Perceptions on graphics and animation

[general_anders]

I have been wondering a lot lately about people's perception on quality of graphical experience in different games. Specifically I have been thinking on the graphics of wow and EQ2.

(If there is much discussion on this topic that I'm just not finding yet, please direct me to it and remove this post if it's not pertinent)

EQ2 fans seem to rave about the graphics/animation quality of EQ2, and that wow plain sucks. Wow fans seem to think just the opposite. Personally, my immediate reaction with EQ2 models is that most are plain ugly, some tolerable. However, after playing the game for a while I get used to the graphics a bit, but I still don't see how they are good enough to rave about. Many animations, such as walking, are really poor, and almost all animations are jerky. Is a Core2duo E8400 + Nvidia 9600 not enough to get EQ2 to be smooth, or is the engine inherently just jerky?

Does anyone have thoughts on how opinions can be so radically varied? I tend to think a lot of EQ2 diehards are simply diehards unwilling to make any concessions, but could there be other things driving these opinions? It seems EQ2 has higher polygon counts, but I think there are also other considerations to be made. Vanguard seems to have a similar style to EQ2. I find a lot of the Korean games very nice visually (animations and models/colors), but the game play is so weak/repetitive that I haven't gone back to one since playing Lineage2 a while back and a bit of guildwars.

[mylek]

I prefer the realistic style of art in eq2 over the style of art in wow. However, I feel that the quality of art in wow is much better than the quality of art in eq2. I've never played eq2 so I can't comment on the animations.

To say which one is better than the other overall for me would then depend on how much style affects my appreciation of the art.

[Yago]

My thought on this is what works within the setting, the developer's budget, and what fits the "theme" is what tends to do the best. Asian developers tend to get that formula just right.

One of the problems I have with EQ2 is that there is no coherent theme. Although I prefer the realistic style of EQ2 over WoW, I still want to see some sort of theme or artistic style. I have the feeling that a lot of EQ2's graphic are procedural textures and very little time was spent to manually "draw" the world.

Asian games tend to be heavily stylized through the eyes of the artist. It's almost as if they are given a canvas on which to draw on. I rarely see procedural texturing except perhaps on terrain. Almost all armors and weapons are hand drawn. Unpacking some of the textures reveals that someone actually took their time getting everything just right.

The problem with that sort of thing is cost. US titles like Everquest have significantly more resources than a game like Lineage 2. You can count the armors Lineage 2 has available to players, yet you need a database to even begin to imagine how many combinations of armors their are for EQ2. Given a lot of the armors are very similar in EQ, there are significantly more art resources there than in most Asian titles.

I see it as a tradeoff. Artistic beauty comes at a price. Do you want 100 armors available to the players at lower graphical fidelity? Do you want 10 armors available to the players at significantly higher graphical fidelity? It all falls on how you spend your budget.

The other thing I see missing in a lot of US and western titles is coherency. EQ2 is a good example of this. On the one hand you have some very beautifully done character models, but right next to it you have an aweful all white textured "spirit" model. There comes a time when the art director or assets manager needs to downright tell the artist that it looks wrong and needs to be redone, and I feel EQ2's art manager never really tightened the belt around the art team. In Asian games everything seems to fit the world; characters meld right into the background as opposed to sticking out like a sore thumb.

Now about animation, I'm sort of split on this. I've seen asian games with really nice graphics but aweful animations. Regarding western games? EQ2's animations are terrible, Age of Conan character's feet aren't anchored, Warhammer Online characters are choppy. All of that I feel is laziness, or the lack of cracking the whip by the art manager. WoW animations are fluid, just comparing the WoW griffon to the Everquest 2 one should tell you someone spent some time getting that bird just right.

Money doesn't buy that. Before someone says "well you need 100million or more to get things all nice", I've seen indy teams do solid graphics and animation at a fraction of the cost. I feel that in the west there's this belief that because it's an MMO you can get away with generic graphics and generic animations. Good graphics and animations seem to be relegated to single player games and consoles.

[XadionDarkborn]

I seem to think just the opposite with WoW that it does not really stick to one idea of visuals...but maybe I am overgeneralizing- WoW can go from LULZ Cartoons where you cant tell a screen shot (sans UI) of freerealms from WoW to hardcore dark real gritty... EQ2 its all in the general feel of "realistic fantasy" its a odd concept for some people I know- but I think its fairly understood.

