{"id":442,"date":"2008-03-13T19:30:09","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T18:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=442"},"modified":"2009-07-26T13:01:14","modified_gmt":"2009-07-26T17:01:14","slug":"better-graphics-diminishing-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2008\/03\/13\/better-graphics-diminishing-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Graphics, Diminishing Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are game graphics at a point of diminishing returns?<\/p>\n<p>In that case, what do we mean by &#8220;diminishing returns&#8221;?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Does it mean that an increase in the graphical budget of a game does not increase sales correspondingly?<\/li>\n<li>Or does it mean that, subjectively, we are at a point where things look &#8220;good enough&#8221;?<\/li>\n<li>Or are we talking <em>negative<\/em> returns? That increasing polygon count makes humans look worse due to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=100\">uncanny valley<\/a>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We could also look at a case study. Megan Fox and Stuart Compton have an article in the latest <a href=\"http:\/\/gdmag.com\">Game Developer Magazine<\/a> about <em>Ambient Occlusive Crease Shading<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>(Disclaimer: I certainly respect the work done here, and I do not mean to pick on these authors. The stated goal is even of moving away from the &#8220;imitative&#8221; towards the &#8220;illustrative&#8221;, which I find good. And perhaps things will look different once they start moving.)<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless: How big a difference do you see between figure 5 <em>with<\/em>, and figure 6 <em>without<\/em> ambient occlusion? How much effort is it worth going from figure 6 to figure 5? Is this not diminishing returns?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/fox_compton_2008.jpg\" alt=\"Fox &amp; Compton - Ambient Occlusive Crease Shading\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Illustration by Fox &amp; Compton, from Game Developer Magazine, March 2008)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are game graphics at a point of diminishing returns? In that case, what do we mean by &#8220;diminishing returns&#8221;? Does it mean that an increase in the graphical budget of a game does not increase sales correspondingly? Or does it mean that, subjectively, we are at a point where things look &#8220;good enough&#8221;? Or are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2008\/03\/13\/better-graphics-diminishing-returns\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Better Graphics, Diminishing Returns&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}