ya Im going to do some more work on the center mesa, prolly make its own texture that has some vertical lining too it. Grantrithor...that skybox is simply the default skybox and has nothing to do with my screenshots, the shots were simply for seeing the textures in a shadowed environment and with the 'detail clouds' to prevent obvious tiling. EDIT: Mars http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0401/mars_spiritcolor_PIA05015_c1.jpg
I'm pointing out that fantasy has to be more realistic than reality because it is not subject to the normal glossing over which we apply to reality to explain things that don't immediately make sense. If you go to the place in real life that looks like mars (like the photograph), you will assume it's earth because you obviously can't be on mars (even if there is evidence to the contrary), if you go there in a game, why can't you be on mars? Obviously it's the game designer being an idiot, this game sucks. If something looks unfamiliar in real life then you will think 'that looks silly but it's there and this is reality so I can't say it's unrealistic' but if it looks unfamiliar in a game then you're going to assume it's unrealistic. The exception is if it's fantastic enough to be acceptable, for example if you're told the game actually does take place on mars. Whether or not something is realistic doesn't matter, what matters is whether people think it's realistic, most people probably don't know that there are places on earth the same colour as mars.
Disagreed. Fantasy needs to be more stylized than reality because it does not present the same immersion to which we apply to reality, and likewise because reality is not flexible enough to present the same exotic appeal to which fantasy can excel. It's the same reason for why all explosions in movies are massive fireballs of burning gasoline, all gunshots in movies sound like someone dropped flat a large piece of wood, and all women in movies have robust breasts with accentuated cleavage. Once you've been trained by these perceptions of fantasy, you start to assume that's how they must always be in fantasy. Woman? Boobs must jiggle! Gunshot? Must sound like a hardware store! Explosions? There must be a huge glowing mushroom cloud! Eventually, red/orange-saturated terrain must equal mars, and mars must equal red/orange-saturated terrain. Also, sexy humanoid aliens must have blue skin (Ed. Note: Why the FU–).
Also, see Uncanny Valley: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UncannyValley However, that isn't to say we shouldn't strive for realism. For example, modern rendering software really starts to push the limits of our games towards as realistic as we can get. HL2 was a huge step forward in realistic lighting (too bad their human models are kinda gimp). More modern games are trying to push the immersion even further. Granted, the rain of CoD4 looks like you're in a movie and not real rain, but they aren't forcibly going overboard to make it not realistic. Just with minor, subtle stylizations, such as people dying the instant you shoot them enough.
If you'd read the whole thing and not just the first line you'd have realised that I explained how 'realistic' does not correlate with reality, 'realistic' is how people percieve reality, and people think that all explosions are giant and firey, and also that earth doesn't look like frigging mars.
I made a subtly different point from the one you made, in that they don't actually think it's realistic looking, they just don't find realism as satisfying. ('Tis a subjective thing anyway.)
And even worst is the people who brag about all the new polished games they have. It's all eye-candy to distract from the crappy plot and control scheme. That is why I brag about owning awesome classics like starcraft and tribes 2, because it was all about the amazing gameplay, the graphics were there JUST to show us what we were supposed to see, the rest was about skill, fun, and the spinfusor.
Actually many deserts have often lots of dense clouds above them, and fog for the first 4-5 hours of the day. The difference in deserts around the world is huge, don't think they're all like the Sahara. And even the Sahara is surrounded by deserts that look entirely different. I agree with this. Games depending on graphics age terribly, cause no matter how good they look, a few years later it's old and it will have losts most of what made the game sell at release. I never replayed games because of the graphics. I still prefer Rome total war over the 2 sequals, warzone2100 over modern rts games, doom1 over doom3 etc. OT: imo it doesn't matter what setting you use when it comes to realism. The ones that do care about realism can't complain either because on earth alone we have white, yellow, red, green and brown deserts, and hundreds of shapes (yes there are hundreds of deserts). So most of the color/shape combinations you come up with will exist on this planet, and practically all would at least be possible and therefor realistic. Instead you should focus on people's interest. If the colors are boring people won't like the map, unless you use other stuff to make it interesting (certain details in the textures perhaps). That orange map from Mayama looks a lot like some rock formations i've seen in Egypt at dawn, but it's just too orange for my taste. At least in Egypt they would only look that orange for 15 minutes as the sun came up and turn to yellow-orangish after that. If colors are too dark it gets annoying when you have problems seeing objects like turrets and players. Things like this are all you should really care about imo. The map should look good as a whole without graphics somehow making it less fun to play.
And Barbie fantasy world. Shandy, you're an awesome mapper, but i'll never understand why you made rainbowroad But let's stay ontopic
I think you're obliquely saying that shiny graphics shouldn't matter, especially at the cost of gameplay. I completely agree. Gameplay takes precedence. That being said, better realism (even if it's slightly stylized) tends to help your game perform better in the eyes of the public. Thus, unless you're intentionally avoiding realism (see Warsow's visual style) there's no reason to not strive for realism. You never want to lose sight of good gameplay, but if you can get both, why not?
Correct. After all, TOO much realism dumps you nicely into Uncanny Valley, thus ruining gameplay by the OMG IT BURNS.
too few realism, and players will feel alienated and it will take aaaaaaages for them to get into the game (mostly longer then they will stick around to try it)
