I''ll move it !


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~

Well since your dealing with flat surfaces with 3d object, your goal isnt so much making a better model or a better 3d engine. The 3d engines of today are very powerful but as you mentioned, lack Organic intuitivness and feel very plastic. Almost every game feels this way to me. Texture mapping has certainly been put to the test recently but here comes a contracdiciton as a bad model cant look good with a good texture. I think that you should start from the texture and create a model to support it.this way you are catering your models geomentry to fit a pre done texture of say a character instead of the other way around. but no matter how good your models look (assuming of coarse that your gaem is 3d) unless they are animated well, they wil suck. Its a combination of thousands of suttle movements that make a human look and feel so organic and alive when they move. if your subject is a human model, it might help to do some serious anatomical studies to understand this.
I recently thought about how to program animation on complex models with 2000 joints. I know in 3d studio you can program weights so that grouped joints move in certain fassions. In your physic engine, you might program it to apply pressure equal to a certain level. program strength, not just gravity.
Character interaction is a biggy as well. the world around you has to be very much alive. Im thinking rpg''s on this one but for most, the rules are the same. I dont think that text cuts it at all as you really cant get a really good image of your character. so, why not allow the player to speak as the character through speech recognition? Ill bet that would add lots to it.

these are just my opinion. dont take them too seriously

Allow the flaming to begin
Conshape Electronic Arts

mmm, first off, it''s very hard to make things that feel organic in a GAME, in REAL TIME. The best thing I know for this is Vortex style graphics (Delta Force II being the latest example).And even then, non imaginative people will start talking about "bunch of pixels around the place" instead of understanding "grass, vegetations, bushes ..."
As long as you stay in the domain of flat surfaces, you can give them all the texturing you want, the nonorganic feel will stay.
bump mapping is a start. But this is not enough. Just think trees, grass, bushes, and look at the solution found in games (They Hunger expansion for HalfLife, for instance).
It''s not easy at all.
Ketchaval, you mention Final Fantasy. I must say as an artist I am drooling when I see the cinematics. But the shiny cold feel is still very much there. They use so much things around that you don''t really care anymore, but it''s still there ...

Lighting is of the utmost importance. Lighting can change everything. Just look at anything David Fincher has done.
Warm foreground, cold background, and suddenly a flat picture get a sense of depth you wouldn''t have imagined otherwise (Don Maitz paintings are very good for this). The simple theory of colors is so much NOT used, that sometimes I wonder. I mean, they gave us colored lights for something else than illuminating the flags, right ? (for HalfLife addicts, refer to the excellent maps by Scary-One such as scary_1, scary_2, etc)
I have done quite a bit of maps for my own use, and lights can REALLY make a difference. For instance, in one map I did, I used a grey cement texture. But with the coloured lights, they would look like egyptian stone, or like cold white marble, or rose granit, etc...)

Texture *of the picture* itself. Not the resolution, or the graphic system. But someting more like the after treatment that some movies will use to make the film itself dirty, old-stylish. A simple black and white filter can change everything (Schindler''s list). Or the low quality, hand camera style can give a lot more realist, almost amateurish style (Saving Private Ryan). This is something that has never been (AFAIK) used in games... but when you see how cinematics and movie techniques seem to affect the game industry, I am still wondering what the developers are waiting for (yes, real time filtering is NOT as simple as it sounds, but I am sure it''s feasible, with a little bit of hardware ?)

For the animation bit. I have to say that even though I hate the sugary sweet shit Disney is falling into, I am more and more respectuous of the work they do, animation wise. Tarzan is just plain cool. And I remember reading excellent papers on Disney views about animation, that should be read by any animator out there ... basically, it''s about stopping to be TOO realist. Disney was not the only one of course, as other people, in the world of Comics for instance, promoted similar ideas.
Cartoons (and by extension, game graphics) are NOT realist, and it''s not their goal. If you try to be realistic, your characters look shit, they look like they are stuck or something, as if they had sticks preventing them from moving. On the other hand, of you exagerate their movements, you suddenly give more life to them, and they actually look more "realistic". More consistent would be, I guess, more appropriate. They are heroes, they are out of the norms, so why would their movements be *in* the norms.
Refer to LucasArts games such as the last Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam and Max hit the road, Day of the Tentacle. then compare with previous works (even the Kings Quest), and thin about it

mmm, maybe more later, what about the other artists ?

youpla :-P

Voxels are crap on current PCs ;-) Delta Force looks & runs like crap, Outcast is the same. There''s no technical reason why Voxel are faster / more detailed on current PC systems, it just make no sense. You can archive 100% photorealism with triangles & co, so giving up the polygon approach on a system that is soooooo bandwidth limited is stupid. Just look at that 512x384@10FPS Outcast scenes. I think even glQuake looks 1000 times better. And more realistic ! The world doesn''t have much colored lighting and special fx like Q3, reality looks more than Q1...


Tim

--------------------------
glvelocity.gamedev.net
www.gamedev.net/hosted/glvelocity

I had another idea when sitting in mc donalds today. what would it do if we programmed our characters to be physically self aware? basically they are aware of their physical possition in relation to other things. this way, they would move certain body parts to aviod colliding with other things. you know, when you are walking down town and you move to aviod someone. why cant the characters do it.

I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.

Conshape Electronic Arts

Just like to say a "here, here" to ahw. When it comes the animation your dead right. Sometimes you have to be less 'realistic' to be more. I think once we get this type of toon animation in 3D (didn't everyone love sam & max ) we will come a long way to moving away from the clinicalness of FPS.
Style is the important thing, I am not a big fan of realism for realisms sake. It is after all entertainment not simulation. With a consistent strong sense of style it really helps avoid the notion of "Why does his head look so blocky?" and so on, Interstate 76 did this well.
Don't know about anybody else but I just can wait for the next wave of toony 3D games

Edited by - sof on October 26, 2000 8:26:31 AM