Post by: x4000 on February 04, 2011, 10:28:27 pm
This was originally posted in a comment thread over at Gamers With Jobs, but I've been meaning to talk about the art pipeline for A Valley Without Wind for a while over here, too. So here we go!For those curious on how I'm doing the art, it's a pretty huge pipeline:
- Characters and similar are rendered in Poser Pro 2010 at high resolution and then cartoonized in post-processing using Photoshop CS5 and a number of custom filters by Topaz Labs.
- Objects are rendered in a variety of programs, or in some cases are using photo textures as in many games, and then are run through filters by Topaz Labs, Nik Software, and Filter Forge, all through Photoshop again.
- Specifically, most of the work on actual object sculpting and painting is being done using Mudbox 2011. I did most of the art for Light of the Spire using ZBrush 4.0 (and the rest in the GroBoto 3 betas), which was great for the style of the spire ships, but for AVWW I'm only using ZBrush for the ZSphere rapid design tools, with the resulting frames being exported to Mudbox for final sculpting and painting in Mudbox.
- To set up infinitely tilable textures, I'm using a really cool piece of software called imagesynth 2. That, plus the heal brush in Photoshop, really let me get some interesting effects. That's how I'm able to make the really complex skies from Vue tile seamlessly, and things of that nature.
- I've also taken several hundred photographs already for custom textures, and those all get processed pretty heavily in Photoshop using Topaz, Nik, and Filter Forge. A lot of times, in order to get those looking at all right I have to make several passes at them through the various Photoshop plugins, then tile it in imagesynth, then do more work in Photoshop, then have another go at it in imagesynth.
- There's also a lot of hand-editing to a lot of the images, using the heal brush or just regular brushes via my Wacom Intuos4 (small) tablet. The last Wacom tablet I had was from 9 years ago and was terrible, but I've been finding my new one absolutely indispensable and a dream to work with. Lets me do all sorts of things digitally that I could only ever do on paper in the past.
Finding an aesthetic with the right amount of detail to look painterly for the background without looking too cluttered was quite a challenge, and finding the right look that would look cartoony without being too "young" was another big challenge.
I keep all the original models and model rendering exports as source material, which makes it easy to go back and re-tile or re-filter them as needed. That's been really helpful, because I've gone through six or seven major revisions to the art to find a style that could be consistent for different kinds of objects at different sizes. For the office buildings, and buildings in general, I'm still working on that.
For the rest of the components in the scenes, I've finally got a look that has made folks go "wow" when they see the game in motion at full resolution. In the video and screenshots the trees are seeded a lot thicker than they normally would be (in most cases except really deep woods, I suppose), mostly to mask the fact that the rest of the space is kind of empty at the moment. Normally that space would be filled with interesting plants and rock formations, buildings, caves, monsters, rifts in the earth, and so on. So there's an overabundance of trees, which can be kind of overwhelming at times -- actually in the final game I plan to use that to my advantage in a few really deep woods, jungle-like sort of areas; but I wouldn't call that representative of the whole game.
There's actually a little bit of distortion on the outer edges of some of the graphics that I'm not in love with. To some extent it looks a little artsy, but it's also a lot rougher compared to the smooth, painterly inner lines. That's an artifact of the Topaz filters not being allowed (for whatever reason) to blend across transparent pixels. I intend to write them about that, and if that's something they can resolve then it should be an easy fix and I can re-filter the art that's presently in place (I keep macros in Photoshop for all the various common operations, and then hand-edit after). If that isn't feasible for them to do anything with for some reason, or if it will take too long, then I'm contemplating just edting those by hand. That would be rather time consuming, though, and I'd rather not have to spend quite that long on post-processing every last image. We'll see.
To me that's a fairly minor niggle, though, and only applies to some of the images. For the buildings, that's my next big challenge, but I anticipate having something awesome-looking next week. There are some perspective tricks that a lot of SNES games use that I think I can do using newer software in a higher resolution, to get something really exciting. It's always tricky with 3D prerendered into 2D, because the smaller it is rendered, the worse it looks -- something that looks amazing in Vue or Mudbox at full scale looks pretty lame when it's shrunk down to even 128x128.The trick, therefore, is to keep the overall shape, shadows, color and such from the original renderings, and then simplify those down into a more broad, cartoony style so that it looks great when reduced. I'm particularly proud of how well the character and plants look with those techniques, that was quite a challenge to get right. The character, of course, needs another 5 frames added to his running animation, so I'll have to render those in Poser, post-process them using my macros in Photoshop, shrink them down, and add them to the list of in-game frames. It's nice that at least I won't have to re-render the existing frames to do that, thanks to having all the original documents.
