BeamNG on RAGE

Take a look at the vehicle models in Skate3 sometime, its absolutely insane that they ever made it through to the final product. They look like the product of someone who's been modeling for a month or two and a design taken directly off blueprints drawn by a 3 year old with crayon.

 

To be fair, skate3 is about skating and not cars. Also, they need to be very low poly, considering the amount of detail that is going into other objects\props. I find its an acceptable compromise within a skating game to have very basic vehicles.

 

I think they're just suffering what I call the Sims1 effect. They're such a small part of the actual gameplay they need to be something extremely low poly to shove a texture onto and call it a car. The artist then makes ten of them in a small space of time and then moves on to something important.

 

I kinda agree with you, but still. The cars don't look that bad. It doesn't look like anything EA or Blackbox would release, but it's not a significant part of the gameplay. I could argue that I disliked the trees in Gran Turismo. The trees were a significant part of the background, but had absolutely no purpose gameplay-wise. Therefore, I don't care if the trees are bad if the gameplay is good. Also, just on a side note, Skate 3 was a VERY solid game. Just because they were sloppy with the cars (which looked ok but reacted well) doesn't mean it's a bad game.

 

Skate3 was made by EA/Blackbox and the Sims is also by EA... So idk what you're on about?

And EA does know how to make cars, just look at their Need for Speed models, those aren't that bad.

That said, even in games where cars do matter, they're poorly done. A fine example of this, in my opinion, would be the Saints Row series: ridiculously poor handling, very unrealistic designs for regular cars(their modern sportscars are way too short, for example)...

Being a Rockstar fanboy, I could also argue that, if it's justified that games where cars don't matter have low-poly cars... Why doesn't Max Payne 3 have horridly ugly cars? They just re-used some GTA 4 and (likely) GTA 5 cars. Why doesn't EA do that with their NFS models for Skate? Yes, polycount, but even then, it's a lot easier and infinitely better to just make good car less detailed than making a new one that doesn't remotely look like a car...

Apart from that... this topic has completely derailed...

EDIT@Below: Yes, I know the comparison isn't right, but all I'm trying to say with it is: Even when the cars in your game aren't important, you still need to make them look believable. You can't just say "oh but they're not inportant"... Most games that have cars as un-important objects driving around in a city look good, apart form a select few where the developers apparantly have never seen a car in real life before, only vaguely heard of them. Perhaps I should instead say Max Payne 1 and 2 then. Those are both old games, not even made by Rockstar, yet the cars in it don't look that bad... In fact, I can easily recognize that Mercedes W108 in Max Payne

Even if they felt the need to reuse models, that doens't justify it. GTA SA reused a lot of Vice city cars, which in turn used GTA 3 cars, and even the cars that weren't re-used, they usually only changed the designs slightly. But (at least on the models that required it) they upped the quality slightly so they wouldn't look strangely low-poly(Well, apart from the wheels, which are like 60 polygons in SA).. The car wrecks in Half Life are only props, yet they don't look half-bad. It's just bad when big game companies like EA don't care about background objects, there is no way to justify cars looking like they do in Skate3 or traffic in MidtownMadness 2. It just plain ruins the immersion. The same way oil barrels in BeamNG aren't that important, yet they're made with more than 24 polygons...

 

Sorry. I feel the need to make one last comment before returning to the thread's actual subject . Skate 3 reused many of the cars they used in Skate 2. Skate 2 was a much older game, so the graphics for the cars were understandable. Also, if you noticed, the cars are fake (like BeamNG) so they can avoid having to license cars from other companies. NFS featured all real and licensed vehicles. Why would you license cars in a skateboarding game? Another thing: comparing Max Payne to Skate 3 is horribly off (not just because of the subject). I love Rockstar myself because they make high quality games and put 110% into everything. Just look at my avatar: John Marston. EA and Blackbox don't have the amount of skill as R*. Also, Skate 3 was from 2008 while Max Payne is from 2012. The game industry has changed a lot over these past 4 years. A better comparison would be Skate 3 and Infamous. Both games had impressive graphics, but are far worse than modern games, and (with the same issue) neither had very good car models. Ok...I feel like I've walked WAY off the path . Sorry 'bout that!

 

I have to point out that the cars in GTA IV, even GTA V are badly modeled. Most of them look like they have different bodies between the front and back and the most annoying thing by a mile is one that Gabester pointed out to me and I can't unsee it. The damn pillars are straight enough to have been constructed entirely of rulers. In ALL cars bodywork has consistent curved lines across the profile of the vehicle. You can't have a flat body panel on a car otherwise it becomes far too easy to dent, and you can't have flat pillars because the glass will be too easy to smash.

I still have flashbacks to Gabester's rant about it. The car design is that bad.

