Update #79: Graphics and Rendering

[Falkon Swiftblade]

Yeah after watching it a few times, characters still seem like they float a little bit, whereas in contrast, characters are properly grounded to the scene in Shadowrun Returns (which uses 2D backgrounds and 3D characters).

 

 

I really liked their technique in this game of how they saturated the colors and use a gradient from darker to more saturated up top. I pulled this from their kickstarter page and like the logic they use to make the characters more awesome against the game world. 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition, it's important to make sure these characters don't get lost in the very detailed world around them. Characters have to take focus during gameplay, and you should never not notice an enemy that your character has awareness of (and line-of-sight to). Here are a few things we do to ensure our characters “pop”:

 

Gradated value scheme - We design our characters to be darker towards the bottom, and brighter towards the top. This helps exaggerate their depth in the scene, and draws the eye up towards focal points on the upper half of the character.

 

Contrast & saturation - We try to save the highest contrast and greatest saturation in the game for characters. In fact, a couple weeks ago, Kohnert setup a custom shader for the characters so that they receive a bit more fill from lights in the game world.

 

Highlight states - Like most games, we employ basic edge highlighting around characters to indicate things like which character is active and which characters are targetable enemies. This also ensures that characters remain visible even when partially occluded by the environment.

 

I'm not saying the characters have to look cartoony, but right now there just doesn't seem to be much life to them, and they're fairly stiff and rigid and not very emotive. One of my pet peeves in Rpg's is so much of it has to be role played in your mind, where as I would preferred more gestures and body language to help enunciate the mood or personality's more. They still have a good 6 months to work on stuff, so we'll see how far they can get.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Falkon Swiftblade

[Sensuki]

Yeah SRR had a great art style. I think the BG1 characters have a better art style than the PE ones currently, though I've only seen the human, elf and dwarf models so far. PE definitely beats BG2 though.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Stun]

Yeah SRR had a great art style. I think the BG1 characters have a better art style than the PE ones currently, though I've only seen the human, elf and dwarf models so far. PE definitely beats BG2 though.

Are you talking about the Portraits?

[Sensuki]

No the character art. Character models and paperdolls.

 

If only I could take a DPI screenshot rather than a resolution screenshot. BG1 looks absolutely BOSS in 640x480 on my 24" Flat CRT monitor.

 

 

One of the guys involved in the Art Direction/Creation died in 1999.

 

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,2762/

 

Their character art was never as good after he died.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[BillyCorgan]

Really interesting update to understand much more the engine.

[Stun]

I don't know. I don't see a whole lot of difference in the actual character models themselves in BG1 and BG2. There is, however, a HUGE difference in the looks of the armor and weapons. All armor, especially robes, chainmail, plate male and full plate, looked a lot better in BG1, yes.

 

BG2 ruined Full plate. It didn't even look like metal. It had a... soft, rounded look. I didn't like it at all.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Stun

[Sensuki]

I don't know. I don't see a whole lot of difference in the actual character models themselves in BG1 and BG2. There is, however, a HUGE difference in the looks of the armor and weapons. All armor, especially robes, chainmail, plate male and full plate, looked a lot better in BG1, yes.

 

BG2 ruined Full plate. It didn't even look like metal. It had a... soft, rounded look. I didn't like it at all.

The BG1 Paperdolls are miles above BG2. You can however use the 1PP mod to get those back for BG2. The character models in BG1 have more detail and are just a lot better. It's really hard to spot the difference in a google screenshot but if you compare the look of the same race/class combination unarmored and armored in BG1 and BG2 the BG1 version is way better.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Mor]

I am little confused this suppose this is Adra, the shell like material we seen before in few concepts e.g.

 

 

 

So what is the crystal like material that is featured in all the Egwithian ruins, with rooms built around them:

 

 

 

 

That is also featured in Obsidian logo and in the background of the forum...

Edited May 30, 2014 by Mor

[IndiraLightfoot]

Mor, that's my point too, although I go into geological/lithic details as to why they are not the same (see earlier posts of mine in this thread).

