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There's a term I read about a long time ago, I think it was "aesthetic completeness" or something like that. It was used in the context of video games whose art
by seabombs 1y ago
There's a term I read about a long time ago, I think it was "aesthetic completeness" or something like that. It was used in the context of video games whose art direction was fully realized in the game, i.e. increases in graphics hardware or capabilities wouldn't add anything to the game in an artistic sense. The original Homeworld games were held up as examples.
Anyway, this reminded me of that. Making these pictures in anything but the tools of the time wouldn't just change them, they'd be totally different artworks. The medium is part of the artwork itself.
- lukan 1y agoHm, are you sure that there is not some nostalgia at play here? To me they look horribly pixelated and at least some would improve aesthetically a lot for me with a higher resolution.
- zozbot234 1y agoEven today these pictures have an almost perfect resolution for showing on a compact e-paper display. The viewing area on the original Mac models was not that much bigger, either. They only look "horribly pixelated" when artificially upscaled for a modern big screen. (A pixel-art specific upscaling filter would mitigate that issue, of course.)
- lukan 1y agoI was viewing them via a small mobile screen, not high DPI, not fullscreen. And to me, they simply don't look good the way they are. But if you folks enjoy them, go for it. Otherwise taste is subjective I think.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- reconnecting 1y agoIt's amazing what people achieved with the resources of the '80s, creating fairly enjoyable visuals using extremely limited technology. Another example from the early '90s is MARS.COM (1) by Tim Clarke (1993). Just 6 kilobytes and 30+ fps on a 12MHZ 286 (2). 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSjpIyMt0k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSjpIyMt0k 2. https://github.com/matrix-toolbox/MARS.COM/blob/main/MARS.ASM https://github.com/matrix-toolbox/MARS.COM/blob/main/MARS.AS...
- lukan 1y agoIt is definitely amazing what they pioneered and achieved with the given limits. But that doesn't mean I would enjoy a pixelated image now more than a high resolution image of the same motive.
- reconnecting 1y agoTaking this parallel further, perhaps oil paintings are not as sharp as digital photos of the same subject.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fwipsy 1y agoOf course there's a subjective element, but I was born about a decade after these were created and I find them to be beautiful. I love the mural with the tree, it's amazing how it creates a sense of openness that wants me to go outside, even with such a limited palette.
- anthk 1y agoYou have no idea on how charming these games look.
- lukan 1y agoOr I do, because I played them? But that was my not well received point about nostalgia ..
- anthk 1y agoI didn't play them. but I owned a Game Boy in late 90's and I emulated 8-16 bit microcomputer/console games in 2001-2005, and I really appreaciated them.
- Keyframe 1y agoI get your point. Truth is on both ends though. There truly are games which peaked in their visual style and even with modern power at their disposal nothing could be added that would make them look better. The medium they used, some of them, they used it to its maximum potential. I'd take pixel art's swan song game of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Modern rendition of it with let's say more detailed graphics, even vector one, would just make it look worse. It's perfect the way it is and I'd argue if you were to do it today and you chose the same art style, it'd come out the same with only smaller differences (like overall high resolution but still "subdivided" into smaller ones, effectively still being lower resolution).
- lukan 1y agoI get the aesthetics of pixel art games. And I would likely not enjoy modern remakes of them. My point above was just, that I do admire those arts as great of their time - but looking at them today like in the picture above, I simply don't like the pixel style as an art style on its own.
- Keyframe 1y agoThere's one, soon to be released, which is highly anticipated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMFYMG3QLw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMFYMG3QLw
- const_cast 1y agoMany new games are released today with pixel art because that's the aesthetic they want to portray. Some games, like Borderlands or Wind Waker, use aggressive cell shading. They age like wine, because the game has a distinct art style that gives it character.
