Kotaku: Graphics

Check Out Hi-Res Screens and Video From The Old Republic's Rise of the Rakghouls Update

Mike Fahey — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:30:00 EST

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Detailed last week and set to release next week, Star Wars: The Old Republic's first major update, Rise of the Rakghouls, looks pretty spectacular. It's a pity it won't look this good to players. More »

Why Most Of Star Wars: The Old Republic's Hi-Res Graphics Disappeared at Launch

Mike Fahey — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

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During the beta test for BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic players with high-end PCs enjoyed stunning high resolution graphics. Now that the game has launched those sexy textures have mostly disappeared. What gives? More »

Minecraft Creator Calls Bullshit on 'Unlimited Detail' Graphics Hype

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:00:00 EDT

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Euclideon, a Brisbane, Australia-based tech company, claims it can stuff 100,000 times the amount of visual data into a 3D world with its Unlimited Detail rendering software. It's visually stunning stuff. But one prominent game developer calls it "a scam." More »

But is the Wii U Powerful? Check Out the Tech Demo and See for Yourself

Mike Fahey — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:21:42 EDT

Here's the tech demo Nintendo used during its E3 2011 press conference to demonstrate the graphical power of the Wii U. The video is a bit low-res, but it gets the point across. I'm impressed. More »

The Witcher 2 is Blurry in All the Right Places

Mike Fahey — Wed, 18 May 2011 14:30:00 EDT

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Amidst all of the nudity and subtle gags lurking in CD Projekt Red's latest PC role-playing adventure, the aspect of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that has impressed me the most so far is how blurry it is. More »

Current Consoles Are Still Capable Of Some Amazing Graphics (Like These)

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 01:30:00 EDT

With all this talk of Wii 2 and consoles holding PC graphics and development back, it's easy to forget the fact we're stuck with the Xbox 360 and PS3 for another three years. Just because they're getting a little long in the tooth, though, doesn't make them slouches in the graphics department. More »

Deep Space Mystery Solved Using 1970s Computer Graphics Technique

Joel Johnson — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:40:00 EDT

Extra-solar probes Pioneer 10 and 11 have been confusing astrophysicists for the last decade: they're slowing down a lot more than we'd expected as they're leaving the solar system. The slowing has become know as the "Pioneer Anomaly." (But you probably know it by the popular formula, "Ol' (8.74±1.33)×10^−10 ms^−2".) More »

Epic Says This Is What Next-Gen Should Look Like

Mike Fahey — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:40:00 EST

Epic Games isn't just showing off the latest improvements to the Unreal Engine 3 at GDC 2011. They're showing us what the next-generation of games should look like. Do the images hold up to the hype? More »

This Is What Super Meat Boy Success Feels Like

Mike Fahey — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:40:00 EST

Super Meat Boy is a 2D game with relatively simple graphics. That's what it looks like, at least. This action-packed fan film by Joseph Manalaysay captures what beating one of the game's brutal levels feels like. More »

Real Life Barely Looks Better Than Gran Turismo 5

Stephen Totilo — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:40:00 EST

We know that Gran Turismo 5 looks realistic. The people who made the PlayStation 3 game wanted us to see how close they got. This is their racing game splitscreened with real life, on Germany's famous Nürburgring track. More »

What Good Is A Computer Processor That Does Bad Math?

Mike Fahey — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST

One of the core functions of a computer processor is to perform the basic arithmetical functions of the system. Why would we want a processor that gets those basic calculations wrong? Carnegie Mellon's Joseph Bates has the answer. More »

The Key To Lifelike Faces Lies In The Eyes

Mike Fahey — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST

What makes a virtual face appear alive? According to a recent study published in Psychological Science the eyes are the most important factor in imparting life to the lifeless. More »

When Sprites Explode (It's Very Colorful)

Brian Crecente — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:20:00 EST

Supersonyk created this mammoth sprite Photoshop more than four years ago. YES, FOUR! But I didn't see it until this weekend thanks to reader Yan. More »

The Allure Of Plush Tech

Michael Abbott, BrainyGamer.com — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST

When I was a kid the future looked like this. More »

Hopefully, Gears of War 3 Has Some Of This In It

Stephen Totilo — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST

Whenever I see a new look at the Unreal Engine, I wonder: How will they use this in the next Gears of War? I did that in March. I'm doing it again with this brand-new look at the updated Engine. More »

Is It Time For a Major Black And White Video Game?

