"Dear Esther" design elements

[Holy_Diver]

It's just a matter of taste so it seems rather useless to say it's right or wrong. Obviously, if someone disagrees, they are free to use perfectly straight or parallel lines as much as they want. Pictures say as much as need be said as to the benefit of breaking up straight lines.

It's good to have that on the record. That said I don't see how the pictures would be different with straight lines. And you don't specify, are you saying curves? Odd lines? And what are the benefits? Are they technical? Etc. There is a lot to unpack. Here you just seem to be saying you personally prefer curves? Or am I wrong? Because you like women with curves? Either way curves always demand more polygons.

A modern city is almost all straight lines. The way this is presented is as if to say the image will appear more realistic or less artificial if somehow straight lines are used sparingly.

But I will mention that it's completely untrue that "ancient builders were far more precise than modern builders". Have you ever looked in a house from the 1500's or down an ancient street? Maybe you're thinking of the pyramids, Parthenon or such, but obviously, they are not the norm.

I am not sure the pyramids is a good example. But I am thinking of temple complexes, since that makes up the bulk of SOM's repertoire and is typical of a KF game. And its not hard to make a straight box for example. And it would be difficult to arrange boxes that are not straight. I just want to be sure amateur artists are not getting wrong ideas.

Even in modern times, things are not perfectly straight. Look at your roofline or a fence some time. The eye expects sagging, denting, bends. Perfect straightness looks artificial; that's why the whole technology of normal mapping was developed; that's why modern 3D games use high-poly models and have face textures showing pores and blemishes. If you think perfectly straight parallel lines look better, go for it. But I'd say you're in the minority.

I don't think its given that much thought. A sag can be very expensive to implement. You seem to just be suggesting that ramshackle buildings should not be straight. A better way to say this might be SOM could use more ramshackle tile sets.


PS: If you are not talking curves. As soon as the camera is off by even a bit most straight lines will no longer appear straight. You could force the camera to be off by not letting it ever be perfectly centered on the vertical axis. The odds of the player lining themselves up exactly on the horizontal plane is pretty slim unless they work at it. That said I was wondering if your problem was just that your prefer aliasing in the lines, since whenever things line up and the aliasing goes away, the line appears too perfect for a video game. Either way, enough antialiasing can pretty much make this a non issue.

EDITED: I've even thought about letting authors redefine the center of the look up/down cone. Since most people don't normally look straight forward unless their attention is on high alert. Or even changing the center slightly relative to the ground incline and where open space is, so you would naturally look up when climbing a hill automatically. But since you mention it this could be a good way to not let the player look straight forward so easily so that vertical lines would not be so vertical anymore. Maybe that would appear less artificial to you?