how Breath of the Wild uses realistic textures for environment

Would you believe Zelda BOTW uses realistic textures for its environment?
#shorts

[heyitsjoshmusic]

If you look at other Nintendo 3D games too you'll find this a lot, they are very skilled at mixing in the right amount of realistic detail. It's quite difficult to get right when trying for a similar style. I think it's something they may have held onto from the Nintendo 64 era when many of their textures were sourced from photo scans on 3D workstations and CDs.

[madturtle]

The mixture of realistic environment and flat-shaded characters is actually a norm for most anime. I believe Zelda took a lot of inspiration from animes too but created its own unique art style eventually.

[truegamer]

question i always ask myself on the devs

[OmnibusEveryone]

Is there a resource where BotW textures are available for study?

[minnow]

That’s really interesting, makes me think that nowadays AI could generate low res stylized textures in place of stuff like this for better results with virtually the same workload