Update #6: Choosing the Best Tool for the Job [Linux Confirmed]

[Hornet85]

That may not be cartoony, but it still looks very smooth on certain surfaces (particularly walls). It's just not anywhere near as detailed as 2D.

 

By 2D, did you meant pre-rendered background?

 

Pre-rendered background will always look better than real time rendered graphics simply because its pre-rendered. You can take the liberty of rendering a scene for 2 hours or 2 days, it doesn't matter, because you will then take a snap shot of it and put the picture as a background.

 

Real time rendering is where the graphics are rendered in our own computer, and you need to render them 60 times a second!

 

Therefore in pre-rendered scene, you can utilize all sort of advance graphics technique. In 3D movies, they use techniques like ray tracing and each scene takes hours or days to render.

 

Edit:

the down side of pre rendering is that your background is static. If you zoom in, its like zooming into a picture and it will look bad so you can't allow players to zoom in. It is simply a picture after all.

 

And there's also a question of compressing all these pictures, just like the normal picture files where different compression gives different quality.

Edited September 21, 2012 by Hornet85

[Monte Carlo]

Yes, but I'm confident (uses technical term) that they'll do some funky stuff with it and get the pre-rendered stuff in.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

The $2.2 million stretch goal will still include a new Region, a new Faction, a new Companion and all the hours of additional gameplay, quests, NPCs and items that go along with those things. But we’ve also got something new coming to this stretch goal, and it’s big enough that it’s deserving of its own update to talk about it! So tune in this coming Monday, September 24th where we will reveal our new stretch goals, unveil a fun new tracker for them, and announce our schedule of guest stars for the week!

 

You big tease.

[Reddie]

As a technical ignoramus I'd be happy to be educated, in layman's terms, about engine versus graphics.

 

Engine governs what is displayed. Graphics are fed to the engine to be displayed.

 

When you have a raw graphics interface, like DirectX, it's impossible to simply take the scene and display it. A lot of so called "boilerplate" code needs to be written. Graphics engines are just this code. Notably, they can include simple rendering functions, doing all the setup necessary, or they can support various kinds of assets (jpg, png files, 3d models) to be used out of the box. This sort of things. Of course it's impossible to fully explain without going deeper

[hellslayer]

its a matter of how the graphics programmer and the artist want things to look like...

 

 

For example Borderlands 2 and Mass Effect uses the same Engine, yet they both look very different.

http://www.unrealengine.com/showcase/borderlands_2/

http://www.unrealengine.com/showcase/mass_effect_2/

Edited September 21, 2012 by hellslayer

[descalabro]

Then only problem with Unity that I can see is that I don't think any "major" game was done with it. But if Obsidian programmers feel that it offers everything they need and can get the job done, no reason to doubt them.

 

And I'm guessing W2 and PE teams will help each other out, so that's a big bonus - I intend to play both

 

Yes, but maybe that's because we haven't seen any isometric (with locked view) major title in the last few years.

[vattghern]

Then only problem with Unity that I can see is that I don't think any "major" game was done with it. But if Obsidian programmers feel that it offers everything they need and can get the job done, no reason to doubt them.

 

And I'm guessing W2 and PE teams will help each other out, so that's a big bonus - I intend to play both

 

Yes, but maybe that's because we haven't seen any isometric (with locked view) major title in the last few years.

inquisitor begs to disgree. what, not major enough for you?

[Ashram]

Hrm so what kind of ideas to replace this.....CO-OP Multiplayer is my vote! Seriously...I am not talking an MMO, I am talking an adventure that you can take 1-4 other players along while still have 2 NPCs to run quests and story with.

[Hornet85]

I see a bunch of top tier donators dropped their pledges or reduced them. I do not see how the graphics from Wasteland look "cartoony", but maybe that is because I have been playing too much Warcraft and Torchlight... those games really look cartoony and are great fun. Wasteland 2 is offereing a lot of options for players to set their own "grey-brown, washed out, CoD style" coloring fix. Perhaps Obsidian will do the same.

 

Anyway, I am encouraged by the choice and wonder if people realise how much it would cost to get linux support for the Onyx engine's middleware? Perhaps the next big title comes out they can convert Onyx to Linux, but until then Unity will be great for collaboration with Fargo and company to utilize every ounce of it.

 

Keep up the good work, Obsidian! Only you can change the nature of the dudebros and basement dwellers!

 

Man that would be disappointing if they drop their pledge just because of a decision on a game engine that, frankly, most of us here hardly know much about all the technical side of a game engine and what it means.

 

Hopefully Obsidian would release an update next week and explain in laymen terms how its choice doesn't mean the game will look like other Unity games.

[sesobebo]

for those who got hung on to the wasteland 2 videos, here's just a few examples of how games made with unity engine might look:

(taken from the unity games galery)

 

 

basically: the game can end up looking like whatever they want it to end up looking like.

 

unity is just a handy, ready to use workbench with some tools, so you don't have to go bare-handed searcnhing for that granite stone, so you can chip your flint, so you can make an axe, so you can chop down that tree, so you can make that workbench yourself.

[Roby Atadero]

Unity will not dictate the art direction of the game. Our artists, graphics programmers, and directors will. And let me say, they are some of the best in the business.

