AuthorTopic: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes  (Read 44043 times)

Offline RAV

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #60 on: July 16, 2013, 01:01:23 am
What is astounding and inspiring artistically about this technique is the fluent reinterpretation and repurpose of objects as something else entirely--the greatest skill of modding.
Maybe if you watch some in this gallery of videos to such mindset you can find something that impresses you creatively?
Other than that it is the natural order that potential has to be created first, and the artistic soul is ever so curious to explore.





Another example I'd like to provide in general is this movie.

The guy who made it put so much sweating effort and heart blood into it, yet when you watch it as an experienced pixel and classic artist, you find obvious flaws in its visuals presentation, you might say it looks cheap and lazy. He didn't make any of the models and textures, he just arbitrarily took them all from the net, you might criticise him for not learning to create it all himself to match, and failures of aesthetic sense, so much that you'd blind yourself for what great he did accomplish. What he did was animating and directing the movie, producing one of the most badass fighting choreographies I've ever seen in my life, even though his animation is not perfectly spot on in execution and there's some bad melodramatic writing at times. If we lived in a world of only classic and pixel art, without the flexibility of modern 3d tools, he could have never made that movie, just because he can't even draw a straight line and knows jackshit about color. And even though there are so many flaws to criticise, we would have been all the poorer without it, we had missed the pleasure of some fantastic ideas--his ideas, no one else's, no matter how much more talented on this or that. These tools don't replace artistic ability--not everyone getting a hand on it will suddenly produce anywhere near something impressive as those guys--but it unearths hidden ability, gives it a chance--he's not good at this or that, but he's good at something--and outstanding results will always be rare.


Posts merged, please refrain from double posting - Crow
« Last Edit: October 08, 2014, 12:34:36 pm by RAV »

Offline Phlakes

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #61 on: July 16, 2013, 04:21:53 am
I don't have anything too intelligent to add since I'm way on the hobbyist side of the artist spectrum, but criticizing things for not being done the "right" way is a very slippery slope. There are a lot of communities out there that take their rules/norms to a very hostile level, even if they have good intentions. Not that you (PypeBros et al) don't have a point. Both the Metroid thing and the video above have some serious issues, and could definitely be better if they were done differently, but they're still pretty great for what they are.

EDIT: Like, I don't mean to make too a big a deal of this but a lot of posts in this thread are worrying to someone who's left some good internet homes after they got too toxic.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 04:29:01 am by Phlakes »

Offline RAV

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #62 on: July 16, 2013, 04:37:57 am
Concrete critique on visual result is very valuable, considering in which place we are here and what we are here for to learn. The only caution would be about fundamental critique on anything unlike pixel art; it's not that other kind of artists are too stupid and untalented, there are often many good reasons for what they do, reasons other than in the pixel artist's immediate interest, non obvious reasons, maybe in other ways indirectly beneficial in how decisions have to do with other parts of the product.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 04:43:09 am by RAV »

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #63 on: July 16, 2013, 06:24:10 am
thing is, in that video clearly the draw of the thing is the choreography which the guy did. in the picture it's the hi def textures, which he didnt do.

Not saying he's bad at it, but it's not my cup of tea :p I never did really want to see in full hd how much rust mother brain's lair had or how many veins she had on her head or whatever.

Offline Helm

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #64 on: July 16, 2013, 06:45:03 am
RAV, your argument hinges on that the links you provided would impress me more, but they did not. Again, I see the merit in your argument, but I can't say I've seen this great art that the world would have missed were these new tools to not be available.

Of course it doesn't matter what I think as a single person, if these people have audiences, the point you're making is self-evidently true.

The opposite concern - and it is a real concern - is about how to set one's standards and filter through the deluge of artistic content in the modern world, and it is under that lens that celebrating alternate new ways to make art and to see people who couldn't draw a straight line make something doesn't seem as important as it would. After some point I've felt, the older I get, the more I have to shield myself from information overload. One of my foremost concerns when it comes to experiencing new art is 'is this worth the time?'. Not to say that I only spend my time on things that are formally worthwhile but that sense of 'why am I doing this? Shouldn't I be doing something better with my time?' becomes so much more urgent as I go on. At this point if I sit and play a videogame or listen to a new record or watch a new movie, I must either set my expectations according to that I want to blow off some steam with well-made nonsense, or that I am going to be experiencing great art with all that such an experience entails. One or the other. The in-between these two ends is really frustrating and disappointing.

So I'm not interested in fight choreography and reappropriating textures from photographs unless the end result is stellar; From an ethnographic standpoint, I am more interested in the phenomenon of new art via new tools and new, unlikely artists in itself than I am interested in their art.

Phlakes, I am not going ass-backwards here. I do not think doing things the 'right' way will result in great art. I am thinking that great art sets what the 'right' way is. All these new tools, if they lead to great art my jaw will drop like everybody else's jaw drops. This isn't about purism or classical hangups, I do not see anything classical about pixel art to begin with and last time I checked there were very few formally trained artists around here.

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #65 on: July 16, 2013, 06:57:37 am
Quote
I wonder how he would've channeled that creativity pre-Google Image Search.
It used to be you had to go out into the world with a camera.
Finding interesting textures isn't too much trouble, especially within a densely populated area.
Great contrast between new, old, damaged, and decayed exists within close proximity in a city.