- tumnus 1y agoYour opinion isn't popular, but I agree with you. Taking just the first image as an example... this is a digital recreation/modification of a Saul Steinberg cover for the New Yorker originally done in 1976. This cover created a extremely popular subgenre of stylized map drawing at the time, but the Mac version looks like mostly clip art images all splodged together with no real sense of composition or perspective. There are many other examples in here which I feel were made by people who happened to have access to the technology, but did not necessarily have great artistic ability. That being said, although there are also some extremely good examples in here (in my subjective opinion), I absolutely think there is a nostalgia element at play. I worked on these machines in the 80s and feel that nostalgia myself.
- al_borland 1y agoI have to imagine that fully realizing a vision can only truly take place when the artists are not working at the limits of the present day tools. I’m thinking of something like games today that choose an art style and run with it, rather than trying to push the hardware as hard as possible. Was this the artist’s vision, or were they simply making the best of the tools they had?
- zozbot234 1y agoPixel art is very much still around today, even though it's far from "pushing" the limits of current hardware. It's pursuing a rather consistent "vision" of maximizing quality while staying within the bounds of a predefined level of detail (i.e. resolution) and color depth.
- al_borland 1y agoRight. This is kind of what I’m talking about. Someone choosing pixel art today is making a choice; they have a vision. 40 years ago, they were limited by the system. The choice was largely made for them. Old video games come to mind. The box art would be drastically different than the look of the game. The box art was the vision, the game was what they ended up with after compromises due to the hardware of the day. I think it’s only been in the last decade or so that some game makers have truly been able to realize the visions they had 40 years ago.
- rchaud 1y agoI think of the box art and physical manual of a video game like Diablo from 1996, compared to the game itself. The manual had several detailed drawings of monsters and otherworldly creatures with a very "evil" look, but the game itself they were represented as blocky sprites with fairly comical movement, as characters moved on a isometric chessboard-style grid, with abrupt turns and limited speed. Ultimately the gameplay is what mattered, the box art, in-game music and sound effects all created an atmosphere that wouldn't have been as immersive with just graphics. A point of comparison would be to the game Quake, which came out the same year, and whose graphics felt light years ahead . But Quake mostly became a multiplayer hit, as the single-player story and overall atmosphere weren't very compelling.
- timoth3y 1y agoThe same holds true for everything from cave paintings to Roman frescos. It's part of human expression. The tools of that expression shape it. For example, Bach's music was shaped by the fact that the harpsichord had no sustain. The piano changed that, but "upscaling" Bach's work to take advantage of this new technology would destroy them. You use the new technology to play them as they were written for the old. The beauty comes through despite the change.
- dahart 1y agoSwitched on Bach is one of my favorite albums of all time.
- sovietswag 1y agoYou should take a listen to Tomita as well then! There is so much beautiful music in the world
- copperx 1y agoWay too much, in fact, if we go by daily Spotify uploads.
- dahart 1y agoI definitely listened to a lot of Tomita as a kid, I used to check out vinyls of his albums from my local library. The one that sticks with me most distinctly is his very unique rendition of Golliwog’s Cakewalk. https://youtube.com/watch?v=dPQ9d10fnko https://youtube.com/watch?v=dPQ9d10fnko But yeah, lots of other great stuff from him too.
- ddingus 1y agoOh wow! I have not heard that name in a while! ( and yes, I know I still haven't heard it outside my own head, but that is just a nit to pick..) Mars. That track is so great! All of them are, but that one shows off so many great synth techniques. One passage is noise that ramps. The spectral distribution changes, from emphasis on low notes to emphasis on high notes while the overall energy remains close to the same. I remember it because I have never heard anyone else do that in a composition. Recommendation seconded!
- xgkickt 1y agoVib Ribbon is one example I can think of that also exhibits that property.
- anton-c 1y agoThats an interesting concept. Considering it, the big first party titles certainly had stellar presentation art-wise. Doesn't seem like they were limited in achieving their vision in say, sonic the hedgehog. Even the later games with pseudo-3d the art direction makes it feel complete and like it fits the aesthetic. And even the new ones that have gone back to that style have the same 'look'(obviously because they're trying to be like those old games) but the graphical fidelity doesn't seem to change much beyond more pixels.