 

Okay, yes, I do know GTA cars are badly modelled. I've modelled for San Andreas for years on end and have opened nearly every car file in that game in Zmodeler, and probably half the GTA IV ones as well. I do realise Rockstar isn't perfect at car modelling, both in design and in modelling itself. There are consistent gaps between polygons of underside panels and bodypanels, cars aren't always completely symmetrical, and suspension arms are half a centimeter thick. The difference between the cars in Skate3 and Max Payne or GTA(wheither it's SA, IV or V) is, in GTA the cars seem believable enough for people who don't know that much about car design. I for one know that indeed, panels shouldn't be too straight or they'll be flimsy, yet it doesn't bother me in any game that also does this because there are a lot of cars from the 80's which seem really square if you think away all the detail. The detail being the ridges in the panels that keep them strong enough. 2 great examples of that are the old Golfs, DeLoreans and the ~1985 Audi 80: think away the detail and they're literally like bricks with a slanted brick on top of it for the windows/roof.

That's why I can forgive Rockstar and other games that do this for designing their cars without those ridges everywhere so that they can make quite square cars that don't look low-poly, while they usually really are low poly. I'd rather see square-design cars(Emperor/Manana in IV for example) with nice round high poly headlights, straight pillars, and no ridges in the bodypanels, than cars with ridges in the panels(which again, aren't even that noticable), round pillars, but with octagonal headlights and wheels to save polygons... Apart from that, I do believe near-straight pillars are quite common in old cars, yes, I am pointing at old Chevrolet pickups and the aforementioned Audi 80, both have only slightly bent pillars.

As for the front and rear bodystyles: Not quite sure what you mean, but I assume it's because Rockstar usually combines front and rears of different cars so they don't get sued for copying a design

The point I'm trying to make is, the traffic in Skate3 and for example MM2 are way too low poly and most importantly, they seem too low poly compared to other objects. Or, like in Saints Row and many other games, where proportions for vehicle styles aren't right, and pillars for the roof often look way too thin. Compare that to Gabesters and Rockstars designs, which have quite proper relative proportions. Therefor people like me, because I'm not an expert on car design, could easily imagine "Yes, a car manufacturer could have made it like that in real life"...

But really, if I feel the need to reply to a reply to this, I'll edit my post, cause I don't want to go off-topic for much longer here...

 

Correction, EA did NOT make the need for speed cars, they where done by the developer, not the publisher. (Slightly mad studios for the SHIFT series for example).

 

correction, EA did not make the need for speed models, they are a publisher, not a developer. For NFS Shift for example, it was the great guys at slightly mad studios who made the cars.

 

Something else you don't realize is that neither of these games is intended for complete realism. Max Payne is practically real life, whereas Skate 3 and Saints Row the Third all have reasons for not being completely realistic. Skate 3 was from 2008 and is an older game. Also, the game isn't exactly realistic unless you plan to play like that. In real life, can you actually do a front flip 540 kickflip? No, because the game isn't completely realistic. The cars were obviously an afterthought, and actually bring out some of the 70's-80's skate style of the game. Yes, they're unrealistic. It's more like abstract art. Saints Row was more like Lollipop Chainsaw: a game designed to be completely ridiculous (in a good way of course! ). Do you honestly expect the cars should be realistic in a game where you can go streaking, hit people with a dil** bat (just in case the rules get stricter ), kill zombies with a VTOL, or drive a tank composed on giant neon cubes? Probably not. The cars were probably squished down to be a bit funnier and look strange. Also, if you didn't notice, these cars were all kinda futuristic and overdramatic. None of them were realistic. It's like yelling at a piece of abstract art for not being realistic.

I'd just like to make an edit: Skate 3 wasn't released in 2008. I was confusing it with Skate 2, which released the following year. The release date was in early 2010, which still doesn't change much.

 

Gabester: You honestly have a point on the polygons in the pillars. I didn't think that through when I wrote it. I assume they did it like this because it would be harder to get the shading on the windows right with curved pillars, that's really the only thing I can come up with, since I always have trouble doing that on my cars...


Ironically, the Willard doesn't spawn in normal traffic, since it's only used in one mission where some bad guys are chasing you in one . I've always liked it's design though, same with the rusty Regina in The Lost and Damned, which is also one of the few cars that has slightly curved pillars...

I personally think some of the 80's cars and a lot of the SUV's are a lot more well made in IV than the modern sedans. For example, the Rebla, Esperanto, Landstalker and Habanero aren't too badly done, probably because the person who did the Willard was also making a lot of the other boxy cars. Probably the only sedan apart from the Willard with a proper roof would be the Merit/Police Patrol(not the cruiser)/Taxi2, which doesn't seem too bad... Although it's probably the angle of the pictures I'm looking at.

Looking through all these pictures, I noticed that I was wrong... The roof pillars in GTA IV are way too thin...

