Poly Count vs Atmosphere

[ViceOfLiberty]

This should have been in gaming, but whatever.

What's more important to you?

Sometimes I feel like the 3D games and EFLC games have better "graphics" as defined by how well the models, textures, and lighting compliment eachother. In alot of ways GTA V reminds me of APB: Reloaded. The models themselves are great and the texturing is great but it seems like a bunch of assets were created without regard for eachother and the atmosphere as a whole. Maybe it's not exaggerated enough to create a good atmosphere? SA had the smog, III had the bright lights contrasted to the gritty grey rainy NYC. Vice city had the Neon and pink 80's Miami flair (the 80's flair and neon pink lighting saved this game). IV had this late 90's grey gloomy NYC type vibe. V hardly even feels like some kind of exaggeration of Los Angeles as much as it feels like some generic map called Los Santos. I think they could have made it feel a little more 90's just to exaggerate the LA nostalgia a bit.


I would sacrifice the high poly HD models for a slightly lower detailed city with a very engaging atmosphere any day.


This isn't necessarily a GTA exclusive thing, just a general question. Also, this isn't saying that PS2 games are visually better than PS4 games, it's saying that in some cases a game like GTA V could have potentially had more traffic, a bigger city, just more to render in general if the poly counts were toned down to something between where it's at and what GTA IV was and then compensated with lighting and atmosphere.

Would you have taken a 3D era game that includes all GTA cities and then some, packed with content, over GTA V if you could, given they took up roughly the same amount of disk space?

 

Would you consider this a valid sacrifice if there wasn't the argument for the graphics being a marketing tool?

Edited August 18, 2017 by ViceOfLiberty

[Voodoo]

Moving to gaming

[Dock]

IMO the atmosphere is a key part in establishing a virtual world, no matter the setting; it sets the tone almost immediately.

 

Ideally having both is best, and R* can clearly do that (as with GTA IV's Liberty City), not entirely sure what happened with GTA V (not that its atmosphere isn't good, but it doesn't really feel as immersive as IV's did for lack of a better term). There's this modification for the game called VisualV that modifies the lighting system and tries to match real life LA that much better, and in my opinion (again) actually gives off a much better vibe in general than vanilla V. I never play single player with out it.

 

Also, I think Vs map suffers from having only a "little bit of everything," i.e. each biome or zone (like the downtown area, the desert, the northern sections, etc.) just aren't as fleshed out or large enough as they should be to really give a proper sense of scale despite being part of the largest GTA map to date. In IV, Liberty City felt like a proper concrete jungle looming over you, densely packed buildings, tight roads, streets with multiple alleyways and rooftop accesses to explore and get lost in; things like those add to the whole vibe as well I suppose.

Edited August 19, 2017 by LevelDockSix

[RedDagger]

I would sacrifice the high poly HD models for a slightly lower detailed city with a very engaging atmosphere any day.

The problem with this is that one doesn't affect the other; it's completely different people with different skill sets, so while it's a nice hypothetical, it doesn't really do much for actual development ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

In the spirit of the question, a unified graphical fidelity can do wonders for a game's atmosphere - littering the ground with plants and dense foliage making complex interactions with light and the surroundings is something that only works with higher polycounts and general graphical prowess. Kingdom Come: Deliverance's forest is a great example of this. This obviously works for lots of things, not just the example given, and they themselves only work as a whole with a consistent graphical fidelity. You can't have the same gorgeous atmospheric surroundings with lower-poly player models, that'd break the illusion, so pushing up the graphics it is.

 

Of course, this says nothing about the atmosphere itself, which is a result of the design side of things...but some games and some environments only really work with higher poly stuff, and are naff otherwise.

 

A good atmosphere with lower poly models easily beats a lack of atmosphere with great models though, the game would have no soul otherwise.

[ViceOfLiberty]

 

I would sacrifice the high poly HD models for a slightly lower detailed city with a very engaging atmosphere any day.

The problem with this is that one doesn't affect the other; it's completely different people with different skill sets, so while it's a nice hypothetical, it doesn't really do much for actual development ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

In the spirit of the question, a unified graphical fidelity can do wonders for a game's atmosphere - littering the ground with plants and dense foliage making complex interactions with light and the surroundings is something that only works with higher polycounts and general graphical prowess. Kingdom Come: Deliverance's forest is a great example of this. This obviously works for lots of things, not just the example given, and they themselves only work as a whole with a consistent graphical fidelity. You can't have the same gorgeous atmospheric surroundings with lower-poly player models, that'd break the illusion, so pushing up the graphics it is.

 

Of course, this says nothing about the atmosphere itself, which is a result of the design side of things...but some games and some environments only really work with higher poly stuff, and are naff otherwise.

 

A good atmosphere with lower poly models easily beats a lack of atmosphere with great models though, the game would have no soul otherwise.

 

I guess in theory they don't have anything to do with eachother, but when R* takes on a project like V and develops it for the 360 and PS3 I'm sure they have to do some balancing between the high detailed objects and the shaders. More high poly objects means that there is a heavier strain on the resources to render everything in the distance, etc. They had to leave out alot of small physical items like trash cans, boxes, and even traffic and peds to compensate performance wise. GTA IV was spot on with the development and the III era games were all good for their time as well. I notice this pattern in modern gaming where it seems gameplay and storyboard fall in priority compared to the polycount of the models.

Edited August 19, 2017 by ViceOfLiberty

[KilnerLUFC]

As Red stated, the 2 don't really effect one another massively though. The 'Atmosphere' of a game comes from the overall combination of multiple things - The environment, the music, the NPC's etc, whereas a poly count is just what you see on the screen at any one time whilst playing. I don't mean to bring this up on purpose to start the typical argument, but out of all the GTA games, V was the one that I felt least immersed in as a whole, yet possibly had the highest poly count of them all. There was virtually no atmosphere for me whilst playing the game, and this was a major turn off for me, where as all the other games seemed to have their own unique vibe and atmosphere going on that completely immersed you, from the dark and gritty atmosphere of GTA3, to the neon-lined streets of VC with the 80's soundtrack.

 

As a gamer for well over 20 years now, poly count means absolutely f*ck all to me and doesn't interest me in the slightest. I want a game that manages to combine everything perfectly and immerse me.

[Fireman]

Uh. There was a post here, but I forgot to read the OP so I deleted it. New post pending.

Edited August 21, 2017 by Fireman