What to you constitutes good graphics?

[viivo]

Since I have no life I was playing and comparing the graphics of Uncharted 1 and Gears of War 2 (I know, two years apart, but I don't have GoW1 anymore) and I started wondering why I thought one looked better than the other. Personally I prefer Uncharted not only because the textures look much better, but the lighting and shadows are perfectly realized. I think it's also because I prefer the more realistic setting to Gears'... whatever Gears' setting is (technopunk?)

So what do you think makes "good graphics"?

Is it..
High resolution detail textures
High poly character models
Bloom/HDR/other framebuffer effects
Lighting and shadows
Pixel shaders and effects on textures (porous rock, shiny wet stone, etc.)
Atmosphere/setting even if all of the above is poorly implemented
Or something else?



edit: and to assure myself that I'm not turning into a Sony fanboy, why does Resistance look like such ass? The textures are blurry and everything is gray. Does anybody think this game looks good?

 

[BenSkywalker]

Good graphics for me has two different angles. My geek hat is always at the ready to get into analyzing the techniques being utilized and appreciating the technical merits of a title, this is the side of me that finds Crysis and GT5 so impressive.

From this angle what I find most impressive depends on the type of game it is. If it is a stealth style game, I wand the best lighting possible. If it is a racing game, framerate is king followed by decent texture filtering and then make it pretty. If it is an adventure game with lots of dialouge, I want killer character models and good animation first and foremost, shooters I like to see good texture work with nice particle effects and some physics thrown in, RPGs I enjoy seeing clean visuals above all else- AA/AF, with great environmental detail being secondary(character models are a secondary concern). I could keep going, but you get the general idea, it greatly depends on what type of game I'm playing which elements push themselves to the forefront.

Then there is the side of me that sees SFIV and simply loves what they have done with the visuals, even if they have close to no technical merit at all. The direction they took with the game is so effective for what they are doing and looks so clean and fast it just works flawlessly for the game.

Does anybody think this game looks good?

Resistance, no, I don't think anyone thinks the game has impressive graphics. I found it an enjoyable game, but certainly not a good looking one. If you want a pretty shooter on the PS3, KZ2>>>>everything else(speaking in terms of shooters on the PS3, gameplay is easily arguable, graphics aren't).

 

[dguy6789]

The game needs to be artistically done well. Everything has to make sense visually. I don't want to see really fake looking rock formations or beaches anything like that. The quality difference between a stock map and the average custom map in TF2 is like night and day for example. Next is animation. Everything needs tons and tons of animation. Stuff that looks robotic if it's supposed to be a living thing definitely takes away from a game's experience. This might be a pet peeve of mine but I don't like looking into the sky of a game and seeing a stationary drawing of a sky. It has to be active, even if it's just a very simple scrolling set of clouds or something, it needs to be 3D.

After that, I'd say pixel shading, bump mapping, and high resolution textures are the next most important. Lighting comes next. After that, high resolution and and AA. Bloom and HDR are dead last. Anything I've forgotten will come before those.

 

[Sadaiyappan]

Depth of field.

 

[mugs]

I don't really care about any of those things. All I really look for is a lack of distractingly bad graphics. Bad models, poorly implemented facial expressions, bad animation, etc make all of the fancy effects and textures worthless. There are wii games that I think have good graphics.

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: mugs
I don't really care about any of those things. All I really look for is a lack of distractingly bad graphics. Bad models, poorly implemented facial expressions, bad animation, etc make all of the fancy effects and textures worthless. There are wii games that I think have good graphics.

No doubt. I think Scribblenauts on the DS looks awesome in its clean simplicity.

 

[Malak]

X3 has fantastic graphics. Killzone 2 has fantastic graphics. It has to be awe-inspiring to me to be really great. Does that mean artistic simple graphics can't be amazing? No, just most simple games to me are simple because the developers couldn't achieve better. Warcraft? Craptastic. Dawn of War? Awesome. Doom 3? Craptastic. HL2? Amazing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Art design.

Xenosaga still looks good even as a low-poly PS2 game with none of those effects. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines looks even better using an ancient beta version of the Source engine. Planescape: Torment's 640x480 landscapes are still worth traveling.

