Graphical improvements are not needed anymore. Our focus should be else where.

Games & gamers have become too focused on Polygon count. When this generation came it was all about the graphics. Next generation talk is all about graphics. How about advancing in other areas. Graphics are near photorealistic & as good as they need to be.

Just look at Crysis 2, Gears Of War 3, Uncharted 3, Killzone 3. How can you look at these games & not be satisified? Theres not much more room to improve visuals. How about focus on animation & other details. Visuals are fine where they are.

When next generation hit all games focused on graphics but yet very few games had made any real strides in animation. That to me is much more important. They bring out this more powerful hardware, make improvements to visuals but then ignore animation.

How is that i can play a FPS, the game will prompt me to press a button in the game, i'll press X, but then i wont even see my characters hand lean forward & press the button. A lot of FPS games get away with amatuer animation. The only FPS games with good animation are Farcry & Battlefield.

What about environments detail & realism. Uncharted 3 made great strides into realistic Sand. Very impressive stuff, where as other developers use sloppy sand textures & the sand itself feels & flows nothing like sand. Piss poor execution & no attention to detail.

Its too bad gamers only care about polygon count rather than animation, realistic physics, or realistic environment detail. What im trying to say is we need to focus attention else where instead of everybody being obssessed with Polygon Count ( Graphics )

I know what i want out of games right now, what i want out of next generation, & it has nothing to do with Polygon Count.

There have been strides in other areas also, for example the Eurphoria enging produced some amazing animation and very realistic and fluid movement. Games like Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire have dome amazing things with facial animation and games like Skyrim and Red Dead offered same amazingly large scale play grounds (Seriously have you tried to walk from Solitude to Riften in Skyrim?). It's a blanket statement to say that everyone is just simply focusing on polycount.

I would like to see the focus of game devs move towards 64-bit programming. More memory for better performance.

The amount of developers that have been shut down this gen is a sure sign that graphics are being to much of a focus, budgets are getting out of hand.

There have been strides in other areas also, for example the Eurphoria enging produced some amazing animation and very realistic and fluid movement. Games like Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire have dome amazing things with facial animation and games like Skyrim and Red Dead offered same amazingly large scale play grounds (Seriously have you tried to walk from Solitude to Riften in Skyrim?). It's a blanket statement to say that everyone is just simply focusing on polycount.

Yusuke420

I agree with the games you mentioned & thats exactly what im pushing for. LA Noire (a very good looking game btw ) did make strides & improvements with its technology & facial animation. These games are few & far between but they have the right idea.

Thats exactly what games should be doing. It just seems with this generation & with all the Next generation talk ( Also the Unreal 4 engine talk ) that gamers keep pushing for visuals instead of the finer details in games that matter.

Visuals looks great. Now lets start making improvements in the other areas that have been lacking. All i ever here & see is graphics ( from PC gamers especially ), new engine, new graphics, next generation = better graphcs blah, blah, blah.

People arent focusing on the other areas that have fallen behind & we're at a point where graphics dont need to be improved. Why do most games have no improvement in animation? Why all FPS games have near no animation ( besides BF & Farcry which have made many strides in this area )?

Why is that when i take cover in Uncharted i get a dozen different poses for each gun, each time i return to cover but yet other games only have one cover animation/pose? Max Payne 3 also looks to take some strides in character animation.

There is always room for improvement. I remember telling my father back in the N64 days that I couldn't imagine how games could possibly look better in the future. Go figure.

But I do agree that it isn't as necessary as it may have been once. I think future games should emphasise freedom even more, be it through open world/sandbox game design or through choices that actually make a difference. That's something I've really wanted from video games ever since 3D gaming kicked off (and perhaps even before that).

Graphics is just one part of giving people an enjoyable experience, and it happens to be a part that's really good at selling games and impressing casual observers. Unless people just stop caring about them they're going to continue to improve.

Physics/Animations/Lighting/Weather FX need work, but AI should be developers' focus. It'd also be nice if games were actually 60 FPS at 1080P as they were advertised this generation.

