Team Fortress 2 Visual Designer Says Other Games' Art Is Uninspiring

[Junaid Alam]

Team Fortress 2 Visual Designer Says Other Games' Art Is Uninspiring

In a recent interview, Team Fortress 2 visual designer Moby Franke discussed art direction in videogames, saying, among other things, that no available titles provide any source of artistic inspiration.

"If a company hires you on your Photoshop skills they're making the wrong move," Franke told Gamesindustry.biz, emphasizing the importance of understanding art before working with digital tools to manipulate it.

"You might know everything about Photoshop but if you don't have that foundation in art, those design and art skills, then you're pretty much useless," he continued.

Franke said Team Fortress 2 was the first game he's worked on and noted his background is in fine art.

Speaking about the visual direction behind Team Fortress 2, Franke said character animation, silhouettes and overall simplicity were central to aiding the gameplay experience.

When the interviewer asked why Franke didn't mention other videogames as helpful to his work in Team Fortress 2he responded, "There's no inspiration to pull from other videogames."

He asserted that games were currently unbalanced, with too heavy a focus on realism.

"Everybody's focused on the smaller treatments and they are not solving the global problem which is the marriage between game design and visual design. Once you put visual design and proper gameplay together both of them can complement each other," he said.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=31685]

Permalink

 

[Zera]

yes games are trying for realism and thats not good at all.

 

[broadband]

good article indeed, i would like to see more games with much color like team fortress 2, someway

 

[anable]

I don't really think that's what Moby is saying. It's not bad that games are trying for realism, but rather that for too many of them, that's all they try for. TF2 is unmistakable for any other game because of the intense visual design. As beautiful as Crysis may be, does it really look that much different than Farcry or even Uncharted?

People talk a lot about the lack of innovation in gameplay design. I think Moby nails it that visual game design innovation is just as lacking - if not more so.

 

[brkl]

"There's no inspiration to pull from other videogames."

Get off your high horse and go play Psychonauts.

 

[eggdog14]

Thus comes the fall of Unreal Tournament. UT was a very distinctive-looking game, but now with the new engine, UT3 looks EXACTLY like Gears of War, and any other game with similar effects.

Games may have distinctive play styles, but they are often undermined by boring visuals.

 

[hypermonkey]

Yeah, because Team Fortress 2 looks nothing like Timesplitters...

 

[woodchunkz]

Ah yes... TimeSplitters was truly a great FPS. Although if you ask me it seems more like they took inspiration from recruiting posters and such from the 40's-60's. But the point is that guy is right.

 

[Andy Chalk]

He's right, but his point may be somewhat clouded by his "high horse" attitude. But it's also probably fair to say that his apparent lack of respect for art direction in videogames stems from his non-gaming background. The previously mentioned Psychonauts, as well as XIII, Grim Fandango, No One Lives Forever and Myst are all relatively high-profile examples of games that took unique approaches to their visuals. But the current trend toward realism in major releases, which inevitably results in a lot of look-alikes, does at least partially validate his point.

Where the misconception lies (if there is one; I haven't read the full article) is in the idea that this is what gamers want. Photorealism is great (I think Crysis looks fantastic and it's very near the top of my "get it" list) but I'm quite sure gamers are equally enthusiastic about creative variations in visual styles. TF2's art direction is a big part of what makes it stand out, but ultimately it's the gameplay that's made it so super-hot.

 

[Northern]

Realism in the visuals of most of todays games is not that bad. But maybe the reason that a few new games look very similar is that the developers are getting on the right track with the visual design and are leaping forward to truly realistic graphics. If I think about it, when graphics are near perfect, of course the other games going for realistic visuals will be very close to each other indeed. Although, there are games that don't concentrate on their graphical side: XIII, Psychonauts (as mentioned). And games that concentrate on other innovative fashions (including most Wii games, but I guess that's always the case with the control scheme) such as Rock Band, which the developers have chosen to go at hardware.

So, other points games attack, AI, interactivity, plot/story, gameplay, to name a few, as well as the visual design of a game.

However, I feel that if games are to get more and more realistic, then I will be looking for more creatively designed visuals. And this is the way we are moving I suppose.

"There's no inspiration to pull from other videogames."

Now, that's a very bold statement to make, especially since there are other companies who strife to create nice new visuals - even if they might be a minority. But I'm not going against TF2, as it does have impressive visuals (having only the 360's version as experience)

If people want to go for realism in a game, or colourful eye-candy-like games, I'm fully for both types as there is much more to a game than just the quality of the visuals. But if you are going to strive for whichever one, may as well make it count.

