Colorful stylized graphics in games - Americans vs Europeans vs Japanese

[Jarpie]

What happened with movies in the 00's?

Blue filter on everything. Especially prevalent in period pieces in the early 2000s. Think the opening battle of Gladiator or the Underworld films.

Be reasonable, it wasn't all like that. They used green filters too.

They still do use the green color filters, which is why I fucking hate how a lot of modern movies look.

 

[Rincewind]

Actually, this thread made me realise that I really love the colour grading of more recent movies that many of you guys seem to despise. But then I'm heavily colour grading my own photos too; that's simply a look that I like. Just did a Google Images search for "green filter movies" and I was like; "hell yeah, that's the look I really like". :shrug:

 

[Rincewind]

It's an actual photographic style, just google "cinematic street photography". "Reality" looks bland in comparison. That's what basically all painters did before the invention of photography — they creatively "altered" the colours to convey a certain mood.

I put all these in quotes because it's pretty hard to define what are "real colours" if you think about it a bit more deeply... It's all about how it makes you feel. Plus your brain is performing a lot of elaborate processing on the raw visual input you see everyday, you wouldn't even believe how much... Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to try to capture a certain mood instead of slavishly trying to present some form of "objective reality". In fact, the "objective realist" look is just yet another look as I see it.

Spoiler

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

It has to do with reality being boring, but it's also a montage technique. It's also as old as cinema itself. Film would be colored to indicate a certain mood or setting.

To tell day scenes

From night scenes

This technique was lost when color was made available, in favor of the use of color symbolism and symbolic language in general. As someone else said, O Brother Where Art Thou was the first modern movie to bring back this filter as setting indicator technique. The sepia tone that's throughout all the film is supposed to evoke the Old Timey Rural America settingg of it.

 

[Dadd]

The idea that entire regions have filters that "evoke" the way those regions supposedly feel is fucking retarded

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Well, it's the same reasoning that leads to shit like people swearing up and down that everyting in the Middle Ages was dark and dirty. But that plays more on the collective conscious more than anything else. And prejudice, actually.

 

[Rincewind]

"The backers loved seeing it."

Not that first Wasteland 2 screenshot they didn't. A lot of gripes about how it looked cartoony. Though that was useful feedback to have (the primarily European audience for RPGs hates colorful stylized graphics).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/970830/The_Dungeon_Of_Naheulbeuk_The_Amulet_Of_Chaos/

Not sure what you're implying by just posting a single link, but I liked the art style of Naheulbeuk a lot. In this case the presentation (cartoony style) is a very good match for the subject matter. It's not overly colourful either, it's just right for this style.

 

[tommy heavenly6]

The idea that entire regions have filters that "evoke" the way those regions supposedly feel is fucking retarded

Hollywood puts piss filters whenever the film is in Mexico > people associate Mexico with the piss filter > people get mad when they discover Mexico doesn't have a piss filter irl

 

[Siel]

The idea that entire regions have filters that "evoke" the way those regions supposedly feel is fucking retarded

Hollywood puts piss filters whenever the film is in Mexico > people associate Mexico with the piss filter > people get mad when they discover Mexico doesn't have a piss filter irl

Well the whole country smells like piss so that's accurate.

 

[Roguey]

This technique was lost when color was made available, in favor of the use of color symbolism and symbolic language in general. As someone else said, O Brother Where Art Thou was the first modern movie to bring back this filter as setting indicator technique. The sepia tone that's throughout all the film is supposed to evoke the Old Timey Rural America settingg of it.

This kind of thing still happened even before the digital era. There was a lot of seething over the various home versions of Halloween (1978) that used incorrect color timing https://images.uncyclomedia.co/uncyclopedia/en/9/97/Halloween_Blu-ray_comparison_(night).png (the blue filtered one on the right is how it was intended)

 

[Derringer]

How a game looks is partly dependent on how it sounds and how it's presented, if the game uses preset UE3 shaders that usually make it look like ugly generic cartoony crap it already makes the game look ugly since it looks half-assed. The same goes with movies when they recycle the same jewish music composers for their scores since it's predominately a career grift for cash, the end product itself is naturally going to look ugly. It's easy enough to bring up things like CRT colors or national pride/spiritualism/faith or other stupid shit but it ultimately depends on how much the producer gave a shit about the end product in the first place.