Wish devs would quit wasting time with motion controls and 3D and put their efforts into more important areas. They can be interesting, but if it ain't broke...

Physics/Animations/Lighting/Weather FX need work, but AI should be developers' focus. It'd also be nice if games were actually 60 FPS at 1080P as they were advertised this generation.

Wish devs would quit wasting time with motion controls and 3D and put their efforts into more important areas. They can be interesting, but if it ain't broke...

Jackboot343

Exactly

I don't remember what the word for the effect is but graphics are no where near as good as they can be. You're thinking they are because they've hit a plateau due to console hardware limitations limiting development and progress on both consoles and PC. Because you haven't seen large or semi-large improvements to graphics for a while, you think that they've hit their peak or are good enough but this is far from the truth.

Graphics are near photorealistic & as good as they need to be.

brucecambell

Not even close

Go upgrade your display because if you feel this way it's obvious you're not seeing things correctly

No, there is plenty of room for improvement. And games are far from photo-realistic unless your blind. You can have both amazing graphics and great gameplay. Where the problem lays is in terribly outdated consoles and halting progress because the poor cannot afford to keep pace with the technology. True progress will come when they are left behind.Vangaurdius

Also you sound kind of pompous when you talk about how poor people should be left behind.

No, because the poor cannot afford to keep pace with the technology. True progress will come when they are left behind.Vangaurdius

...because the poor cannot afford to keep pace with the technology.Vangaurdius

.

There's plenty of room for improvements in flight sims. The physics is great. But, eye candy needs some work like in FSX (already modded with REX 2.0) for instance:

[QUOTE="Vangaurdius"]No, there is plenty of room for improvement. And games are far from photo-realistic unless your blind. You can have both amazing graphics and great gameplay. Where the problem lays is in terribly outdated consoles and halting progress because the poor cannot afford to keep pace with the technology. True progress will come when they are left behind.shadowchronicle

Also you sound kind of pompous when you talk about how poor people should be left behind.

Higher Polygon counts but there is a limit to how much we need given current engine tech. What I really want is better graphics engine capable of better lightning,shaders,shadows,textures,physhics,etc essentially everything else that goes to making a game look good. I can't say that I care as much about better animations I play on pc and running games at 60fps helps in smoothing up the animations and unless a game has particular bad animation I won't notice it. One non graphics area I would like see improved though is ai in games.

No, there is plenty of room for improvement. And games are far from photo-realistic unless your blind. You can have both amazing graphics and great gameplay. Where the problem lays is in terribly outdated consoles and halting progress because the poor cannot afford to keep pace with the technology. True progress will come when they are left behind.Vangaurdius

Firstly, even the most advanced console is outdated the moment it hits the retail shelf. That is simply the reality of technology and reflects the fact that consoles are static devices not generally designed to be upgraded. Considering the age of both the XB360 and PS3, these systems are doing an admirable job of offering visually spectacular games despite relatively old hardware.

As to these "poor" you mention, it's a bit of a stretch to blame a perceived stagnation of technology on citizens who occupy a lower socio-economic strata. The reality is people from all social classes and income levels play games and even those enthusiasts who make good yearly wages are not always necessarily predisposed to spend copious amounts of money on this hobby.

By contrast, many of the people you would probably advocate "leaving behind" are, in actuality, one of the chief reasons we haven an industry to begin with. Even poorer citizens tend to splurge on entertainment and those dollars propel this industry forward as much as our own.

It would also be wise to edify yourself on these "poor" you so callously dismiss, as their plights are something that should concern all of us, especially those who are fortunate enough to spend large sums of money on luxuries even while some of these people have a difficult time making rent or feeding their children.

I sort of agree. I am really happy with this gen still at the moment and games are still blowing me away in both visuals art and gameplay. I would rather wait until the technology can launch at a good price than trying to be on cutting edge.

[QUOTE="shadowchronicle"]

[QUOTE="Vangaurdius"]No, there is plenty of room for improvement. And games are far from photo-realistic unless your blind. You can have both amazing graphics and great gameplay. Where the problem lays is in terribly outdated consoles and halting progress because the poor cannot afford to keep pace with the technology. True progress will come when they are left behind.Vangaurdius

Also you sound kind of pompous when you talk about how poor people should be left behind.