That's what I think anyway. And personally, during the actual gameplay I'm not as immersed in the visuals than I am in the actual task at hand. So visuals tend to mostly appeal to me when there is a cutscene. Or maybe I just expect cutscenes to be better visually than the gameplay.

 

[the_carrot]

I almost wholeheartedly agree. I think his comments are a little dismissive...There has been good art done, simply the effect sought for a long time was realism.

I have felt this way for a long time. The artists are constrained by Direct X, or whatever api they're using (for consoles) and really, the games aren't real. Given the constraint and the very quality of being a game, a playable fiction, Seeking artistic solutions, particularly one's that really betray qualities the game has, as opposed to an horrific effort to make it look realistic would lend much more to the game.

I'm glad some real effort to be realistic has been made...When I say physics engines are humanisitic because they create relateable situations, you won't think I'm bizarre right? I think making elements relatable in some ways is good, really, really good. But I think it needs to accept the constraints of the medium, and work within it.

 

[Arbre]

I think Mr. Franke should reconsider his statements, if he really aspires to give lessons about art.
He could, for example, try REz, Killer 7, Shadow of the Colossus, Interstate 76, Darwinia, Mojib Ribbon, Okami, Viva Pinata, Jet Set Radio, Yoshi's Island, to cite a very few.

Now, it's possible that he understood the question as: are there FPS games which inspired you for the design?
To which he could reasonnably answer "no".

 

[XAnthonyX]

That's ridiculous. I've decided I don't like him now.

 

[Katana314]

I'm sure he isn't referring to things like XIII and Psychonauts. I see his point though; everything from Unreal Tournament to Call of Duty continuously goes for that realistic feel. To be fair, I feel he might be leaving out Japanese games, but to tell the truth I feel like even those are tending to show some repeating trends. (MAGIC. SWORD. MONSTERS. BREASTS.)

While the concept of getting a full description of a class from a distance seems very obvious in retrospect, I now think that there are very few ways (that I can think of) of integrating gameplay and art style. But let's not jump the gun here. First let's just make some unique art styles. THEN we can start complaining about how they don't complement gameplay.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU, STUPID TACTICAL SHOOTERS.

 

[Arbre]

I'M LOOKING AT YOU, STUPID TACTICAL SHOOTERS.

I don't think they're reading this thread.

 

[Geoffrey42]

Not necessarily agreeing with Mr. Franke, unless we assume he's only talking about the FPS genre (not assuming either way, personally), but while all of these development houses have been aiming for "realism," I don't think that gives them a get-out-of-jail card for lacking artistic direction. The games look the same because the art direction is uninspired. See any movies recently? Were several of them aiming for a "realistic" portrayal of people and environments? Were all of their art styles entirely indistinguishable?

If you answered Yes, Yes, and No, then we're on the same page. Realism is fine, but even having been achieved, there is still a lot of artistic layers to apply to give it a unique feel. I think that is where these development houses are falling short.

 

[John Galt]

I'm not sure I understand why Mr. Franke refers to artistic design as something that should be placed ahead of realism. Though great art design in games helps make the experience much more memorable, some games don't inherently need it. For example, Call of Duty 4, being set in the real world, didn't need original art as it was already there. They just needed to replicate the various styles we see in architecture and nature. Art for a FPS with such a setting would seem out of place.

However, Bioshock on the other hand, being set in a completely fictional locale, didn't require realism as much as it did art design. If Rapture looked like a regular city, then the only really unique aspect of the game would have been the plot and maybe some plasmids. But since Rapture is some bizzare blend of Art-Deco and a Cape Cod dockyard, people can point to it as a work of art.

In conclusion, CoD4 wasn't going for the artsy appeal. It relied on gameplay mechanics and realism. Bioshock on the other hand was intended from the start to have it's own artistic flair, and was designed as such.

 

[Saltiness]

Any artistic design in a video game is merely inspired by some other medium or art period. When was the last time a video game sparked an artistic revolution? From Grim Fandago to XIII or Interstate 76 and Fallout. You can point to the games artistic inspirations in some other art form or period. It's not in itself an imaginative art piece, but more over art given interaction, which could simply mean what Franke was referring to.

However, to be absolutely fair, Psychonauts does indeed look very unique, but my jury is out till I get it next week.

I'm not sure I understand why Mr. Franke refers to artistic design as something that should be placed ahead of realism.

Because, to be frank, realism is dull. Artistic design pretty much refers to everything done in the art, including incorporating the proper architecture of locations and periods. So really, yes CoD4 did need artistic design, it's just not as original or other-worldly as Bioshock, so isn't noticed quite as much.