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[Occam]

Left is a polygon from the OP's screenshot, it has smooth shading. It has a gradient. Right is the same polygon, but edited to have flat shading- it's one solid color:

So yeah, none of the examples in the OP are flat shaded.

This one even has textures:

 

[Lord_Balkan]

So yeah, none of the examples in the OP are flat shaded.

The Virtua Fighter one is. A more precise definition is that light 'shades' every pixel on that polygon equally.

 

[ResidentDante]

The style can look really good, I disagree that VF1 couldn't look nice if upscaled to a much higher resolution. Check the PS2 version (yeah I know the controls aren't as good in this version) running i 720p:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVsIK24uVfE

Looks amazing!

 

[HTupolev]

The Virtua Fighter one is. A more precise definition is that light 'shades' every pixel on that polygon equally.

If were going to be strict, diffuse textures are part of the front end of the shading process. Unless the textures are sampled per-polygon or coarser, they technically violate the requirement, although that might be getting somewhat pedantic.

The textured regions could perhaps be called "flat lit" without being imprecise.

 

[Huggers]

Could be the next big indie style after 8 and 16 bit styles are exhausted. I'd be cool with this. Flat shaded polys are awesome

 

[23qwerty]

Left is a polygon from the OP's screenshot, it has smooth shading. It has a gradient. Right is the same polygon, but edited to have flat shading- it's one solid color:

These are very nearly identical

 

[Bust Nak]

Yes, in the past, games like Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, etc. didn't have texture mapping, but there's obviously no rule saying that 'flat shaded = no textures'. It just means that you create flat-shaded models and you can do with that whatever you want.

The rule for flat shaded is that every pixel of a poly is the same color - that means no textures.

 

[Epsilonart]

Yup it is pretty great and easy to do (shamelessly posting some of my works : P )

 

[acheron_xl]

I don't think it's 'flat shaded' that the OP loves, as much as "simple geometry that's not concealed or obscured by complex textures"

Could be the next big indie style after 8 and 16 bit styles are exhausted. I'd be cool with this. Flat shaded polys are awesome

This is to 32-bit what the retro 8 and 16-bit styles are to their antecedents.

 

[Marvel]

You'll get no argument from me. I completely agree on this.

 

[Mario]

These are very nearly identical

But they are not the same. Which is the point. Only one is flat shading.

 

[Tesseract]

These are very nearly identical

check your vision

 

[Adam Scott Aukerman]

Could be the next big indie style after 8 and 16 bit styles are exhausted. I'd be cool with this. Flat shaded polys are awesome

It wouldn't surprise me, it's been one of the main go-to styles in motion design for the last 5 years or so, so it's not like there isn't an abundance of experience to poach.

 

[HTupolev]

These are very nearly identical

Not as parts of a complex scene.

 

[Lord_Balkan]

If were going to be strict, diffuse textures are part of the front end of the shading process. Unless the textures are sampled per-polygon or coarser, they technically violate the requirement, although that might be getting somewhat pedantic.

The textured regions could perhaps be called "flat lit" without being imprecise.

Yeah by definition diffuse textures do to violate that requirement. That was an oversight on my part, probably partially due to the lack of diffuse textures in flat shaded games. Thanks for catching that.

 

[Occam]

The Virtua Fighter one is. A more precise definition is that light 'shades' every pixel on that polygon equally.

No, it's not because the face is using a texture.

 

[Risk Breaker]

Yup it is pretty great and easy to do (shamelessly posting some of my works : P )

Those are nice! Anywhere where I could see more of your work?

 

[ElFly]

As a matter of fact I think the VF image above would still look great with the appropriate resolution.
I remember playing one of the VF4 episodes that let you play with original VF models, and I thought it still looked great, even somehow better than characters with complex geometry and textures.
Simple, flat-shaded objects are usually much more "readable" than complex ones.

Not sure why the OP decided to randomly shit on Virtua Fighter by using a image from the 32x port. VF1 Arcade is a thing of beauty

Was always a shame that the Saturn, being Sega's home console only received rushed, bad ports of VF and Daytona USA.

 

[Metal B]

Similar to Pixel-Art , which is still well received n its post-modern time, the style of the PS1 and N64 era should make a comeback. The simple shapes have a very abstract nature and leaves a lot to the imagination of the viewer. That's why the games at the time look so bizarre and dreamlike.
Zelda:OoT, Zelda_MM or Shadowman for example have a scary and unsettling atmosphere, which also comes through the limited geometry.The positive side-effect of the uncanny valley. On the other hand Super Mario 64 feels dreamlike, since you know what many objects are supposed to look like, but a strangely cut-down to its basic forms.

 

[Business]

Yup it is pretty great and easy to do (shamelessly posting some of my works : P )

Really beautiful, congrats.

 

[Lord_Balkan]

No, it's not because the face is using a texture.

?

I'm not sure how using a texture in general disqualifies it, but you might want to read up couple posts that clears it up

 

[Log4Girlz]

Not sure why the OP decided to randomly shit on Virtua Fighter by using a image from the 32x port. VF1 Arcade is a thing of beauty

Was always a shame that the Saturn, being Sega's home console only received rushed, bad ports of VF and Daytona USA.

VF1 and VF2 are the best looking entries to that series. There I said it.

They are art. I would hang av screen shot from my wall.

Check this gif out. Its a stop motion of an actual 3D model though, but its in the same spirit goddammit.

http://i.imgur.com/CNug0CM.webm

 

[pottuvoi]

?

I'm not sure how using a texture disqualifies it

There are multiple shades of color within polygon.