Stephen Totilo — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:30:00 EST

Our video games are in color. Even our noir video games set in 1940s Los Angeles. They don't have to be, right? This is a trailer for Rockstar Games' L.A. Noire, with one change. We made it black and white. More »

Graphics Transform 600-Year-Old Clock Tower Into A Virtual Masterpiece

Mike Fahey — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EDT

Using a technique called video mapping, the Macula project takes the 600-year-old Astronomical Clock on Old Town Square in Prague and transforms it into one of the most impressive things we've ever seen. See for yourself. More »

Eat Them Is Secretly A Great-Looking, Cow-Hating Game

Stephen Totilo — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:00:00 EDT

Who is talking about Eat Them, a game that lets you play building-destroying giants who can eat cows and cops? I'd not heard of the game until I saw it recently at a PlayStation showcase. Its art style is unforgettable. More »

Are Video Games Doing Outer Space Justice?

Mike Fahey — Fri, 07 May 2010 14:30:00 EDT

This is no video game. This is an image of a gigantic baby star inside a galactic bubble 4,300 light-years from Earth, captured by Europe's Herschel space telescope. Has video game space ever been so beautiful? More »

Little Games on a Big Screen: DSi XL Versus DSi Graphics UPDATED

Brian Crecente — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:30:00 EDT

Nintendo's DSi XL, due out this Sunday, features a much bigger screen than its predecessor, but does that mean better or worse graphics? More »

The Dark Darkness of Alien Vs. Predator's Perpetual Night

Brian Crecente — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST

Aliens Vs. Predators is a dark game. More »

PoP: The Forgotten Sands Taps The Wii's "Full Graphical Capabilities"

Mike Fahey — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:20:00 EST

Ubisoft has revealed new details about the Wii version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, a game with its own storyline that promises a "smooth, clear and impressive graphical experience on Wii." More »

Visual Effects Society Announces Video Game Nominees

Owen Good — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:30:00 EST

Uncharted 2, Fight Night Round 4 and Star Wars: The Old Republic are among eight nominees for awards recognizing outstanding achievements in video games and video game trailers, to be given by the Visual Effects Society in late February. More »

The History Of Video Game Art In Reverse

Stephen Totilo — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:40:23 EST

The main hallway of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City is a spiral. When you walk through it, ascending several flights in the process, paintings all to your right, you get the sense of walking through an artistic history. More »

Video Game Graphics In The Norway Skies

Mike Fahey — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:30:00 EST

As seen and eventually explained on Gizmodo. More »

No Graphical Complaints From This Wii Developer [UPDATE]

Stephen Totilo — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:00:04 EDT

Ryozo Tsujimoto told me he had no complaints about the horsepower of the Wii, when I interviewed him last week. He's the producer on the game Capcom is marketing as "the most beautiful game on the Wii." More »

Capcom's Next Wii Original Learning From Mistake Of Last One

Stephen Totilo — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:40:29 EDT

As promising as Capcom's upcoming Wii game Spyborgs is, it runs the risk of suffering the fate of the company's last Wii original. But Capcom thinks it figured out what went wrong last time. More »

Fallout 3 Patch Makes Radroaches Shinier

AJ Glasser — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:20:00 EST

The latest patch for the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 fixes specular lighting problems, giving the game a significant graphics boost. Don't feel bad - I had to Google "specular reflection" too. More »

EVE Online Drops Classic Client Support, Welcomes Players To This Century

Mike Fahey — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:20:00 EST

CCP has announced plans to phase out the current Classic Client for EVE Online in favor of a new system that could require users to upgrade for the first time in a decade. More »

Mega Drive Collection Splotches Are Optional

Mike Fahey — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:40:00 EST

Yesterday Sega announced the 40-strong Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation3, and fans were ecstatic, until they saw screenshots of the title's HD smoothing in action. Yes it's hideous, but it's also completely optional. Martin Snelling of Sega UK confirmed with RPG Site that the hideous-looking smoothing filter can be shut off. Even better, all games will play in whatever aspect ratio your television supports. More »

Epic Hitting Upper Limit Of Xbox Capabilities, Says Fergusson

Stuart Houghton — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:20:00 EDT

Rod Fergusson from Epic thinks that his company is close to squeezing the last few drops of graphical performance from the Xbox 360. More »

