Hi, I just wanted to hear people''s opinions on photorealistic textures when it comes to games. Whats your thoughts on it? Does it have no place in the game world as it might steal from the fantasy setting? Or does it add quality to a game with its realistic appearance and details? I would really appreciate people''s opinions and replies as it will help me greatly in making my decision. To be more specific about the issue, here''s an example of photorealistic art and example of non-photorealistic art Not Photorealistic: http://horizonsvault.ign.com/thegame/screenshots/ Photorealistic: http://www.marlinstudios.com/gallery/hgallery/hgallery.htm Obvisouly, both of the above are as good as art gets and it takes alot of skill to create something similar to them but if the quality is scaled down a little, which type do you feel is more suited for game development? Please share your ideas. Thanks in advance

Personally, i don''t like the photo-realistic appearence. The whole reason i play video games is to ''escape reality'' for a little while. I like more stylized graphics that appear more lively, less real, with brighter colors and such. Photo-realistic art tends to turn out rather dull and... too... realistic.

So that''s my two cents.

-Shane

Well, both photorealistic and nonphotorealistic have their places.
I''d expect, and be disapointed not to see, photorealistic textures in simulation games, while some game set in some distant odd sureal landscape probably wouldn''t be as good if it had photorealistic.

If you are deciding to use them or not, think about what kind of game you are writing.


--Drakonite

[Insert Witty Signature Here]

You should usually have some surrealism in your game. Usually when developers try to make things to realistic, they look even more fake. We humans always seem to pick up little subtle faults in things. We may not know what it is, but it''ll be just enough to distract us, but when a little surrealism is added, we become more excepting. Atleast this is my experience.

Domini
Rastagon 2 Engine

Thank you very much for your opinions all.
If anyone else has any opinions on this topic, please share.

Thanks again.

I think the best thing to aim for is consistency. Not just between different images, but across the entire user interface.

If your textures are photo-realistic but the clicking the mouse adds a flat green highlight around an object, then the illusion is broken. If the game looked like a cartoon you could get away with it and the player wouldn''t notice, because it wouldn''t stand out.

The other thing to think about is what the player will be looking at most of the time. If the game is static backgrounds (Riven) then you want them to look pretty because the user will be looking at them a lot. If you''re making a game that moves fast (FPS, racing game) then you can get away with a lot less detail.

Oh, and the first example link looks great to me.

JSwing

We use photo realistic textures and skins in our game Eden Eclipse (check out http://EdenEclipse.com). I have released a small set of free textures in our file section. I think on of the main aims of 3D action games is achieving a high level of realism.
Nevertheless painted skins and textures can look good, too. But that''s not the same.

Sincerely,
Beren Baumgartner < alias "§oµlmas+eR" >
______________________________________________
http://www.Beren.net - Design, Art & Animation
http://www.Mediatory.net - Advanced Web design
http://www.EdenEclipse.com - the SCI FI Saga

quote: Original post by SoulmasteR
We use photo realistic textures and skins in our game Eden Eclipse (check out http://EdenEclipse.com). I have released a small set of free textures in our file section. I think on of the main aims of 3D action games is achieving a high level of realism.
Nevertheless painted skins and textures can look good, too. But that''s not the same.

Sincerely,
Beren Baumgartner

Can you post a screen shot here? According to your website, there is no screens out yet but I thought its worth a try for me to ask.

If not, Can anyone post the link of game(s) which use(s) phtorealistic textures. The link I had originally posted was not a game but art so I can''t see how it might look in a game. If someone can post such a link or links, I would be very thankful

Sean