Does anyone else think 3D strategy games look ugly? E.g., WarCraft 3, Age of Empires 3, Civilization 4 (?) And World of Warcraft is also on this list, even though it's not an RTS/TBS, because it has the ugly 3D units. Does anyone else think 2D graphics look nicer for RTS/TBS games? E.g., WarCraft 2, Age of Empires 2? For me 3D units just don't "feel" real and look uglier than drawn images. How can this be overcome? How would you make 3D units that "feel" realistic and look good? [edit] WarCraft 2 (looks nicer): WarCraft 3 (lots of improvements, but, mmm.... units kind of feel like they're paper-mache or something):

Yeah, me too. I've always felt that the 3D units ended up being too "big and chunky". Since I'm looking down on a large field of battle I like there to be lots of small detail. The polygon counts in 3D RTSs don't usually give this impression. Things end up looking blocky with sharp angles, or blurry with texture filtering. Ruins the feeling for me.

Well maybe it's wrong to say that the 2D graphics are better than the newer 3D, but I was disappointed by how flimsy (?) the 3D units look (they look like they're made out of paper because they're so low-poly).

The 3D units in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, although cool in a still shot, don't look very realistic when they are fighting in the game. For example, hand-to-hand fighting is not very dynamic because even though they are 3D they feel like they're boxed in and don't give the sense like they're really interacting with each other physically.




[edit] In hand-to-hand combat the units just slash at each other, without showing any physical reaction on the part of the target, so it doesn't seem real.

[edit] Also, the bullet shots don't cause any physical reaction on the part of the target and thus don't seem very devastating. It would be cool if the models had an animation for when they are hit, like in Counter-Strike or something.

From a modern games perspective, I think the visual quality of games is improving and getting better. However, each game does really have its own style that sets it apart from others, so perhaps that's why someone could see them as being ugly. In most other game genres, the end result is photo-realism and in RTS that is not the goal due to the complexities of the genre.

Having said that, I'll point out a few RTS games that I loved the graphics of. You should check them out and comment what you think. Of course, videos do them no justice so playing them firsthand would be better, but money doesn't grow on trees [grin]

Thumbs Up List:

- Starcraft: This game's graphics style will always be #1 on my all time favorite lists. I am a bit worried about the art directions on SC2, but that wouldn't change my opinion on the game as a whole as it might other games.

- Age Of Empires 3: I know you said you don't like it, but I think the quality compared to other 3D RTSs is definitely above the bar. I personally don't like the gameplay as compared to AOE 2, but that's another issue.

- Earth 2160: It's been a while since I played this game, but I believe it looked really clean and had excellent graphics at the time. It was more simple clean, but I don't think it looked ugly at all. The previous games in the seires were "alright" but I didn't play them enough to comment.

- Command and Conquer Generals: I absolutely loved this games graphics style. It was clean and detailed and was simply beautiful. This game is dated now, but it was by far one of the nicest looking C&C games I'd seen.

- Age of mythology: Another clean and simple graphics style. I never tried the expansion pack, the Titans, but it looked alright as well.

- Warzone 2100: Long live Warzone 2100! Who hasn't played this game. Given how old it is, 10 years now, I loved how this game was done for that time.

Thumbs Down List:

- Empire Earth 1: The whole game looked glazed over and blurry. I never played 2 or 3, but the videos for 3 look way better than 1 had. I think EE1 was by far one of the most ugly 3D RTS games I'd ever seen.

- Warcraft: Just never been a fan of the WC series style of graphics. I see the style of graphics had an influence on SC2 graphics, but it doesn't bother me since I love that game franchise.

- Command and Conquer Red Alert: I simply did not like the graphics style of any of them. I wasn't all that excited about RA3 either when it came out so I never checked back into it. I much preferred C&C Tiberian Sun over RA.

- Total Annihilation: This ones style was too old for me. I also didn't like the game, so that adds to it.

- Civilization: Just ugh. I really didn't like the game play either on this one, but I thought the graphics were really lacking.

Of course, all this is highly subjective. A lot of how the game play was affects how you feel about the looks. I don't have any criteria on what makes some games look good and some games not; I know it when I see it. There's probably a lot more games, but that's what comes to mind right now.

Drew_Benton, I agree, and I've played a lot of those games.

Codeka, that does look pretty good. And maybe the 2D graphics aren't necessarily better, it's just that I was disappointed with the 3D units.

Isn't it just that that in 2D, every single frame is hand-drawn, every pixel hand-placed, to get great artistic results?