- techpineapple 1y agoIt’s interesting to think about the intersection of cultural, technology and aesthetic. Gaming embraces most of its historical aesthetics while say movies do not. There aren’t serious attempts to replicate the aesthetic of 50’s tv (which are tied in heavily with the culture of the time) similarly, jn the eighties and I imagine prior, I’ve been watching Miami vice and you can tell lots of the rooms are cheap sets with pretty minimal props. This is on the one hand definetly not full formed, but on the other hand I’ve grown to appreciate that aesthetic, And again other art forms like painting and video games seem to appreciate all eras of aesthetics in their modern versions in a Way tv and movies don’t. (Maybe just due to expense?)
- bane 1y agoI was also considering the effect of how silent computing used to be. It created a tension and expectation when waiting for an image to appear like waiting for a curtain to open on a play. So when the artwork appeared, the artists worked to make it beautiful. It was almost pushing the edge of what these systems could do, and so as a viewer placed you in an engaging experience right at the state of the art.
- mattbettinson 1y agoMaybe recency bias cause I’m playing it right now, but Breath of the Wild comes to mind
- tinco 1y agoIt might be but it's hard to tell because it's such a recent game. The Wind Waker might be a better example because it's now 20 years old and still renders and plays basically as if it's current gen on modern hardware.
- pjerem 1y agoExcept Wind Waker is actually a good and a bad example. Its art style has not aged but the HD remaster (on Wii U) is still better looking.
- z3c0 1y agoI don't know, I think some improved hardware would greatly improve the aesthetics of the Lost Woods, which severely drops in frame rate when docked. Handheld, the diminished fidelity at 720p buys back some frames. I'd be inclined to agree about some older Zelda games though, namely Wind Waker. I replayed it on GCN recently, and can attest that HD Wii U version really didn't add anything to the aesthetics.
- easton 1y agoThe Switch 2 update seems to have resolved every performance complaint I had with TotK, if you're willing to pay the price of admission.
- wileydragonfly 1y agoDo the swords still break every 39 seconds?
- teach 1y agoTo be fair, they did say "performance" complaints. :)
- AndrewStephens 1y agoI am not a game purist and modern games are just fine, but I do not see the point of AAA games employing 300 artists to model blades of grass that have no gameplay effect. Sure, the screen shots lot great but unless you are making GrassSimulator2000 it would have been better to use those resources for something else.
- bredren 1y agoAs a person who spent a great deal of time restoring a long neglected backyard to include a small lawn to play on, I am interested in playing GrassSimulator2000.
- dehrmann 1y agoThere's a solid chance GTA VI will include a lawn mowing minigame.
- Lammy 1y agoRockstar already did it in Bully https://bully.fandom.com/wiki/Lawn_Mowing https://bully.fandom.com/wiki/Lawn_Mowing
- noufalibrahim 1y agoWhen id was pushing the envelope of technology (mid to late 90s) and creating more and more startling games, I remember thinking that none of them really had the appeal of many of the earlier games. And apparently Carmack thought that the story etc. of the game wasn't important. Reading masters of DOOM and watching my 8 year old play DOOM on an emulator made me reconsider. He had a jumpscare in a way that would have been impossible unless the game was so immersive and that is a technological feat. I do agree with you that one can go too far but it's not wholly a pointless side quest.
- SlowTao 1y agoA lesser known title that I think hit that perfectly is Rez. So much so that the re-release almost 15 years later was for the most part, just higher resolution and cleaner rendering. But the overall style was not touched one bit.
- commandersaki 1y agoSounds like they're describing Interstate 76.
- st_phan 1y agoDo you think you could find the article? It sounds super interesting. I tried Claude and it mentioned the term might actually be „Aesthetic sufficiency“, but I couldn‘t find an essay with Homeworld on it.
- niedzielski 1y agomaybe https://www.gorzek.com/nonfiction/essays/homeworld/ https://www.gorzek.com/nonfiction/essays/homeworld/ which I found via https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aesthetic+completeness+%22homeworld%22 https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aesthetic+completeness+%22homeworl....
- tonijn 1y agoYes indeed! "The medium is the message" - Marshall McLuhan. Although you could also argue that "The interface is the message"