@pikachudude860 said:
@trugs26: @Blueresident87: What do all of you guys mean by "immersion"? I've heard the term plenty of times, but I'm not sure what people mean by it exactly. Do you mean being absorbed into a game? being fully focused? If so, then what does realistic graphic have to do with it?
I could get "Immersed" in Tetris.
Probably something to do with the feeling of being inside and surrounded by the environment - a feeling of being in the world. I'm not an expert, so I'm not sure if you can feel surrounded by Tetris blocks.
But as I said in my original post, realistic graphics has nothing to do with immersion. But realistic graphics gives a framework for a certain kind of experience, so it gives way for what the surroundings look like when you're immersed. But the immersion itself is caused by consistency and believability (in my opinion). So for example, a lot of cartoons will have talking animals - which is obviously not possible, but we accept this when we're watching cartoons and even become immersed. When we watch the cartoon, we have a certain expectation of how things behave - this is defined by the artist and how they've introduced the world to you. If you then randomly insert an object into the scene which has a different art style, this will be inconsistent and thus break the immersion - you won't feel surrounded by the experience because you simply don't believe it anymore. This isn't strictly to do with rendering or aesthetics, it could be to do with how objects are animated, sound and other things of this nature. This is how other mediums such as books can be immersive.
This is a little off topic, but realistic graphics is difficult because since our reality is realistic, that means our expectations are really high. We know how things behave, unlike in the world of talking animals. So if you want to make something realistic, you need to be careful with your world building. Any slight mishaps, even technical such as the framerate being inconsistent with the real world, can break the immersion. Obviously realistic games can become unrealistic in other respects, but this is all apart of what we expect and accept from the universe, as defined by the artist/developer. Anything inconsistent with these unrealistic effects can also break the immersion.
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