Silent movies relied on the score to set the mood, the color schemes were always a secondary to that. That also applies to good video games to an extent.

 

[Rincewind]

Quick reminder that Gothic IV Arcania understood everything and has a American/European graphic setting ; American is colorful, European is grey and dark.

What a shame this game never got the recognition it needed.

That's interesting, never heard about such a thing.

But they weren't trolling the Americans hard enough: they should have called it the "God-fearing, gun-toting, ultra-violent + ZERO NUDITY(tm)" version

 

[Rincewind]

Nobody ever complained about colourful in the Might & Magic games.

Notice in the above screenshots, it's mostly brown. Turning up the saturation on brown is not going to make it look better.

Browinification was something that happened with time, as games became something other than a niche and people from outside the hobby became interested on them.

Have you guys been outside lately? Like in nature, in a park, or in a forest?

It's mostly brown (ground, trees), green (grass, trees), and blue (sky). Or all grey if you live in Scotland

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Have you guys been outside lately? Like in nature, in a park, or in a forest?

It's mostly brown (ground, trees), green (grass, trees), and blue (sky). Or all grey if you live in Scotland Poland

I don't usually write "I fixed it for you", but I fixed it for you.

 

[Jarpie]

This technique was lost when color was made available, in favor of the use of color symbolism and symbolic language in general. As someone else said, O Brother Where Art Thou was the first modern movie to bring back this filter as setting indicator technique. The sepia tone that's throughout all the film is supposed to evoke the Old Timey Rural America settingg of it.

This kind of thing still happened even before the digital era. There was a lot of seething over the various home versions of Halloween (1978) that used incorrect color timing https://images.uncyclomedia.co/uncyclopedia/en/9/97/Halloween_Blu-ray_comparison_(night).png (the blue filtered one on the right is how it was intended)

Is that blue tint how it originally looked like in the theaters or is it some revisionist "It's how we wanted it to look!" crap, like James Cameron pulled with The Terminator?

 

[JarlFrank]

My favorite art direction in recent years still remain Dishonored 2

The Ducal Palace is my favorite place in that game. Such a beautiful atmosphere, especially along with the music:

 

[Roguey]

This technique was lost when color was made available, in favor of the use of color symbolism and symbolic language in general. As someone else said, O Brother Where Art Thou was the first modern movie to bring back this filter as setting indicator technique. The sepia tone that's throughout all the film is supposed to evoke the Old Timey Rural America settingg of it.

This kind of thing still happened even before the digital era. There was a lot of seething over the various home versions of Halloween (1978) that used incorrect color timing https://images.uncyclomedia.co/uncyclopedia/en/9/97/Halloween_Blu-ray_comparison_(night).png (the blue filtered one on the right is how it was intended)

Is that blue tint how it originally looked like in the theaters or is it some revisionist "It's how we wanted it to look!" crap, like James Cameron pulled with The Terminator?

Going by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytl_8YQAvmg it may have actually looked more purple than blue. It's a mess and people can't even trust the cinematographer http://www.dvdexotica.com/2019/05/watching-halloween-shouldnt-be-this.html

Now, Cundy is credited with supervising two different versions: the 1999 THX DVD, and the 2013 35th Anniversary blu-ray, plus he's approved the new 2021 version. The fact that he co-signs multiple, varying color timings, then, means it's up to us to make our own determinations.

 

[Jarpie]

This technique was lost when color was made available, in favor of the use of color symbolism and symbolic language in general. As someone else said, O Brother Where Art Thou was the first modern movie to bring back this filter as setting indicator technique. The sepia tone that's throughout all the film is supposed to evoke the Old Timey Rural America settingg of it.

This kind of thing still happened even before the digital era. There was a lot of seething over the various home versions of Halloween (1978) that used incorrect color timing https://images.uncyclomedia.co/uncyclopedia/en/9/97/Halloween_Blu-ray_comparison_(night).png (the blue filtered one on the right is how it was intended)

Is that blue tint how it originally looked like in the theaters or is it some revisionist "It's how we wanted it to look!" crap, like James Cameron pulled with The Terminator?

