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Anyone else love good, low poly art?

Synth

Member
Smearing vaseline over it won't make it look fine.

Just look at this. That's 320x200 pixel artwork using 256 color. And it still looks absolutely great. It's not HD. Not even 480p. But it's fine. It doesn't look like shit. It doesn't make my eyes bleed.
6WWUyCJl.png

Meanwhile, I like pretty much everything in this thread over this... So opinions etc.
 
I love this! In couple of months I am starting my training in 3DS Max and i would rather do low poly 3D than super high detail models.

Honestly, you can teach yourself that in a few days if that. It is mainly getting comfortable with hotkeys so you don't have constantly click on the menu. Learn how to make joints that animate good enough, rigging is easy with low polygon models, and easy uvw mapping for low poly models is very simple. There aren't a whole lot of things you have to learn.
 

eojoko

Member
Smearing vaseline over it won't make it look fine.

Just look at this. That's 320x200 pixel artwork using 256 color. And it still looks absolutely great. It's not HD. Not even 480p. But it's fine. It doesn't look like shit. It doesn't make my eyes bleed.
6WWUyCJl.png

I tried to play that recently. The main issue was that the audio sounded TERRIBLE (possibly bad emulation). That's irrelevant here though.

But also, King's Quest has a story-book style design, and the art is inoffensive because we're already familiar with its style without any gaming context. The low-poly art in the thread is at least distinctive and often bold.
 

missile

Member
Am I missing something here? I've never played either but looking at screenhots those games don't have anything to do with polygons.
So you never played them but you can say they haven't anything to do with
polygons. tz tz tz... ;)

Well, polygons don't need to be three dimensional. They exist in two
dimensions as well. The animated objects in Another World are filled polygons
(2d scalable vector graphics) on a hand-drawn background.

AnotherWorldScreenshot-620x350.png
 

Squishy

Member
I don't think anyone has mentioned the Katamari series yet, but I think it's worth highlighting, as the games have some really pleasing low-poly models.

Here are a few quick shots I took from Katamari Damacy (emulated).


The flat lighting and the low detail, pixelated textures were a great choice, even if it was partly because of hardware limitations.

Some of the filters used in Katamari Forever (PS3) make the art look even better, but I'd imagine the games would also look amazing with really high quality lighting (for example, in the OP).

Another great example of pleasing, low-poly art would be Ghost Trick; the characters are not sprites, but rather 3D models.

Cabanela_dance.gif


EDIT: As it turns out, the Ghost Trick characters are indeed sprites, but were originally 3D models which were rendered in 2D.
 
Unfortunately I haven't gotten through with the whole thread just yet, but I plan on going through the entire thing since a lot of the art here looks great :3

The art in the OP in particular is fantastic! It all looks like very intricate origami, which makes them all very detailed but also very clean at the same time. I always liked any kind of art style that could achieve those two attributes together.
 

Coolwhip

Banned
Me too. Sega + Model = still amazing to this day. Checking out VF2, Fighting Vipers, and Daytona USA in high-res is amaaaaazing.

I even like the Model 3 stuff even though it added a lot of polygons.

I liked that look aswell. It just looks like videogames to me, instead of interactive movies these days. Time machine please.
 

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
The mega man legends art direction is one of my favorite to look at from that generation.

The pixelated textures and the good use of low poly makes things look cartoony yet clean all these years later.

Mega%2Bman%2BLegends%2BScreen%2B2.jpg
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
I have just seen this in the PSP recommendation thread, i thought it was worth quoting it here:

Some great choices in this thread, keep 'em coming folks!

I'd personally support Jeanne D'arc as well for the list. It's criminally underrated for what it is, and a solid choice for any PSP owner. It also looks really nice when uprendered in PPSSPP where it's begun to work properly (the chracters were previously invisible until recent builds)

1080p screenshot with 2xSSAA (8x rendering resolution) from PPSSPP:-
ibwPrVRfeTnlOf.png
 

Jamix012

Member
Sorry to bump, but I love some low poly art and thought I'd add two of my favourites
This is the XBLA version of Sonic the fighters, but I was playing it on my gamecube, and thought it looked really clean, even if the game is rubbish. Super neat.

