Update #69: Pillars of Eternity

[Helm]

Apology accepted. Lets at least keep cool until the beta.

 

Later.

[Sacred_Path]

****. Yes. I've been pretty critical of nearly everything I've read before but seeing the game in action makes a huge difference.

[Silent Winter]

What with watching the gamplay vid and pledging the monies, I forgot to come in and thank you for my new desktop wallpaper

 

The Media section on the Backer's Site has some good stuff and the wallpapers gave me a tough choice

I tried the Pillars of Eternity Logo but there was too much black space around it for my tastes, the battle scene is a bit busy for my desktop so I've gone with the Sagani one.  Nice central character, and enough space to the left for all my icons.  I like how it fades to the edges too so it blends with my monitor frame.  Plus it's an awesome piece of artwork

Thanks

[jonmcbon]

Took a look at the wallpapers as well, just now. You're right about it being a tough choice 

 

Can't wait to play this game!

[IndiraLightfoot]

Well, here's someone that has been away for almost a fortnight on some well-deserved vacation, and what do I find? Heavenly bliss all firmly supported by some unearthly Pillars of Eternity! I'm so happy that I'm screaming with joy and jumping up and down in a talk show sofa somewhere!!!

 

    :aiee:      

[KalCha]

Nice update, can't wait to play

[rjshae]

 

What exactly is the difference between just-plain-2D, and pre-rendered 3D? I mean, I know the plane of the ground exists in a 3D world, and the models and such are on top of that, in actual 3D gamespace. But, the environments are like 99.9% just one big 2D ground image, correct? So, does "pre-rendered 3D" just mean they actually created 3D trees and such, then flattened them into a 2D "snapshot" (for lack of a better word)? I mean, the result is actually still just a 2D image, right? In that video, Josh rotated the scene in Unity, and it was just a painted "ground" plane, and that's it. Except for a couple of other planes, like the waterfall, etc. (still 2D, just on a separate plane from the ground).

 

I'm genuinely just asking, in case it sounds like I'm pulling a "I'm judging the fact that people are calling it that, because they shouldn't be" here. I'm just sincerely curious as to the details.

 

 

I think that pre rendered 3D allow you to craft "screens" that look much more... "deep" (?) than if it was actually just made with a photoshop-like soft. I feel it works very well in this preview trailer. Images are somewhat deep, with foreground, background and all the stuff. I think the only difference between 2D and pre rendered 3D is just that. 3D helps you rendering some perspective mechanics and animations with the soft 3D engine that is really hard to animate or render with just a pen. But a the end, it's just kind of a "photo" taken in the 3D soft layout renderer and then applied on a plain 2D surface.

 

But still, like i said, there are some things i can't understand. And all i said is just theory because i didn't any 3D work since 10 years. And i'm really curious about the stuff they made that can't be done with the method i spoke about below...

 

Don't know if i was of some help for you, and if i understood your meanings well let me know so that i can improve my english further.

 

EDIT: yeah Faster than light dude :D

 

I think one potential benefit is that they don't need to worry about the poly count for the area models, which would be a concern for a FPS-style game. Thus they can make the non-animated models as detailed as they want and not have to decimate the mesh (unless it's an issue for render time).

[Zeckul]

What exactly is the difference between just-plain-2D, and pre-rendered 3D? I mean, I know the plane of the ground exists in a 3D world, and the models and such are on top of that, in actual 3D gamespace. But, the environments are like 99.9% just one big 2D ground image, correct? So, does "pre-rendered 3D" just mean they actually created 3D trees and such, then flattened them into a 2D "snapshot" (for lack of a better word)? I mean, the result is actually still just a 2D image, right? In that video, Josh rotated the scene in Unity, and it was just a painted "ground" plane, and that's it. Except for a couple of other planes, like the waterfall, etc. (still 2D, just on a separate plane from the ground).

Yeah that's pretty much correct. It's a 3D world, but the projection to 2D is done on the developers' machines once, rather than each frame on your machine. Pre-rendering instead of real-time rendering. This allows arbitrarily complex scenes as well as selectively hand-painting over the renders as needed. It however forces the use of a parallel projection (so objects appear the same size regardless of point of view, which is unrealistic), and forever locking the "camera" at a specific angle.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Zeckul

[Ieo]

The only thing that kinda bothers me is the avatar bipedal posture-gait animation. Seen more clearly at around 0:43 of the trailer, the avatar elbows seem to be held too far from the torso and center of gravity while running? Also in the prior scene, the bipedal avatars seem to be leaning too far forward, or maybe it's the camera angle. Looks a wee bit awkward, but since it's isometric, eh....

 

Otherwise, mm, juicy, nice spell effects. The animation fluidity and combination of 3D/3D-retouched-into-2D elements are very nice. 

[LordCrash]

I think the animations will get better in the upcoming months.....at least I hope so.

 

 

Edit: Still no kickstarter badge.....

Edited December 16, 2013 by LordCrash

[Lephys]

The explanations are much appreciated. Basically, I had no idea they weren't simply "drawn" (manually created, bit-by-bit, via a 2D process). I figured that they probably had some software setup that helped calculate the viewing angle (as you're viewing the ground plane at that slightly-downward angle -- as Sawyer showed in the video way back when, if you move the camera around in the Unity scene to where you're looking straight-on at the ground plane [just like a basic 2D game], everything's all stretched and skewed), etc.

