3D and the problem of identical objects

[Blood Brain Barrier]

So in the real world every object looks different. There are no two apples that look the same, no two cars, no two boxes. In a hand-drawn game it's the same - hand-drawn graphics mean that two trees will always look different. In 3D, the graphics are made by creating an standard object like a book and dotting it around the game world. This means you have identical objects which the player comes across every so often.

Does anyone else think it takes away from the realism to know you are looking at the same sword you just picked up that you were looking at a few minutes ago in your inventory?

For me these 'standard objects' ruin all attempts to create realism in a game and are the reason I prefer hand-drawn graphics in 2D games. The first time I see a bookshelf with exactly the same books as another one I'm ok with it as a coincidence, the next time I'm saying to myself "hmm haven't I seen that before?", then after that I've had enough of it.

It takes a special effort to make a unique 3D world with totally unique objects. I haven't seen many that have made such an effort.

Who else feels this way? Who doesn't?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It depends on the object. Seeing mass produced objects like books, weapons, and chairs that look alike all over the place doesn't bother me at all. Having a game with a very limited pool of character models does. I expect a specific type of a chair to look like any other chair of the same type (talking same brand and model number here). I do not expect there to be two or three variations of face and body type in the entire world. The same goes (to a lesser extent) to things like rocks and trees. There should be a good amount of variation there.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Because the guys at Bethesda have bigger things to worry about than making every single plasma pistol looking different? If that's the one thing that breaks immersion for you in games, consider yourself lucky.

 

[Pink Gregory]

It takes a special effort to make a unique 3D world with totally unique objects. I haven't seen many that have made such an effort.

Who else feels this way? Who doesn't?

I don't think it's an effort issue, just seems simply not possible at this point.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Because the guys at Bethesda have bigger things to worry about than making every single plasma pistol looking different?

You mean like making a ridiculously enormous world you can't possibly explore all of unless you're glued to your computer all day every day for 5 years straight?

 

[ResonanceSD]

Because the guys at Bethesda have bigger things to worry about than making every single plasma pistol looking different?

You mean like making a ridiculously enormous world you can't possibly explore all of unless you're glued to your computer all day every day for 5 years straight?

That problem didn't exist in Fallout: New vegas or fallout 3. And I'm not even sure it exists in Skyrim due to the fact that consoles were the lead SKU.

 

[skywolfblue]

A lot of items in the real world are mass-produced and look identical. (Unless you get a magnifying glass or look at the serial number)

I have no problem with it.

Perhaps in cases where "uber sword of utter awesomeness" has the same model as "level 1 dinky dagger".

As for characters... I didn't mind WoW's limited character options, because their characters were done excellently, on the flip side Dragon Age: Origins has a lot of facial options but it's awful because everyone in the world has the same damn body type.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Because the guys at Bethesda have bigger things to worry about than making every single plasma pistol looking different?

You mean like making a ridiculously enormous world you can't possibly explore all of unless you're glued to your computer all day every day for 5 years straight?

That problem didn't exist in Fallout: New vegas or fallout 3. And I'm not even sure it exists in Skyrim due to the fact that consoles were the lead SKU.

Then Fallout: New vegas and fallout 3 had even less things to worry about than making objects look different. Maybe I would have liked those games if they spent more time on that.

 

[Vault101]

So in the real world every object looks different. There are no two apples that look the same, no two cars, no two boxes. In a hand-drawn game it's the same - hand-drawn graphics mean that two trees will always look different.

uh huh?

check out those trees in the background...also checkout Bubsys "bouncing" trees...notice somthing?

belive it or not games have been cutting and pasting since forever...

me thinks you have somthing against modern games....

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Yes

So in the real world every object looks different. There are no two apples that look the same, no two cars, no two boxes. In a hand-drawn game it's the same - hand-drawn graphics mean that two trees will always look different.

uh huh?

check out those trees in the background...also checkout Bubsys "bouncing" trees...notice somthing?

belive it or not games have been cutting and pasting since forever...

me thinks you have somthing against modern games....

