Here''s a topic for debate. With 3d gaming being so popular today, do you think it will last? 3d can only look more real, whereas 2d can become anything an artist wishes it to be. So, what is more creative? A 2d game or a 3d game? What do you all feel is the future of gaming? I, personally, hope for a recurrance of 2d. With the advances in technology and the high quality that 2d art can be today, I hope one day a new game will be made with breathtaking 2d artwork and will take 3d by storm. After all, we all grew up with top down isometric 8 - 32bit games. The formats changed, like bellbottoms, will they ever come back in style?

I would argue that they never went out of style but alas, I am in the minority. On the other side of that coin we are starting to see some very nice hybrid 2D/3D games poping up. But being a fan of Isometric gaming 3D for me is little more than a trinket to toy with. Just my .02


GRELLIN
Don''t sit and complain about a program, make a better one or shut up!

I agree that there should be more 2D games, but I''m not sure about 3D only getting more realistic. What about the cel-shading, and other cartoon rendering techniques that are coming in.

John B

Sorry for being so vague. I meant that trends with 3d were to becoming more and more lifelike. Whereas with 2d you have much more flexibility and 2d is rarely ever limited by technology.

I guess you are right. 2d can be very lifelike, and 3d can be creative. Which I guess could be another topic to discuss Creative 3d - using 3d as art rather than attempting to be lifelike.

A good example would be "Jimmy Neutron" - the characters obviously didn''t look "real" - they were cartoons. I actually really liked the look.

The complete opposite would be "Final Fantasy" the movie. I also really liked the look

But what is better for games? Lifelike or "artistic difference"? As an artist, which is a better form of expression?

And, if one day, computer technology grows enough to make almost perfect lifelike images, how will that change gaming?

I''m not a real expert on the subject, I''m just interested to see what others think about this area.

Actually, 3d if often less memory extensive. I really wanted to have 2d sprites in my iso game, but I did the math and each sprite would take up 6 megs or something like that Because it is an rts, there would be lots of different sprites in a short time. It would be really damn hard to manage 200 megs of sprite data. And that is just sprites. Oh well, looks like 3d now. Maybe the GeForce 4 will have caught on by the time the game is released and the models could look really nice.