Graphics style of Project Eternity

[anek]

Here's a short overview of the graphics style and technology used in some of the existing cPRG's that are often mentioned on the forum, followed by what we know (or can assume) so far about what Project Eternity will use.

Maybe this can help clear up some confusion...

 

 

BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2, PS:T, Fallout, ToEE, ...

camera:

projection/viewpoint:

isometric (diagonal top-down)

rotating:

no

zooming:

no

graphics:

background (terrain/structures):

2D

images (pre-rendered from high-quality 3D, and retouched by hand)

animated objects (fountains/machines/...):

2D

animations (

pre-rendered

"flipbooks")

environmental effects (light & shadows, rain, ...):

2D

effects (using various tricks like blending pre-rendered light-maps)

spells:

2D

animations (

pre-rendered

"flipbooks")

characters:

2D

animations (

pre-rendered

"flipbooks")

 

NWN, DA:O, KotOR, ME, Fallout:NV, ...

 

camera:

projection/viewpoint:

perspective (one or more of: first-person, follow, diagonal top-down, manual, ...)

rotating:

yes

zooming:

yes

graphics:

everything:

3D

terrain & models & animations/effects (real-time rendered on the user's graphics card)

 

Project Eternity

 

camera:

projection/viewpoint:

isometric (diagonal top-down)

rotating:

no

zooming:

?

graphics:

background (terrain/structures):

2D

images (pre-rendered

from high-quality 3D, and retouched by hand

)

animated objects (fountains/machines/...):

2D

(

pre-rendered

"flipbooks")

and/or

3D

animations

(case-by-case decision)

environmental effects (light & shadows, rain, ...):

3D

effects

(blended together with the 2D graphics)

spells:

3D

animations/effects

characters:

3D

models

 

 

Note that this is merely based on what I have heard so far from developer posts & interviews, so no warranty on the correctness of the above information. If you see a mistake or have something to add, post a reply.

A comment from one of the developers, as to whether I interpreted their statements correctly, would of course be appreciated as well.

Edited October 6, 2012 by anek

[Sensuki]

I'm more interested in the Art Style.

 

I hope it's not too cartoony. ToEE portraits were a bit cartoony IMO.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Sensuki

[Umberlin]

Funny, I found the visuals and the combat gameplay in ToEE to be my favorite out of all of them mentioned. It was only the story, characters, dialogue and the like that I prefered in some of the other mentioned games. For all its bugs I felt like ToEE was quite solid visually. As for the gameplay note, they all had things to offer, when I say I prefered ToEE it was just a general, it wasn't perfect and had things that could have been brought in from elsehwere . . . but visuals? For an isometric styled game I couldn't have asked for better at the time of its release.

 

I'm just a big ToEE fan though.

[nikolokolus]

ToEE was definitely stylized, but I thought what they really got right was the color palette. The tone set by the art in that game really made me feel like I was playing the old PnP module.

[Sensuki]

I meant the portraits sorry

 

I didn't mind the ToEE look, but I preferred the BG / IWD look myself.

[Piccolo]

ToEE is the way to go, with IWD-style portraits.

[anek]

I'm more interested in the Art Style.

 

Yeah, but I don't think they've really said much about that (except - I think - that it will be reminiscent of the IE games but improved), and it's also not something that is easy to put in words.

 

Maybe they don't know themselves yet - I guess first they'll design the story and world and everything, then they come up with a list of maps/areas that they need to implement and what needs to be on them, and then they have their designers start to play around with how the graphics for those areas (and the characters/entities in them) could look. But maybe they already have specific ideas/plans, who knows?

 

Anyways, the choice of 2D pre-rendered backgrounds means that they will have pretty much unlimited artistic freedom, and with the modern graphics design tools at their hands I expect they can make them look a lot more detailed and realistic than what the old IE games had. Or, at the very least, higher-resolution.

 

Edit:

I meant the portraits sorry

 

Ah, I guess that's kind of an independent question from the graphics style used for background + entities...

Edited October 6, 2012 by anek

[bronzepoem]

I just wish PE can have a real good character 3d model design.

[kabaliero]

IE games had digital zoom x2

[Bercon]

Baldur's Gate (2): Enhanced Edition adds digital zoom so I don't really see a point of not having that. Its the only way to make the game resolution independent. Otherwise with high pixel density displays like iPad3 (or many laptops) you need a magnifying glass to see anything. So the chances of not having zoom feature are practically zero.

[DocDoomII]

Uh? Having more pixels on the screen doesn't mean that the details will be smaller if you play fullscreen.

[Bercon]

Then you are locking the resolution of the game to something fixed. Say you cannot change the resolution of the game from 1024x768 at all. I would hardly call that resolution independent either. Relying on GPU or Display to handle the scaling is a bad idea and should never be done.

[Bloody Hypocrite]

Without the memory limitations they had back in the IE days they can afford to render the areas at much higher resolutions. I think fans of IE games will be pleasantly surprised.

[Badmojo]

As for art direction, as long as the game doesn't look cartoony. It is one of my complaints with wasteland and shadowrun (concept art/screenshot). In the case of wasteland its the color pallet and the dispproportion of models, in shadworun it looks like it came from disney/pixar which is not the direction I want to see. Also nothing wow influenced please.

[Bloody Hypocrite]

As for art direction, as long as the game doesn't look cartoony. It is one of my complaints with wasteland and shadowrun (concept art/screenshot). In the case of wasteland its the color pallet and the dispproportion of models, in shadworun it looks like it came from disney/pixar which is not the direction I want to see. Also nothing wow influenced please.

I think that WL2 won't suffer from this as much as people are making out. It was a very early tech demo to show off that it's capable of iso and top down. However, Shadowrun seems to be embracing a more animated style even in its concepts, and it's overall art direction.

[diablo169]

Nothing too overly stylised or cell shaded. Anything else is mostly fine.

[Bloody Hypocrite]

My friend convinced (blackmailed) me to buy Borderlands 2, as of now, I've played a total of 3 hours. I love animation of all kinds, but it just hurts my eyes when playing. I'm still gonna fiddle with the fov and whatnot, but this has been my only straight up regret purchase in years...

[Justinian]

I'm interested to see what standard they are going to render the 2D backgrounds to, considering the expectation that it will still look crisp and detailed in 1920x1080 at least.

 

There's also a cost to benefit consideration since those ultra detailed backgrounds are going to need huge amounts of modelling and art assets. At what point does it become more economical to just use a real time 3D engine for the world?

[Bloody Hypocrite]

With prerendered backgrounds this will be a very gorgeous game. Making it look a fraction as good in a 3d engine would cost far more.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I think a somewhat gritty artstyle would be nice, something more mature and sinister, think Ravenloft and Planescape: Torment.

Often Medieval styles become like that classic movie Ivanhoe, I find it too much Prince Valiant for my liking (Hal Foster's).

[Karranthain]

I think we'll see first screenshots, or at least some mockups near the end of the Kickstarter campaign.

[Jarmo]

Another no for stylized/cartoony graphics.

Definitely go ToEE for the overall graphics style. BG/IWD for portraits, if there are portraits.

[anek]

I just wish PE can have a real good character 3d model design.

 

I guess how important this is will depend on the zoom level they choose.

If the characters are as tiny as in BG2, they really don't need much detail... )

[Sugarjaye]

I just want to be able to zoom in behind my character. And maybe in the inventory page also, so I can see what the armor etc actually looks like on my character.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Sugarjaye

[NerdBoner]

 

 

...I'm thinking 2.5 mil buys us something around the level of this beauty up here...