To see the art in question, please see the full-res screenshots on our site. Enjoy!
Post by: Spikey00 on February 05, 2011, 12:33:22 am
Post by: HitmanN on February 05, 2011, 09:25:14 am
Objects do cast shadows eventually though, right? That'd be the best and easiest way of adding depth, I think.
And yes, fixing that problem with the transparent edges on the trees is quite needed. They do look a bit like magazine clippings right now. ^^;
The character, of course, needs another 5 frames added to his running animation
Perhaps add a bit more weight to his steps. Every step brings the upper body down ever so slightly as well. Gravity'n all that.
The last Wacom tablet I had was from 9 years ago and was terrible, but I've been finding my new one absolutely indispensable and a dream to work with. Lets me do all sorts of things digitally that I could only ever do on paper in the past.
I think this is the first time I hear someone say a Wacom tablet has been terrible. Then again, that was 9 years ago. I got my first Wacom around the same time, and it wasn't quite as great as the other Wacom tablets I got later on. Still, Wacom is the only tablet brand that I've seen deliver quality for the price. Well, the pens wear out quite easily, at least in my hands, but aside from that... ;)
Post by: x4000 on February 05, 2011, 11:31:57 am
The Wacom tablet was a light blue entry level piece of trash. It bears no resemblance to my new one. :)
As for the "pile of filters," bear in mind that a huge amount of hand modeling, sculpting, painting, design, etc has to go into the mods before we ever hit the filter stage. The filters add a final painterly veneer, like the sharada do in a game like borderlands. But since we're not creating those in trapdoor 3d, we can have both more complex original 3d as well as much more sophisticated filters. That's all it is.
Post by: getter77 on February 05, 2011, 11:58:23 am
I still need to get more use out of my Wacom Intuos4S Tablet---blasted lack of creative spark while trying to wrangle an engine/programming apparatus to fixate on~ ;)
Post by: RCIX on February 05, 2011, 03:02:38 pm
And yes, fixing that problem with the transparent edges on the trees is quite needed. They do look a bit like magazine clippings right now. ^^;Maybe this is the source of my issues with the art style :)
Very interesting read, thanks for posting it!
Post by: HitmanN on February 05, 2011, 05:13:26 pm
No plans to have shadows, aside from on objects within the sprites for shading. Rather like a snes game in that respect.
I would strongly recommend reconsidering that. You could simply just paint an object black, or even have a dark black mask/blender over the normal version, then just twist it to whatever angle you want, and it'd be a fine shadow if pasted to the background, behind interactable objects. Not particularly realistic, but very little work for quite a bit of depth.
Oh, btw, you've probably noticed already, but the edges of some of the images are a bit weird, I'm guessing because the filtered content is so close to the image edge, and the filter goofs it up (like many filters do with edges).
Example attached. See the leaves on the sides, and bottom end of the tree's trunk. The content outside the selection is very flat, or lacks detail. would probably be best to have plenty of empty space around the images before applying the filters 'n whatnot.
Post by: x4000 on February 05, 2011, 10:08:56 pm
HitmanN -- Yep, that's part of what I was talking about, with the edge borders. Found a new way to handle this after hours of trying different things today. Result is attached, I think it's pretty great.
In terms of the shadows, there's just no way. If I did what you describe, that would work for single-image cases (trees, etc), but it would literally double the amount of RAM and the GPU load. In terms of things that are made up of compound images, like buildings, it gets even crazier in terms of the GPU hit, though not the number of images required. If we find we later have an excess of RAM and/or GPU processing power at some point, then maybe I'll reconsider -- it wouldn't be any harder to add this later in the project than earlier, after all. But I strongly doubt that will be the case, I intend to use up that RAM with a ton of content, not with shadows.
We'll see -- things change, and there's a fair chance I might wind up eating my words on that. But for now that's how I feel, at any rate. ;)
Post by: BobTheJanitor on February 06, 2011, 12:26:18 am
Post by: x4000 on February 06, 2011, 12:29:12 am
Post by: HitmanN on February 06, 2011, 08:42:36 am
Should be pretty easy to just erase the excess of it by hand though.
