Not really. Thats like saying real life in a live action tv show is um "become a crutch for art directors and artists". So....as an artist, making something realistic or stylized doesn't create some magically limitation in regards to art direction....the elements that make up art direction didn't just fucking disappear just because I want to make something more realistic or stylized etc.
So put it roughly art direction is simply the combination of things to specifically convey and evoke a specific emotion to bring together an idea.
So when art director is going to bring together iconography - the things you actually physically see in the world like buildings cars people.
They will also bring together specific color palettes that might match that emotion your dark Browns greys etc
They will also bring together specific textures that might convey certain ideas
The same can be said about how a scene is composed on top of the lighting and Shadow.
My friend all of that encompasses Art Direction.... but all of those ideas can be found in real life in a obviously photorealistic setting so the thing you're talking about is not an either-or or something it is not something that somehow is going to be absent in a photo-realistic work on the contrary I would argue those ideas can be conveyed even stronger because a photorealistic world is going to show off some of these elements to a hyper extreme compared to something stylized that might have a limited palette..... as in...when you cartoon, you LIMIT ideas to simple forms.
So I want you to think about that CW show The 100 are you trying to tell me because it's not a cartoon there's no fucking art director working on it? Did you just assume that any photorealistic work simply has none of those elements at all and they just taking pictures and completely ignoring every element of art or something weird like that?
So.....as an artist, understand what I'm saying, creating something realistic will take lots of work to convey many ideas no different then if stylized and I'd argue it would take even more work as cartooning seeks to limit ideas to more simple things.
So the art director is still deciding to add the tree trunk as an object to convey something, they are still deciding the palette to fit a idea, same with the value, hue, saturation etc Stylizing it simply removes that texture and uses less information to convey something.
The art director and artist is still needed to create that though... Having better tools or scanning objects doesn't magically mean no artist is involved or no direction is needed. This is a massive misconception that I don't even fully understand where it comes from other then most not really knowing what artist are actually doing when creating. So...when I'm making my work, its not like me using reference of something from real life some how means NO art direction is needed or something, I'm not really sure where this notion even comes from btw.
So sir
a horror film and you still need to fucking have a art director. They will help with set design, costume design, cinematography etc Did you not realize that such people exist in LIVE ACTION FILM to actually convey certain ideas and give the artist a direction (see what I did) to focus the film in a certain artistic area?
That is not an idea solely about cartoons or anime or stylized things etc, that is an idea about ALL ART IN GENERAL. It is not exclusive to anything stylized.
"Photorealism should not be held up as the one shining example that decides whether a game looks great or not"
Thats a great story, no one said anything remotely like that btw. So art direction matters and that isn't some how ignored in photorealistic games anymore then film, tv shows etc. Its a disrespect to the art directors that work hard to help bring those worlds to life. The game doesn't just magically make itself.