I really don't know how much more advanced graphics can get unless TV resolutions go beyond 1080p at some point.

I really don't know how much more advanced graphics can get unless TV resolutions go beyond 1080p at some point.

MathMattS

consoles are [for]people who can't afford a good computer (although really, it's more a case of being too lazy to put a good computer together...)Vangaurdius

[QUOTE="Vangaurdius"]consoles are [for]people who can't afford a good computer (although really, it's more a case of being too lazy to put a good computer together...)El_Zo1212o

Believe or not, there are people who don't know **** about PC hardware. That means we either buy a prebuilt setup(several times more expensive than building your own) or we pay someone to build us a machine(just as expensive as buying a prebuilt machine). And also, some of us prefer the convenience of playing on consoles to the potential hassle of having to troubleshoot a new PC title.El_Zo1212o

I would agree with this.

The reason people play on the consoles has nothing to do with being poor. I for one have no knowledge of how to operate, upgrade & maintain a PC. Its not as simple as putting in a disc & it works. Why should i have to be knowledgable in computers in order to play a game?

This is why i play on the console, because i can get all the same games ( for the most part the same graphics too ), i put in the disc & it works. I didnt go to school & major in computers. I use them one for very, very basic needs & i still run into lots of trouble with these things.

When it comes to watching movies i would just buy a DVD player. Why the in hell does someone have to build their own DVD player & have the knowledge of how to use, how to run, upgrade, & maintain these very intricate machines ( PCs ).

Just as there is a machine made purely made for watching movies ( DVD player ), there should be a machine that as made purely for gaming ( Game console ). I shouldnt have to have any knowlegde of how to use & maintain computers to play games.

PC users expect everybody to be able to build their vehicles rather than buy one already made ( Console ), they also want you to be your own vehicle mechanic. Thats nonsense.

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception from developer Naughty Dog showed me that other developers are just lazy. Looking at the way the sand reacts to the player and moves is amazing, where even the next developer like EPIC games would just have what looks like a sticker of a footprint appear over the sand lol. The way the water in the pool of the cruise ship on Uncharted 3 moves and reacts to the sway of the ship is a great touch, the way the character tries to keep balanced while on the cruise ship is a great touch.

How Drake rolls through the sand only to be covered in it, the character gets sand in his hair, the way Drake's hair gets wet, how the characters react to the geometry of the environment. The animation work is incredible. The character placing his hands on walls when walking by, the multiple ways the character model takes cover just for holding a pistol is amazing. Whereas the next game would have one animation for going into cover with a one handed weapon and another animation for a two handed weapon.

The way they do their best to actually model things off in the distance instead of just creating a picture and wrapping it around the environment to make it look like their is something off in the distance. The attention to detail in Uncharted 2 and 3 is incredible. They truly take advantage of things the next developer would skip over. Funny to see EPIC games do so little with Gears 3 and then turn to see what Naughty Dog was able to achieve with Uncharted 3 is just crazy. Developers need to start looking at Naughty Dog and try to emulate the stuff they do.

Naughty Dog does some amazing work and stuff that most gamers don't even seem to notice or appreciate. Which is kind of upsetting. To see a developer pour so much effort into these details like how the light shines through the cargo plane and the player doesn't even seem to notice or care. We also need to see games stop relying on cutscenes to show off an action piece. Where in the next game I would press the prompted button and watch a cutscene, Naughty Dog tries to blend the two and actually let you play through and get some form of control during the scene and not just quick time events.

But it's not just Naughty Dog that deserves all this credit, but very few developers would even bother to put this sort of work into their game. Bethesda did some amazing work with Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. Ubisoft Montreal seems to be trying some amazing things with AC3. But these sort of games are so few and far between. When 98% of developers know this hardware front to back and yet still don't bother with all of the great details in lighting, shadows, weather effects, environmental effects, physics, animation, and countless other things... then they clearly aren't ready for next gen hardware.