Post by: x4000 on February 06, 2011, 11:10:10 am
Post by: HitmanN on February 06, 2011, 02:17:32 pm
That's just my opinion though. Since you're considering skipping the shadows, I think you really should consider other means of defining the perspective, rather that flattening everything together. It's fine and dandy visually, but once you die because that monster you thought was a tree, or to be farther away than what the perspective implies, you'll be cursing out loud. :-X Being able to see where an object ends, where it's 'base' is, etc, is very important gameplay -wise.
If you'll allow the constructive critique. ;) I'm just a bit worried about everything becoming too messy to get a grasp of when the action breaks out.
Post by: Teal_Blue on February 06, 2011, 07:33:18 pm
I get a little defensive sometimes, haha, sorry. I will try to keep that in place.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
-Teal
Post by: eRe4s3r on February 06, 2011, 08:51:02 pm
I find that to be a problem. Blending everything together just makes it hard to recognize different things from each other when everything becomes a blurry soup. :/ It's hard to say what is tree and what is grass. It becomes hard to grasp the perspective.
That's just my opinion though. Since you're considering skipping the shadows, I think you really should consider other means of defining the perspective, rather that flattening everything together. It's fine and dandy visually, but once you die because that monster you thought was a tree, or to be farther away than what the perspective implies, you'll be cursing out loud. Being able to see where an object ends, where it's 'base' is, etc, is very important gameplay-wise.
If you'll allow the constructive critique. ;) I'm just a bit worried about everything becoming too messy to get a grasp of when the action breaks out.
Heh it took me a sweet time to get to post here (too?) ;P, but i too think that with the very "dense" flora, lack of shadow and current art style this .. mhh, what kind of camera viewpoint is it. (i guess 2D Parallel - its certainly not isometric or birds eye...) kind of view is a very.. well lets say "odd" choice. The problem i see with this viewpoint is that you can't tell the "depth" (in terms of closer or farther away from the ground) of things when its too densely packed or too loosely packed.
I assume this is why HitmanN had wondered about shadows as well, without shadows we don't have a "reference" as to where in relation to the ground an object is and how its situated. The current viewpoint makes this problem worse of course because its mimicking a sort of 2D Side scroller style where its already incredible hard to see where (in terms of depth) an object is.
Taking the trees for example - if there'd be no grass around, just a single tree, without a shadow it could just as well lay flat on the ground or stand like a tree high up. We can't tell. HitmanN's post finally made me realize what i wanted to actually say. ;D
To be honest, this is a very unfair post (as adding shadows isn't gonna be easy now) so x4000 you are free to ignore it (and please don't be angry ;p) - But I'd still say its gonna need shadows - at least basic blob shadows (varying sizes radial gradients) so you can tell its "connected" to the ground - and where..
Well, i am not saying the game wouldn't work the way its now as one can only judge that when its all done - so take my opinion here as you wish ;)
Post by: x4000 on February 06, 2011, 09:33:18 pm
SoM: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=secret+of+mana
CT: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=chrono+trigger
Both use a straight-on, very fakey perspective, as did most SNES games. The characters and a lot of other elements are 100% side view, as are buildings, while a lot of other stuff is top-down or at a sort of straight-on variant of a 3/4 view. SoM had some very loose blob shadows, and some even looser boxy shadows for buildings, but most of the time CT did not even do that. And in my opinion, CT was the much nicer-looking game.
To some extent, you're seeing things a lot out of context, here, which is regretful. In a lot of senses, I want the outside areas of the sort shown in that latest thread to look muddled and confusing -- rather like happened in Far Cry.
Far Cry screens: http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=far+cry+jungle
The effect is to mask the visibility of enemies, and create a sense of tension and unease. I spent half of my youth outside in the woods (the other half inside playing video games), and I can tell you that in summer or spring this is exactly how forests at least in my area are. They are dense, you can't tell one plant from another, and you find yourself climbing as much over and through bracken as you do around it. It's very disconcerting, especially when you run into a sunning snake or a pissed off raccoon.
This sort of feeling is something I'm really trying to capture with the outdoor plants, where it's really a riot of movement and tendrils, and you can't see your legs, let alone your feet.
