i know we had alot of threads concerning similar topics, but i still feel that some things are relevant, ESPECIALLY for indies and 3dgs users.

for one, 3dgs users are NEVER able to compete graphically with the best out there. its just not possible. in general, most indies cant compete with a multi million dollar production, simply because development is expensive.

and yet, we see alot of beautiful indie games, mostly due to their art style. but what is the technical side of this?

as i looked through a few games, i always stumble across some nice things. WOW for example is on a technical level from ten years ago. Still, its a beautiful game thanks to the art.
On the DS, there are a few games called ARTStyle. Pretty nifty stuff. A few lines and pixels and thats it. those games embrace an ugly style as style. Its like watching a badly animated flash, or southpark for that matter.

The more "realisitc" games i play, the more i start to hate brown. real life isnt brown and i dont know why some devs dont see that. maybe its brown and grey in texas only? ive never been to texas, so i dont know. but where i live, things are colorful, especially in summer.
so why are most people who want to do realistic games so obsessed with brown and grey? is it harder to make things look real with colors? TV tropes anyone? real and unreal? nevermind...

im currently devloping a game. its an rpg, classic old school with alot of dugneon crawling stuff, level ups and all that shit. as of now, i still use placeholder textures. real textures come in summer when the game is done.
im in beta stage already, so everything is implemented and works. currently filling the levels with details and doing enemy placement - crucial for a game like this. im still not sure how to do the videos but thats for another day.

so i thought: what graphical style do you want to apply to the textures? models and environment are rather realistically shaped, down to earth. but do i want realistic textures?
i came to the conclusion that i should go for something more artistic. not like WOW but in a similar fashion. darker. definately darker but colorfull.
and guess what? a first test with a few really ugly textures showed me that the game looks absolutely gorgeous with this style. so ill go for it i guess.

i completly lost track of what i wanted to say here originally, so i guess it turned into another "dont try to go realistic" topic... oh well...

naah ur right, also, most games that make use of brown and grey, i've only realy scene that in shooters and thats because they wanna create a warlike scene so they keep the tones low, also, reality is colorful but sometimes seeing all those colors in a video game will look odd... and the game dubbed as powerful..

truth is, indie games dont fail because of the technical possibilities of an engine, they fail because of the motivation and bad workflow... such as spending 2 months to create a cool looking radar BEFORE you even start working on gameplay

based on experience, good looking games are almost mainly art, sure you need the technical power to get all that art onscreen, i hear people saying, ohh, 3dgs suck, it doesnt have realtime shadow mapping... and i can sit right now and list ALOT of multimillion dollar games that still use static lighting..

the idea is to aim for stylized rather than realism, especially as indies, i dont think i've EVER seen a succesful indie game with a realistic art style

Amigaaaaaa...!
What I actually want to say is that I really don´t like the title, as both has to go hand in hand and the in my opinion best examples are demos. It isn´t the music which makes it great, it also isn´t the graphics style or quality and it of course isn´t the coding, but all together. The combination of all makes stuff like this an amazing piece of art in my opinion.

The most important lesson that good Indies and Professional Companies
have learned is to use a consistant style.

No Matter what approach you take, All Elements should
be made with consistancy to a style in mind.

The worst is to use a mix of different styles and quality,
(like taking objects from different artists,
or making certain parts very detailed, and others sloppy)

--

using an Art approach (stylised and lower resolution)
is the more economic approach for Indies.
Important is to be able to replicate the style
over all Elements then.

Big companies are doomed to make Games realistic, detailed
and use the latest Effects and Animationtools.
Indies have the leasure not to be downgraded when using
a more simplistic style.


---

I actually like the brown / realistic style.
(Stalker, Fallout 3, etc)
But also the Artistic Approach like in Blizzard Games
or Torchlight.
A dungeon athmosphere should not look too "happy" though.

Most indies cannot but it is possible. Did you ever play the game Trine? It was beautiful, more detailed than many big productions.

And then there are still big indies like Valve with very nice productions.

In the end it has nothing to do with indies, it is a problem of budget, passion and time you spend.

Regarding the brownish base tone: I don't like it. I was so disappointed as I saw Unreal Tournament 3 with this muddy molten mash. They created so much nice details with polygons and textures but it got lost in this colour monotony.

Another interesting fact is that many new indie games on Steam come with a blocky wireframe look. I personally dont like it at all. But they dont stop ton continue this way. In the end these kind of games have to compete with the blocky look of the LEGO games and this is hard to achieve. LEGO games are well made.

I believe it is not a problem of time and budget for indies, that is a problem for the big companies. Indies only have passion/dedication as a problem. If you fail 10 times at creating a good texure, you try another 10 times until it looks perfect. But it requires dedication. Companies must cut the line if it doesn't look perfect because the budget is empty.

I work 40 hours a week, but I find myself able to build a game piece by piece the times I am home. The only reason I'd be in a hurry is because my dedication/interest fades over time for one game, and I want to start a new one.

No Matter what approach you take, All Elements should
be made with consistancy to a style in mind.
Very true !

With hardware level up each year, games standards level up also. Crysis 2 are said to be the best looking game on PS3 and new standard visually. It's each time an increase in details on textures, animations, physics etc ... you can't compete ans an Indie. Each big production game is big teams with people having years of industry work.


Trine, is not incredible also, very good, it uses some good textures, and models, and shaders, but it is still a little game.It don't have incredible level design or gameplay, or character design like in God of War 3 ! You can't compare what is not comparable ! It's more some sort of very refined visually mini game.


Not all times realistic design make a big game !
For example last FF13 on PS3 , is beautifull, but
very annoying : long combats , and only combat. You pass all your time watching menus and life bars !!!!!!!I enjoy lot lot more playing God of War 3 , you watch action, you have big top nocth real time game play.Just my personal taste, but yeah graphics, even top notch won't make the game, if gameplay, fun are not present !


---------------

Some Lego games are really great, like Star Wars series.
Simple character design, but with variations, customisations.
But very good gameplay, fun , very entertaining !
And visually their style is cool !

Another example is the game BorderLands !
It uses some shaders, but all is cartoon style like in comics ! i find it very beautifull this way. And gameplay, loot, RPG system are so good Another good example of unrealistic design !

most big companies have loadsof people working on the textures, a few textures per person. so they dont have to rush through about 70 textures quite quickly. most indie game designers i know work on their own or in a small group of 3-4, unlike companies like nintendo, how have about 300 people work on a game.

But this is not really the point. Trine is a small game, yes. But it looks consistently beautiful. I thought this discussion is about graphic style, not about the size of a game, the amount of character animation or anything else.

And this is exactly what I meant: Small teams (hobby or indie developers) can create nice and consistent art. They can create something similar to big productions, just smaller.

Indeed i agree !

What Inidie need is to really work on concept and design.
Even non skilled art people can make great thinsg if they adapt
the concepts to their skills !

An example :

The design is incredibly simple, but researched and effective !

Another example :



BorderLands great comic design :


Trine, indeed, is a very clever use of shader, texture projection to simulate trees or clouds shadows to bring variation lightening !


All that can be done in A7.
But not all people here have great ideas, concepts, design, or clever ideas to use of shaders and effects.
(Lot of people here are programmers first or beginners in game making)