The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...
Can someone explain to me what an art style is in video games? I'd like to actually make an informed post on what I liked about both games, but I'm afraid that without understanding what an art style is I might go on a rant that's unrelated.
Well, there’s this
www.quora.com/Is-there-a-taxonomy-of-names-of-videogame-art-graphical-styles.
If I have to describe what he seems to be implying, is that you can define a videogame’s ‘art style’ as ‘the
way in which a certain fictional reality is depicted’. However, there is also such a thing as
styles (or maybe you could say ‘fashion’)
within architecture, clothing, arms, armour etc., both in the real world and within the fictional reality of a videogame. ‘Gothic’ is an architectural style, but in a visual medium like a videogame this style or fashion can be depicted in different videogame ‘art styles’. For instance, a Gothic cathedral can look very different depending on the videogame art style.
If you use these two side by side but clearly differentiate between them, then you might describe the following games like this:
The Witcher I and II: Realistic videogame art style. The arms, armour and architecture
within these games is stylistically relatively unified, being mostly based on historical European examples from the period 1200-1500, with some modifications and combinations. However, most of these modifications and combinations don’t obviously stand out as either improbable, implausible or ugly.
Only historians / archaeologists and history geeks will notice that it’s a pastiche.
I do,.but I don’t mind too much.
Skyrim: Realistic videogame art style. The arms, armour and architecture are a mix of historical and fantasy elements, but some care has been taken that they more or less fit together (or at least don’t obviously clash) in terms of style and technology. A few things stand out as somewhat jarring, but mostly it seems cohesive enough.
In DA (DA:O, Awakening and DA2), both the videogame art style in this sense, and the style/fashion of arms, armour, clothing, architecture etc. are far less consistent.
The videogame style does seem to go for realistic humans (and derivatives like Elves and Dwarves), animals and monsters. This sort of fits with many of the games’ themes, the psychology of the people, their behaviour etc.
However, quite a bit of the architecture doesn’t make sense functionally (merely decorative or even absent battlements on castles, weird-looking houses with no doors and at the edge of cliffs etc., absence of doors, windows, dysfunctional gates as in Amaranthine, etc. etc.).
Proportions are sometimes downright weird. Then there’s the unrealistic theatrical prop-looking aravels and ships in DA2.
Much – not all – of the arms and armour are downright and obviously unrealistic. The presence or absence of spikes are only part of the story here. Some armour seem to have as their primary purpose to ruin people’s backs and make sure they get killed in battle.
At the same time, where real-world historical styles of armour, clothing etc are mixed, there is often an ugly mishmash of widely different styles, colours and photoshopped scans of modern materials and items. There is evidence of armour textures based on modern industrial metal (welding…), floorplates based on concrete slabs from parking lots, 1930s art deco statuettes, Stalinist Gothic architecture etc. etc.
The main strategy in terms of visual design appears (from an outside observer's perspective) to be ‘get stuff left and right, glue ‘em together and hope it’ll fly’. This may not have been the intention, and the actual artists and modellers may, individually, be actually quite skilled and experienced and hard-working and all that. But that is what it looks like, unfortunately.
It is why I count the DA games
overall visually among the dullest, ugliest and least competently executed modern RPG’s. At least among western RPG’s.
In this regard I really appreciated Brockololly recently posting this
www.formspring.me/TDEvans .
The remark regarding the high degree of specialization is rather interesting, as that makes sense of how, despite being a veteran studio with plenty of resources, the DA games are visually so depressingly average to below average. A lack of communication and overall direction, leading to a serious loss of 'synergy'.
Of course, the limited dev time in DA2’s case didn’t help either, but I can’t help wondering whether the problem isn’t more fundamental.
Let’s put it this way: regarding DA3 I am cautiously sceptical. I hope for the best and would very much like to be pleasantly surprised, but in my heart I am preparing for renewed disappointment. I am really gambling more on a better-executed story, to be honest, and have largely given up on the visuals.
Modifié par Das Tentakel, 07 mai 2012 - 01:11 .
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