Art Direction Concerns

[SPRidley]

I like kweping some stalls like chief beef and some others like that but wNt realistic stalls too. What im really hoping thhey do is put a building syatem like sims 4.

John Laws already confirmed is piece by piece building on the Q&A. The Sims building system is great... for The Sims types of homes. Same with the road building system and water wonky physics is great for City Skylines, but what Nvizzio is doing coping it 1:1in RCTW (actually with the help of Colossal Order as they said) and surprise, we discovered in the beta that both of them worked badly, not because they were done wrong (they are 1:1, probably copy pasted code directly from Colossal order), but becuase they actually dont work with a theme park game, where both of this things need more finesse as a theme park simulator has to be more detailed than a city one were all is done on a bigger scale.
He also added its their OWN piece by piece system, that they gave it a twist to make it better an more enjoyable. What this means, we still dont know. It could be a copy chunks of rooms and modular building system similar to what The Sims 4 added. That would be an excellent thing to add to the piece by piece system, but copy exactly something from another game, to shoehorn into a game that works radically different? Well, yove seen what happens there with the RCTW beta.

Just a good example why the Sims building system would be really hard to work out for the type of complexity RCT3 and Coaster Planet have:

Those types of walls that use custom scenery in RCT3 would not work with the Sims building system. Same with the sloping level of any roof, when in RCT3 you could do it by hand and the size depended of the custom scenery you downloaded. Doing crazy design in the sims games is super constricted. Its great for building normal homes, but not much else, mainly because it use prestablished heights, a limit you didnt have with RCT3 custom scenery.

I actually really like what RCTW is doing, but I also trust the Frontier guys. They do know what they're doing. With Planet Coaster, I just want to be able to build realistic parks. I'm not asking for no charm, no artistic liberties, or no style. I just want to feel like my park could exist. I'm concerned that it will feel like Thrillville where it all takes place in its own cartoon world. Once again, that's not an observation (So far, everything from Planet Coaster looks pretty good), it's a slight concern I have. I don't want this game going completely to the cartoony side. That's all.

If its not an observation, because everything they showed doesnt even look similar to Thrillville, why do you have that concern? Im sorry, but I just dont understand. I had lots of concerns 2 weeks ago with this game, until the dev diary and John Walls Q&A were done were it resolved all the concerns I had.
Also RCTW its in a delicate state now, were it just flat out doesnt work properly (and, even if dont like saying this, it probably will be borked even when it releases). Why are you happy with them? Nvizzio is not at fault there of course, the poor souls had only 6 months to make a game, and it shows, but why eat atari's lies? My concers for that game are huge, and the art is the least of its problems.

 

[RandyChimp]

I actually really like what RCTW is doing, but I also trust the Frontier guys. They do know what they're doing. With Planet Coaster, I just want to be able to build realistic parks. I'm not asking for no charm, no artistic liberties, or no style. I just want to feel like my park could exist. I'm concerned that it will feel like Thrillville where it all takes place in its own cartoon world. Once again, that's not an observation (So far, everything from Planet Coaster looks pretty good), it's a slight concern I have. I don't want this game going completely to the cartoony side. That's all.

I don't think it will be overtly cartoony, but it has a particular style that's similar to RCT3, and the RCTW beta video that Nerdcubed put out, he made a point along the lines of "Realistic graphics age badly very quickly, whereas cartoony graphics will last, even with jagged edges or low resolution" and I think he's right. RCT3 is still great to play, even though it does look a tad jagged around the edges. I'd much rather play RCT3 than RCTW at this point.

 

[TRG86]

I don't think it will be overtly cartoony, but it has a particular style that's similar to RCT3, and the RCTW beta video that Nerdcubed put out, he made a point along the lines of "Realistic graphics age badly very quickly, whereas cartoony graphics will last, even with jagged edges or low resolution" and I think he's right. RCT3 is still great to play, even though it does look a tad jagged around the edges. I'd much rather play RCT3 than RCTW at this point.

I completely agree. I replied earlier in this thread, but I will again as well. The style for Planet Coaster is looking and feels great right now; it has a lot of character, charm and a "welcoming" feel. It has its cartoon style with a touch of realism which is ideal and fitting for this game genre in general.

Games like this do not need to look ultra-realistic. Ultra-realism is more suited for first person shooters, racing games and flight simulators...not theme park sims. If that is your main concern then we should all start complaining about games like The Sims (series), SimCity (series), RCT (series) and Cities: Skylines too, because they have too much of a cartoon/animated art style to be real. To put it simply, it is a very correct statement to say that this game will age very well with its current art direction, because there is a point when the "Ultra Realistic" art style ages-out and it no longer looks real enough anymore.

