Great adventure style graphics
 

Wish these screens was from a new ag preview,unfortunately..I think thats what missing todays ag.
I found these inspring 3d graphic settings quite adventurous that like to see in any new ag but..
Actually these are from ssavers free trial available here: 3planesoft.com
feel free to add more you like.

http://i35.tinypic.com/10s6iy0.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/fy3cs8.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/zmfj4j.jpg

I don't think these screens are anything special. The majority of the first is an entirely 2D bitmap background taken from some random photograph. And on the second there's nothing to see beyond some commonly-looking buildings which are nonsensically crammed up together - I don't remember any Myst clone looking worse than that.

Run the exe's then you'll see what's the difference is between them and myst clones.
They may not be special or not even next gen but %90 ag releasing still 2d rest of it in 3d rooms,
simply spacious settings adds great sense of adventure.

You're right, these screensavers do feel adventerous. However, I'd still recommend RealMyst or in second place Sentinel: The Descendents of Time for much more interesting settings. If it wouldn't have to be 3D then most Myst-like adventure games are like this or better. The really nice element of this screensavers and their advantage over most adventure games is how many live and animated things there are in them. Yet, for example Myst IV was even more alive.

Gabe, you actually think that good graphics is the one thing that's missing from today's adventures? I personally believe that good graphics is about the only thing modern adventures have.

If you think just about the technological aspect of it then yes, graphics in today's adventure games are more advanced than what we've seen during the previous decade. Looking at the games from an artistical point of view, however, I'm not so sure if they're better at all. There are some stand-out titles of course, but not many.

Its called creativity. It goes hand in hand with visual graphics. This lacks greatly in modern adventure games, except Perry Rhodan.

You kiddin right,screens below from most anticipated upcoming adventures
and you believe these are the good graphics that modern adventures have:crazy:

http://i34.tinypic.com/fzbw4h.jpg

http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/6795.jpg

I'd say this Gray Matter screen looks good enough. However, the game is so strongly anticipated because of something else than great graphics.

Agree with Ascovel on GM.

Anyway, I'm not sure about this but I think that the Still Life 2 picture you posted isn't a final one, but a work in progress.

Looks to me that the Still Life 2 picture shows that the sequel will be a realtime 3D game. The second picture looks prerendered (except for the character), as it shows much more detail.
I agree with Gabe that it is sad that a game with beautiful graphics like Still Life gets a squel like that, as the graphics of adventure games with realtime 3D graphics are in general still way behind prerendered adventure games, even after being introduced about a decade ago (I am thinking of Gabriel Knight 3 for instance). But fortunately many (upcoming) adventure games stil have still pre-rendered graphics (e.g. Black Mirror 2, Tunguska 2, if I am not mistaken). Which is amazing btw, as sometimes it is asserted that publishers are only interested in 3D adventures.

I thought Limbo of the Lost had some excellent graphics.

Ow! Dale, I was just kidding!

Seriously, it seems these days the games are all about the graphics at the expense of the other, I think more important elements. Okay, sure, the graphics are what draw the eye, they look great on the box, on the promo website, etc. and communicate something easily, as opposed to trying to explain why a game is great because of something less tangible, such as story, plot development, clever puzzles, and so on.

It's a little like special effects in cinema, though, isn't it? How many films have come out that have amazing, jaw-dropping visuals, but combined with a bad story and bad acting have relegated them to the bottom of the bargain bin?

To quote Steve Metzler:
"Modern adventure game designers seem to be more concerned with the graphics, and less with the game play. Not exactly a trend that's going to help the revival of our favourite genre, is it?"

Maybe it's because I got my start with Infocom text adventures, that graphics aren't the reason I play the games. Sure, I appreciate beautiful graphics, but for me it's the game, the story, the writing, and the quality of the puzzles that I remember, long after I've forgotten how pretty the graphics seemed at the time.

Clearly the visuals in them just weren't jaw-dropping enough.

Bottom line is today ag have most underdeveloped graphics direction among all genres.Today 3d puzzle games even screensavers better utilizing 3d graphics.Hard to see differences between 5 years old ag and a new release.
And some folks keep saying script most important graphics can be overlooked(theyre like playing only Lucasart or Sierra games all the time and never saw become how silly modern ag ),i gave up on decent scripts already , just give us decent graphics for playability sake.