Flatshading is old term which simply means a polygon filled with a constant color. (no additional calculation within polygon fill.)

 

[RedSwirl]

To me, flat shading represents a time when early 3D graphics felt like the future. Flat shaded graphics still have a sort of futuristic feeling to me.

 

[Epsilonart]

Those are nice! Anywhere where I could see more of your work?

Thanks ! Sent you a pm to my website : )

Really beautiful, congrats.

Thanks a looot !

 

[akachan ningen]

To me, flat shading represents a time when early 3D graphics felt like the future. Flat shaded graphics still have a sort of futuristic feeling to me.

totally. when I was a kid, this video blew my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAD6Obi7Cag

 

[-MD-]

Could be the next big indie style after 8 and 16 bit styles are exhausted. I'd be cool with this. Flat shaded polys are awesome

I sure hope so.

 

[UnluckyKate]

Exactly. Tearaway was what I thought first when I read OP
Everybody check this game on PS4. It's a gem

 

[Dead Man]

My current desktop wallpaper is this:



I'm a big fan of low poly art.

That's beautiful.

 

[Mario]

There are multiple shades of color within polygon.

Flatshading is old term which simply means a polygon filled with a constant color. (no additional calculation within polygon fill.)

You can have a flat shaded textured polygon. It just means that all parts of the polygon and applied texture receive the same lighting value.

Flat shading just means there is only a single normal used to compute the lighting for every texel on the polygon surface.

"No additional calculation within polygon fill" would mean a coloured polygon with no shading if you are suggesting there is no lighting applied in that case. That wouldn't be "flat shading".

 

[23qwerty]

check your vision

My perfect vision is telling me that these are very nearly identical

 

[-MD-]

My perfect vision

 

[23qwerty]

 

[Dascu]

Yes, I'm a big fan as well and have been going the low-poly flat-shaded route on my own game, Malebolgia.

There's a wonderful series of articles on the subject by Tim Schneider at Kill Screen:

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/poly-generational/
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/poly-generational-2/
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/low-poly-3/

 

[Log4Girlz]

Why did you avatar quote yourself?

 

[23qwerty]

Why did you avatar quote yourself?

Why are you lying to yourself, nay, to everyone?

 

[FindMyFarms]

Exactly.

Everybody check this game on PS4. It's a gem

Sure thing lemme just read your mind real fast then I'll go get this game.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Why are you lying to yourself, nay, to everyone?

I'm sad and lonely

 

[Epsilonart]

Here is quick a quick setup so you guys understand a bit better than the example shown above

 

[Jedipottsy]

I think your all confusing 'flat shading' with good lighting. The thing that stands out the best from all of the flat surface models, particularly this

is the lighting. Beautiful GI lighting. The reason it looks so good with 'flat' single colour surfaces, is that the lighting information isnt hidden with textures, It creates nice 'soft' surfaces. The two (good GI and flat surfaces) complement each other very well.

'Ambient Rendering' is a technique used by environment/character artists, to purely show geometric detail. The crudest technique is to apply an AO shader/light in the scene. Better examples use full GI (Environment/Character artist, usually dont know how to light jack, so they use the crude GI method).

Good exmaple of a GI render

Ambient render

 

[orioto]

I love it but i can already see how it's the new boring indy fad

 

[Dice]

The style can look really good, I disagree that VF1 couldn't look nice if upscaled to a much higher resolution. Check the PS2 version (yeah I know the controls aren't as good in this version) running i 720p:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVsIK24uVfE

Looks amazing!

Yesssss. I hope Star Fox U has an unlockable mode to look like the original Star Fox.

In the meantime... Sky Rogue! ...which Nerd³ played (he's hilariously bad at flight combat games)

 

[UnluckyKate]

Sure thing lemme just read your mind real fast then I'll go get this game.

Tearaway, it's ported from Vita to PS4 in an extended " Unfolded " edition

 

[Jedipottsy]

As a side note to my post,

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/wp-con...of-ms-house-3ds-import-into-3d-studio-max.jpg

that is also 'flat' polygons, notice how bland it is?

 

[MiszMasz]

My perfect vision is telling me that these are very nearly identical

With art and assets made on a system that's literally running in binary, it's not uncommon to be able to say whether something is, or isn't the same as another.
The quality of your vision is neither here nor there.

 

[Roran Stehl]

I am working myself on a game with a similar style, sadly it is on hold till the 3rd quarter of the year.

It's beautiful! Let us know when this comes out.

 

[sinxtanx]

My perfect vision is telling me that these are very nearly identical

Your vision does not trump established rendering terminology.

 

[eot]

I think your all confusing 'flat shading' with good lighting. The thing that stands out the best from all of the flat surface models, particularly this

is the lighting. Beautiful GI lighting. The reason it looks so good with 'flat' single colour surfaces, is that the lighting information isnt hidden with textures, It creates nice 'soft' surfaces. The two (good GI and flat surfaces) complement each other very well.

'Ambient Rendering' is a technique used by environment/character artists, to purely show geometric detail. The crudest technique is to apply an AO shader/light in the scene. Better examples use full GI (Environment/Character artist, usually dont know how to light jack, so they use the crude GI method).

Good exmaple of a GI render

Ambient render

I can't wait for real time GI.
Too bad it won't happen this gen.

 

[23qwerty]

Your vision does not trump established rendering terminology.

What are you even talking about lmao, this person tryna telling me to check my vision when I'm saying these two polygons are very nearly identical, obviously they aren't 100% identical.
Chill.

 

[Japanmanx3]

This reminds me of Derrick the Deathfin:

Fun game actually. Chill ost.