(Photo)realism can be really good, but is it sometimes better to stay a bit less realistic on texturing and level design, if you want to design a realistic game? Engines and your target audience's pc can't always pull off the state of the art shader to embed realism, so you use what you got to make it realistic:

http://dnijazzclub.com/temp/ages/fahets/fahets-wip-17.png

Now this level was an attempt to pursue realism on an unearthly planet, as far as this particular engine (not 3dgs) allowed without too much hassle with shaders. Looks quite okay for certain games and purposes, but to be looking professionally, this lacks something...

Now a picture from Myst Online: Uru Live, with outdated, blurry, less realistic, stretched textures on the same engine:

http://www.mystwear.com/graphics/Eder_Gira/edergira-2.jpg

Yet the whole image gives the impression of certain quality, and I think it is the cartoony side of the textures, I can't really describe it but I think you feel it too..., that makes it look *more* realistic than the first image. Is this something to do with a certain uncanny valley for textures?

I'm curious about your thoughts on this strange matter.

Sincerely,
Joozey

hey i was just walking around in Eder Gira two days ago

But yeah i think it's the uncanny valley too.

When the texture look a bit cartoony, you know it is cartoony and everything will fit better together as it doesnt try to aim to be realistic, but define a different, unrealistic graphicstyle, which is complete in itself.

In the first pic it tries to look more realistic, so people will expect more of it, like in the uncanny valley.

actually it's about having a consistent art-style. Even if it's waay to cartoony, if it has it's own art style applied properly to scene, it looks complete. If you do not follow an art style and try to be realistic, this is what you get, an uncomplete scene without any atmosphere. This is the feeling you can't describe; the completeness of the scene/world.

The very same reason is why buying art-packs from diffrent sources makes the games look odd. If the game is small it may work, but if you are trying to create a mid or large sized world, it wont work.

The, the more artists work are combined (models of different artists
and quality), the less the scene will look consistant,
and thus look aquward.

inconsistant style

consistant style

Thats why the Myst scene look so much more complete,
as it has an artistic direction.

--

The uncanny valley is more a general problem when targeting photorealism.
At a certain point, adding detail to the character will
have a negative effect on realism,
as people can abstract less, and get presented detail that
just does not fit with a really realistic view.
So this additional detail disturbes the notion of realism,
which more abstract figures leave to imagination.


In your scene for example, you mix textures of different resolutions.
(floor is very fine, the mushroom things are blurry)
Also the scene has a very flat elumination (little contrast in shadows, shadows differ - box has lots, mushroom little)
and the objects look staged / placed too artificially.

yes, consistency is VERY important and a very critical part of game design. but also there is something else...

thing is, its the realism that makes the game look unrealisitc.
for example, go into an alley. look at the fields or the suburbs of the place you live. and then compare that to a game.
in a game, there need to be details and stff everywhere. pillars, crates, trash, flowers, trees bushes ect but in real life, you just wont find places that look like a game. for example:


imagine doing this scene ingame. a terrain with multitexturing, a water shader and one model. thats it. imagine how empty that would look.
look around and you will see that the real life is empty as hell...

I've always thought of the uncanny valley in 3D spaces to happen most often when folks use digital photographs with virtually no editing or thought how they
fit into the 3D scene. One trick when making textures, is to make a texture
from hand and use it as a pallette/get your colors from it for other textures on the same level.


What is the differences between the two images in the first post?

I'm not sure the uncanny valley is the issue here as much as color theory.
First, both images show quality work; however, the myst image has a limited palette
range with warm colors vibrating off the cool waterfall colors. You want to control: contrast/limit palette, and use basic color theory to decide which colors to combine...to set the mood.

I think the first image/3Dscene is fine; however, it has more potential to evoke a mood with adjustments to the lighting. Ask yourself what mood you're trying to achieve-- what is happening in the game?

An easy change for the first world would be to replace the skybox with a different texture-- a sky with some elements of purple would be interesting-- a sci fi planetary nebula or some such. Why purple? Purple is green's compliment color, but that might not work for the mood...

using a narrow palette/contrast(color theory?) is also a part of art consistency... it all goes to this.

Joozey, what you described reminds me of any type art:

Try to draw a realistic image and just get one tiny aspect of it wrong (some wrong color, a missing shadow), people will say "ah, that looks weird".
Draw like Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny or even Picasso, and you get famous.

There was an article on Beowulf I read. Dunno, might've been posted here. Talked about something similar as well: If you get real close to photorealism, but you're not quite there, it looks more spooky than real...

I never understood this discussion personally, though I get what it means.
I almost liked CG movies like Beowolf or this xmas movie with a CG Tom Hanks or these Final Fantasy CGI movies. And Avatar looked almost real to me, I really forgot that 90 percent of it was CG.

I also like the first image (Joozey posted) more.

And besides that this problem will vanish more and more in the future. The reason is lighting. Currently our tools do not support good lighting. But when we have unified lighting for the complete scene, maybe even some global illumination / radiosity available, then everything will look way more consistent.
This still will not help each beginner to achieve fantastic results, but it will make lots of scenes more fitting in the game industry.

The theory of the uncanny valley will still survive but it also will not be a showstopper for many projects.

Hmmm...I don't like watching detailed CGI movies or playing "realistic" games because of the uncanny valley issue. Also I can't help but think about the legion of artists spending 1000s of hours in front of a monitor on a tight schedule to make it happen. (I know that second is peculiar to me probably.)

In games, the worst offender of this that I've seen is the Oblivion series. I love the game play, but the characters are so disturbing I had to stop playing. (I'm not alone in this opinion.) I started playing Phantasy Star Online (old cartoon style-- yes, you can still play it) to get my RPG/fantasy fix. The value
of an artistic expression is interpretation; when you go for realism, you most often reduce the intrinsic value of the art.


I know that this is digressing a bit, but I think Hollywood is far too dependent on CGI. Sometimes when I'm watching a show, I'll think why is that
actor talking to a computer animation, or why am I watching 3D a computer spaceship, why is that actor pretending to be in a 3D scene? I feel like I'm watching a video game...or a live action show crammed in a cartoon.

Come on Hollywood. Build the set, make the costume or puppet, build the model and you know what? The scene will often be more believable. Okay so it's not always possible; but, Hollywood shouldn't be so confident that their special effects using CGI are all that "special."