 

[KnoxVegas]

Yeah its kinda true, I didn't wan to really post in this thread before. But now that I think about it I think that Planet Coaster is going in the right direction. You can have realistic to a touch with the rides, scenery and other things. And the people I think look great yes they are cartoonist but I think its great looking. For me this is the true style I think of when I think of Roller Coaster Sim Games. Love the look of Planet Coaster so far!

 

[danplayer01]

Yes, i love the look of the game so far.

 

[xyphic]

The turn of phrase that struck me from the developer diary was "living UI". To me that means that we should be able to use the dynamic of the crowd (and individuals) to gauge how our park is performing, as opposed to bubbles or graphs. To get across this type of information necessitates an exaggerated art style in the individuals so that they both stand out and convey information without microscopic study of facial expression.

I think the style is borne from this design goal, so we have characters with long limbs, large mouths and expressive animations. You can see from the peeks we have so far how a happy guest might swagger or dance around, and a bored one might trudge slowly, yawning.

We haven't seen much about the actual rides yet, but my guess is that Frontier will strive to keep them within the realms of reality but obviously in keeping with the overall style.

 

[Sawyer1]

Going to have to disagree a million percent dude!

I honestly think it is perfect, it is charming, beautiful and just fits so well with what they are trying to achieve!

 

[0BobTheJanitor]

The problem isn't art direction it's customability. If you don't want a giant pizza on your stall you should be able to toggle it. If you want a billboard on top you should be able to have it. If you want a different shape or color, say it and it's done. Want it to be a huge burger, go right ahead.

And of course, assuming indoors is integrated with the game, there should be different flavors for indoor areas, like different shapes and styles to fit a more, food court, indoor mall type area.

 

[SPRidley]

The turn of phrase that struck me from the developer diary was "living UI". To me that means that we should be able to use the dynamic of the crowd (and individuals) to gauge how our park is performing, as opposed to bubbles or graphs. To get across this type of information necessitates an exaggerated art style in the individuals so that they both stand out and convey information without microscopic study of facial expression.

I think the style is borne from this design goal, so we have characters with long limbs, large mouths and expressive animations. You can see from the peeks we have so far how a happy guest might swagger or dance around, and a bored one might trudge slowly, yawning.

We haven't seen much about the actual rides yet, but my guess is that Frontier will strive to keep them within the realms of reality but obviously in keeping with the overall style.

I think this is all true. We dont need anymore the face animations in the character menu RCT1 and 2 had.
Still, I would love that if you open a guest window there still the dialogue diary. "Ride x is super duper fun" etc...

The problem isn't art direction it's customability. If you don't want a giant pizza on your stall you should be able to toggle it. If you want a billboard on top you should be able to have it. If you want a different shape or color, say it and it's done. Want it to be a huge burger, go right ahead.

And of course, assuming indoors is integrated with the game, there should be different flavors for indoor areas, like different shapes and styles to fit a more, food court, indoor mall type area.

And you are probably going to get that. RCT3 got it for free when the patch for Soaked came along. Im pretty sure they remember making a thing that we all loved in their old game.
Wait and see, or just ask the devs in the Q&A. John Laws answered every question he was asked without trying to spin any of it, even info we didnt know yet.
He actually confimed water rides and piece by piece building there, and that we were going to see more about them in the following months.

 

[Plynk]

I've been following both Roller Coaster Tycoon World and Planet Coaster since I first heard about them. It seems to me that the developers of Planet Coaster seem to have a better grasp on what they are doing, but I do have one major concern with what I've seen so far.

It seems like Planet Coaster is very cartoony. I don't mean just the people, in fact, I think they look really good (Maybe a little too hipster-y, but whatever). I'm concerned with the rides, buildings, etc. From the 3D models on the website, the flatrides look like cartoons, not real machines. Similarly, the concession stands in the Dev Diary are the same cartoony, food-shaped stalls from RCT3. I really want this game to be as realistic as possible. That means that rides, buildings, stalls, roller coasters, everything, should look like it could be in a real theme park. I'm worried that the developers don't share my thoughts.

To be clear, I think some style can be really useful. As I said before, the peeps look very good. They are realistically proportioned and they move in a realistic way, but they're not photo-realistic. This approach should carry on to the rest of the game. Flatrides shouldn't be crazy, cartoons. They can be colorful and simple, but they should look like they wouldn't be out of place in the real world.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Frontier chose a great art direction. It looks amazing.

