Unreal Graphics
Everyone is awaiting the graphics update that Runescape will get next month. A lot has been said about the update and most of it good. I was surprised that they will be doing moving shadows and procedural textures, very cool. I was more pleased that the screen shots look like RS will keep its cartoon-like looks; and this is what I'm going to talk about here.
Many people seem to think that the goal of game graphics is to make things appear "real" - I couldn't disagree more. Here are three separate ideas from three separate sources which help argue against realistic graphics.
One:
A guy named Scott McCloud spent a lot of time thinking about comic books and trying to figure out why they work. He wrote a great book called "Understanding Comics" (which I recommend to everyone). One of his key points is what he call the Picture Plane
Look at the bottom of the picture and you see a continuum of images going from photorealistic to iconic or "language".
If you look at a realistic picture of a man you see him as a distinct individual, you also see him as something other than yourself. If you look at a cartoon picture of a man you understand that it represents an individual but that it also represents the idea of a person and you are included in that idea of person-hood. This means that it is possible for you to feel more connected with a cartoon image than with a photographic image. The cartoon is not only a picture it is a form of language.
Computer games used to be played with text which, of course, existed even further in the realm of language. If the text says "the monster is hideously ugly" then each reader may picture in their head what a ugly monster looks like. As soon as you draw a picture you are going to loose some people. No matter how you draw the monster some people will think, "It's not that ugly".
Two:
I recently saw a lecture on-line by Julie Taymor. She has studied theatre for years and is most famous for doing the stage production of the Lion King.
In that production she never tries to hide the fact that these are people in costumes or people working puppets. The audience sees how the magic is done, and that is part of how the magic works. In the lecture I saw, Ms Taymor spent some time talking about struggling with a sunrise that opens the play. They were able to use technology to create a very realistic sunrise but she tossed that idea out and instead made a simple disk of silk and metal strips which lays folded on the stage. The disk is slowly raised and unfolds. The audience knows it is strips of fabric and metal, but the audience also knows it is a beautiful sunrise. This is what makes the difference - she didn't try to "fool" the audience by creating a fake sunrise, instead she created an atmosphere where the audience is allowed to fool itself into seeing a sunrise. Through unconscious use of imagination the audience become the magicians who make the magic possible.
Three:
I saw the movie Sin City on video not long ago.
Frank Miller and his team used advanced computer graphic technology to purposely create unrealistic images. He uses stark graphics, usually black and white with reduce gray tones. Color is used only when they purposely decided to use color. The move has truly grotesque scenes of mutilation and decapitations. If these scenes were depicted realistically I would probably have turned off the TV, but these things were presented unrealistically - as ideas, in a sort of visual language, so I was able to stomach them. Sometimes I see kids post in the Jagex forms that they want to see blood and flying limbs in Runescape. Not me.
OK. I'm about done being pedantic.
Runescape is a game where we can imagine we are heros who can slay demons and save cities. Games of imagination don't require graphics which are too realistic.
Many people seem to think that the goal of game graphics is to make things appear "real" - I couldn't disagree more. Here are three separate ideas from three separate sources which help argue against realistic graphics.
One:
A guy named Scott McCloud spent a lot of time thinking about comic books and trying to figure out why they work. He wrote a great book called "Understanding Comics" (which I recommend to everyone). One of his key points is what he call the Picture Plane
Look at the bottom of the picture and you see a continuum of images going from photorealistic to iconic or "language".
If you look at a realistic picture of a man you see him as a distinct individual, you also see him as something other than yourself. If you look at a cartoon picture of a man you understand that it represents an individual but that it also represents the idea of a person and you are included in that idea of person-hood. This means that it is possible for you to feel more connected with a cartoon image than with a photographic image. The cartoon is not only a picture it is a form of language.
Computer games used to be played with text which, of course, existed even further in the realm of language. If the text says "the monster is hideously ugly" then each reader may picture in their head what a ugly monster looks like. As soon as you draw a picture you are going to loose some people. No matter how you draw the monster some people will think, "It's not that ugly".
Two:
I recently saw a lecture on-line by Julie Taymor. She has studied theatre for years and is most famous for doing the stage production of the Lion King.
In that production she never tries to hide the fact that these are people in costumes or people working puppets. The audience sees how the magic is done, and that is part of how the magic works. In the lecture I saw, Ms Taymor spent some time talking about struggling with a sunrise that opens the play. They were able to use technology to create a very realistic sunrise but she tossed that idea out and instead made a simple disk of silk and metal strips which lays folded on the stage. The disk is slowly raised and unfolds. The audience knows it is strips of fabric and metal, but the audience also knows it is a beautiful sunrise. This is what makes the difference - she didn't try to "fool" the audience by creating a fake sunrise, instead she created an atmosphere where the audience is allowed to fool itself into seeing a sunrise. Through unconscious use of imagination the audience become the magicians who make the magic possible.
Three:
I saw the movie Sin City on video not long ago.
Frank Miller and his team used advanced computer graphic technology to purposely create unrealistic images. He uses stark graphics, usually black and white with reduce gray tones. Color is used only when they purposely decided to use color. The move has truly grotesque scenes of mutilation and decapitations. If these scenes were depicted realistically I would probably have turned off the TV, but these things were presented unrealistically - as ideas, in a sort of visual language, so I was able to stomach them. Sometimes I see kids post in the Jagex forms that they want to see blood and flying limbs in Runescape. Not me.
OK. I'm about done being pedantic.
Runescape is a game where we can imagine we are heros who can slay demons and save cities. Games of imagination don't require graphics which are too realistic.
posted by Knifestorm at 12:25 PM
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