Basically, the one in your first spoiler is layered/sedimented limestone, organical, and thus possibly molluscan in nature.

 

And under your second spoiler, image 1 and 3 are consistent with iron meteorites with thumbprinting, while the image in the middle and PE's background logo here are consistent with volcanic glass and similar stuff - well, Obsidian, for instance.

 

The first would fit with the concept of adra, the two latter ones not.

[Sensuki]

Don't forget this one

 

 

Perhaps that's party of the main storyline ? Looks like there's different types of Adra.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Mor]

We know that: "Eír Glanfath was an ancient melting pot of races that built elaborate, often massive, structures out of a living shell-like substance called adra. Though the fate of the ancient Glanfathans is unknown, their dangerous and complex ruins show evidence they possessed extensive knowledge of how souls work." - Additionally we know that not only humans has souls and that there are Adra Beatles that probably have some kind of symbiosis with whatever Adra is.

 

So my theory is that living Adara has something todo with souls and its consistency might reflect the soul potency e.g. unlike fractured souls, strong souls will leave clear glass like materials?

 

Also in the Engwithan ruins it seems like the same material is used for illumination, so unless the standing stones was an early concept, what might explain the big discrepancy is lack of souls for long time?

[IndiraLightfoot]

That rock (if indeed yet another adra-candidate) in Sensuki's image in the tree inn is indeed layered in a way that's more consistent with the one under Mor's first spoiler. But it has red fluorescent patches all over it. Perhaps it has activated some organic feature? It says that adra is "a living shell-like substance". Still, those cases of volcanic glass and iron meteorite, such transformations would be stretching it hard (like that melting terminator-guy in Terminator 2). And it says "a substance", not several types/species.

Edited May 30, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[IndiraLightfoot]

Pulled this from the Reddit /AMA/ earlier this year

 

My hat is also off to Josh for pushing for linguistic consistency and authenticity in our setting. And in general I think you'll see a lot more thought put into the "rules of the world" than you'd typically see in a fantasy video game - the language, the sociopolitics, the historical plausibility of the way the world developed its technology, that sort of thing. You don't just make up whatever name or place - there are rules, and those make the world feel more real and less generic. Everything is grounded, and for me as a narrative designer that's the best thing it could be - it makes it easier to find conflicts and lore and plot points that people can relate to.

 

 

Seeing that they are really aiming for consistency and authenticity when it comes to technology and languages, it would be quite weird if they let us down when it comes to geological consistency and authenticity, no?

Trying to sell us the story of adra, a living molluscan substance with images of, and objects clearly inspired by, as different stuff as volcanic glass, sediment layers of limestone, and iron meteorites would be the same as having some in-game botanist guiding you around in her special secret garden, where she shows you fungi, algae and conifers, all the while claiming they are all the same thing: a dead, inanimate resin. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

[Bryy]

Perhaps that's party of the main storyline ? Looks like there's different types of Adra.

I'd be surprised if backer content was part of the main storyline.

[Sensuki]

I'd be surprised if backer content was part of the main storyline.

No, the ADRA BRO, not the Inn. Something to do with the different types of Adra Stones etc

 

The inns will probs have crit path quests associated with them (such as meeting people there). One of the MAIN Inns in Defiance Bay is the NEOGaf Inn, the "Goose and Fox" Inn.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[constantine]

What we are shown so far, graphics & music is AAA quality. You people have done spectacular work !! And unlike anything we've ever seen before.

 

I've got to admit I never excepted the game to look so, so wonderful 

 

 

Congratulations Obsidian! The future of computer RPGs belongs to you !

[rjshae]

It's a shame there's no evening sunlight. but i guess with static shadows it could look weird so maybe that's a good thing.

I wonder if you guys find it confusing if you need to make any touch ups after rendering, when you have to work while having objects floating in air.

 

They could soften the shadows for morning and evening lightning so it wouldn't looks quite so odd. The changes in brightness and color can be good for setting the mood, even if the shadows don't actually track the sun's position.