 

[JP32]

I couldn't disagree with you more. Frontier chose a great art direction. It looks amazing.

So far, all they've shown is guests and yes, they look fantastic! I'm just CONCERNED that the rides and the coasters will look more like Thrillville than RCTW. Again, I'm not saying that anything they've shown looks bad. I'm just CONCERNED that they might go too cartoony with the look of the game.

 

[Angelis1]

So far, all they've shown is guests and yes, they look fantastic! I'm just CONCERNED that the rides and the coasters will look more like Thrillville than RCTW. Again, I'm not saying that anything they've shown looks bad. I'm just CONCERNED that they might go too cartoony with the look of the game.

Just check the "sketchfab" models to see what the game will look like :

Gigacoaster (Coaster piece exemple)
- https://sketchfab.com/models/eedda7...utospin=0.2&width=1280&height=720&iframe=true

Park Guests
- https://sketchfab.com/models/f6a5c6...utospin=0.2&width=1280&height=720&iframe=true

Mindbender (Ride exemple)
- https://sketchfab.com/models/541b32...utospin=0.2&width=1280&height=720&iframe=true

It's lowpoly (especially the last) which probably means highly optimized, cartoon/"pixar" style (like all we have seen), and realistic enough (and full details)

Not like Thrillville (which is a 10 years old game I think)

 

[SydVic]

So far, all they've shown is guests and yes, they look fantastic! I'm just CONCERNED that the rides and the coasters will look more like Thrillville than RCTW. Again, I'm not saying that anything they've shown looks bad. I'm just CONCERNED that they might go too cartoony with the look of the game.

I really prefer the cartoony look of the game - RCTW may look "realistic" but it lacks charme and a coherent artstyle...RCTW looks like a NoLimits-Simulator with flatrides for me - Planet Coaster looks like a Theme-Park GAME - it looks fun and charming and has a great style.

Thrillville was a PS2 era game and the main audience were children...and like Anglis wrote: it's a 10 years old game

 

[JP32]

I really prefer the cartoony look of the game - RCTW may look "realistic" but it lacks charme and a coherent artstyle...RCTW looks like a NoLimits-Simulator with flatrides for me - Planet Coaster looks like a Theme-Park GAME - it looks fun and charming and has a great style.

Thrillville was a PS2 era game and the main audience were children...and like Anglis wrote: it's a 10 years old game

I don't prefer a "cartoon" game. I want a game that looks like RCT3, but with better graphics and more details. I still think that's what they're going to do, but I do have a feeling that they're going to lean too far to the cartoon side.

 

[RandyChimp]

I don't prefer a "cartoon" game. I want a game that looks like RCT3, but with better graphics and more details. I still think that's what they're going to do, but I do have a feeling that they're going to lean too far to the cartoon side.

Look, the art style is up to them, surely? This isn't something that we can ask them to change, right? It's their game and it's their move. I don't like the style of RCTW, but it's not one of the things I'd expect them to change.

 

[TRG86]

This whole thread is really starting to go in circles....

 

[Diabo44]

This whole thread is really starting to go in circles....

Yes

 

[fultre]

really like the art direction. It is a perfect blend realism and fun. Lets not forget, this is a game not a simulator, it has personality, it is cheerful and gives of a friendly fun exciting vibe. As oposed to a flavourless emotionless simulator. Devs have captured this perfectly. I believe that the simulation side of this game will deliver in terms of realism, RCT 1&2 were very unrealistic, RCT 3 on the otherhand was very realistic in terms of coaster/ride behaviour.

Having said all of this I think that some people here are concerned about scenery and cartony themes, the way we could fix this is to have a default vanila skin for every ride which basically is barebone and enables the users to apply their own scenery.

What do you guys think?

 

[JP32]

really like the art direction. It is a perfect blend realism and fun. Lets not forget, this is a game not a simulator, it has personality, it is cheerful and gives of a friendly fun exciting vibe. As oposed to a flavourless emotionless simulator. Devs have captured this perfectly. I believe that the simulation side of this game will deliver in terms of realism, RCT 1&2 were very unrealistic, RCT 3 on the otherhand was very realistic in terms of coaster/ride behaviour.

Having said all of this I think that some people here are concerned about scenery and cartony themes, the way we could fix this is to have a default vanila skin for every ride which basically is barebone and enables the users to apply their own scenery.

What do you guys think?

I'm totally on board with that. Freedom is the most important thing. If I don't want a cartoony park, I should have the option to put in, or build, more generic stuff.

 

[pwc1]

Very Cool Idea Fultre.