3 ms·

The author of this article seems to believe that 2D graphics cannot be re-used in a game and/or is unaware of the use of tiles, palette-swapping, and other tech

The author of this article seems to believe that 2D graphics cannot be re-used in a game and/or is unaware of the use of tiles, palette-swapping, and other techniques used to make production of 2D games more efficient. Very strange.

yumaikas 6y ago
Yes, 2D assets can be reused, once you have a 3D asset, it can be used with a lot more spectacle. Of nothing else, when you're animating a change of visual angle, it's a whole lot more convincing and easier (animate some positions) vs the 2D alternative of having to animate or rotoscoped each of the pixels and frames for that gun motion. And spectacle was one of the biggest sellers of games.
ben_w 6y ago
Indeed curious. Bungie’s Marathon series of FPSs of the same era also did palette swapping for the sprite-based NPCs.
pjc50 6y ago
The author is an extremely comprehensive game historian who is probably into the hundreds of thousands of words at this point, so they almost certainly are aware of it and you'll find it mentioned in another article.
- swivelmaster 6y ago
  Perhaps, but summarizing the advantages of 3D over 2D by saying that "you can't copy a table, you have to make EACH ONE BY HAND!" is a gross misrepresentation of the differences and limitations of 2D. It only takes one or two sentences to explain this more accurately, and I think we should all prefer that over saying something that is about 90% wrong but slightly shorter. I also cringed when the article said that we couldn't really know why the Columbine kids went on a murder spree when other people who played Doom didn't. That is a totally ridiculous thing to say; We know exactly why, and it's because one of them was a bonafide psychopath and the other was clinically depressed. Again, something explainable in a sentence that was misrepresented in the article. Historians should be more concerned with accuracy than word count.

yumaikas 6y ago

Yes, 2D assets can be reused, once you have a 3D asset, it can be used with a lot more spectacle. Of nothing else, when you're animating a change of visual angle, it's a whole lot more convincing and easier (animate some positions) vs the 2D alternative of having to animate or rotoscoped each of the pixels and frames for that gun motion. And spectacle was one of the biggest sellers of games.

ben_w 6y ago

Indeed curious. Bungie’s Marathon series of FPSs of the same era also did palette swapping for the sprite-based NPCs.

pjc50 6y ago

The author is an extremely comprehensive game historian who is probably into the hundreds of thousands of words at this point, so they almost certainly are aware of it and you'll find it mentioned in another article.

swivelmaster 6y ago
Perhaps, but summarizing the advantages of 3D over 2D by saying that "you can't copy a table, you have to make EACH ONE BY HAND!" is a gross misrepresentation of the differences and limitations of 2D. It only takes one or two sentences to explain this more accurately, and I think we should all prefer that over saying something that is about 90% wrong but slightly shorter. I also cringed when the article said that we couldn't really know why the Columbine kids went on a murder spree when other people who played Doom didn't. That is a totally ridiculous thing to say; We know exactly why, and it's because one of them was a bonafide psychopath and the other was clinically depressed. Again, something explainable in a sentence that was misrepresented in the article. Historians should be more concerned with accuracy than word count.