By contrast, the inside areas will be a mess as well, but more the typical rubble-and-trash-underfoot type of mess that doesn't restrict your visibility of yourself or enemies. Whereas the more high-tech areas will be very smooth and clean and sci-fi. And more wintry areas will be more about larger expanses of snow, etc.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of generic "grass is green and flat, let's walk on it" RPGs and adventure games. Zelda 2 gave the illusion of high grass in its side-view areas, but it was only a backdrop. I want to see that more as it would actually have been could they have done more. Same with Far Cry, I love how the jungles there restrict visibility and create new challenges and opportunities when it comes to combat with my enemies.
We'll see how it all shakes out, but I will say that since it's all procedurally generated is is pretty easy to make sweeping changes to the game. Anyway, I'm going for an odd mix of cartoony and realistic, and I haven't fully figured out all the bounds with it. But in terms of the plants, that's definitely something I've always been wanting to do something more like a modern 3D game with, in terms of creating a sense of realism there.
Post by: eRe4s3r on February 06, 2011, 10:38:31 pm
Is just so hard to wait patiently to see what you post about the progress of the development... ;)
Post by: x4000 on February 06, 2011, 10:48:54 pm
Anyway, I don't think the forests will be un-fun any more than the stuff in Far Cry is, but we shall see. It's also intended that there's enough variety that you can spend the bulk of your time in the sort of regions you prefer, rather than having to just play through every region. So if you do turn out to dislike some sort of region, whatever that is, it's not like you'll be stuck in it much during the game.
More to come later. ;)
Post by: HitmanN on February 06, 2011, 11:00:05 pm
Right, I'm a slow typer. x3
The thing with SNES era games and the perspective is that back then every pixel made a difference. The objects were easy to recognize because they were made of of only a few pixels, so you could hardly go wrong guessing what object each pixel belongs to. Things rarely blended together, which made understanding things much easier. Then there was the contrast. The difference between a color and its next step darker tone was immense, due to a limited palette. With the 'painterly' style used here, the contrast is limited. Good or bad, depends.
One issue with the dense forest atmosphere is that it's creating atmosphere at the cost of gameplay and control. It's a great goal immersion-wise, but it shouldn't make the player guess what is happening on the screen in life or death situations.
In this case, there's a very limited range of visibility. In Far Cry, the way the enemies blended in the forest scenery was not very effective at close range. It was easy to start seeing what is what at the range where the enemies became a serious threat. It allowed surprises to happen, but was rarely lethal. In here, the same amount of blending looks to be constant throughout the gameplay area. It can be as much exciting as it can be a killjoy.
I'm not saying it can't work, just that it really needs to be thought out thoroughly. When it's about graphics, the shortest route often leads to the messiest outcome.
I just think that something is missing here, and I'd still go for shadows as solution. I'll leave it at that. No need to reply or anything. I think I've made my opinion clear enough by now. ;) I'm off to sleep now. xD
Post by: Teal_Blue on February 06, 2011, 11:04:27 pm
In other words the shadows are part of the drawing.
But not everything will have it. perhaps just a general area where the sun is shining over the hills and down through the trees?
In this way perhaps you don't have to apply a general filter that gives shadows to everything.
Just use the 'shadowed' objects in places where the sun is shining through.
Or moonlight for that matter.
(now i 'really' have gone and made this complicated.)
:)
Though i can see that it might be crazy having to create sets of art with and without shadows, and from varying angles as well, but i am thinking you could label them 12, 12a, 12b, 12c, etc for each piece, though i am guessing if you did have them, the game engine might be able to figure out which ones to use and where according to the angle of the sun in your game window. (if it has to calculate that)
Or maybe i'm not seeing something here.
Like i said, i'm not an artist, but i thought having the shadows as part of the drawing, might avoid the whole 'filter' thing.
But, it might be a ton more work. I am not sure this is really a good work around for the problem of added graphic strain or limited memory though.
Just a thought,
:)
-Teal
Post by: x4000 on February 07, 2011, 10:31:19 am
In terms of monsters, there aren't any in game yet so it's pretty hard to comment, no? In terms of buildings, the single one that is there I've noted is temporary. I intend to add some more fakey perspective there. I still need to experiment to see what will work best. But right now it's just endless speculation on stuff that isn't finished, which wasn't at all the goal of sharing the screenshots. Some good stuff came out of the comments -- the blending and borders, etc -- but in terms of shadows it's just way too early. If at some later point it just really seems the game needs shadows, they can be added in. Until the art is further along, I'm not goig to consider it. It's like adding detail paint to a car that doesn't have a full base coat yet. ;)
Also, I stronly suspect shadows would be unworkable here, unless they were very loose blob shadows, becauseof the nature of the complex undergrowth, the buildings, etc. If a shadow crosses a building or other vertical object from a vertical object in front of it, you expect that shadow to bend. But with a flat image, it won't. That in turn makes the building look like it is lying flat on the ground. And other similar issues.
