Poll: Cel shaded or not?

[slipknot4]

Cel-shaded animation (also called cel-shading or toon shading) is a type of non-photorealistic rendering designed to make computer graphics appear to be hand-drawn.
If wikipedia is to believe.
Cel shading is a rendering technique in witch the rendered object gets a cartoon-ish look witch a border/outline and a high contrast between the colours.
Team Fortress 2 and Prince of Persia are two of those games that have recently been released and the opinions about cel shading is split into two parts/groups.

People who like it, mostly as an artistic style that brings new depth to a game and makes strange fusions between cartoons and extreme gore... or in other ways that makes the the player think about the game and it's content.

Other people hate it and see it as an lame excuse of the dev teams incapacity of making good textures that looks realistic... or lowering the amount of maturity in the game.

Now, with the release of Borderlands next month there have been a great discussion in my school about it.
The ones that hate the ones that love it.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Five words.

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.

 

[DogofRaw]

Only if its not used as an excuse for lowering the quality of the graphics and is used in an 'atmospheric' way, like TF2

 

[Armored Prayer]

Hellz yeah.

With out it games like TF2, Wind Waker, and Okami wouldn't as looked as good.

 

[Shadow Law]

It would make it easier to spot your enemies and shoot their faces off.

 

[HardRockSamurai]

While I don't think cell-shading is a replacement for good art direction, I am glad that it's brought a vital element back into this generation of gaming: color.

Most games these days feature the same spectrum of muddy colors, so whenever a vibrant cell-shaded game is released, I can't help but appreciate it. Luckily for us, most cell-shaded games have been paired with great art directors. The result: gorgeous games.

As for Borderlands, well, I hate to be a wet blanket here, but it really isn't making the most of it's cell-shading. Prince of Persia practically beat us over the head with it's gorgeous landscapes, but in Borderlands, it feels more like a gimmick. Luckily for Borderlands, it's graphics isn't it's main selling point.

 

[LaBambaMan]

Cell shading works in it's own rights, and works with certain games. Personally, I think it looks great on Okami. I'm not a huge fan of TF2 or Windwaker, but I guess it works for them.

I am surprised, though, that no mention of XIII has been made, considering that's one of the earlier examples of the style in gaming. Sure it wasn't the greatest game ever, but it was enjoyable and looked pretty.

Boarderlands looks good, and the style works so long as they don't try and make the game super serious bullshit with a hyper-stylized cartoon look.

 

[Cargando]

Yes I rather like it, it allows the game to take on a more unique style I think.

 

[Woodsey]

It can work fan-f*cking-tastically in some games. Prince of Persia was a good game, but not a patch on the Sands of Time; the art direction was BEAUTIFUL however, and was (and still is) the best I've ever seen of that style. Put it on Crysis and it wouldn't work. At all.

Borderlands is different because it is clearly designed to be comic, and a gritty looking world wouldn't suit that.

That's the main reason they changed the art style; they didn't feel the serious vibe they were going with worked particularly well, nor did it differentiate from the crowd.

 

[Doth]

Black and white is the way to go, but cel-shading is nice too.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I like it. It generally involves leads to games that have more color and "wacky" elements. Wind Waker and the new PoP used cell shading and I liked them not just for the graphics but for the expressiveness of the games. TF2 is also pretty expressive and wacky. It's not a matter of the graphics make the game one way or the other but when shade shading is in it seems the requirement for gritty and brown realism is abandoned in favor of unrealistic but expressive and fun games.

 

[Blood_Lined]

For some reason Randy (GearBox CEO) said in an interview [many of which can be found at borderlandsthegame.com, in the forums section] that he prefers to not call it cell-shading, like he is hinting at "TECHNICALLY" it is just a variation of cell-shading that looks JUST like cell shading, but isn't. I'm not sure but people down there at Gear Box software call it concept art.

As for cell shading in itself, a game tester I believe that it was either Gamespot or IGN, stated that after about 10 minutes of gameplay, you didn't notice the cell shading/concept art anymore. I figure that cell shading takes MORE work considering that all of the graphics are hand drawn, like Valkyria Chronicles was.

Whatever happens, I'm going to purchase this game at the day of release, because to me, it just looks plain fun. There is a stickied forum at borderlandsthegame.com that has a gameplay video and interview collection, so you can find a lot more footage there, just for those whom mat be interested.

 

[Aunel]

no, I don't like it in generall, but borderlands is way to cool to dismiss because of the graphics.
even though it looks really cool.

 

[tomtom94]

Yes, if used properly.
Wind Waker was beautiful, Team Fortress 2 uses it to emphasise the over-the-top nature, and... was MadWorld cel-shaded?

Anyway, it can be done properly, but only when the concept is done properly and is not just an artistic statement.
I guess it also represents a way for games to stand out without ultra-hyper-realistic graphics.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

I like it. That's all I can really say about it.

 

[Kiutu]

People against it are graphic/realism whores and I feel are a bane on gaming progress. So yeah, you can fill in the blanks on my view of this.

 

[ConnorCool]

Five words.

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.

best.. game.. ever!

 

[Heracles]

seconded.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Yep, I like cel-shaded graphics.

While its all very well and good to have 'realistic' graphics, I just love cel-shading. It always seems more vibrant, more impressive and more fun, if that's the right of way of putting of it.

 

[ThreeWords]

Yes, if used properly.
Wind Waker was beautiful, Team Fortress 2 uses it to emphasise the over-the-top nature, and... was MadWorld cel-shaded?

Anyway, it can be done properly, but only when the concept is done properly and is not just an artistic statement.
I guess it also represents a way for games to stand out without ultra-hyper-realistic graphics.

This.

It looks great here, but presumably this (the video) is one of the good uses of it.

As long as it's of that calibre, I'm happy