Had an interesting lecture today about realism and its importance within art and media. I've always considered realism, personally, to be of huge importance in art. I like to see paintings which strive to be as realistic as possible in the way they portray their subjects. We were actually shown one today by an artist who attempts to make every painting look like a photograph, with some really spectacularly impressive results. But the lecture raised the question of what realism actually is. How do we define what is "real" or "realistic"? A case in point was a front cover of National Geographic that we saw, where the famous pyramids at Giza had been manipulated to look closer together. The image looked totally realistic, but still did not portray reality. So was this a realistic image, or not?
As a games artist, this idea of visual realism versus subject realism is something that I can draw parallels with; there are lots of games which attempt to make themselves visually realistic, but don't actually represent the reality of their subject. One of the most obvious examples is the shooter genre; take 2009's blockbuster Modern Warfare 2, which has good looking visuals, animations and effects. It is, by video game standards, quite a visually realistic game. But the gameplay itself plays out nothing like war. In a sense, it is very similar to the pyramid image; it looks realistic, but doesnt show reality.
In contrast, 2001's Operation Flashpoint was the most realistic warzone simulator ever created, and remains so, along with its sequels, even now. But this was down to the gameplay mechanics, which were actually designed for and ported from a genuine military program called Virtual Battle Space, created to train troops. The graphics were OK at the time, but by todays standards they are terrible.
This again raises the question, which is the more realistic game? Modern Warfare 2, or Operation Flashpoint? What actually defines realism? It was quite a thought provoking lecture, actually, and has left me some interesting things to think about in terms of gameplay and graphics design in gaming, and their relation to realism.
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ReplyDeleteOnly things perceived can be real, You can fully comprehend/connect with either game in the physical sense, their just pixels on a screen.
ReplyDeleteArt is a distraction, which makes you, if only for a second, forget about this life and sucked into theirs, and when you do that(what does that for you) all depends on your character, one guy might only forget this world when playing COD the another more so with OF.
Realism is in a sense, the ability to call something that isn't real - real. If in that split second you can.. become the painting, absorbing it, experiencing it (game movie etc...) and ignoring all other sensory input. Then - your experiencing realism.