Going by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytl_8YQAvmg it may have actually looked more purple than blue. It's a mess and people can't even trust the cinematographer http://www.dvdexotica.com/2019/05/watching-halloween-shouldnt-be-this.html

Now, Cundy is credited with supervising two different versions: the 1999 THX DVD, and the 2013 35th Anniversary blu-ray, plus he's approved the new 2021 version. The fact that he co-signs multiple, varying color timings, then, means it's up to us to make our own determinations.

I wouldn't trust VHS tapes and VHS transfers, as VHS transfers were never really properly done, laserdisc on the other hand might be more indicative. In most cases I prefer movie or tv-show to have natural colors, very few movies/tv looks good with color grading/filter. The Double Life of Veronique is one of the very few exceptions, it looks fantastic, probably because the color grading wasn't done digitally so it looks natural.

 

[Roguey]

I wouldn't trust VHS tapes and VHS transfers, as VHS transfers were never really properly done, laserdisc on the other hand might be more indicative. In most cases I prefer movie or tv-show to have natural colors, very few movies/tv looks good with color grading/filter. The Double Life of Veronique is one of the very few exceptions, it looks fantastic, probably because the color grading wasn't done digitally so it looks natural.

Blue filters for night scenes happened all the time though, especially when they had to shoot day-for-night for budget reasons.

 

[Rincewind]

The Double Life of Veronique is one of the very few exceptions, it looks fantastic, probably because the color grading wasn't done digitally so it looks natural.

Yeah, film stock and the various toxic chemicals used for developing film is more natural than the little electrons running around inside your colour grading workstation, I get it.

And the big question: are you watching the film on digital equipment, or on an old analog TV or movie projector?

 

[Roguey]

Yeah, film stock and the various toxic chemicals used for developing film is more natural than the little electrons running around inside your colour grading workstation, I get it.

And the big question: are you watching the film on digital equipment, or on an old analog TV or movie projector?

Natural is perhaps not the word to use but there is a clear visual difference between analog and digital film and color timing and color grading, just as there's a difference between music that was recorded and mixed with analog equipment, music that was recorded with analog equipment and mixed digitally, and music that was recorded and mixed with digital equipment (all observable while listening to it on a digital medium, though sure it will sound different on an analog medium too).

 

[Machocruz]

Like anything else, there are levels to using filters/color grading. One of the worst I can remember is Expendables 2 and this horrible blue monochrome they used in many scenes , to no good effect. There were no interesting variations in tone, no specific mood rendered, just unsightly hackery. That kind of thing can poison the well for such practices and it's often a hallmark of cheap, amateurish productions that use it as a shortcut to "cinematic" ambiance and/or to avoid the harder task of harmonizing a wide color palette. Single/dual color fields in general aren't my thing, but in David Fincher films for example, they are used beautifully.

BTW, I've only seen BHD on DVD when it came out, and it had beautiful range of color. One of the best looking combat films ever made imo.

 

[Rincewind]

Yeah, film stock and the various toxic chemicals used for developing film is more natural than the little electrons running around inside your colour grading workstation, I get it.

And the big question: are you watching the film on digital equipment, or on an old analog TV or movie projector?

Natural is perhaps not the word to use but there is a clear visual difference between analog and digital film and color timing and color grading, just as there's a difference between music that was recorded and mixed with analog equipment, music that was recorded with analog equipment and mixed digitally, and music that was recorded and mixed with digital equipment (all observable while listening to it on a digital medium, though sure it will sound different on an analog medium too).

Yeah, I'm well aware of these various analog artifacts, both in photography and audio work (which both happen to be on my long list of hobbies, indicentally), so I'm in agreement with you.

It just amuses me to no end when someone claims analog processing is "natural", while digital is... "unnatural" then, I guess? Maybe the pleasing saturation and non-linear characteristics inherent to analog mediums (film, magnetic tape, etc.) can be considered natural, but they are really just euphonic distortions of the original signal that we tend to like (and it's probably more of a learned response through familiarity than the "analog representation" being "inherently better").