 

So, when people started distinguishing that it was "pre-rendered 3D," I suspected it had something to do with the process of actually creating the finished 2D image. Just didn't know the details.

 

Again, thanks muchly, ^_^

[Enelo]

Bujakasha

 

[Gfted1]

Edit: Still no kickstarter badge.....

You should add your name here and it will get taken care of.

[BAdler]

Short question so will I still be able to change my pledge/rewards once I did place my order at the end. What I mean is, lets say I change my mind and wanna upgrade my boxed copy to the 140 $ collectors edtion but I already did place my order. Will I be able to upgrade it by just donating the money that is needed for the upgrade?

You will have to contact Obsidian customer support directly so they can change your order.

[BAdler]

Any plans for a RSS feed in the news section of the Backer Portal? (Yes, some of us still use this archaic web technology)

Not currently. It isn't a bad idea, though.

[BAdler]

What exactly is the difference between just-plain-2D, and pre-rendered 3D? I mean, I know the plane of the ground exists in a 3D world, and the models and such are on top of that, in actual 3D gamespace. But, the environments are like 99.9% just one big 2D ground image, correct? So, does "pre-rendered 3D" just mean they actually created 3D trees and such, then flattened them into a 2D "snapshot" (for lack of a better word)? I mean, the result is actually still just a 2D image, right? In that video, Josh rotated the scene in Unity, and it was just a painted "ground" plane, and that's it. Except for a couple of other planes, like the waterfall, etc. (still 2D, just on a separate plane from the ground).

 

I'm genuinely just asking, in case it sounds like I'm pulling a "I'm judging the fact that people are calling it that, because they shouldn't be" here. I'm just sincerely curious as to the details.

Functionally, there is no difference. Both of those instances are 2D.

 

Our artists are creating these areas with 3D assets in Maya. We render out a screen of those areas (and the various passes of those areas) and use that. Some objects (pretty much anything that would need to move) are 3D objects laid on top of the scene.

 

[BAdler]

I think one potential benefit is that they don't need to worry about the poly count for the area models, which would be a concern for a FPS-style game. Thus they can make the non-animated models as detailed as they want and not have to decimate the mesh (unless it's an issue for render time).

 

 

It can be an issue for render times, but is definitely less of a concern than it normally would be.

[Furism]

Any plans for a RSS feed in the news section of the Backer Portal? (Yes, some of us still use this archaic web technology)

 

You mean, like this? http://pedevtracker.azurewebsites.net/Rss/feed

[Nars]

Well, that was awesome. :D

[Metabot]

So many people crapping on the spell effects, they all look better than anything in the IE games so I think they look great. I think what is throwing people off are the character animations, that is that characters have no real reactions to being hit by spells. It has been pointed that the character animations are still in an early stage so I think with the spell effects as they are now and appropriate character animations, it will look great.

[rjshae]

So many people crapping on the spell effects, they all look better than anything in the IE games so I think they look great. I think what is throwing people off are the character animations, that is that characters have no real reactions to being hit by spells. It has been pointed that the character animations are still in an early stage so I think with the spell effects as they are now and appropriate character animations, it will look great.

 

I count a total of three people expressing some concerns about the spell effects; many more had positive opinions. Are you just trolling, or is this the first actual documented evidence of a time traveller from the future?

[AndreaColombo]

I count a total of three people expressing some concerns about the spell effects; many more had positive opinions. Are you just trolling, or is this the first actual documented evidence of a time traveller from the future?

 

 

That would be a second at best, the first one being John Titor ;-)

Edited January 5, 2014 by AndreaColombo

[Metabot]

Double post

Edited January 6, 2014 by Metabot

[Metabot]

 

So many people crapping on the spell effects, they all look better than anything in the IE games so I think they look great. I think what is throwing people off are the character animations, that is that characters have no real reactions to being hit by spells. It has been pointed that the character animations are still in an early stage so I think with the spell effects as they are now and appropriate character animations, it will look great.

 

I count a total of three people expressing some concerns about the spell effects; many more had positive opinions. Are you just trolling, or is this the first actual documented evidence of a time traveller from the future?

 

Hmm, not trying to troll, I swear I saw more than three. My main point though was that they look a hell of a lot more detailed than those in the IE games.

[milczyciel]

 

I count a total of three people expressing some concerns about the spell effects; many more had positive opinions. Are you just trolling, or is this the first actual documented evidence of a time traveller from the future?

 

Being one of them I can't help but wonder if you really did wade through all those 24 pages

Don't get me wrong - I'm thankful, because I for one didn't "crapped". In fact I made my remark in quite defensive and cautious way, not wanting to discourage anyone involved in creating those alpha-stage spells effect.

 

 

Hmm, not trying to troll, I swear I saw more than three. My main point though was that they look a hell of a lot more detailed than those in the IE games.

 

Must I remind you that Baldur's Gate 2 happened 12 years ago, in an age of rapid development when 2 year old computer was considered "old"? Them, effect spells, looking better than that is no excuse for me. And just to evade being called anything "CoD" related (by anyone, not necessarily you)  I'll repeat - I know it's not even beta, and thus I'm almost certain the final product will be far more eye catching - I wouldn't have upgraded my reward tier otherwise (especially given the IRL circumstances).

Edited January 6, 2014 by milczyciel