EQ2 before the battle overhaul in beta etc the animations where IMO great- you could do a battle chain or heroic event whatever its called and the animations where not "generic" but had an actual combo to them- like a real attack getting executed- they also had some great dodge,block and parry animations that would vary depending on what you where doing- type of attack - etc. However with the change in combat makeing it faster spamming whatever- the animations like wow's are a flush and mix of whateverthefuckisgoingon.

both EQ and WOW do this complaint- but something I liked in EQ...perhaps it was an accedent of crappy animation or whatever- but when fighitng the AoW or some kick ass Dragon they animated all their attacks and movements and only every now and then when presuably something big hit them- did they have a "reaction" animation- to me this was great, they where like WTF ants are tickeling me, oh well...then ARGH! that bug bite hurt! that seemed to be a little better to me than watching a giantass dragon convulsing with "hit" animations as rogs hit it 500 time a secont.

[Jenison]

If there is one graphic element that makes me roll my eyes, its plastic shiny everything. The ground to does not shine, nor does someones butt cheeks, unless they have something on them.

Most things are flat colored objects. I also believe that lighting is more important than just about anything. Granted to you need some detail in your models to help the lighting, but I think thats just an extension of good lighting.

Take a look at little big planet and mgs4 (first level). I feel the lighting in those games are very very good. They give the objects a sense of realism, and looking down an ally in mgs4 is probably how you would it expect it to be lit.

I've never seen eq2 in action, only stills. WoW I play a lot and I always have specular highlights turned off. I think its wayyyy out there. On snow it looks great. On dirt...not so much.

[general_anders]

Originally Posted by Yago

The problem with that sort of thing is cost. US titles like Everquest have significantly more resources than a game like Lineage 2. You can count the armors Lineage 2 has available to players, yet you need a database to even begin to imagine how many combinations of armors their are for EQ2. Given a lot of the armors are very similar in EQ, there are significantly more art resources there than in most Asian titles.

That's a very good point. It takes a lot of time to model the different armor pieces.

Originally Posted by XadionDarkborn

I seem to think just the opposite with WoW that it does not really stick to one idea of visuals...but maybe I am overgeneralizing- WoW can go from LULZ Cartoons where you cant tell a screen shot (sans UI) of freerealms from WoW to hardcore dark real gritty... EQ2 its all in the general feel of "realistic fantasy" its a odd concept for some people I know- but I think its fairly understood.

Wow does have a lot of downright terrible armor models, and some really great ones.

What I'm finding very interesting is that after playing wow for a long time, my quick reaction was that EQ2 models just look very unnatural. Like they tried to make it realistic, but didn't quite get there to the point that things just look very creepy. However, after playing for a while I'm finding that I get used to the art style, and while some of the armor models seems really bad (but what game doesn't have some terrible armor models for the mid-levels) the try-to-look-realistic style isn't really noticeable.

I will be really interested to find out if the reverse is true, after playing EQ2 for some time if I immediately find myself turned off from the wow graphical style.

[Lenas]

My biggest complaint with EQ2 was that it either looked too sharp, and ugly (no AA) or too blurry on all of the wrong things. I like that the game supports AA, but it doesn't need to be applied to everything. Character/weapon edges yes. Rings on my chainmail, no. Makes the armor look like shit and I hated my character because of it. Even on ultra quality the characters don't look good to me, and I find that is my biggest turn-off.

WoW draws me in because they try to make everything visually interesting. Characters look awesome with over-the-top armor and weapons (something I thought EQ2 was very boring with). I played EQ2 for about three months and I saw, maybe, 3 characters where I said "wow, that's cool." I think the best thing EQ2 had going for it, graphics-wise, was some of the mounts. Riding a lava-rhino or wtfever was sweet.

[Camerous]

Here are my thoughts...

the game that got it all right was SW:Gs the original release. It wasn't super ultra EQ2 realistic but it wasn't WoW cartoony either. It was the perfect blend. Also the game was perfect except for 1 little thing.. the time period it was set in. If they had put it in another period like KotoR is doing I think it would have been the greatest game ever released.

I hate WoW's graphics 99% of the time. They just annoy the complete hell out of me. It's like they got a 5 year old to design most of their armor skins and dungeons.

On the other hand EQ2's and VG's graphics annoy me to no end. And the damn graphic lag in EQ2 and VG.. dear GOD shoot me in the fucking head already. Graphics should NEVER come before playability. NEVER FUCKING EVER! *shakes head*

[XadionDarkborn]

Here is another thing I have noticed...from playing EQ, WOW, EQ2 GW and many others but those four I played more than just beta or a few weeks of piddleing around.

