With a new console generation upon us, I thought it might be a good time to conduct sort of an opinionated survey of game art techniques, some old, some new, some speculative. Part of what I want to do here is to break down what I think is the disingenuous and handicapping binary between so-called "photorealistic" and "stylized" rendering, and to advocate for a more syncretic and intentional approach to 3D game imagery drawing on a variety of examples from what is at this point I think a more or less mature state of the art.
Consider it something like a "greatest hits" of individual rendering, animation and UX implementations, with some pet peeve kvetching along the way, but also highlighting some exciting recent developments and suggesting possible combinations of ideas illustrated therein.
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| Charles Bell, Double Bonus, 1987 |