Model style question.

#1 First image doesn't show, and the link doesn't work. I myself am pretty bored of Anime/Manga styles most commonly adopted in games these days. Unfortunately the same goes for the realistic look. They have both become too generic and common place for my personal tastes.

Will be interested in what others like too.

#2 I personaly like more stylized artwork. I think the "real-life" look is hyped too much these days.

My personal opinion is to make your own style and stick with it. Look at the success of World of Warcraft! And that has neither of the two styles you've presented.

Of course I do like and own the HL2 game :)

These are my opinions of course and I'm not a professional artist nor game programmer :)

I believe the current trend is more realistic art like that of your HL2 photo.

Steve

#3 I personally like both. :)

#4 Really and truly, it doesnt matter what people in general like more. What matters is A) what you like more, since you are going to be devoting many months of your time to making the game, and B) what works best with the game itself. Before you rush into production, Id actually recommend a lot of sketching, thinking, and planning beyond a question like this. You may stumble upon a style that you actually like more, or works better with your game, or something else entirely.

I find that 5 minutes of focused thought about something is worth an hour of production time. Its always temping to rush right into producing artwork, but dont underestimate the importance of pre-production,

#5 I think what would be best is finding a style that matches the game play that you are trying to achieve. If your goal is to have hyper realistic combat then yes, going more photo-realistic with your art and effects is key. If your goal is to have some hack and slash fun, then maybe something softer might work (ie. Zelda : Wind Walker). IMHO trying to lock onto an art style too early into your development before you really understand and have a solid idea of how your game play and control will work will end up burning you in the end.

Also another thing to consider is that you don't really want to be just another clone. For example if you are making a FPS title, do you really want to make a game that looks like the latest AAA FPS offering and thus has nothing unique about it to compete on the market? While on the flip side if you go too unique and different people might not associate too well with it either. As such there is a need to find a happy middle ground which once again I will preech can only be found once you have a solid understanding of your game play and controls and this is only done through active prototyping.

Logan

#6 Thanks guys and girls, reason I asked was to get a feel of the general feeling of styles. The game I'm working on is a SciFi FPS/RPG/RTS with the option later on to be turned into MMO. But stick with the basic 128-256 player network first. Till I've got all the features I want done and fix any bugs in the Client and Basic Server, then move it to a MMO Server setup.

Once stage ones done (land and air based travel) to this degree, then stage two is started which will increase the number of players above 256 and also add space travel and new planets.

Thinking about the style, I'm thinking of using both one(manga) for game(MMO in the future) and other(realistic) for training purposes(possibly for schools? Have to check this on out with GarageGames). This hopefully allow me to open up two possible revenue paths.

DragoFire

#7 Ambitious!.. thats all ill say..

#8 High style works especially well with Torque because graphically it can not compete with Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and Battlefield 2.

I like both styles, and I dislike wow's style a lot and hope that Blizzard does not use it for Diablo 3.

#9 Personally. i think the half-life look is kinda dumb.

#10 Thanks guys for the extra information, every bit helps. :)

Once I've got something to show I'll put up an Game overview for everyone to look at and offer an ideas to add.

DragoFire

#11 If you plan to have tons of players in the same world or whatever, you might consider a more "cartoon" style, because it usually requires less processing, unless your going with over fantasized, wherein you have even more detail than realism. (usually)

#12 I'm planning to host graphic files on client PC's, the only thing going over the LAN/WAN is file check/update at startup and then normal netcode for locations and basics.

So hopefully I'll be able to have high LOD models.

DragoFire

#13

The "realism" found in current cutting-edge FPS games isn't very real. It's more along the lines of "Hollywood realism", which is actually just as stylized and exaggerated as cartoons.

Realism looks like home movies done on a cheap camcorder. If Half-Life looked like that, it would never sell.

#14 Walter very true, but I think everyone knows what I was meaning. It's almost impossible to make a "true" life like style character. Closest I've seen was in the movie "Final Fantasy".

DragoFire

#15 As you can see from this thread DragoFire, art is very subjective. I think Blizzard has shown by their published numbers that if the game is good people will play regardless of the art style.