WoW has an odd mix of distance...the game is obviously made to be seen from 3rd person and zoomed out- hence the overexaggerated armor and weapons- unlike EQ that was first made to be first person, much like RPG's of old- like Bards Tale etc...if you look at the classic interface you will know this is true.

Somethings in WoW just look like a form, I can tell its a human with a staff...but if you zoom in and look at it in 1st person OMG WOW what detail what great art! but its all lost as no one ever looks at this...then you have the total other end of the spectrum that if you are zoomed in it just looks like cheep shitty textures. EQ1 did this right the texture quality that was done to make up for the lack of polly numbers was outstanding...this started going the shitter starting in SoL's rehaul...but it remained decent into OOW GoD blech!

EQ2, WoW and GW I must concur with (settings up!) EVERYTHING FUCKING SHINES- like Halo on the Xbox i was like why the hell is the grass shiny, did it just rain some oil and wax over every square inch of this...CAVE?!

One thing that struck me in EQ2 but never did in WoW - was the distance - in EQ2 in the commonlands you can see the mountians and or city surrounding you in the far far background...it was great- loved it, steamfont did it well also... I belive they kind of-faked out the clipping distance and had certian things like ranges of mountians etc be visable regardless of clipping setting or something, unlike WoW/EQ1 where mountians just start clipping in and out.

Other things...this may be 'design' or graphix but...dont use cookie cutter caves...in EQ each nook and cranny was hand made..WoW its a stampted together formula oh its cave b, or a or c...thats all...same with armor its stupid that armor in WoW is a batch of points...least in EQ the items had soul and a toutch of love (or hate) even if you see class bias some (darkreaver vs ghoulbane...etc devs in EQ hated SK's)

[Kiksar]

Specularity is a big issue. The problem stems from a few things, but part of it is the "oooooh shiny!" reaction from both players and artists. Some people love it, and some artists just can't control themselves (I use the term "artist" loosely, not to be mean but a large portion of the people working in game art departments would be hard to classify as artists. I wouldn't classify myself as one, so I'm not just being mean!). Whether a particular object looks more real with tons of specular or not, it accentuates normal map detail pretty heavily which generally makes the object appear more complex and, through some eyes, better.

Pretty much all newer games operate with the same basic material set up. Most objects have:
- a color map (main color information, like a picture or a painting on the surface of the model)
- normal map (tells the light which direction the surface of the model is pointing on a per-pixel basis, creates the illusion that the model contains more detail than it does on a polygonal level)
- specular map (usually black-and-white but sometimes color, black means the surface of the model in that area isn't shiny, white means full shiny/reflective)
- alpha map (if necessary, allows for transparency)
- and sometimes an emissive map of some sort (defines what areas of the model will glow, shoot out particles, or do whatever else is defined by the artist).

For the sake of simplicity, we'll say that most normal maps are created from a high-resolution model. Generally more time is spent on the high-res than is on the low-res model (which is what is seen in-game), so artists/art directors want to show off all the detail they've spent the majority of their time on. Thus, over-done specular maps. Color maps tend to wash out a fair amount of normal map detail unless they're accentuated with plenty of specular highlights. Unfortunately, this means that artists tend to opt for what looks "cool" and shows off the normal map more than what looks right or real, so they make the specular map more intense than it should be.

A great example is comparing a game like Half-life 2 with something like Doom 3. Most modern games, especially on consoles tend to go the overly-specular Doom 3 route, whereas the softer, subtler specular maps in Half-Life 2 (for the most part) produce far more realistic results.

The quality of the art has a lot to do with it too, and artists often hide incompetence behind technology. Since things inherently look more complex with normal maps and a lot of specular, some developers seem to hope that'll make people have the "oooooh, shiny!" reaction no matter the quality of the art.

As someone else mentioned, lighting is a huge portion of getting the look of a game right, and technically it's one of the things that has the most room for growth. Who knows when it'll be, but when hardware and game engines start being able to do real time ray tracing (in a practical scenario) it'll be a big step forward (but as is with everything else, it'll always be limited by quality of art). Bounce light, real soft shadows, and global illumination can't be too far off considering how quickly technology evolves, so I'm looking forward to it.

