For all intents and purposes, this blog comes a day after the official year of the
20th anniversary of Playstation.
I made a tribute to Playstation a while ago for the 20th anniversary, and it embraced the very same limitations that games made for it, were based upon.
While creating this piece, it had me thinking. There where a lot of limitations involved making this, yet, there was dedication hidden somewhere. PS1 game developers never had access to today's powerful computers or software. When developers wanted to claim "photorealism" back then, this was all they had. Despite this, they still managed to impress us. Games like Crash Bandicoot or Metal Gear Solid were still marketed to us as being "very real 3D looking graphics". Were they wrong for doing this? Not really, and here's why.
There are real limitations as to what can actually be achieved in real time. But, there is also a certain creative and artistic drive necessary for games to be considered real or "good looking" to us.
The PS1's limitations forced developers to pioneer their own attempts at realism. Think of it like the first building blocks of games. Everyone was on their own. Before a time we knew about documented shadows or lighting, you had to create those on your own. This is now what gave birth to "realistic" or "good looking games". You couldn't just hire any person and expect them to make the best looking building or monster at a push of a button. It required the person to have a strong understanding of the arts and the world around him or her, to actually present a model that looks convincing real or in some cases, not real (i.e cartoons).
Here is an actual photograph of a Playstation that my model is based on. It's free of all the the jaggy artifacts and other primitive subtleties you found in its games. However, could you not immediately recognize my Playstation model from the real thing?
There are differences, but it's not impossible to tell each model from each other. To get the best out of my model, I had strategize about everything. "Where will I put my polygons?" "What's the most important thing I want to showcase?" "What should the lighting look like?". It was all these things I had to examine closely and experiment with, to finally come up with the end result.
Because the PS1 offered no prior knowledge of 3D lighting and rendering, you could say the PS1 was the only time developers were left unhindered to getting close to realism.
For example, most game engines now made for PS4/XBO have made the move to physically based rendering. With previous generations, this wasn't as wide spread. Some games could go overboard with effects like bloom. Despite having more advance graphics, you couldn't really call these games "real".
Because the PS1 felt like the wild west of 3D, it was possible to avoid these pitfalls of wrongfully using visual effects like bump maps, specular lighting etc, that despite the claim of "looking real", it would later represent the opposite or age worse.
Now, I'm not saying the PS1's graphics are ultra realistic, and that no game since then has never been real. Only that, realism (for the lack of a better word), has always been in the control of the artist.
I could model a Playstation with more geometry and with more sophisticated textures and shaders and it will indeed, appear more realistic than it does with the crude PS1 graphics. However, it takes a real good lighting artist, texture artist, or modeler, to understand each discipline, to actually pull that off. Just slapping on "ambient occlusion" wont make it look better than my PS1 render. Having an intricate understanding of where and how exactly light bounces and diffuses off surfaces, is the only way throwing in AO would be an improvement, as opposed to a "downgrade".
As well as, not every game obviously has to be realistic. Crash Bandicoot on PS1, prided itself on having really impressive technical visuals, but at its core, it was still a cartoon. Many games since then have followed the same route and arguably, came out on top over the games did attempt "pure realism", depending on who you ask.
Pixar doesn't make games, but their example in the movie realm can still be a great influence for the game industry. There was a point where they were bottlenecked by hardware limitations, but they still manage to put out movies that can be enjoyed years later. That is because, they let their art do the talking first and foremost.
There has been no greater quote in the world of computer graphics than this,
"Art challenges technology, technology inspires the art".
While true photorealistic graphics are still years away, we can still enjoy what is being made now. Because what we make now shouldn't be created just for today. We should be making art that can be appreciated for for all of eternity.
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If you manage to read through this, congratulations. It was a long read but this is exactly the type of mindset I'm use to. I evaluate things in both a scientific and artistic way. I want to understand things in both objective truths, as well as unconventional thinking.
