BTW: Are there hardware 2D excelerators that''ll excelerate (and hopefully anti-alias) bezier curves or b-splines?

E:cb woof!

I''ve always said, "The game makes the game, the graphics don''t". It''s true that a game''s graphics have a bit of impact on the game itself, but the game itself, the gameplay, is what makes a game good. I totally agree with you. However, it would be cool to play a game that looks real.

"Remember, I'm the monkey, and you're the cheese grater. So no fooling around."
-Grand Theft Auto, London

I''d like to make a couple of points, because some things I''ve heard I can''t agree with.
1. True, a game makes a game, not the graphics. But underestimating the importance of good graphics is more then unprofessional, it''s stupid. Noone''s gonna give a damn how good your gameplay is, if you have bad graphics. My personal opinion, is that games with bad graphics don''t deserve the attention(in 95% of the cases), even if they have good gameplay.
2. There''s nothing wrong with using somebody else''s engine. In fact, if you want to make a good game, and you''re working on it alone, or with a very small team, you better get yourself an engine, or the game will never be finished. Look at half-life, one of the best FPS''s, and they licenced Quake II engine. They didn''t reinvent the wheel, they licenced it, and fine-tuned it for their games.

Even though there is a tremendous lack of gameplay, and artistic abilities, graphics are very important. In fact, if you''re making a cartoon game, you better have GREAT graphics, because the game totally depends on it.

I don''t think I know about any hardware accelerated nurbs stuff, but if u fo, please let me know, I need this stuff right now (so happens)

As far as humor and Cartoon graphics go, I recommend you all go check out Worms2 by Microprose. This is a GREAT game!! Its also hilarious!

Then in one of the posts on this subject there was a mention of a wanting for claymation in games. Well, I remember going to a friends house a few years ago and playing an adventure game that had all claymation graphics and it was awsome! I don''t, however, remember the name of this game and thus am sadened. Sorry guys!

As far as graphics go, I feel that most/some people play games to go into a fantasy world that they can''t expierence in the real-world. Most of the original "REAL" computer games were RPG''s and they didn''t have a flashy interface. Most of them were text base. People didn''t play them because they wanted cool graphics, they wanted gameplay. It was like reading an interactive novel! Lately, the only game to completely emerse me in a game world is Baldurs Gate, not because it had flashy graphics(though they were good), but because it had a game world that was expansive and large enough to lose myself in it and forget everything about the real world. Truly a great expierence! If a game had good graphics AND good gameplay, great! But I will never substitute good graphics for a great story combined with great gameplay.

Please excuse me for writting such a lengthy post but I have been wanting to speek up about this for some time.


Brent Robinson
"What if this is as good as it gets?"

I''m one of the people, like most of the people here, who likes games for a challange. However, when I talked to people at my work (nonprogrammers) most of them like games where you just go around and shoot everything that moves. I found that to be the attitude of most of the nonprogrammers here. Has anyone else noticed this when talking to other people in real life?

E:cb woof!

I couldn''t agree with you more!!

Thanks,
Zaephen

I''d say that the most important thing about graphics is that they mustn''t be really bad. Also, clear graphics are an important part of the interface and gaming comfort. But anyways, for the cartoon games discussion - has anyone played any of the "old" Coktel Vision games (Goblii(i)ns 1-3, Woodruff)? In those adventure/puzzle games, even the problems were cartoony (for example, at one point in Gobliins2 you had to have one of your characters grab a chicken while the other knocked it on the head with a sausage to get an egg - and that wasn''t even weird).
But to the original post - I don''t think 3D accelerators/engines have been really aiming for realism lately, but rather for a maximal number of buzzwords. (dynamically bumpy-glossified octree-accelerated buzzier curves - our engine does that while maintaining 60fps!) Photorealism for games is IMO still quite a few years ahead, because it requires development of good physics engines that can handle huge amounts of things and CPUs that can handle those.

I personally believe that although it is fun to think of a really realistic game with realistic AI and physics that in actuality it would not be fun. You''d be playing out a part of your life on a screen. I could also see this as being problematic. Games like Everquest and Ultima Online are already beginning to show how playing games can become an addictive behaviour, but if it were even more realistic then the chances of it becoming addictive are higher. You can act out your Super-Ego or Id (Freudian terms for the person inside you that you want to be) with the limitations of physics you would end up spending lots of times doing things that you would not normally do, hence making it addicting.

Just my .02 cents.

- Zeke Templin

I think you all kind of missed something here. Not everyone has a state of the art computer. most people that i know only have a P200 with 32mb ram. not everyone has a PIII 750 with a g-force card. besides, people want to play realistic games now, and not wait a few years. graphics don''t make the game, but they sure help it get noticed.

- Moe -

ps-don''t flame me that bad, im only a newbie

Well...I would love to have realistic graphics in a game like carmageddon.You see,to me,games give me the ability to do stuff that I could not do in real life.All of us have our urges to do something but there would be consequences to them in real life.Take my example of carmageddon. I LOVE this game because of the pure and sensless violence in it! (I''m not an evil person! I can''t even hurt a fly) but I can''t go out into the world ,take my car and just start running down pedestrians!!! I could however do that on my computer! And the more realistic the graphics the better! Same goes to flight simulators.I know I''ll never become an airforce pilot,but I love playing Falcon4 becasue it brings me as close to the real thing as possible.And the more realistic it gets the better! FPS games too!
My point is,some games HAVE to be realistic (flight simulators) while others don''t (RPG''s) It really depends on your game and taste.
That''s my 2 cents.