Hey y'all, I'm here to talk about something near and dear to my heart: the low poly aesthetic. Often when I show low poly work, or am even looking at someone else's work done in that style, I will often hear things like "It's like Playstation 1 graphics" or, "It's great because you don't have to make it look realistic", or any number of other things essentially implying that low poly is some sort of excuse or work-around style. I am here to assure you, if you have not already been assured, that this is entirely untrue. |
Does the low poly aesthetic offer a means for artists with less experience/money/effort to create a game they would not otherwise be able to? Yes. Is it used as a justification for terrible graphics? Often. But I will always continue to contest that it can be used as a gorgeous, intentional aesthetic choice. Part of the problem lies with people's everlasting obsession with 'realism'. Whatever that means. We have officially reached the point where films are hyperreal, in which you can see every pore on superman's body in high resolution. Is this realistic? Some might say it is the epitome of realism, but in fact it has gone far beyond what we (the human we) actually see in real life. A long art rant aside on notions of realism and legitimacy aside, we have long possessed the ability to create 'realistic' graphics. One of the many problems with this obsession is the constant phasing out of old technology. If you are trying to match/create the most realistic, exciting graphics of the day, odds are that within a year or two your game will look silly and 'unrealistic' in comparison with the newer, faster rendering engines of the day. It is an exercise in futility in many respects. If you want to pursue that style, fine, it's totally legitimate and gorgeous, I'm just saying that there is an issue with the ubiquity of it.
For these reasons I find other, abstract aesthetics to be extremely exciting. Actually, one of the most exciting recent developments in games graphics has been the low poly aesthetics. Why has this re-emerged? Is it simply those indie devs who were infamously obsessed with 'retro' pixel graphics, finally moved onto another outdated technology? Maybe. But there's more to it I think.
Low poly only works on modern graphics engines. If you were to create a beautiful low poly setup and run it through a typical graphics engine of even a few years ago, it wouldn't work. it would look flat, low budget, and quite turn of the century. The first thing that changes the aesthetic from has-been to amazing are the new techniques used to create the illusion that we are looking at a miniature world, made of clay, or paper, or some small material we're not quite sure what it is, but we know that it's small (and beautiful).
For these reasons I find other, abstract aesthetics to be extremely exciting. Actually, one of the most exciting recent developments in games graphics has been the low poly aesthetics. Why has this re-emerged? Is it simply those indie devs who were infamously obsessed with 'retro' pixel graphics, finally moved onto another outdated technology? Maybe. But there's more to it I think.
Low poly only works on modern graphics engines. If you were to create a beautiful low poly setup and run it through a typical graphics engine of even a few years ago, it wouldn't work. it would look flat, low budget, and quite turn of the century. The first thing that changes the aesthetic from has-been to amazing are the new techniques used to create the illusion that we are looking at a miniature world, made of clay, or paper, or some small material we're not quite sure what it is, but we know that it's small (and beautiful).
Depth of Field
The first way in which this effect is created is through depth of field. This simulates a physical camera attempting to film an object that is extremely small. At that scale, your focal length becomes very difficult to manage, and you often get things that are focused at the center of the frame, but anything next to or beside it is out of focus. This is frustrating if you're trying to photograph miniatures or something, as I have, but for a games developer, this frustrating artifact of the physical realm can be recreated to suggest a notion of tiny scale. Just as the (overused and abused) lense flare effect recreates a physical artifact to remind us of cinematic experiences, so does depth of field remind us of small, photographed objects.
Modern Lighting - Physically Based Shaders
The second development lies primarily within modern lighting techniques such as global illumination, which can create increasingly natural looking scenes. In the recreation of 'global' lighting, we are reminded of the way the sun lights the outdoor world. Tie this in with physically based renderers, and suddenly polygons look like lovingly crafted bits of plastic or other artificial material. All this is terribly process-intensive, but recent developments have put these techniques in reach of indie developers, allowing the low poly aesthetic to reach full bloom(another modern staple).
Meaningful Choices - Like Good Game DesignThis is all part of what makes the low poly aesthetic exciting for me, pesonally. And possible. Rather than constantly chasing the most 'realistic' aesthetic choices, low poly becomes something closer to Matisse's abstract paintings, where the interesting elements come not from their obsessive rendition of detail, but through careful choices. If you have all the polygons in the world, you can afford to model and texture each and every element of a character. But what about when you only have 200? 100? 10? Suddenly each choice matters, and those choices can be pleasing for not only the creator, but the viewer as well. |