Nvidia Shows Off Real Time Raytracing - Start Saving For A New Graphics Card

Stuart Houghton — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Nvidia have produced a proof-of-concept demo that shows how standard (albeit powerful and heavily tweaked) graphics processors can be used to render raytraced scenes in real time. More »

Intel Sees Raytraced Games In The Near Future

Mike Fahey — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Raytracing is a method of generating a computer image by tracing a ray of light through an image plane. The whole process is similar to how light bounces off objects in nature, determining the color, sheen, luminosity, etc. Whereas other methods of creating graphics have to generate special effects, shadows, bloom, and other popular lighting techniques are all occur as a natural product of raytracing. The problem is that raytracing is very resource intensive, making it great for pre-rendered applications, not-so-great for on-the-fly applications like games. According to Intel's Michael Vollmer, that's a fact that could change sooner than we think. More »

Takayoshi Sato on Silent Hill, Serious Games, and Art

Maggie Greene — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EDT

Tale of Tales has an interesting little interview up with Takayoshi Sato, who was responsible for the art and CGI direction of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2; after relocating to the US, Sato did art for some big titles, then made the switch to 'serious games.' On making the switch, he has this to say: More »

Where'd All the In-Game Color Go?

Maggie Greene — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EDT

While some people argue that what games need is more monotony, at least in terms of black and white games, plenty of people are dissatisfied with the current trend of drabness in developers' color palettes. Of course, there are plenty of brightly colored games that are and will continue to be released, but plenty of people miss color. Bright color. I myself am rather fond of candy-colored palettes, preferring them to drab medieval "realism." One blogger thinks he has the answer to who stole the color from games: More »

'A Word Is Worth A Thousand Pictures': Graphics Vs Narrative

Maggie Greene — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:30:17 EST

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has reprinted an older article of John Walker's that appeared in The Escapist: a discussion of narrative versus graphics, old versus new. It's an inherently flawed argument (which the author freely admits), singling out the FPS genre in a move that is a bit unfair, but it's true that a strong narrative can overcome a lot of problems in the graphics department, assuming other pieces that make a strong game fall into place: More »

LotRO Gets Prettier With Nvidia and DX10

Mike Fahey — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:20:51 EST

Turbine is extremely pleased to announce that their relatively successful MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online is the first MMO to fully support DirectX 10 and Nvidia's Geforce graphics processors. Utilizing the combined forces of the two, the MMO is now sporting upgraded water shaders, better particle effects, and more far-reaching lighting than ever before, along with a DX10 exclusive dynamicshadowing system. In layman's terms, if you got the right parts, the game just got a lot prettier.

"The FPS genre has long dominated the race to better graphics but with this major update from Turbine, The Lord of the Rings Online players can enjoy graphics as good as or even better than many FPS games. This is an outstanding achievement and the whole Turbine team should be rightly proud of what they have produced," said Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA

Right. In my world, high-end graphics and MMO games equals lag city, but who knows? Maybe Turbine and Nvidia have some sort of genie imprisoned somewhere. Since I don't have an active account for the game, it is all up to you folks. Is it prettier? Is it secret? Is it safe? More »

Getting Game Graphics On A Shoestring Budget

Maggie Greene — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 17:00:12 EST

Danc over at Lost Garden is nothing if not helpful to all those little guys out there - and he's apparently inundated with requests for graphics for someone's really rockin' indie release. He's got a lengthy set of recommendations on how to get around the 'graphics bottleneck' if you're on of those people lacking skills in the art department, and trying to bribe starving artists isn't cutting it for you. He spends the most time discussing what you can do with free graphics, which naturally have their problems: More »

COD4's Stages Of Graphics Rendering

Mark Wilson — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:40:46 EST

Here's a very slick, simple to digest demo showing the multiple levels of rendering going on in a scene of Call of Duty 4. Yeah, it's total geek stuff, but it helps us appreciate just how petty we are. And besides, why else are you reading Kotaku? Because you are so busy having a life? Liar! More »

Games Are A 'Backward-Looking Medium'

Maggie Greene — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 15:30:54 EDT

It's nothing that hasn't been noted in a million blog posts over the years, but in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Daniel Radosh is saying it again. Too much emphasis on graphics, not enough emphasis on narrative - and sometimes those purty cut scenes can be a hindrance to a satisfying game experience (Radosh points to Halo 3 as an example, picking up on something our very own Crecente pointed out in his review of Halo 3). More »