>>50854761My point is that the models don't need changing, save perhaps the mouth and eyes which *are* changing for certain, because Pokemon are mostly flat color and are nominally the same creature from game to game.
Changing Pikachu's underlying mesh is unnecessary because the texture is *extremely* simple, unless to add new details like eyes and mouth *as I'd already mentioned*.
Even then, it's much more efficient to use a displacement mapping technique because you can distort individual polygons into very detailed curve approximations, as shown in B of the example.
Teams of more graphics designers than Game Freak has total development staff use it for the fine detail of EA yearly releases, because it's more efficient in all regards for the same quality level.
>>50854852To summarize the technical aspects, "Normal Mapping" is what most are accusing Scarlet and Violet of using, which is the use of an RGB image to generate offsets for lighting to "fake" depth with a low quality polygon mesh.
Isosurfaces are digital approximations of 3d shapes. Displacement mapping takes the *same* RGB image to generate such by distorting the polygon mesh into more "real" curvature by extending it to where the textures are mapped, instead of just lighting values.
Polygon meshes are what *most* 3d models in games are made up of, as they're considerably easier to manipulate and render than "true" curvature, even with extra layers like displacement mapping.
Though when you're dealing with film CGI they'll spend weeks rendering obscenely detailed but difficult simulations of *everything* of any visual influence. Detective Pikachu had exacting fur physics going on.