Perhaps my fanboy-judgements of Rockstar car designs are more made up of hopes and dreams than anything else, cause looking at them now most of them are really really really wrong in so many ways...

 

Wow. When Hati said you hated the cars in GTA, he meant it. You have a very good point though. Since I don't make cars myself, I just see it as a car or the car it resembles. For you, since you make them yourself, I guess you can see the flaws. It's like that whole thing with music: if you play an instrument, you can easily hear that particular instrument in a song, or see areas where the musician messed up or should've done something else. If you don't play an instrument, you just hear music.

 

thats what people call the Dunning Kruger effect

 

They arent a small part in the game though, every where you look there are multiple cars all over the place. You have to jump over them, grind them, dodge them constantly. You get achievements for hippie jumping over them, and there are multiple parts in the main career mode where you have to skitch them. And it has nothing to do with how low poly they are, because they arent really THAT low poly. The designs of all of them are just god awful and the way they are modeled and terrible textures just make it even worse.

I guess im kind of in the same boat as gabester, in that ive been modeling cars for years now. Its much easier for me to notice how bad things are than it is for other people who dont have any idea.

 

Yes, but have you actually played Skate 3? It doesn't really seem like it. You can't actually grind them, and there are no parts in the career mode involving them (aside from 1 HoM event). You rarely have to even dodge them because the traffic is more like rural Kansas than Atlanta. You can barely even see them coming because they spawn (or rather fade into existence) about 100 feet in front of you. If you stand on the highest point in the game (crane), you can't see any cars because they don't spawn unless you're close to the road. They are just in the background, and pose as much significance as the pedestrians: they should be in the game (which they are), but are merely obstacles for those who are either going too fast or lack the skill to turn away from them. Also, as I mentioned before, they are more like abstract art. They display the 70's to 80's flow of the game. They're bulky, smooth, and are usually purple, neon green, pink, etc. Plus, they reused the cars from Skate 2, so they are older models. If you're wondering why I'm so supportive of this game, it's because I skate myself, and the Skate series was SUCH and improvement over the Tony Hawk games.

 

Even a newbie can make good cars, like this guy:

 

Ive been skating for 7 years, and almost on a daily basis for those 7 years. Ive put more time into the EA skate series then any other game before or since. The gameplay and controles are innovative and incredible and i highly doubt there will every be another skate franchise that will ever beat it.

But that doesnt make up for how shitty the vehicle models are (among other models, like the skateboard, ill get to that later). They aren't backround objects you dont look at, they are right in front of your all the damn time unless you are somewhere without streets around or have vehicle spawning turned down in freeskate mode. And in trying to defend the series you just brought up more ridiculous issues like the fact that cars (and other objects) have terrible draw distance and will disappear and re-apear right in front of your eyes. Pointing out that you cant see distant objects from the highest point in the game (which isnt actually the crane, but the top of the mountain next to the stupid ridiculous unrealistic mega park or whatever the hell its called) is entirely irrelevant, considering even in racing games where vehicles are the entire focus of the game, if you were to somehow get to the highest point in the game, chances are the other cars wouldnt be invisible... Its called draw distance, all games have it. Skate 3's is just ridiculously short. And you can directly interact with the vehicles by skitching them, they are part of a main gameplay component used to get speed (albiet a hardly used one, but still) so there is no excuse for them to be as shit as they are.

Skate 3 was rushed, its buggy as hell, and the models are done by people who very obviously didnt do much research or just didnt give a shit. Like the damn skateboard, which is the entire focus of the game, is shaped like a flat POS walmart board. They have absolutely no concave what so ever, other than the nose and tail (which are to shallow) the skateboard is completely flat, and has been ever since the very first skate game. Its incredible things like that were never noticed... People dont pay enough attention to the small things that matter to us who care, and people who dont do enough research to realize that something like the concave and shape (and size for that matter) of a board are a big part of skating, shouldnt be the ones making things for a skateboarding video game.

They just got lucky that the gameplay makes up for it. If it werent for the level editor and the fact that i gave my Skate 1 away to a friend, i would have switched back to an older version of the game.

The Skate series is my favorite series of games ever made, hell i bought an xbox 360 solely for the purpose of playing the first Skate. But that doesnt make me ignorant and blind of all the issues it has...

 

I can assure you that there are almost no events where you need to use the cars to gain speed. When you said that you see cars where everywhere in the game, I was pointing out the "draw instance" (interesting fact btw ) makes cars invisible until you're practically next to the car. Also, there are very few events that actually take place in the road where cars would be an issue. Nine times out of ten, you skate away from the road. Plus, the crane is still the highest point. 123 feet vs. 106 feet. And I'm not saying the game didn't have issues. Trust me, I was as angry as anyone trying to set up a line with movable objects, only to have a pedestrian walk over, fall down, and cause everything to fly away.