If the next developer won't bother to put those details in a current gen game that Naughty Dog will... then you won't be seeing those things next gen either. Developers need to focus on these things now, games look absolutely incredible these days, and games like Uncharted 3 really show it off better than others. Developement costs are going up, publishers are scraping for money, multiple developers have been shut down this gen and it will only get worse as costs raise, and publishers will be even less likely to take risks.

Many games this gen cost more to make than most movies. Things aren't going to get better. Games will also take longer to create. I firmly believe that gaming needs to hault these leaps soon otherwise we will lose many devs, creativity will cease to exist, publishers won't take any chances, and so on. Games look amazing as it is... time to focus on the smaller details much like Naughty Dog has done with Uncharted. Those same details ND will pour so much time into, the next great developer would half *** or not even bother to do.

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception from developer Naughty Dog showed me that other developers are just lazy. Looking at the way the sand reacts to the player and moves is amazing, where even the next developer like EPIC games would just have what looks like a sticker of a footprint appear over the sand lol. The way the water in the pool of the cruise ship on Uncharted 3 moves and reacts to the sway of the ship is a great touch, the way the character tries to keep balanced while on the cruise ship is a great touch.

How Drake rolls through the sand only to be covered in it, the character gets sand in his hair, the way Drake's hair gets wet, how the characters react to the geometry of the environment. The animation work is incredible. The character placing his hands on walls when walking by, the multiple ways the character model takes cover just for holding a pistol is amazing. Whereas the next game would have one animation for going into cover with a one handed weapon and another animation for a two handed weapon.

The way they do their best to actually model things off in the distance instead of just creating a picture and wrapping it around the environment to make it look like their is something off in the distance. The attention to detail in Uncharted 2 and 3 is incredible. They truly take advantage of things the next developer would skip over. Funny to see EPIC games do so little with Gears 3 and then turn to see what Naughty Dog was able to achieve with Uncharted 3 is just crazy. Developers need to start looking at Naughty Dog and try to emulate the stuff they do.

Naughty Dog does some amazing work and stuff that most gamers don't even seem to notice or appreciate. Which is kind of upsetting. To see a developer pour so much effort into these details like how the light shines through the cargo plane and the player doesn't even seem to notice or care. We also need to see games stop relying on cutscenes to show off an action piece. Where in the next game I would press the prompted button and watch a cutscene, Naughty Dog tries to blend the two and actually let you play through and get some form of control during the scene and not just quick time events.

But it's not just Naughty Dog that deserves all this credit, but very few developers would even bother to put this sort of work into their game. Bethesda did some amazing work with Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. Ubisoft Montreal seems to be trying some amazing things with AC3. But these sort of games are so few and far between. When 98% of developers know this hardware front to back and yet still don't bother with all of the great details in lighting, shadows, weather effects, environmental effects, physics, animation, and countless other things... then they clearly aren't ready for next gen hardware.

If the next developer won't bother to put those details in a current gen game that Naughty Dog will... then you won't be seeing those things next gen either. Developers need to focus on these things now, games look absolutely incredible these days, and games like Uncharted 3 really show it off better than others. Developement costs are going up, publishers are scraping for money, multiple developers have been shut down this gen and it will only get worse as costs raise, and publishers will be even less likely to take risks.

Many games this gen cost more to make than most movies. Things aren't going to get better. Games will also take longer to create. I firmly believe that gaming needs to hault these leaps soon otherwise we will lose many devs, creativity will cease to exist, publishers won't take any chances, and so on. Games look amazing as it is... time to focus on the smaller details much like Naughty Dog has done with Uncharted. Those same details ND will pour so much time into, the next great developer would half *** or not even bother to do.

contracts420

[QUOTE="contracts420"]

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception from developer Naughty Dog showed me that other developers are just lazy. Looking at the way the sand reacts to the player and moves is amazing, where even the next developer like EPIC games would just have what looks like a sticker of a footprint appear over the sand lol. The way the water in the pool of the cruise ship on Uncharted 3 moves and reacts to the sway of the ship is a great touch, the way the character tries to keep balanced while on the cruise ship is a great touch.

