>>719264560
Totally agreed. If you look at the credits on major games, huge chunks of the visual assets are all created by third-party "asset mills" mostly based in Asian countries.
Ultimately the modern graphics pipeline leaves little room for artistry. A 1999 game, even a realistic one, might have required someone to meticulously hand paint the wrinkles on a leather jacket onto a character, or even creatively photobash real images onto the textures. The resulting works have the messy beauty of the human hand involved.
But today's pipeline removes the human element. A leather jacket is simply a node based procedural material that realitsicaly simulates the roughness, shininess and textural detail of leather. The cloth wrinkles are literally sculpted into the model then baked down onto the texture. The same goes for every part, , their skin is procedural skin, their hair is procedural hair, their blue jeans are generated in Substance Designer... and in the end we get a very realilstic, very detailed human character... but the hand of the artist is missing entirely. This character has been generated with simulations and the end result is wholly soulless.