Just going to flat out say it: The art assets in this game are not up to quality

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crazyfingers619 wrote:

If I were to ask you which drawing was better:




Which would you pick? I'd imagine even if you prefer a cartoony style, you'd still pick the drop rendering.

Alright, you may come back, when you have started on College. These arguments..

Pointing to D3 as good art pretty much sinks your argument. D3 has shitty cartoon-ized watercolor art. PoE art isn't perfect, but it's way better than D3 art. That picture linked on page 2 looks terrible.

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crazyfingers619 wrote:

"

ongZ wrote:

Can you give some examples of games that has better aesthetics? I really like how PoE looks, of course it can always be improved, but I like the direction it's going. Maybe you could show me how it should be done right.

Say what you want about the core game of diablo 3, the artwork was some of the best there has ever been in a game:

**** sh*tty d3 screen capture here ****

I'll probably recieve some hate for this, but truly the visuals in D3 are phenominal and incredibly well executed. Painterly, Vibrant, and yet still gritty.

I read your whole post and then decided to write a response but what, I see you specifically like cartoonish arts. So I will only ask you not to try ruin this games dark atmosphere by asking for paintbrushed eye candy assets.

I'm the unreasonable one here? I feel we're running in circles, the issue is obvious to anyone with half an eye for art.

Edit: Bah, sorry i'm seriously just going to stop now, don't mean to spam. Again said what I needed to say.

I would absolutely love a well executed, realistic dark gothic rpg art style. This isn't it.

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crazyfingers619 wrote:

the issue is obvious to anyone with half an eye for art.

And this thread is over. Dumbest reply, right here.

I have no idea what kind of position you're in, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the people that GGG actually hired to make art know a little bit more about it than you do. And even if they don't, they certainly conduct themselves in a better manner.

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crazyfingers619 wrote:

I'm the unreasonable one. The issue is obvious. I'm seriously just going to stop.

When I remove 75% of your words, I agree with you.

I'm making 1 last post because suddenly this thread is about me being an "a$$hole" and i feel i need to defend myself.

I'm a digital artist, I'm pretty decent, not great but pretty good. I got to be pretty good because as an artist you learn to take negative feedback and grow from it. It hurts, don't get me wrong, but in a good way, you want to overcome it.

No one starts good, I started well below the level of art in POE, but I took feedback (often terribly negative) and i grew from it. I'm sorry if being negative and blunt offends some of you, but it's vital to being good at your craft that you learn to take it head on. Being an artist comes with taking criticism.

Making a game isn't all fun and games, it's not all about sunshine and rainbows and patting each other on the back all the time. Do you want to make a great game? You gotta be realistic and blunt.

Realistic and blunt is a good art style choice. I like the art style, there could be fine tunings here and there. D3 I hated though, especially act3 and 4. The video portions of the game looked awesome, I was hyped by the video for act4 showing the epic scenery then seeing the bland washed in game art for the zones was disappointing. This game has a crisp dark high contrast style which I think looks awesome. Seeing the eyes wander around the crematorium, the bright fire animations, the golden statues, dark beach with flashes of lightning, etc. The only zone I really thought looked nice in D3 was the oasis.

crazyfingers, I get where you're coming from here, and I do agree that it's possible to say at least a little bit about art quality while approaching objectivity. But you're not going to get anywhere, at least not here, if the example you can point to is D3.

Something I've noticed with some artists, especially digital artists, is a focus on composition, color pallets, and emphasis that I feel is excessive. D3 is a great example of this, and DOTA2 comes to mind as well. This leads to a style that is very crisp, very readable, very very clean, and to me looks incredibly unreal. PoE's art assets may not be perfect quality, but Wraecast looks like a real place, and that's a very valuable thing.

PoE's art isn't perfect. Right now on my other monster I can clearly see a quite unseemly mirroring boundary on a rock texture and normal map. But if you want to survive the forum masses, you need to have examples of a similar style executed better or to higher fidelity, and D3 ain't it.

PS: Most people react pretty poorly to being told the thing they like is objectively bad. It can feel like a direct attack on their tastes. It's something to be aware of when making this kind of critique on a fan forum. Your case needs to be pretty well constructed and backed up from the start, and even then you'll catch a lot of flak.

I hate Picasso's work. I hate Pollock's work. Does that mean I know nothing about art? No, it just means I probably don't like abstract art. There are plenty of other styles I enjoy, though.

Don't belittle everyone else's opinions based solely on their dislikes of your personal preference. Being an artist doesn't make one's opinion of what is aesthetically pleasing any more valuable than any other individual's. Some people prefer D3's style; some prefer PoE's. Neither opinion is inherently wrong. So please, no insulting...