Quote
Another example I'd like to provide in general is this movie.
Reminds me of Haloid from back in the day.
Also re-purposed assets.
Lacking in a lot of ways.
But entertaining in design and execution.

This conversation also reminds me of images ptoing used to send me of a shooter.
Can't remember the name. :yell:
He would point out stuff they had chopped up from older games and cobbled into something else.
A lot of it also appeared to be from photos and random noise textures blended together.

Quote
in the picture it's the hi def textures, which he didnt do.
An interesting line to draw, and discuss, for sure.
It can be comparable to the difference between covering a song and record scratching.
In the cover the song is played as it was written, nothing or very little is added.
In the record scratch many sounds from many songs are chopped up and tweaked to make something new.
The line seems to be based on personal preference/experience.
I've had people to me that using a light table is cheating.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline Helm

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #66 on: July 16, 2013, 07:04:53 am
I think the only way the argument 'this is cheating!' has some merit to it is if it is to suggest that not taking such shortcuts and really putting in the effort is more likely to arrive at great art. if it's an appeal to 'authenticity' then I think that's kind of nonsensical in a post-modern era where the concept of authenticity is overwhelmingly considered passe.

In the case of the Metroid HD image, 50-60 hours were reported by the artist, which should be enough effort in most modern visual art disciplines (even something as messy and time-consuming as trad oil painting) to arrive at something that has 'great art potential'. So I think more than anything it's maddening to me how underwhelming the result of 50 hours of work looks using this methodology. The precise emotion I am feeling is 'Don't I have something better to do with my time?' but not with me as the subject, but the artist. I feel bad for *them*. I realise this is not what most people, esp. not artists will feel when they watch this, and there's merit to the approach that anything people pour their love and time into is worthwhile in itself, but this is not an emotion I can help myself to not feel. Some of the feeling would dissipate if I were told that the artist in question is employed and this method to making art has lead to his employment and a financially secure life. If that's achieved, then aesthetics are really beyond comment.

Offline RAV

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #67 on: July 16, 2013, 07:27:12 am
@conceit
But maybe it has some fun composition, or just presents a cool scenario, that is an aspect too. At the least the technique represents an interesting idea in general and cleverness in applied utility. Maybe you shouldn't look at that so much as painterly artistic in critique but creatively opportunistic. It's cool and funny to see a scooter wrangled into samus armor. Now that's something you don't see everyday.


@Helm
While I agree that filtering for your time is important, I also try to find the good aspects in what I happen to observe. There is often something little to be learned still.

Really, most of all I find it simply amusing and amazing that it is possible at all to produce content good enough this weird way -- it's almost performance art to watch, like some street juggler -- than I could concentrate too seriously on why this good enough is not great enough.

I understand your motive, but think about this scenario, if I were to take up on your attitude from my point of view:

As a machine coder I have my own standards what quality software is. I could go around and make fun of people writing scripts in simplified high level language environments, not take their work serious and filter it out to save my time. But I don't. I have seen people do surprisingly clever stuff on all kinds of level, that I can respect. And whenever I saw just another trendy tool come in with roll-eyes, it wasn't long I saw to my surprise someone figure out a creative way to make good use of it anyway. Not shockingly world shattering from my perspective, not even useful for myself directly, but little neat things that gave me joy to the craft and maybe indirectly affected some ways I think about my own work. I also realize that for certain types of work certain tools and environments are very effective, more than others, a time saver when shit hits the fan, so it can't hurt to expand the horizon.

From a coding and higher mathematics perspective there is nothing -- nothing at all-- thrilling about pixel art games, least of all games made with tools like GameMaker, etc. It's a waste of time from that perspective. But it would be pretty dumb on my part to ignore your work, which has other obvious qualities, on the sole merit that it is not furthering my own professional interest immediately, that it's a waste of time since it's not blowing my mind on every possible aspect and especially not in the one I'm most interested in. That would be hysteric.

Rather I just lay back and enjoy the show, with the relaxed expectation it will have a good influence on me in another way. Progress in self-development not only comes forcefully, but also just how it happens. Like we can't always be awake, we have to sleep too, but that sleep is not a waste of time actually, important processes of understanding happen in it too, which improve the next phase of being awake. I don't believe much in waste of time, if its not always the same kind of time. It could very much be a waste of time to stick to your sole interest, and exposing yourself to some "crap" might suddenly give you a leap as the best thing you ever did. Or not. You never know. There is no solution to the problem, things happen.

So yeah, that smart asset reinterpretation technique and that great choreography I can very much appreciate as such even if the package as a whole has flaws elsewhere, I'll easily ignore those if that which it is about is great on its own, I feel enriched about having seen it, as I would looking at your game even though I don't care technically at all.
« Last Edit: July 16, 2013, 09:17:04 am by RAV »

Offline Helm

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #68 on: July 16, 2013, 08:42:53 am
The bottom line is that I feel artistry has been trivialized enough in the current market climate and clever tricks - no matter how they enrich our perspective as creatives - also deserve critique. Not mocking but certainly critique.

Offline RAV

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Re: Flashback HD & The terrible truth of remakes

Reply #69 on: July 16, 2013, 08:49:57 am
Yeah, I think on that we very much agree all along. Critical thinking includes pro as much as contra, and I think our critical dialogue was a productive analysis, I know I learned something.