@Gabe: Please don't get Real-time 3d mixed up with Good Graphics. Good graphics doesn't mean it has to be 3d at all, it just has to be pleasing to the eye. I have witnessed many games in 3d that looked like pieces of shit.

Please do not confuse the two.

Gabe: You're talking about the last 5 years only? How many adventure games were realesed during that period altogether - I don't think there were too many? And how many of them were first time efforts from some small companies?

Anyway, there were quite a few titles with good graphics, only no costly technological breakthroughs.

Check out statistcs http://www.adventure-archiv.com/statistik1.htm about 400 adventurish copycat games release
listed past 5 years, huge effort reproducing stereotypes over and over.

Stereotypes? Are we still talking only about graphics?

In my opinion the amount of games presented in these statistics is very little too choose from. No established designers behind any of those titles. Maybe prolific companies like Kheops and Frogwares, which you can be either fond of or not. OK, there's also Telltale with some ex-LucasArts names, which is still pretty much starting out.

Anyway, which titles you saw as the most promising to start a new generation of graphics in adventure game genre? One of the AGS-made games, perhaps?

I mean graphics for;models,mapping,animation,art direction and style all together.


I havent seen yet.No ag preceed graphics direction of Grim Fandango as 2d and GK3 as 3d.
(Fahrenheit looked promising but was action game more than an adventure)

That's my point. There are no Sierras and LucasArts of old anymore. We'll have to wait for the current companies to grow before we see new, complex 3D adventure game engines developed and state of the art 3D graphics in them.

As far as 2D goes, technically it is as good as it can get for a long time already. The quality of the art fully depends on the artists involved.

I dont know about waiting for nothing,it just seems the passion not there ,
the passion fps/rpg developers have but ag devs.dont have since long time.

This is just not true, the market itself is dictating this kind of graphics or better to say average adventure gamer PC specs and low popularity of pure adventure games.

So when developer would decide to make graphicaly advance adventure the first thing to come in mind would be to simplify it and add some action to compensate for the market with low PC spces that is lost.

Perry Rhodan has some spectacualr graphics for an adventure game.

First time ever I've been asked to select shadow detail (shadow map), how many background characters, AA up to 6X, per pixel lighting etc

All pretty impressive.

And no there is no action sequences that I know of.. it's pure adventure.

But the game isn't 3D and the biggest problem for me (because i have 24" widescreen monitor) when playing 2D/2.5D games is that the game will get those nasty black bars on the side or get strecht the screen, also the native resolution is big, so it will get resampled by monitor if not supported by the game. Those things can kill the game for you, no mater how artisticly beautiful the backgrounds are!

I guess for the same reason you also can't stand watching Citizen Kane on your fancy widescreen TV. Maybe you should cover the nasty black bars with some cloth or something.

I use a 24" widescreen monitor and it looks fine. I don't care about borders.

The first game I thought the 3d was a prerendered 2d graphic. It looked really detailed an blended with the backgrounds almost perfectly.

How about Dreamfall? Not sure if it was mentioned already, but it's 3D, has some very nice graphics.

Great Screens below from new POP game ,3d game rendered cartoon like handrawn style graphics.There are lot coloring,drawing style possible for 3d games,but will they be ever an ag,tough chance?

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen003.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen002.jpg

Yeah, the new PoP looks absolutely amazing. It will never happen for AGs though. Why? Because AGs are primarily on the PC. The place where developers play ignorant and think everyone has a crappy PC. This level of detail is possible easily on the PC but with medium to high level computers, which publishers and devs ignore (Adventure Game Devs that is).

Why am I being Biased and saying AG is primarily on the PC? Its the fact that once it hits the consoles, it changes genres, mainly focusing on Action/Adventure.


Now think about it. If no one was ignorant. Imagine how beautiful Still Life 2 could be? Then again, the quality of visuals relies on the conceptual artists and 3d Modelers. If they dont understand style, then we are left with laziness and cheap ripoffs.

But, think about it what recent movie/series are not widescreen?

The problem with widescreen can be solve even on 2D (scrollable backgrounds and depending on the aspct ratio show more/less of the background), i'm more iritated with that the developer didn't do that and just made those black bars.

I can stand watching/playing the movies/games that are not created for my screen, but the fact is i won't graphicaly enjoy them as much.