 

[viivo]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Art design.

Xenosaga still looks good even as a low-poly PS2 game with none of those effects. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines looks even better using an ancient beta version of the Source engine. Planescape: Torment's 640x480 landscapes are still worth traveling.

PS:T looks so awesome with the widescreen mod. Mm, I already have so many games waiting to be played, I wonder if I can squeeze in another playthrough of Torment.

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Oh, DaveSimmons, why must you always steal my answers?

The list of games that I love that have unique style is far longer than the list of games I love that look like they could exist in the real world. I love the 360 and PS3 and the next generation graphics they bring to the table, but if either of those platforms had created a photorealistic version of Okami, it would have been a completely different (and I think lesser) experience.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Jiggle tech. Kidding.

 

[magomago]

Art Style. I still like how Ps1 games look these days - (Xenogears looks reallly nice with some texture smoothing). Ps2 games and SNES games (Well, on my PSP displayed at 1:1) also still look great to me. The actual graphics don't count for much. Think of all the games that focused on 'awesome graphics!' and of them all, how many do we actually give a shit about?

I think that, for its time, it has to be asethically pleasing and create an atmosphere that draws you in. That could make it good 2-D or good 3-D.

Of course, even if it does a good job of creating that atmosphere and is aesthetically pleasing, it doesn't count for much if the game simply plays like ass, no?

Some games I think did it well and right: Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 2, Final Fantasy (choose your pick - even if you don't like the story, 6,7,8,9,10,tactics does an excellent job of drawing you into the environment), Halflife and Halflife 2, Street Fighter 4, Ultima series (assuming bugs weren't so bad), ICO, God of War, Seiken Densetu 3, Sonic Adventure and many others I'm ignoring.

Games that I think didn't create that desired environment although they looked great: Ehergeiz, The Bouncer, Ridge Racer 7, Dead or Alive. I can't think of more...but truth be told many games fit into this category. Looks great, but no one cares!

 

[brblx]

i would say 'good' graphics in this day and age don't have to look real, but they have to not have any obvious 'digital' traits. pixelized textures, low poly counts (to the point of noticeable angles rather than apparent roundness), really bad jaggies, et al.

halflife2 had good enough graphics for me. step the poly counts up a bit (though i still the the faces in hl2 are among the best as-is) and fix the bland textures, and they'd be really good. add in all the modern tweaks (lighting and otherwise) and they'll generally be pretty great.

there are also games that have graphics that i'd just have to describe as 'stupid.' i.e. the modern console trend of too much brown and orange, and somehow overly contrasted and washed out at the same time. or even a game with a really competent engine that could be great, but the devs didn't spend enough time making the content and it came out sub-par.

really, PC's and consoles are at a point where it's hard to have compentent gamemakers turn out a game that is ugly while standing still. it's so the point where animation and physics really need to be good to complete the illusion of a 'real' world.

 

[Krazy4Real]

Anything current gen that is not on the wii.

/puts on flamesuit

 

[mmntech]

I've been reviewing games on my blog for a while now so I have some idea of what makes good and bad graphics.
1. Frame rate should be smooth for the system it's playing on. The game must be able to sustain at least 24fps, as that's cinema standard.
2. There should be no graphical anomalies such as tearing, black holes, excessive ailiasing, etc.
3. Texture resolutions for HD games should be at a minimum where they don't look washed on a 720p TV
4. HDR should not be overused, a common problem with a lot of games earlier in this generation. Creates a vary unrealistic, barf looking lighting effect.
5. Graphics should match the game's artistic style and genre. In other words, it should be aesthetically appealing.
6. Games billed as HD must run at minimum 1280x720, otherwise the should run at 720x480. Upscaling from nonstandard resolutions tends to produce blurry graphics. Especially for those who like to play on 16:10 PC monitors as it produces a photocopy of a photocopy effect. Haze is a good example of what not to do.
7. Graphics should be on par with other contemporary tiles. Goes back to the artistic style matching the game. Graphics that looked rushed or dated really stand out, especially if the gameplay isn't there to prop everything else up. A lot of movie games have this problem.
8. Now throw all that out. Gameplay must always come before graphics. What's the point of a video game if it doesn't? You might as well just watch a movie.