Finally I can define it....

DreadLord on 12/3/2007 at 18:32

Greetings,

So many times I asked in forums questions like "I like thief - which games are similiar, which movies and/or books can you recommend?"

But it was always the same - people recommended things which I didnt like at all....

The strangest thing was that even I couldnt say what it is exactly, what I liked about the game.....

So finally I found out that all the fictional universes I like are similiar in some critical points...

So, what does have the Star-Wars Universe, the Lord of the Rings Universe, the Half-Life Universe and finally, the Thief-universe in common what other, seemingly similliar ones doesnt have?

1. Realistic Designs:
In the case of fantasy there should be a huge influence of REAL historic architecture, art and design.... In the case of Science-Fiction Technology should have similiarities to real-world technology and/or the design should look logical...

2. A "used universe":
I think thats the most important thing: Metal surfaces should have scratches, stone walls should have cracks, armor should have dints, clothing should have staints...
i just realized how important this is to me that the whole thing feels right...

3. Detailed "high-gloss" energy effects:

It´s some kind of contrast to the former points: While the whole world should be realistic IMO it is as important that effects should simply look great:
Magical spells, energy weapons, ghost-appearances etc. It doesnt matter which kind of energy...

4. A dirty, organic world:
A disney-landish-look is the worst enemy of my favourite fictional universes:
A perfect geometry never looks right (except we are talking about special cases - like alien architecture - but even then it doesnt looks right IMO)
Things should get dirty. Wood beams should look old and decayed. Nature-environments shouldnt looke like perfect, beautiful gardens - there should be weeds and vines everywhere...

Well, thats it and it really fits:

Star Wars:
1. Every single piece of technology has some kind of real-world-inspiration. Most designs look logical.
2. Thats where I first heard the phrase "used universe"....
3. All energy-effects are beautiful yet still realistic as all of them are inspired by real natural plasma effects etc....
4. Scratches, staints, dints everywhere (on a closer look even on some Naboo tech ;) )

Lord of the Rings:
1. No other fantasy universe uses this amount of REAL historical designs/creature-equipment never only looks cool, but is always very plasuible..
2. People arent perfect clean, city streets contains much dirt, nearly every piece of armor has some flaws....etc
3. Energy effects are rare but beutifully rendered: The ringwraith-dimension, Sauron´s Eye, the Dead People of Dunharg, the Minas Morgul bonfire...
4. omnipresent

Half-Life ( Now I´m talking only about Half-Life 2 as the technology of HL1 rarely allowed to show such details)

1. Alien technology with extremly logical and plausible designs; the eastern-european real-world look comes closer to reality than many hoollywood movies.
2. Walls crumble, are dirty. Garbage, waste, weeds everywhere. Wall paintings pleach. Even hi-tech weapons have scratchses.....
3. Realistic and beutiflul. Not overdone and too colorful like in many other sci-fi worlds...
4.Never did a degenerated Eastern-Europe city look so real. As I said before - even many movies dont contains this amount of realism....

Thief
(Because of the most advanced technology I will primary talk about DS, yet the cutscenes of the older games also contain this elements...)

(Even though DS seems to have a comic-touch, it works with all four points...)

1. Greatly inspired by RL Art history and architecture. All pure-fantasy-designs are plaunsible and logic, in most cases interwoven with historic elements...

2. Stuff looks definitely used. Buildings have flaws, objects have scratsches. The middle-age alleys defintiely feel right...

3. All magical spells are colorflul, beautiflully animated and detailed (especially the shaman and keeper attack....), Glyphs are shimmering, glyph doors are animated nicely, Lauryl´s ghost looks both in the cutscenes and in-game graphics beautiful - and yet in a strange way- ...realistic....

Note: The whole thing may sound that I´m absolutely for realism and against a "disney-landish-style" but, I DO like the art-style of Pirates of the Caribbean as it succeds in all 4 points...which means i´m not against colorful and extremly fantastic designs....it still looks dirty, organic plus all the historic design-stuff is definetely real....

puh, now it´s done... I´m not so sure why I posted the whole thing but I think it´s just because I´m so glad I finally realized this...:p

Well, last but not least I have some questions:

1. Is there one single word which describes this taste/style?

2. Is my apprehension, that I will dislike Oblivion because it may fail in some of this points, true? (I´m not sure if I should buy the game as i fear it is too disney-landish...

3. And finally I can ask the most important queastions:

Which other fantasy/sci-fi universes might succed in my 4 points? Books, movies, games - it doesnt matter....

EDIT:

I forgot to write down the basic-requirements for a fictional universe as even there seems to exist different definitions: (Of course, this also represents only my personal point of view):

+There must be a worked-out history or at least parts of it...
+Factions or races with detailed backgrounds and motives....
+At least pieces of a worked-out geography and/or many different worlds with their own backgrounds and history....
+The design of the universe´s technologies should be a logical consequence of the prior points...

Only after a universe succeds in these 4 points, it has the basic requirements for my original 4 points....

nicked on 12/3/2007 at 21:43

To be honest, I'm not sure if the visual design is necessarily what's so appealing about any of those universes. I'd argue that the appealing feature of them all is a rich, deep and ultimately unknown backstory. With all of those universes, you get the feeling that you're only experiencing a quarter or less of the story. And you don't necessarily need a gritty realism to achieve that.

