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Killer is Dead (Grasshopper, 360/PS3) screens
- Thread starter SolidSnakex
- Start date
I'm talking about the artists. If the definition doesn't hold up on that end for games, then it doesn't hold up at all, because the artists have to first create the rules for which they create art for others to follow should they see fit for a style to be born. That's what your link says anyways.
This is why I avoid mixing terms from other forms of art with games -- they are complex!
Robot Pants
Member
MAGNIFICO!
Yes, I've read it and I've practically explained it to you line by line at this point. The article is talking about the end result -- what is MADE that you can SEE. All visual media -- games, movies, comics, illustrations, paintings, sculptures, etc -- share the fact they're visual. There is no risk of mixing terms here -- we are talking about the visual arts component ONLY. And as the article says, and defines with examples of perspective, lighting, etc, "in critical analysis of the visual arts, the style of a work of art is often treated as distinct from its iconography, which covers the subject and the content of the work." How this female character is dressed, is an element of the game's iconography, its content. Not its art style.
? It isn't. Look at the excerpt I quoted a few replies ago.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
This is like the unstoppable force vs the immovable object. Two users who are never wrong, head-to-head about japanese anime school girls
So was Suda when he didn't recieve a dev kit.
If only I said visual
Sadly, that is the reason to not be too overjoyed for Grasshopper games given the previous titles have suffered from a combination of bad design decisions and the use of outdated technology. Things like recycled level design and poor platforming sections, dumb AI, clunky player movement, archaic, repetive combat systems, wonky camera control, and inconvenient mission structure have been among the noticeable issues Grasshopper's been guilty of in the past.
You're referring to the following:
"By changing the way they paint, apply colour, texture, perspective, or the way they see shapes and ideas, the artist establishes a certain set of "rules". If other artists see the rules as valid for themselves they might also apply these characteristics. The works of art then take on that specific "style"."
......which refers to how styles are formed, how they're classified. And as made clear in the part before that, which goes like this:
"In critical analysis of the visual arts, the style of a work of art is often treated as distinct from its iconography, which covers the subject and the content of the work.
......we see that those rules of classification have nothing to do with content, and in fact the article by that point already explicitly ruled out content as a factor in what constitutes art style. Art style, again, is separate from iconography.
And the bottom line, as pertains to the topic of this game and what started this tangent, is the female character could be dressed completely differently -- but the art style would stay the same. Now as for the genre, I.E. grindhouse, pulp, etc -- that would change if the characters dressed differently, and behaved differently, and in a different time and place, etc. But again, the genre is content, or iconography -- all of which is separate from art style, by definition.
There's really nothing more to say on this. I've given you the factual, academic definiton of what art style is.
Then don't continue to argue art style is defined as something it's not.
I'm not, I'm saying your definition of style isn't applicable to games either.
Need to play another run of sotd sometime this year. Love that game.
it's a given they make unfun games. but the gamey-game part rarely seems to be the point.
The definition -- the academic definition of art style -- applies to all visual arts. Including games. We have been talking about what you -see.-
And frankly it speaks for itself, and the "visual arts" link in the article even includes video media.
Yep.
I still like 'em though. And I pre-ordered Lollipop Chainsaw for $45 from Amazon which was awesome.
I don't think Grasshopper makes unfun games, just flawed ones. Grasshopper's skill is rooted in its artistic talent, not technical design. It's a shame Grasshopper isn't more like Platinum Games in the way of having a more balanced overall skillset. Of course, Platinum Games has some weaknesses of its own.
...are you taking into account how game visuals work? Are you skipping the formation part in your definition and the topics of programmers that I previously covered?
I think I am done here. Nothing worthwhile can come of this.
Formation has nothing to do with anything. And your sticking point was whether her dress was part of the art style. Iconography -- content -- is factually NOT a part of art style, for any visual media, games included.
And we're done, but really, we've been done since I shared the same definition every university in the world would have, many posts ago.
yeah... the artistry, and the abundant creativity in broadstroke direction. whatever philosophy they have on creative direction is far left-field of most west devs.
I wanted to have an interesting discussion and he's stuck on some win or lose "sticking point" thing that I dropped a while ago. Kinda frustrating.
I'm glad you got something out of it.
Grasshopper seems to be the kind of Japanese studio that doesn't care how niche its games are. It just does what it wants and just hopes it can find a publisher. Quite frankly, they've been pretty lucky to have gotten this far, but I'm concerned that the developer's software output has resulted in a case of quantity over quality despite expanding its studio. We'll see if Grasshopper has any problems finding a western publisher to localize Killer Is Dead.
You were arguing that the content was part of the art style. You never accepted otherwise. I explained why you are, academically and factually, incorrect. You're now trying to steer it to some "engineering" element, which itself is wrong -- the end result is the visual media created, not -how- it's created.
I accepted it by dropping the subject and moving to conversation forward instead of going on an endless twist and tumble.
Also, you're wrong on the second part -- how it's created matters. I don't see how you could get anything else from the definition you provided.
yup. they're a freak of nature. and it does look like they're running short on their nine lives. so all the more respect to them that they keep doing their weird thing.
on a side note i'm enjoying the war of attrition happening in this thread.
The conversation never would've continued if you had made it clear you saw how iconography is separate from art style. But regardless, on your second part, you misunderstand how the article uses "rules" -- it's following the first part (the style/iconography distinction) and saying that commonalities exist between styles that allow creators to set rules as to "what is style x," "what is style y," etc.
But I did...
The only issue is that I have with applying the terms to games (hence quotations), which is where the conversation went!
I swear you're doing distraction tactics now, as that post doesn't produce any acknowledgement on your part.