Post by: HitmanN on February 07, 2011, 11:51:27 am
I also can't resist pointing out though, that still images must be easy to view and understand too, since that's a huge marketing factor. Some (I suspect quite a few actually) people don't bother viewing trailers if even the screenshots don't please them. In my case, I found the AI War screenshots to be more pleasing actually, because the trailers at that time (early 3.0) were somewhat blurry and made things look a bit messy. Good still-shots just may have got me into AI War to begin with. ;)
Also, I stronly suspect shadows would be unworkable here, unless they were very loose blob shadows, becauseof the nature of the complex undergrowth, the buildings, etc. If a shadow crosses a building or other vertical object from a vertical object in front of it, you expect that shadow to bend. But with a flat image, it won't. That in turn makes the building look like it is lying flat on the ground. And other similar issues.
Regarding the way shadows behave, that's not really important, IMO. The point is that if there is any kind of shadow at all, the player can easily see that that shadow belongs to that object, even if it looks weird or bends unrealistically. The presence of shadows is more important than their visual looks, because their role is to help define the perspective, which in turn helps separating foreground objects from background. :) That's why we have a variety of suggestions here, from blobs to masks and blenders. Any of them would cover the essentials, I think.
Blobs might actually be a good way to go. An area dense with trees would have a lot of shadow covered ground, maybe even overlapping shadows, which would darken the atmosphere nicely. Some creepy enemy type could maybe enjoy living in dark forests, pouncing on the player from the shadows. ;)
Post by: x4000 on February 07, 2011, 11:56:21 am
In terms of the shadows -- we'll see.
In terms of the placeholder-ness of the art... well, everything is always up for potential changes later, as we've seen with AI War, but in general past some certain point I have to call it done. I intend to create between 1 and 3 thousand sprites for this game, and so far I have done about 20ish. I expect to have near to 500 by alpha, if I can. I'm trying to "finalize" the style in the sense of finding a pattern and a look that works, so that I can get cranking on all that content. If I'm 500 sprites in and then suddenly realize I want to redo the entire thing in a different look, that's going to be prohibitively expensive. Unless the game is already hugely popular. In which case apparently the art wasn't a big problem.
So to a large extent... the "placeholder" nature of the art is fleeting at best.
Post by: HitmanN on February 07, 2011, 12:16:30 pm
Post by: x4000 on February 07, 2011, 12:18:55 pm
Post by: HitmanN on February 07, 2011, 12:57:11 pm
Neat. I haven't had time to play LotS since the early betas, so I didn't know. Hehe. Glad to hear it fits. ;) I'm a sucker for glow. Whatever art I make, I try to add a bit of glow somewhere if there's even a hint of light source somewhere.
I've been saving LotS for a co-op LAN session with my cousin. Bought a key for him a little while back, but we didn't have time to start playing yet. Here's hoping he has time to visit again soon. :P
Post by: x4000 on February 07, 2011, 01:05:07 pm
Post by: CoyoteTheClever on February 07, 2011, 05:51:28 pm
Post by: BobTheJanitor on February 07, 2011, 06:18:07 pm
Post by: eRe4s3r on February 07, 2011, 06:28:29 pm
I'm a sucker for glow. Whatever art I make, I try to add a bit of glow somewhere if there's even a hint of light source somewhere.
Glow is greatest invention of humanity. Just see my explosion revisions for AI War in the mods if you ever play it and want glowing explosions as well ;P
Post by: HitmanN on February 07, 2011, 07:05:11 pm
Glow is greatest invention of humanity. Just see my explosion revisions for AI War in the mods if you ever play it and want glowing explosions as well ;P
I think I saw some screenshots earlier. Perhaps I shall check 'em out in-game later. ;)
Post by: ledshok on February 07, 2011, 07:19:59 pm
Also, I stronly suspect shadows would be unworkable here, unless they were very loose blob shadows, becauseof the nature of the complex undergrowth, the buildings, etc. If a shadow crosses a building or other vertical object from a vertical object in front of it, you expect that shadow to bend. But with a flat image, it won't. That in turn makes the building look like it is lying flat on the ground. And other similar issues.