Look at the Warcraft series. It's cartoony, and not in the slightest bit realistic. So why is World of Warcraft so popular? Because it's got a massive and rich world setting to work from. As well as the earlier strategy games, there are books set in the Warcraft world, and all the back story adds depth and context to everything you do, even if you don't know all the backstory. Just because the characters in the story know the backstory, makes them much more appealing.

Just my 2 cents

ercles on 13/3/2007 at 10:48

I can't shake the feeling that you have just sold all of the above series' horribly short by only analysing their aesthetic values. You do realise that LOtR was origionally a book, don't you? I feel like by taking a rather shallow approach at the above films and games you have missed the rich tapestry (ooh what a pun) that makes up the substance of all of them.

imperialreign on 13/3/2007 at 22:21

I agree with the above comments; but if all you're wanting is recommendations as to what fits your archetype, then . . .

Doom - really, in a way it does fit, even more noticeable in Doom3; 1. For a setting that takes place in the future on Mars, every component and oddity has is described as having a purpose of some sort, and the game designers kept things to a minimal feel (they didn't overdesign stuff). 2. The Doom universe looks extrmelly used, and has that militaristic look. 3. The 'power' weapons in all the games have extremelly pretty effects, the BFG, Plasma gun, etc. 4. Nothing was ever designed to look perfect, and is defintiely not clean throughout.

As for 'just movies' - the Aliens series, the Predator series, Event Horizon, Mimic, Dark City (damn good movie), The City of Lost Children, the Prophecy series, etc.

hexarith on 14/3/2007 at 11:41

The term "used universe" is probably the most important, to deliver a good story. Excpect inside a clean room you will always find imperfections here and there. I always carry a small digital camera with me, not looking for the perfect picture or clean surfaces, but for the real world as a starting point for textures.

Specific to the Thief universe I like that well balanced mixture of late medieval age, pre industrial technology that partly seems more advanced than our's (huge amounts of electricity gets transmitted to lamps and machines wireless), primitive cults and a current time's way how people think and act.

It's so close to reality, that the fantasy part gets a better contrast, than if the world was completely fictional.

There's only one small thing that I didn't like in the first two parts of Thief: The way the lamps look like. Those spikes on the top and the bottom make them look like a goat's head to me.
But the lamps are not unrealistic per se. I just have the feeling that certain designes, that may look in the real world don't look so good if they are crammed into the borders of a computer screen.
Last year I stumbled into a restaurant which had lamps in it, that looked just like the lamps in Craigsleft prison - can you imageine my shock? I was immediatly looking for hammers and wished me a blackjack ;)

DreadLord on 16/3/2007 at 23:11

@hexarith

Your´re right...the realism creates a better contrast for the fictional elements. I think thats also true for the other universes I mentioned.

Well, I thought that would be clear that this is my PERSONAL, SUBJECTIVE point of view, which I tried to DESCRIBE, so I wonder why some of you criticise it....I didnt want to create some sort of general definition how a fictional world should be....

By the way, I have read LotR + Silmarillion before the movies came out....

...I´m primarily talking about the visual art design of the universes, so it would be hard to talk about the books ,wouldnt it?

Though, visuals can be translated into atmosphere, atmosphere can be translated into words, so IMO this 4 points also work when talking about books. But of course, thats´s my perosnal point of view as visuals are the most importat things for me....

It may sound superficial to just rate a fictional universe by it´s visuals and designs, but in my experience ( or maybe it´s just my personal taste) I found out, that if a fictional world succeds in those 4 points all the other aspects like story-telling, character and world development and atmosphere have also reached a high niveau....

i think a "rich, deep and ultimately unknown backstory" is a feature without no established universe could exist...Every universe must have it in order to be a "universe"....

nicked on 17/3/2007 at 10:03

yes, but there are some film/book/whatever serieses that you can clearly tell the writer/s made it up as they went along. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gets more and more ridiculous as it goes along, and becomes totally unbelievable if you try to catalogue and put into a timeline all the events.

I guess the word I'm looking for is consistency. It doesn't matter what the universe is like, as long as it all matches.

ercles on 17/3/2007 at 10:25

Quote Posted by DreadLord

It may sound superficial to just rate a fictional universe by it´s visuals and designs, but in my experience ( or maybe it´s just my personal taste) I found out, that if a fictional world succeds in those 4 points all the other aspects like story-telling, character and world development and atmosphere have also reached a high niveau....

I would have thought that all logic would point in the opposite direction. Look at a film like the Chronicles of Riddick, it was a fairly grimey looking film with good special effects and logical design approaches, but it was absolutely terrible because it didn't really have any atmosphere. Boring characters and a mundane storyline meant it wasn't abosrbing at all. And the orgional Star Wars, which many sweaty fans seem to think best encapsulated the feel of the saga had absolutely terrible production values with some horribly illogical designs (The Millenium Falcon?).

nicked on 17/3/2007 at 15:59

Millenium Yoghurtpot more like.

Although I quite enjoyed Chronicles of Riddick.

DreadLord on 17/3/2007 at 17:46

Quote Posted by ercles

IMO "Chronicles of Riddick" isnt a fictional universe as there is no worked-out history, factions, races etc...

Maybe i should add my personal definition of a fictional universe:

+There must be a worked-out history or at least parts of it...
+Factions or races with detailed backgrounds and motives....
+At least pieces of a worked-out geography and/or many different worlds with their own backgrounds and history....

Neither Buffy nor Riddick succeed in those points...
(by the way: Buffy would also fail in my original 4 points: creature designs are not quite logic; the world feels not very realisitic as everything looks cheap; special effects are bad etc....)