8 Directional 3D models?

[Justinian]

After watching the trailer a few times I realised why the animation and character models reminded me so much of Infinity engine games - the 3D models behave like 8 directional 2D sprites!

 

I have always assumed that having 3D models in the game would mean character turning would be smooth rotation (like in Diablo 3), but either through a limitation in the engine or deliberate choice, Obsidian have decided to limit the viewing angles of characters and mobs to just 8.

 

Has anyone else noticed? Has this been mentioned before? What do you all think of this implementation?

 

 

 

 

[hollowcrown]

Probably just Alpha placeholder models.

[Sad Panda]

Looking at the trailer, the characters do indeed seem to be 2D sprites created using 3D models -- which was in fact also the case with the classic IE games, though you had to squint to be able to tell. >_>

 

Personally I don't see a problem even if this is what they're going with for the final release. 3D is much more resource intensive, and the gain in visuals IMO fairly small.

[nikolokolus]

What do I think of this implementation? I think it's in an alpha state and that we don't know what it's going to look like on release.

 

JE Sawyer mentioned this in a post - perhaps in the last update thread?

[Justinian]

The whole alpha thing doesn't really hold weight for me, since this seems far more fundamental than simply "missing animation polish". This is what leads me to think it's intentional in order to increase PoE's faithfulness to infinity engine games.

 

As such, I'm sort of on the fence about it all. On one hand I think it's kind of cool they've "retro-fied" the game for the sake of nostalgia, but on the other hand I'll miss the smooth animation I'd come to expect from 3D models.

 

I'd like to hear Obsidian clarify this point.

[Ieo]

Our backgrounds will be pre-rendered from high-detail 3D scenes and then touched up by hand as in the Infinity Engine games. Our characters and certain other objects (where it makes sense) will be rendered in 3D. Temple of Elemental Evil uses this type of combination.