Regarding the way shadows behave, that's not really important, IMO. The point is that if there is any kind of shadow at all, the player can easily see that that shadow belongs to that object, even if it looks weird or bends unrealistically. The presence of shadows is more important than their visual looks, because their role is to help define the perspective, which in turn helps separating foreground objects from background. :) That's why we have a variety of suggestions here, from blobs to masks and blenders. Any of them would cover the essentials, I think.
Blobs might actually be a good way to go. An area dense with trees would have a lot of shadow covered ground, maybe even overlapping shadows, which would darken the atmosphere nicely. Some creepy enemy type could maybe enjoy living in dark forests, pouncing on the player from the shadows. ;)
For a visual comparison check out these pics (linked from replies on RockPaperShotgun):
Original - http://www.arcengames.com/w/images/stories/avww/PreAlpha-v001-Autumnal-Road.jpg (http://www.arcengames.com/w/images/stories/avww/PreAlpha-v001-Autumnal-Road.jpg)
w/blob shadow - http://piczasso.com/i/8lzmy.png (http://piczasso.com/i/8lzmy.png)
w/slightly more complex shadow - http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n229/benkashmir/valleyPreAlpha-v001-Autumnal-Road2.jpg (http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n229/benkashmir/valleyPreAlpha-v001-Autumnal-Road2.jpg)
In my opinion, both the shadowed examples help 'embed' the trees in the scene rather than having them simply 'floating' on the background.
That said, I'm far more interested in how the game will actually play rather than the graphics (heck, I have AI War set up to represent ships as icons at all zoom levels) - the concept as described certainly has my attention. :)
Post by: Teal_Blue on February 07, 2011, 07:30:31 pm
Post by: HitmanN on February 07, 2011, 07:33:15 pm
I was planning to make examples like that myself at some point, but looks like someone beat me to it. ;) Hadn't thought of the shadows the way they are in the last preview. I think they look neat that way. Not really shadows, but something to 'glue' the objects to the background. The blobs could still work too, but I'd vote a soft/blurred/gradient edge for those. ;) It would probably be wise to consider the direction of the shading on the objects if using the non-blob method. In the example the treetops are sometimes shaded on the right side and sometimes on the left (well, basically it seems like the same image mirrored), even though the shadows suggest that light is coming from the right.
Post by: x4000 on February 07, 2011, 08:02:32 pm
Oh, and eRe4s3r, I saw those explosions but haven't had a chance to check them out in-game yet. Will see what I think in a version coming up, and they might make it into the official. The forcefield-blocked effect you did was brilliant. :)
Teal_Blue -- maybe there will be day and night. There will certainly be darkness.
HitmanN and TopShelfCookieJar -- in terms of shadows, there are just a lot of complexities not clear from that sole screenshot. Skies, buildings, and so forth. I'll certainly consider it, but it's one of those things that strikes me as final-polish and not initial-implementation. We'll see. After getting a bit further in I might be completely on the other side and put them in post-haste, but I'm not there yet. In terms of the lighting on the trees, they are all lit from the right, but we do let them get flipped in the x range to add more variety. If we started getting more into things like shadows, etc, then we might have to stop that. But I think that would be a hit to variety.
Post by: Zhaine on February 08, 2011, 02:24:48 pm
But as long as nothing is done to rule out mid-size graphical changes like this at a later date if they're needed, I think we're all agreed that we're happier to see more of the game before passing judgment :)
*(edit: I did say bad but that's not what I meant exactly)
Post by: SRombauts on February 10, 2011, 01:57:56 am
For CPU / memory consumption, make them optional as in any game.
I would For sure understand if you delay this until 1.0 realease, but please don't neglect to polish this as it would probably impact the soo important "first impression" of many gamers.
See you
Post by: ShadowOTE on February 11, 2011, 11:56:28 pm
Post by: eRe4s3r on February 12, 2011, 01:35:27 am
I have something else to throw @ x4000 though. Have you thought about rendering objects 2 times their size (preferable with a neutral GI dome and strong AO) - applying the ARTSY filter set and then scaling them down to their current sizes with sharpen filter? The reason i mention this is that the artsy brush filter seems to be VERY resolution dependent - and i think it could look "nicer" if one does this - particularly for buildings.
Would be worth a try no? ;P
Also the robot could do with better shading imo as on my screen its incredibly hard to tell apart single body parts - Strong AO and weaker GI maybe? Anyhow - just wanted to mention it ;)