Why does cartoonish equal bad?

[I. Lostalim 588]

Out of this whole discussion... (And other websites...)

Who started saying it looks cartoonish?

When a person says one thing: Just one thing... Everyone seems to follow; nobody can't think for themselves.

Also... It's just a game!! Sometimes games aren't supposed to be real, that’s why we have games; to do stuff we can't do in real life.

  Edited June 19, 2012 by Blue Lightning  
Formatting

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I heard somewhere that the realism is half way between the Sims 3 and true tilt shift photography at this point.

[GMT 389]

Next, those who played Doom 3 were significantly more attentive and experienced more presence than those who played Doom 1. Furthermore, playing either Doom game resulted in more aggression than playing no game and physically aggressive intentions were higher among those who played Doom 3 as compared to those who played Doom 1.

complete bull... if you'd ask me. They should play non-violent games to really know what game-induced aggression feels like. Mario Kart is a masterpiece of aggression-raising technology. Pretty much like every other sports game. I never freak out over shooting games, but racing games did cost me at least one controller per console for it flies all over the room... just sayin...

EDIT: But I've grown to a much calmer person over the last years, the only thing that can freak me out lately is my nose... ^^

anyway, cartoonish does not automatically mean bad, if it is placed well.

Even works with simulation-inspired games (just look at where warcraft comes from, or the settlers)... and even sim city never took itself so serious as that a cartoonish look feels out of place. even sc4 still has this cartoonish aura around it.

Cities XL feels very cartoonish aswell... ok I'd go on forever and realize every game does have a cartoonish touch to it, but that's because there's no such thing as photorealism in gaming yet, even tho it's a very stressed term for decades.

But I'd say a real simulation must look realistic, I don't even want to think of, say, FSX with comic graphics.

so, on the bottom line, this slight cartoonish feel of sim city is perfectly placed and also adds to the charm of the game

  Edited June 19, 2012 by GMT  

[MapleNormandy 6]

Heh, I think that this article might be a direct reply to some of the concerns in this thread:

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/The-New-SimCity-Through-a-Tilt-Shift-Lens

I think the main points that are relevant are:

-Many of SC's graphical "misrepresentations" (e.g. misscaled factories, giant houses tiny skyscrapers) are intentional

-Some of these are done to give SC a more uniform overall look and feel (i.e. "The real-life scale differences between a skyscraper, and a shotgun shack are so huge that you couldn't easily see them both in the same scene.")

-Prefer stylization rather to pure realism (i.e. "If you look at real buildings, a lot of them are boring. [...] in an industrial area you see huge expanses of warehouse roof and big stretches of blank wall.")

-They describe their buildings as "caricatures" of the real thing (i.e. "... what's important about the building has been highlighted and what's irrelevant has been suppressed."

-The textures are starting looking better (see the grass bordering the road on the screenshot at bottom of page)

-Maxis loves tilt-shift

My personal opinions:

-Maxis seems to have put a lot of thought into their decision to scale back from the more "gritty" and "realistic" (term being used lightly here...) graphics of SC4

-They seem to be placing a lot of value on aesthetics in SC2013, but on "model" aesthetics rather than the "photorealistic" aesthetics that we are used to from SC4. Given the community's tendency to prefer modeling real-world buildings and places detail-for-detail, this is probably what's causing a lot of the aesthetic tension.

-Take one glance at a SC4 city with Maxis-only BATs and it is clear that SC2013 is a graphical improvement over vanilla SC4.

[squidgeny 2]

-The textures are starting looking better (see the grass bordering the road on the screenshot at bottom of page)

That's actually quite an old screenshot, and all the early screenshots show a rather more "finished" quality than the E3 video. I'm not sure why. Presumably, the video was made later than the screenshots, but it seems less finished (the road-bordering-grass being one good example)

[cirugo 1,889]

the graphics aren't what bother me although there seems to be an awful lot of repetition in what I've seen so far

[flowmotion 24]

Heh, I think that this article might be a direct reply to some of the concerns in this thread:

http://www.simcity.c...Tilt-Shift-Lens

I think the main points that are relevant are:

-Many of SC's graphical "misrepresentations" (e.g. misscaled factories, giant houses tiny skyscrapers) are intentional

-Some of these are done to give SC a more uniform overall look and feel (i.e. "The real-life scale differences between a skyscraper, and a shotgun shack are so huge that you couldn't easily see them both in the same scene.")

-Prefer stylization rather to pure realism (i.e. "If you look at real buildings, a lot of them are boring. [...] in an industrial area you see huge expanses of warehouse roof and big stretches of blank wall.")

-They describe their buildings as "caricatures" of the real thing (i.e. "... what's important about the building has been highlighted and what's irrelevant has been suppressed."

-The textures are starting looking better (see the grass bordering the road on the screenshot at bottom of page)

-Maxis loves tilt-shift\

Great article - its interesting to understand the logic behind the creative decisions. Thanks for posting.

[Thetford 22]

To me, it doesn't seem cartoonish, just bright, a bit like, have you ever seen the show Pushing Daisies? And I don't mind that. Buildings in SimCity 3000 were bright and colourful, to a degree they were colour coordinated (bright green mowed lawns were a sign of low density high wealth houses, red brick was mostly a sign of medium wealth, medium density apartments, low wealth, low density shops were grey with pink or purple markings, low wealth industry was black and yellow I believe etc). It was the game that got me into the franchise, and was the first PC game I owned.

[This is my name 13]

The graphics, the lot sizes, and generally the entire game seems like an improved 3D version of SC3000.

  Edited June 24, 2012 by 1994  

[JohnTheMutt 3]

I prefer my graphics in city simulation games to lean more towards the 'realistic' graphical aesthetic than the 'cartoony' aesthetic. Simply my preference. However, that being said, the graphic shots being shown so far are not too bad... time will tell and I'll wait until the final game comes out before rendering judgement.

From a Q&A session with the developers on this very topic, it appears they are set on the graphical style currently shone so far.. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/qp15f/