How Drake rolls through the sand only to be covered in it, the character gets sand in his hair, the way Drake's hair gets wet, how the characters react to the geometry of the environment. The animation work is incredible. The character placing his hands on walls when walking by, the multiple ways the character model takes cover just for holding a pistol is amazing. Whereas the next game would have one animation for going into cover with a one handed weapon and another animation for a two handed weapon.

The way they do their best to actually model things off in the distance instead of just creating a picture and wrapping it around the environment to make it look like their is something off in the distance. The attention to detail in Uncharted 2 and 3 is incredible. They truly take advantage of things the next developer would skip over. Funny to see EPIC games do so little with Gears 3 and then turn to see what Naughty Dog was able to achieve with Uncharted 3 is just crazy. Developers need to start looking at Naughty Dog and try to emulate the stuff they do.

Naughty Dog does some amazing work and stuff that most gamers don't even seem to notice or appreciate. Which is kind of upsetting. To see a developer pour so much effort into these details like how the light shines through the cargo plane and the player doesn't even seem to notice or care. We also need to see games stop relying on cutscenes to show off an action piece. Where in the next game I would press the prompted button and watch a cutscene, Naughty Dog tries to blend the two and actually let you play through and get some form of control during the scene and not just quick time events.

But it's not just Naughty Dog that deserves all this credit, but very few developers would even bother to put this sort of work into their game. Bethesda did some amazing work with Elder Scrolls V Skyrim. Ubisoft Montreal seems to be trying some amazing things with AC3. But these sort of games are so few and far between. When 98% of developers know this hardware front to back and yet still don't bother with all of the great details in lighting, shadows, weather effects, environmental effects, physics, animation, and countless other things... then they clearly aren't ready for next gen hardware.

If the next developer won't bother to put those details in a current gen game that Naughty Dog will... then you won't be seeing those things next gen either. Developers need to focus on these things now, games look absolutely incredible these days, and games like Uncharted 3 really show it off better than others. Developement costs are going up, publishers are scraping for money, multiple developers have been shut down this gen and it will only get worse as costs raise, and publishers will be even less likely to take risks.

Many games this gen cost more to make than most movies. Things aren't going to get better. Games will also take longer to create. I firmly believe that gaming needs to hault these leaps soon otherwise we will lose many devs, creativity will cease to exist, publishers won't take any chances, and so on. Games look amazing as it is... time to focus on the smaller details much like Naughty Dog has done with Uncharted. Those same details ND will pour so much time into, the next great developer would half *** or not even bother to do.

chaplainDMK

Considering the size of the game, everything was modeled by hand. They completetly reworked the systems built into the game. They have amazing radiant A.I which also made appearances in previous games. Everything has physics attached to it. And so on. The game is by no means helping the situation but it does some neat things proving that there is still room to grow even with this current console generation.

To just delve into a new console gen where it will cost more money, take more time, more employee's and so on when developers are still hardly bothering to utilize the current gen and what they could do with it... just makes little sense.

[QUOTE="MathMattS"]

I really don't know how much more advanced graphics can get unless TV resolutions go beyond 1080p at some point.

Teufelhuhn

The problem is even the best hardware you can buy won't produce CGI-level graphics. They are simply too heavy for today's tech. Even Toy Story isn't yet matched and it will still take many years before they manage to match it.

[QUOTE="Teufelhuhn"]

[QUOTE="MathMattS"]

I really don't know how much more advanced graphics can get unless TV resolutions go beyond 1080p at some point.

nameless12345

The problem is even the best hardware you can buy won't produce CGI-level graphics. They are simply too heavy for today's tech. Even Toy Story isn't yet matched and it will still take many years before they manage to match it.

I agree, graphics are good enough for now, until we can have photorealistic looking games they need to stop focusing on graphics and mainly work on improving AI, and maybe improve the amount of things on screen at one time without the game slowing to crawl because I'd still like to see an open world semi-realistic zombie game set in a city where the goal is to just survival and at any givin time you could run into a mob of 200+ zombies.

Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception from developer Naughty Dog showed me that other developers are just lazy. Looking at the way the sand reacts to the player and moves is amazing, where even the next developer like EPIC games would just have what looks like a sticker of a footprint appear over the sand lol. The way the water in the pool of the cruise ship on Uncharted 3 moves and reacts to the sway of the ship is a great touch, the way the character tries to keep balanced while on the cruise ship is a great touch.

How Drake rolls through the sand only to be covered in it, the character gets sand in his hair, the way Drake's hair gets wet, how the characters react to the geometry of the environment. The animation work is incredible. The character placing his hands on walls when walking by, the multiple ways the character model takes cover just for holding a pistol is amazing. Whereas the next game would have one animation for going into cover with a one handed weapon and another animation for a two handed weapon.

The way they do their best to actually model things off in the distance instead of just creating a picture and wrapping it around the environment to make it look like their is something off in the distance. The attention to detail in Uncharted 2 and 3 is incredible. They truly take advantage of things the next developer would skip over. Funny to see EPIC games do so little with Gears 3 and then turn to see what Naughty Dog was able to achieve with Uncharted 3 is just crazy. Developers need to start looking at Naughty Dog and try to emulate the stuff they do.

Naughty Dog does some amazing work and stuff that most gamers don't even seem to notice or appreciate. Which is kind of upsetting. To see a developer pour so much effort into these details like how the light shines through the cargo plane and the player doesn't even seem to notice or care. We also need to see games stop relying on cutscenes to show off an action piece. Where in the next game I would press the prompted button and watch a cutscene, Naughty Dog tries to blend the two and actually let you play through and get some form of control during the scene and not just quick time events.

If the next developer won't bother to put those details in a current gen game that Naughty Dog will... then you won't be seeing those things next gen either. Developers need to focus on these things now, games look absolutely incredible these days, and games like Uncharted 3 really show it off better than others. Developement costs are going up, publishers are scraping for money, multiple developers have been shut down this gen and it will only get worse as costs raise, and publishers will be even less likely to take risks.

contracts420

Exactly what i was saying. Its all about Polygon count. The developers, the gamers, the unreal 4 engine, the next gen talk, all of it has to do with graphics. None of it has to do with realistic detail, physics, weather effects, animation, & such.

Why is it the Uncharted 3 has put so much work into its sand, making the most realisitic flowing, & moving sand ever created. The way you leave footprints, all the attention to detail is there. Where as with any other game you have piss poor imitation of sand & footprints you leave look like nothing more than a footprint sticker on a rock.

Games look fine, now lets switch our focus to the other things that really matter in terms of believeability & immersion. All this focus on Poylgons will not make anything feel any better if you have piss poor exectution of something as simple as Sand & the footprints you leave.

Sand textures can have a million polygons if they'd like but at the end of the day.... its still just a rocky texture & not actual Sand. I love these details, the details that nobody pays attention to & if nobody is paying attention to them now, nobody is putting effort into them, then the future will be no better

I totally agree. I'm pretty satisfied with the graphics that PS3 and 360 offers. Next generation should be about physics, realism, and make more objects in the screen possible, animations. Of course, next generation should improve graphics a little bit but not a lot.

Graphics and engines are very important for the gaming industry.

inb4 "i pley gameS n0t gr4phix!"

.....that's actually rather short-sighted.

Graphics can always evolve,along with gameplay & STORY.

Allow me to disagree almost 100%.

The biggest problem with the graphics is the framerate. I am very sensitive to framerate, and most games with excellent graphics play at really poor framerates on the Xbox 360 or PS3. Take Dark Souls, which has really cool, gritty graphics. All throughout the game are sections where the FPS drops significantly. Just take a visit to Blight Town, where the torches and wooden platforms above the lower level bring the FPS to single-digits.

We need to see games playing with these great graphics at a consistent 60FPS. Anything less is sub-par in my opinion. Heck, I'd be happy even if it were a constant, undroppable 30FPS.