Lack of resources and lack of talent. For example, barely you will find a game developer like John Carmack. Doom 3 isn't genius work because of the engine, it is because of the efficient coding.

Also, MK doesn't necessarily need Crysis like graphics, and take it into consideration it is for consoles first and foremost. That limits the boundaries in one way or another.

I would have liked to see real people scaned into 3D graphics like they do for most Boxing and wrestling games. I mean looking at this:

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/easportsmixedmartialarts/images/0/1/?om_act=convert&om;_clk=gsimage&tag;=thumb%3B1

Real looking character models.

That makes MK9 worse in comparison. How recent is that?

Those guys aren't wearing anything interesting though and none of them are Outworld mutants, are they? You can't model fantasy costumes and creatures that don't exist with the real world photography-based tech they use for sports games.
I mean what are they gonna do, put a rubber mask on Rich Divisio again? That looked horrible up close, it only worked on the sprite because sprites are so tiny.

Of course they wouldnt use the tech for cyborgs or mutants. They would just have to match the realness.

It really bugs me that all characters in the 3D MK games have the same height / body shape / muscles mass ect. with a few exceptions like Goro...

Yeah well easier said than done.

http://zakladi.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/doom_4.jpg

Done. If the bump mapping can be done at this level the only real problem would be the animation of the skeletal polygon-frame. That depends on the compexity and resolution of the skin.

IDTech 5 already puts Unreal Tournament 3 engine to shame...

Yeah. I'm happy with how the game looks, but i'd love to see a game like MK with a more realistic look. Clearly it's doable. I don't think the presence of mythical beasts and that is a problem. There's been photorealistic beasts and stuff in movies for ages now.

There are loads of realistic looking fighting games with guys in shorts. UFC, WWE, Fight Night etc. There are realistic tennis games, golf games etc. However, fighting games with anything other than guys in shorts seem to all go a more stylised route. It's not that i don't like that, and I realise that everything, even the modern "realistic" looking games are stylised to a degree, but i'd love to see a new, more realistic look for MK. I'm sure they'll do that one day.

I'm cerainly not saying I want to give up 4 armed guys, dudes covered in plagues of flies, fat dudes retching more than their bodyweight in puke, and other fantasy stuff. I'd like to play something that looked like a movie.

I think the new games looks pretty great anyway.

Maybe in a closeup there's a lot of texture detail that I'm not seeing in that picture alone, but the skin on that guy doesn't actually look realistic to me.

Yup, That looks like a Sektor/Baraka fusion. lol

Wow, this Doom model IS the kind of realistic detail Baraka should have!

http://zakladi.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/doom_4.jpg

With WB having lots of money, they shouldn't have any problem getting good artists, so I guess maybe their art director just sucks.

I just don't see it. The skin in the current MK engine has pores and goosebumps, you can even make them out slightly from the regular distance of the screen in a fight. The skin on that Doom demon looks like rubber or plastic from about the same distance away.

Professor once told me...."If you want photo-realism, go take a picture."

I am not a character modeler and I understand why now. Character models and bump maps aren't easy individually to come up with. Especially when you want to have everything be individualized.

One older way to get close is to be really good with making textures in photoshop, and model your ass off in 3ds max, maya, or any one of the other programs you have out there. Then? Then there's programming so that the animations don't foul up the quality of all those maps in the process of moving around. heh...

Buildings and stuff are stagnate objects so, those are easier (said lightly) to get looking good. Still a good amount of work though. But up until a few years back, anything having to do with a face or the anatomy of a body is just a tough concept to get a hold of. You can't just slap a map on a body and expect the thing to look right. You can get away with a bunch of it (arms legs...even the chest and neck areas) , but you wanna go in and do everything individually. But that's why file sizes and crap like that end up meaning so much to an overall game.

Why? Because if every character is super detailed and all of your energy is poured into trying to make things super hi-res....well...there's no room left for your favorite extra feature, mode, or secret character. Run out of space.

Technology is getting alot better at handling all of this though.




Create the arena, put the character on the platform....create a transparent bubble around the whole thing, and apply a bump map texture to that bubble, then animate everybody. That's an old, and very standard way to do stuff like that. That way you can look through that "soft quality" you're referring to, and still be able to toy around with all the components in the animation.

I don't know the best or newest ways to get it done obviously, they keep all that stuff in the colleges and on the game development teams.



1.) Textures are applied to objects. The textures are pretty fine for what this game is trying to do. They're not the best....but to get the best is requires more time, money, experience, better technology....OR less of a roster, less features, less of a game. So there's compromise is all I'm saying. The game looks good for what it's trying to do. And just judging by that much, this is a very ambitious game. I'd expect a few modes, alot of extras, and Online better kick some ass.

2.) The lighting is fine....these are professionals making the game. They have the right tools, enough time, and it looks like they're being paid adequately for the product that they are producing. Lighting is fine, it's Mortal Kombat.

3.) The Art Director(s)//Creative Director(s) decide what the game is gonna look like. There's usually more than one guy/gal getting together before anything is even mocked up to decide this stuff. So....you can probably tell they knew a long time ago that they were just gonna make simple changes to the designs of specific things in the game.

They could've already known that they weren't gonna fool around with the "artistic style" of MK9 during or even before MKvsDC was being produced. Multi-projects are set up like that very frequently (look at Street Fighter 4 + Super Street Fighter 4 for an example) .

cool art styles

Please do not bump threads over a year old

I'm personally happy with the "realistic/stylish" look of the characters in this game and MKvsDC.

The attention to detail is absolutely impressive and gorgeous.

But, yes, I most definitely root for improvement. Despite the greatness, there are some painfully obvious flaws that do "take away" from the good:

- Hair
- Overall Bodies Sizes

While I would love it if the next MK game made all the characters look photo-realistic, I wouldn't mind if they still look the way they do as long as they improve on those flaws.

Also, at times, certain character faces look off and cartoony. But, MKvsDC and MK9 were definitely a huge improvement over the graphic look/style of MKDA-MKA.

That being said, I wish they went back to that times art style. When character designs and the art was more unique, beautiful, and less generic like it appears in MK9.

Cool thread.

The textures are amongst the best done by Unreal Engine that isn't really known for producing realistic graphics. With that said, the team just always does the wrong lightening of the arenas... Lool at this

http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Kahn's_Arena

See MK2's version if the arena is darker. Lool at MK4's 3D arenas, they look darker than most of MK9's arenas.

Look at BioShock 1. It uses Unreal Engine 2.5 which is older but the correct selection of lightening makes it more realistic. What MK needs is just to move past the MK1-3 contents that have been used since MKSM. They need to bring new things.

Steve Beran the art director for the game is one of the Team's oldest member that has been working on the game since MK3. His characters design are fans' favorites and he knows his job. When I read the ArtBook that came with the Kollector Edition, it seemed that many darker ideas were scrapped because of the team trying to stick with the old school art direction, so they need to head on like they did in 4,Deception and Deadly Alliance which was the biggest jump in 2002.

Another factor is that, Tony Goskie the original creator of most of MK1-MK7 arenas isn't the Background lead but a new guy that was working on MKDC , Dave Pandera.

The guy is awesome, his work was awesome in stranglehold , but I think Tony would fit the role better.