Semester 2 Week 3 - Reading 3

Week 3 - Reading 3

For the reading this week, I looked over a couple of sources regarding game designers choice over using realistic or animated/'stylised' aesthetics.

Even by skimming over the articles, it's rather painfully obvious that due to a certain over-saturation with the pursuit of realism that players are now more drawn to either stylized art styles or a combination of both aesthetic choices called 'stylized realism' (not very creative here but better than scientists naming things...)

I remember a video talking about the concept of the 'Uncanny Valley'. This is a concept where, a certain individual or thing will look rather weird or uncomfortable if they don't lean towards high fidelity realism or the cartoonish style. It's like a robot with 'realistic' facial movements. Despite how realistic they're trying to look, these robots will always look weird and uncanny. This feeling is what any game designer choose to avoid as much as possible when picking an aesthetic choice for their game as it can make or break it completely.

Recall Team Fortress 2 and the recent Call of Duty. Team Fortress 2 is very stylized with its rather recognizable cartoonish character proportions while the modern Call of Duty achieved a very impressive and believable realism in their graphics.

Photo-realism is very good as it shows the capability of
the game engine rendering realistic faces accurately.
However...

The uncanny valley has a very deep gap where
you have to make things look 100% realistic or stylized.
The 'depth of the valley' never looks appealing to anyone.

After reading majority of these sources, I have a rather clear image as to how designers of the industry and games in the past years approach the use of realism and stylized designs. Surprisingly, many designers and artists are looking into this 'stylized realism' and I am trying to find more sources regarding this aesthetic design choice.

Zhen Li

(Edit) To explain 'Uncanny Valley' in a more interesting and easy-to-understand manner, I would recommend Extra Credit's video on the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K1Kd9mZL8g

I hope this video expains this concept better than I have. Also Extra Credits is a great Youtube Channel on everything gaming and very eye-opening.

I'll have to temporarily drop the 'Game World Design' research due to a surprisingly lack of peer-reviewed sources on the internet that is readily accessible.