you want to do, make gamers believe they are playing in this world of yours. Blizzard is master in good art direction, their games don't have many detail, but their use of colors and good character and world design make the fantasy world appear alive. Painters felt relieved when photography was invented, so they didn't have to paint realistic anymore. Painting could depict the unreal, use fantasy. So why should games all try to look detailed, while many of them would benefit from better stylistic choices? But it's probably a matter of time, there comes a point where it is no longer noticeable to the players to use more detailed models. Probably out of effiency, shaders were invented to not having to model every crack in a wall or add detail which wasen't otherwise possible, such as reflective water. Once developers will notice it is no longer noticeable to add more detail to a game, they will have to spend more time on their art direction in other to distinguise it's game from competitors. This will be a good time indeed, but until then, game developers will run after the latest technology. Atleast Nintendo understands technology is not all what gamers want, and focused on other areas with their latest console, the Wii. I hope more developers follow, and leave the technology race, and instead focus on good art-direction and game-design.