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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 by anek
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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.

"Step away! She has brought truth and you condemn it? The arrogance!

You will not harm her, you will not harm her ever again!"

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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 :p

 

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

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

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Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, She got the Mercedes Benz

She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends

How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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).

*** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" ***

 

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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... :-)

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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 by Sugarjaye

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The shadow in the corner of your eye. The cold steel pressed to your throat.


The beautiful vision that may be your last.


Do not breath, for the Petite Death has your Soul in her hand.


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