These analog processes can be (and are) analysed, understood, and replicated in the digital realm; they are just effects, after all. You can replicate film stock with 90%+ accuracy with pure digital processes on purely digital footage, I'd say. (Whether people do that, or just apply some simplistic digital processing that looks like shit is a different matter...)

But yeah, it can be easier to just apply the "stock effect preset" by using a certain analog medium or process... as long as those analog mediums and equipment are still available and functional. This is one of the reasons why I put a lot of importance on emulating old sound cards, CRT displays, etc. accurately. The day is close when eventually all will die, and there won't be any replacements (well, at least not for CRTs, that's almost guaranteed).

(And if it's still not clear, I'm a big fan of "analog". But for the most part, the future is digital; most of these analog processes can only survive in the form of emulated processes as digital algorithms going forward, whether we like it or not.)

 

[Theodora]

American color palette (colors!) and a European color palette (drab and dreary, just like what they're used to in their lives)

And the classic

philosopher was changed to sorcerer in american release

because the publishers feared americans are too dumb to know what a philosopher stone is, and would just think its some school teacher thing

Yeah, it's not just "colour", but that they're more comfortable with things being more abstract (more art, fewer renders). Europe seems to go either way, depending on the game (EU getting the gorgeous Japanese boxart for Ico being an obvious example).

MGS4 captures it pretty well, top-right is Japanese. (I don't think the the top-left was the standard cover in the UK, as I'm 90% sure I've seen the bottom-right with their ratings agency. Still, captures the way things can go in either direction.)

 

[Jarpie]

Yeah, film stock and the various toxic chemicals used for developing film is more natural than the little electrons running around inside your colour grading workstation, I get it.

And the big question: are you watching the film on digital equipment, or on an old analog TV or movie projector?

Natural is perhaps not the word to use but there is a clear visual difference between analog and digital film and color timing and color grading, just as there's a difference between music that was recorded and mixed with analog equipment, music that was recorded with analog equipment and mixed digitally, and music that was recorded and mixed with digital equipment (all observable while listening to it on a digital medium, though sure it will sound different on an analog medium too).

Yeah, I'm well aware of these various analog artifacts, both in photography and audio work (which both happen to be on my long list of hobbies, indicentally), so I'm in agreement with you.

It just amuses me to no end when someone claims analog processing is "natural", while digital is... "unnatural" then, I guess? Maybe the pleasing saturation and non-linear characteristics inherent to analog mediums (film, magnetic tape, etc.) can be considered natural, but they are really just euphonic distortions of the original signal that we tend to like (and it's probably more of a learned response through familiarity than the "analog representation" being "inherently better").

These analog processes can be (and are) analysed, understood, and replicated in the digital realm; they are just effects, after all. You can replicate film stock with 90%+ accuracy with pure digital processes on purely digital footage, I'd say. (Whether people do that, or just apply some simplistic digital processing that looks like shit is a different matter...)

But yeah, it can be easier to just apply the "stock effect preset" by using a certain analog medium or process... as long as those analog mediums and equipment are still available and functional. This is one of the reasons why I put a lot of importance on emulating old sound cards, CRT displays, etc. accurately. The day is close when eventually all will die, and there won't be any replacements (well, at least not for CRTs, that's almost guaranteed).

(And if it's still not clear, I'm a big fan of "analog". But for the most part, the future is digital; most of these analog processes can only survive in the form of emulated processes as digital algorithms going forward, whether we like it or not.)

What Roguey said, but especially if it's done to an old movie, like The Terminator, it just looks like they've put some very shitty color filter on the picture, and it's done without any real "finesse", it just looks IMO fucking shit. They used the chemical process on Payback, that Mel Gibson movie in the late 90s, and the theatrical cut was released in UK on blu-ray, and it actually doesn't look bad, but I do prefer how the director's cut looks which has much more natural colors.

Back on topic about games...when it comes to games from yuropoor, the original two Broken Sword games and Broken Sword 5 are quite color actually, and same goes for Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest, which was made by at least some people in Legend of Grimrock team. I didn't have a problem with the colorful and more cartoony graphics of Divinity: OS 1, but I didn't like the armor design in D:OS, those fucking retarded spikey armors.