I did think about that, and realize I didn't express it right. I won't deny a lot of old games have identical items too. When I wrote the OP I was thinking of more along the lines of these. Nothing against modern games.
1991

1997

2012

 

[Vault101]

I did think about that, and realize I didn't express it right. I won't deny a lot of old games have identical items too. When I wrote the OP I was thinking of more along the lines of these. Nothing against modern games.
[spoiler/]

[/spoiler]

ah....ok then

I see what your getting at in terms of "worlds"...it wasn't clear because those games (point and click) are very different from bubsy both in gameplay and structure

while somthing like Curse of monkey island looks gorgeous and has atmosphere and such (one of my favorties don;t get me wrong) I supose the trade off for that is that you can only explore along a predetermined path, I can;t see whats beside some of those doors or whats beneath that bridge

I think that technology is at the point now where we can create gorgeous worlds like that island with the atmphsphere and visuals....as some games suffer from "cut and paste" worse than others

 

[ThriKreen]

So consoles and computers totally have infinite memory to store all the 3D models when you're playing the game. As opposed to say, an adventure game with a static single image background.

And studios have an infinite pool of modelers to make said models and apply minute variations in geometry and textures.

Oh, and a vast majority of players will notice this, instead of the other way around.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

I notice it sometimes, but I think of it this way: if a game is immersive enough for me to notice that something in the world happens to look the same as something else, it's a positive and not a negative.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

You might note that those are static, pre-drawn backgrounds that require and feature absolutely no character interaction whatsoever.

There's no less character interaction in Monkey Island than in Skyrim. What's more they have much more personality and distinction.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

So consoles and computers totally have infinite memory to store all the 3D models when you're playing the game. As opposed to say, an adventure game with a static single image background.

And studios have an infinite pool of modelers to make said models and apply minute variations in geometry and textures.

Oh, and a vast majority of players will notice this, instead of the other way around.

Quoted for truth... exactly that!

Not only that... books! I can walk into pretty much any of my freinds houses at the moment and find an identical copy of Game Of Thrones... I imagine in Skyrims world, with the lack of printing capabilities, then identical written books is pretty much what is expected!

Also on a personal level, I find 3D first person a lot more immersing than flat 2D, hand drawn, point and click stuff...! :/

 

[Folji]

If you're bust out of your immersive bubble by things looking the same, you're paying attention to the wrong details.

And I've seen a lot of two cars that look the same. So many cars that it kind of bothers me, because some of them look like the car of someone I know so I keep thinking that's them speeding right by.

Come to think of it, I can't really distinguish the pears in the fruit basket in the kitchen, either. At least not without picking them up and examining them closely.

 

[Tharwen]

The least they could do is add, like, 5 different models or something.

That would use slightly less than 5 times as much memory per object.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

You might note that those are static, pre-drawn backgrounds that require and feature absolutely no character interaction whatsoever.

There's no less character interaction in Monkey Island than in Skyrim. What's more they have much more personality and distinction.

In Skyrim, you see a tree, you can walk around the tree. You can see the backside of the tree. If you get above or below the tree, you can see the top or bottom of a tree. If you could climb into the tree, you'd see out through the leaves. You get a full, 360-degree visual of the tree. You walk away from the tree, the tree gets smaller in your sight. You get closer, it gets larger.

In Monkey Island, you see a tree, you see a tree. If you go behind the tree, you might see your character past or through the tree, but you'll never see the back of the tree. Or the top. Or the bottom. Or if you do, it just swaps one pre-rendered image for another. You're just cycling through a limited number of images.

It's still a bunch of pixels. One is in 2D, the other in 3D. I don't see how that leads to more character interaction, at least more than the fact that in Skyrim the faces and dialogues of the characters are so generic except for maybe one or two characters.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Not only that... books! I can walk into pretty much any of my freinds houses at the moment and find an identical copy of Game Of Thrones... I imagine in Skyrims world, with the lack of printing capabilities, then identical written books is pretty much what is expected!

You know what they had before printed books? Manuscripts. Hand-written. And these were most certainly not identical. Which makes it even more distracting to find books in Skyrim with exactly the same writing, position of the dirt on the cover and rips and cuts in the paper.

 

[Alex Persona]

As a CG artist myself i can tell you that, being able to make hundreds of variations of these objects is not a problem, being able to store them is. The problem often is, can you store these hundreds of minor objects on the disks you're shipping with.

Often at the end of a project artists will have a bit of a deadzone in term of time, where the programmers have to do the lion share of the work. This can sometimes be a few weeks or a few months. the props you're talking about are very easy and quick to make, a book, a case, a chair, etc. This time could very well be spent making those, and often you'll find artists more than willing to do that. Trouble is, disks simply arent big enoegh, and adding an additional disks to your product can drive the eventual money you make down quite a bit. since console manufacturers take a cut from from every sale of your final product, and the more disks in your product the bigger their cut is.

And given the fact that the majority of the people aren't bothered by seeing rows and rows of repeating geometry. adding additional disks simply isnt worth it.

Perhaps with the next console generation that will change, but for now you'll just have to deal with it.