Like Mega Man Legends/64 Bomberman Hero for the N64 has held up really well due its art style and still looks good today.
 

Persona7

Banned
Sorry to bump, but I love some low poly art and thought I'd add two of my favourites

This is the XBLA version of Sonic the fighters, but I was playing it on my gamecube, and thought it looked really clean, even if the game is rubbish. Super neat.


Like Mega Man Legends/64 Bomberman Hero for the N64 has held up really well due its art style and still looks good today.

I need to grab that. I think I saw it on PC as well.
 

Tain

Member
luka said:
Not sure if this really counts, but for Gungriffon fans the final version of the fanmade HIGH-MACS simulator came out not too long ago with some great 32-bit styled mechanical and world modelling.

DUDE
 

Lijik

Member
Sorry to bump, but I love some low poly art and thought I'd add two of my favourites

This is the XBLA version of Sonic the fighters, but I was playing it on my gamecube, and thought it looked really clean, even if the game is rubbish. Super neat.


Like Mega Man Legends/64 Bomberman Hero for the N64 has held up really well due its art style and still looks good today.

One of my favorite things about Sonic the Fighters is its extreme squash and stretch animation. Its kind of rudimentary, but its got a ton of personality
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Like Mega Man Legends/64 Bomberman Hero for the N64 has held up really well due its art style and still looks good today.

Honestly I didn't like the look of a lot of N64 games because of the blurry texture filtering. I preferred the unfiltered pixelated look of PS1 textures, or no textures at all like SEGA model 1 games.
 

fvng

Member
Call me crazy but I absolutely love the look of many N64 character models

3linksgame.jpg


gfs_41619_1_11.jpg


Banjo-Kazooie-536x400.jpg

not low enough to be vintage cool like Virtua Racing, not high enough to be beautiful like the ones in the first post, it's just stuck in the awkward middle. Always hated how the n64 rendered polys, made every game feel samey
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
Hail to the king!

The PS2 version is lovely and the gameplay still feels great!

VG Cuts (a user on Gaf) has a great video of it on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVsIK24uVfE
I love looking at this game in HD. I would buy a HD rerelease on PC without the pop-in. The game could easily draw the entire world on any modern machine so taking out the pop-in and making it 1080p would be amazing. I wish I'd owned this on PS2 back in the day.

I own the original Saturn version as well as the Genesis version.
 

pottuvoi

Banned
So you never played them but you can say they haven't anything to do with
polygons. tz tz tz... ;)

Well, polygons don't need to be three dimensional. They exist in two
dimensions as well. The animated objects in Another World are filled polygons
(2d scalable vector graphics) on a hand-drawn background.

AnotherWorldScreenshot-620x350.png
The original had fully polygonal 2D backgrounds as well.
Postmortem of Another World.

The painted backgrounds were added in the VGA 'remake'.
 

RaikuHebi

Banned
I recently completed Cave Story 3D after having trouble getting into the original 2D version a few years ago.

Also I think I might feel the same about FFIV.

In my case the first 3D generation was my first home console generation, so the passion lies deep.
 
That's very impressive for 1983. I did a lot of playing in arcades back then, and I never saw that one. No wonder though, apparently only 1500 machines were made. Atari also released their Star Wars 3D game that same year, though that was just simplistic wireframe models.

They also had Battlezone in 1980, which was wireframe vectors too. But Star Wars did have some advancements over Battlezone... it used colour vectors while Battlezone was black and white. Also the digitized sound bytes from the movie were quite impressive for it's time. I, Robot goes on record as being the first legitimate retail game to use flat shaded polygons though, it's a real landmark title that sort of got lost through time.
 
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