A subset of lighting is translucency and sub-surface scattering (which have started to show up in newer engines, but are still primitive). It's getting to the point where hard and opaque surfaces can look amazing in games, but skin and other soft, semi-translucent surfaces are lacking (artists try to use specular to cover this up too... it doesn't work). This is another issue of technology that I expect to start resolving itself in the next couple years.

As for the original question of what makes people strongly prefer WoW or EQ2 but usually not both, I think it has a lot to do with a combination of different appreciation for each style and the "ooooooh, shiny!" effect. WoW relies almost entirely on style. It is very no-frills technology-wise. They use mostly color and specular maps, generally lower-resolution models, and everything is painterly in Blizzard's style. Some people love it, some want to throw up, and some are fine with the style but feel like it could be improved upon by the inclusion of some fancier technology. EQ2 attempts a more "realistic" style with more photo-referenced textures, normal maps for added complexity, and so on. Now, I won't say the art in EQ2 is bad (I'm not here to make enemies), but because of the addition of highly specular normal mapped things they also appeal to the "oooooh, shiny!" crowd.

While people's response to art is almost entirely subjective, I think the quality of commercial art is actually pretty objective. It'd be fairly easy to come up with a list of qualities and skills a "good" game artist should posses, but since these people are in limited supply and it's often easier to impress the average gamer with shiny things than with quality art, games will always vary in visual quality and gamers will always argue about what looks better.

(It's late and I wrote too much, apologies.)

[k^M]

that is definitely one thing that fucking sucks about WoW, every single inn/cave/building in the begining was the exact same. Doorway, turn left, stairs up, bedroom, cave goes down in spiral, 2-3 branches off, all identical... granted EQ didn't really have that many outdoor cave/inns to compare to, but that was annoying as hell just to find another inn, or another town hall with the exact same layout brick for brick

[Throag]

Originally Posted by Kiksar

As someone else mentioned, lighting is a huge portion of getting the look of a game right, and technically it's one of the things that has the most room for growth. Who knows when it'll be, but when hardware and game engines start being able to do real time ray tracing (in a practical scenario) it'll be a big step forward (but as is with everything else, it'll always be limited by quality of art). Bounce light, real soft shadows, and global illumination can't be too far off considering how quickly technology evolves, so I'm looking forward to it.

You might be interested to know that ID Tech 6 is leaning toward an hybrid form of raytracing/rasterising technique. Apparently they are reaching acceptable framerates on a GTX280 Nvidia cards.

Here is an interview about it:
PC Perspective - John Carmack on id Tech 6, Ray Tracing, Consoles, Physics and more

Of course if the next generation of consoles are like the current one (as in way behind PC in term of hardware power), we are not going to see this before a long ass time on consoles.

Edit:
Here is a short video:
Hardware: Neue id Software-Engine mit Voxel-Grafik - Voxel-Unschärfe | Praxis | Hardware | GameStar.de

[Kiksar]

Yeah, that looks really interesting. I'm really glad Carmack decided to come back to game development. His ideas aren't always fully realized, but he's one of the few smart people who pushes out-of-the box development on the engine technology front. Sweeny and the Epic guys seem content with following the natural progression of things and polishing their tools enough to make bajillions of dollars in engine licenses (and there's a place for that, but it would be a sad industry without people like Carmack taking risks with new technologies).

I'm still waiting to see how (or if) Megatexture works in practice. I know there was some version of it used for Quake Wars, but I think it only worked on terrain and I'm not convinced it made much of a difference there. Here's to hoping he actually figured out a way to gave all surfaces unique texture space at a decent resolution. I saw one id Tech 5 demo that showed off where they're at with it, but I generally don't trust things until I can do them for myself!

[Jysin-DW]

Not trying to defend EQ2 here at all, but we also have to keep in mind this game released in 2004. The design of the engine was probably worked on a couple years prior to that. We are talking about a ~7 year old engine. I think it was pretty amazing for its time, but graphics have come a long way since then.

The animations do feel a bit clunky.. and even worse now since 5 years of haste and +spellcast and runspeed mods. They can look downright spastic at times now.

I think WoW got the animations done many times better than EQ2 ever did, but I really cant stomach the direction they went with the art. (personal preference I know) I just couldnt take SNES graphics on my high end system of the time. Atleast EQ2 gave you infinite options to scale graphics, even if the lower end wasnt that great.

I would love to see what a modern EQ3 style graphic would look like utilizing todays top hardware.