Let me start off by saying, this is my very first time posting in this section of the forum, woooohoooo! Now with that said, not to long ago I journey into the world of the RAGS engine (and a few others I can't remember) in search of my games and to see how deep the rabbit whole goes and something I have noticed after playing a few games, (just to name a few; wife trainer, the original superpowered, Drunken cowboy, Spell for all) I noticed that there seems to be a trend of using Live action photos instead of hand Drawn or even CGI, or just text!
So my question is, which do you all prefer to see? Personally and this is just my own opinion, I have a bias for 2d being a wannabe illustrator myself. I have nothing against 3d models when they are done well. to put it bluntly... I hate 3d models when they are anime style, 3d model always looks so cringe-inducing when they try to imitate anime. Something like the Chibi stuff I can see getting a base due to the simplification of the design, but the more normalized anime stuff not so much. It actually takes me a minute to get used to the using of more realistic models in engines like RPG maker, especially when the models themselves don't match well or even at all to the character's portrait or sprite. I was also a game design student for 3 years, so I understand the work that goes into making an actual model from scratch... that is assuming one didn't just grab a base model from the program and just edit it.
Still, though, UV mapping is a *beep*
Live action photography... unless those photographs were taken by the creator or someone the creator highered directly for the game... I personally can't help but view this action as a more lazy approach. I understand the time it takes to go out and find the images, trust me I know the pain of looking (and making my own) for reference and resource images for an illustration. But it just feels like an out to me on that aspect.
So which do you all prefer?
So my question is, which do you all prefer to see? Personally and this is just my own opinion, I have a bias for 2d being a wannabe illustrator myself. I have nothing against 3d models when they are done well. to put it bluntly... I hate 3d models when they are anime style, 3d model always looks so cringe-inducing when they try to imitate anime. Something like the Chibi stuff I can see getting a base due to the simplification of the design, but the more normalized anime stuff not so much. It actually takes me a minute to get used to the using of more realistic models in engines like RPG maker, especially when the models themselves don't match well or even at all to the character's portrait or sprite. I was also a game design student for 3 years, so I understand the work that goes into making an actual model from scratch... that is assuming one didn't just grab a base model from the program and just edit it.
Still, though, UV mapping is a *beep*
Live action photography... unless those photographs were taken by the creator or someone the creator highered directly for the game... I personally can't help but view this action as a more lazy approach. I understand the time it takes to go out and find the images, trust me I know the pain of looking (and making my own) for reference and resource images for an illustration. But it just feels like an out to me on that aspect.
So which do you all prefer?