But the real meat is your apparent difficulty "applying the terms to games" -- the point I've argued ad nauseum is games have visual art in them, by the very nature of the medium -- and how the visual art is defined is all that was ever discussed here.
You've contorted the article to serve some bizarre angle about the engineering of something when the "rules" you cite from the article are clearly, in the context of everything before and after, outlining the concept that once something is created, and is visual, and can be seen, artists come to classify the piece of visual art (may it be a painting or movie or game or whatever) into different categories of style, none of which have anything to do with the content or subject matter, NOR how they are created.
When you see the line "how it's painted," it very clearly means the resulting perspectives, textures, etc (as it lays out literally the next clause) that put it in Category X, stylistically, versus Category Y. And again, the one commonality in all of these disparate categories -- Gothic, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, etc -- is not content, or creation. It's all the different elements of color, lighting, shading, texture, perspective, proportion, etc, that define them, stylistically.
Man I love this stuff.
I don't know why you think it's about engineering strictly -- do you think that programmers have no effect on how the final product may look? Perhaps even forming some sort of style? I mean, look at the much maligned "UE3 look" that UE3 frequently gets criticized for. It's no coincidence that a large group of games that share similar looking visual traits have the same engine. (although it's just the developers using the default shaders instead of making their own) Things like shaders and other parts of the renderer that effect how the end result will look are handled by programmers -- which would make them artists, correct?
Your weird paranoia about "distraction tactics" and "bizarre angles" is making it seriously hard to tolerate a conversation with you, anyways.
It's not paranoia. It's the fact you're beating around the main point here, and I think anyone who's followed this convo from the start knows why you're randomly dropping certain talking points and pulling others out of thin air.
We're talking about how the game looks. How it looks. What you see. With your eyes.
That's all we've been talking about.
Whether it's made with paint. Or pencil. Or pen. Or crayon. Or even programming, hard code.
What comes of that, and how you define that in terms of style has been the debate. Style, which is what you end up with, no matter the means getting there.
You want to talk about engines? Well shit that's not what we've been talking about up to this point, so you'll have to have that convo with someone else.
The article, and myself, have made this point on the matter: At the end of the day, you look at what's there, you look at what was produced -- the perspectives used; the colors; the lighting; etc.
Not the content. Not the tool. But the visual result of the technique; the result of the tool.
The visual motifs -- again, not content, but stylistically -- are the rules that put it in one category, or another.
And that's that.
In addition to my post above, to address this even further -- those programmers you mention are still producing textures. Perspectives. Proportions. Colors. Lighting. Shadows.
And guess what? All of that can be visually classified, according to rules of style. Just as if they were painted, or sculpted, or whatever.
Part of the definition that you provided includes artists, rules, and techniques. You can't just overlook that. I'm not dropping anything -- I've been fairly ardent in sticking to this main point ever since you brought up that definition.
I'm not "talking about engines" by bringing up UE3, I'm citing an example of a common visual style (according to the definition you provided) as a result of programmer's work. Is doing anything other than droning repetition making points out of thin air?
The whole point of the article is what constitutes aesthetics. My main point has already been satisfied: That the subject matter is NOT part of the art style.
The secondary point is also satisfied: Whether you create an image in UE3 or you create an image with paint, in both cases are the creators artists, and in both cases are there shared visual qualities between the two -- perspective, proportions, lighting, shadow, color, texture, etc -- that makes up their style.
Let's put it this way:
You can recreate the Mona Lisa in UE3. You can look at the real Mona Lisa, as well. They will both fall into the same category, stylistically. Sure if you touch one, you're touching paint, and if you touch the other, you're touching a computer screen. But if you look at it, you'll see the same colors, textures, perspectives, etc.
Bam.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
I think Neiteio thinks you two are arguing the semantics of interpretation and pizzaroll thinks you two are arguing the interpretation of semantics.
Not originally, at least. At the start there he was insisting a piece's setting, manner of dress, etc, is part of its art style, which is academically false. But then he apparently admitted he was wrong on that front and shifted to some topic about engines. Which is fine, because I think the Mona Lisa example illustrates the resulting visual can still be classified like any other visual art.
It wasn't really about engines, moreso the semantics of what constitutes an artist in a medium heavily reliant on programmers, including the visual arts aspect.
If you want to shift to that topic, I'd say programmers are absolutely every bit an "artist" as a painter or sculptor. In the end they create something we can see. And like anything we see, we can group it in different styles according to agreed upon rules of perspective, proportions, color, texture, etc.
On a funny note, I just pictured a painter recreating a scene originally rendered in UE3, to invert the Mona Lisa analogy, lol.
Love his work. I recently bought his second KYMG art book, good stuff in there.
See, that's the sort of answer I was looking for! Now everything makes sense.
Anyways game looks cool doesn't it?
Well, I'm glad we reached a middle ground and mutual understanding in only a handful of words, lol.
In this context, programmers would fulfill a task much akin to those people who actually painted the dots in Damien Hirst's Dot Paintings, for example. It doesn't mean they are the artist (or them necessarily even artists), but rather a technitian or skilled person tasked with bringing the artistic / creative vision to result.
More lolis? I'm hesitant to buy.
Actually, that's a fair point -- I guess the concept designer would be the "visionary," so to speak. At that point, I suppose it's more a matter of whether you limit the label "artist" to the one who conceptualizes the image, or if you also include the ones who have the mechanical skill to execute on that vision. Both require a certain insight and intuition to bring about the desired perspectives, proportions, etc.
Criminal Upper
Banned
How many lollis are in the screens? To my knowledge, there was only ever one in-game lolli in any Grasshopper game, and she was only a figment of Henry Cooldown's imagination.