 

This is similar in which Onyx did not prohibit from making a South Park like visual game even though a 3D fantasy dungeon crawler was made with it.

[Karranthain]

Unity will not dictate the art direction of the game. Our artists, graphics programmers, and directors will. And let me say, they are some of the best in the business.

 

This is similar in which Onyx did not prohibit from making a South Park like visual game even though a 3D fantasy dungeon crawler was made with it.

 

Thanks for the confirmation, that should help.

[tox1c5lug]

I'm sold

[Hornet85]

Unity will not dictate the art direction of the game. Our artists, graphics programmers, and directors will. And let me say, they are some of the best in the business.

 

This is similar in which Onyx did not prohibit from making a South Park like visual game even though a 3D fantasy dungeon crawler was made with it.

 

No surprise to me, but you guys need to get this out there in the next update. Many people might not be following this thread and still hold the misconception.

[floyd ryan]

Unity will not dictate the art direction of the game. Our artists, graphics programmers, and directors will. And let me say, they are some of the best in the business.

 

This is similar in which Onyx did not prohibit from making a South Park like visual game even though a 3D fantasy dungeon crawler was made with it.

 

Hi!

Can you tell us more about the backgrounds? Will they be prerendered? Will the camera be fixed?

[Shralla]

Bandwagon, ho. Unity is just a cheap alternative that is made affordable and easy by way of not offering the full functionality of other engines. Sounds like a kick in the **** to me. I'm not buying a bloody iPhone game, especially not for $20+. I'm considering dropping my pledge because my understanding of the conditions of us offering them several million dollars up front to make their game is that we would be receiving a game with AAA fidelity, both in terms of story and dialog (which I am not worried about), as well as graphics and audio, which we are simply not going to get on the Unity engine.

[C2B]

Bandwagon, ho. Unity is just a cheap alternative that is made affordable and easy by way of not offering the full functionality of other engines. Sounds like a kick in the **** to me. I'm not buying a bloody iPhone game, especially not for $20+. I'm considering dropping my pledge because my understanding of the conditions of us offering them several million dollars up front to make their game is that we would be receiving a game with AAA fidelity, both in terms of story and dialog (which I am not worried about), as well as graphics and audio, which we are simply not going to get on the Unity engine.

 

You're fully aware how much an actual AAA game costs, right?

[Hornet85]

Bandwagon, ho. Unity is just a cheap alternative that is made affordable and easy by way of not offering the full functionality of other engines. Sounds like a kick in the **** to me. I'm not buying a bloody iPhone game, especially not for $20+. I'm considering dropping my pledge because my understanding of the conditions of us offering them several million dollars up front to make their game is that we would be receiving a game with AAA fidelity, both in terms of story and dialog (which I am not worried about), as well as graphics and audio, which we are simply not going to get on the Unity engine.

Do you have any idea how much cost it takes to develop games like Crisis?

 

Actually, if you think Unity is only an iPhone game engine, I don't think you have any idea about the stuff you are talking about.

[Kai]

Bandwagon, ho. Unity is just a cheap alternative that is made affordable and easy by way of not offering the full functionality of other engines. Sounds like a kick in the **** to me. I'm not buying a bloody iPhone game, especially not for $20+. I'm considering dropping my pledge because my understanding of the conditions of us offering them several million dollars up front to make their game is that we would be receiving a game with AAA fidelity, both in terms of story and dialog (which I am not worried about), as well as graphics and audio, which we are simply not going to get on the Unity engine.

 

*facepalm*

 

what the others said and you might wanna read this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/posts/228226

[Olauron Mor-Galad]

Bandwagon, ho. Unity is just a cheap alternative that is made affordable and easy by way of not offering the full functionality of other engines. Sounds like a kick in the **** to me. I'm not buying a bloody iPhone game, especially not for $20+. I'm considering dropping my pledge because my understanding of the conditions of us offering them several million dollars up front to make their game is that we would be receiving a game with AAA fidelity, both in terms of story and dialog (which I am not worried about), as well as graphics and audio, which we are simply not going to get on the Unity engine.

Project Eternity was never implied to be an AAA game in the first place.

[Kopi]

Project Eternity was never implied to be an AAA game in the first place.

 

I have nothing against unity, but really, not an AAA game? I'd be a tiny bit disappointed if it weren't so.

[Monte Carlo]

Get a grip. AAA games have AAA budgets, which this doesn't.

 

Obz need to get some visuals out IMO, and show us what this will look like.

[floyd ryan]

AAA is a generic marketing word. It means nothing except a very large marketing budget.

If you want to rant, at least be specific. Otherwise it's not even amusing for the rest of us...

[Tigranes]

AAA budget RPGs like FFXII cost between 30 and 50 million; games like GTA 4 cost 100 million. Gears of War, at $10 million, was considered very cheap. Double Fine's own Psychonauts, a cartoony-looking adventure game from 2005, cost 12 million.

 

Keep things in perspective.

[Elerond]

AAA = A colloquial adjective referring to the large budget in which video games are made, and is generally associated with a high level of quality. Game development studios that create AAA games are also known as AAA studios.

 

So if you want AAA game you should give it about 20-100 million more money and I don't have any objections if you do .