/vr/ - Retro Games

Peak soul

I love the whimsical look of it. It falls in the cracks between realism and cartoon, which gives it a fantastical otherworldly look. It FEELS like a fantasy world, which gets your imagination going. Like this render here makes me want to explore that world more than anything hyper realistic ever could. I wish we'd get to the point where this SGI Workstation dreamy vibe made a comeback in the retro throwback world as opposed to eternal SNES-like games.

>>10250772
Because by the time real time graphics evolved enough to match that look the actual art styles moved toward realism. The plastic sheen of those SGI Workstation renders has a whimsical fantasy to them but once the PS2 nobody wanted games looking like cartoons anymore. Personally I think it'd be great seeing an alternate universe where technology kept improving as it did except the stylistic choices stayed the course and we just kept getting better and better versions of what the PS1 and N64 were putting out. I remember thinking to myself how awesome it would be once we got games that could look like FFVIII FMV in real time. But now that something like that is possible, nobody wants to make it look like FFVIII FMV.

My most favourite render of all time

>>9692471
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was the SGI Workstation renders of the day, not specifically the N64. The presentation was trying it's damnedest to be as realistic as possible but was too rudimentary to fully shed it's cartoon roots and so they fell into this gap that made it feel whimsical. It looks like a fairy tale world in the best way possible. Mysterious, magical, familiar but not fully real, etc.

https://youtu.be/AB0Bhlsv_pU

Tinkerbell's line probably conveys the emotion that SGI renders convey. Something between sleep and awake.

postan

>>8878178
There was a paradigm shift in the art direction between the PS1/N64 and the PS2. I remember looking at the FMV scenes of PS1 RPGs and thinking that it would be great when consoles are strong enough to make the whole game look like the FMV. But by the time that was possible the art direction transitioned away from that "look." There was something whimsical about it. You know that the artists were aiming for photo realism and the tech was just not up to the task but those limits helped the imagery.

In retrospect I'd say Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast was the end point. It was the closest thing to what I was imagining the "future" of video games would look like but also the last example of it before the change over.

>>8697805
Probably not the best but I liked Meru and Haschel. I would have done Lavitz and Haschel but y'know

>>8497592
I don't think that's necessarily true. Even with today's computers you'd be hard pressed to reproduce the SGI Workstation promo art in real time.

>>8490078

>>8394035
Unfortunately that SGI Workstation look seems to have been lost to the brief era of the mid to late 90s. I guess people just think it looks old and is "bad CG" but I love how it falls between the cracks of cartoon and reality, giving it a whimsical appearance all it's own.

>>8103932
I don't think that's true. These late 90s SGI Workstation renders are incredibly outdated but they stand as their own unique artform that falls between the cracks of cartoon and reality, offering their own brand of whimsical fantasy that can't be improved by throwing better technology at it.

I should play this. I was interested in it way back in 2000 but got derailed by Chrono Cross and a few other games and just never got around to it. I remember loving the 90s era CG renders. It was obviously Sony was trying to ape Final Fantasy's mojo but they did it well.