[Sensuki]

I think those shadows are baked into the image, so there's nothing you can about it. Those never bothered me in the IE games anyway.

[Karkarov]

 

I don't know. I don't see a whole lot of difference in the actual character models themselves in BG1 and BG2. There is, however, a HUGE difference in the looks of the armor and weapons. All armor, especially robes, chainmail, plate male and full plate, looked a lot better in BG1, yes.

 

BG2 ruined Full plate. It didn't even look like metal. It had a... soft, rounded look. I didn't like it at all.

The BG1 Paperdolls are miles above BG2. You can however use the 1PP mod to get those back for BG2. The character models in BG1 have more detail and are just a lot better. It's really hard to spot the difference in a google screenshot but if you compare the look of the same race/class combination unarmored and armored in BG1 and BG2 the BG1 version is way better.

 

Don't take this the wrong way or anything... but if the character designs don't make BG1-BG2 look like a joke then Obsidian dropped the ball in a way that is almost inconceivable.  Those character models were fine for then, they are not fine for 2014.

[mudd1]

If only I could take a DPI screenshot rather than a resolution screenshot. 

 

What is the difference between a DPI screenshot and a resolution screenshot? Given that dpi is a measure of resolution in print, the names for these concepts weren't chosen for people to figure out what they mean without already knowing it, were they?

[mudd1]

... I have so many issues with how DFA was handled, but this is by far not one of them.

Yeah, I think most people were fine with the restriction. The problem is that you only need very few individuals out of the tens of thousands of backers to let the whole idea go to **** with people being pissed, the press being pissed and everything just turning into a huge PR nightmare.

 

And since the chance of having such a critical mass of idiots is exactly 1 for any group of people larger than 1000, it's just not even worth trying. I mean it's good Doublefine did try because now nobody ever has to try it again and they will just keep backers in the dark about things they absolutely don't want to see leaked. Entitled idiots is why we can't have nice things, as always.

Edited May 30, 2014 by mudd1

[Adam Brennecke]

 

 

Well that's really disappointing, all you need for environment shadow maps is a tiled pre-calculated shadow map. That's it, no need for lightmapping or other oldschool stuff. Just create a planar shadow map from your static sun/moon source and output to streaming tiles the same way the background works.

 

Also just turning SSAO on should still work out well with depth information and etc. Unity has a nice enough built in SSAO right off the bat.

 

We do have dynamic directional light shadow maps. Those are the shadows that are being cast by the spheres and characters. We do not have point light shadows, which can be more complex, and for us is challenging because of our psuedo-2d/3d situation. It's something that I would love to do moving forward!

 

 

 

Adam, did you guys switch, or will you switch to Unity 5 while on this project, so many new goodies that seem like they'd be a good fit for you're team, however I understand sometimes switching in mid project creates a lot of new work too. The screenshots of the stuff you're showing at E3 look super cool. I love how you can see in the cracks and see some of the textures. Will your rendering techniques be able to use ambient occlusion or will your files be modible for us so we can go in after the game is out to adjust textures or maps at all?

 

 

Unity 5 is not out yet. We are not going to be using it for Pillars of Eternity.

[Lephys]

Regarding the character floating, I think it's already fixed:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65175-armour-weapon-designs-part-v/?p=1453826

 

The screenshot in that post shows the characters being darker down near the ground, and having shadows that directly anchor their feet to the plane of the ground.

 

So, I think that soldier standing near that structure, in this update, is some kind of fluke, or not-fully complete process/etc. Maybe it's a bug or something unintentional, but, at the very least, the screenshot in the link above shows that this is actually remedied in some instance of their engine's running.

[rjshae]

Regarding the character floating, I think it's already fixed:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65175-armour-weapon-designs-part-v/?p=1453826

 

The screenshot in that post shows the characters being darker down near the ground, and having shadows that directly anchor their feet to the plane of the ground.

 

So, I think that soldier standing near that structure, in this update, is some kind of fluke, or not-fully complete process/etc. Maybe it's a bug or something unintentional, but, at the very least, the screenshot in the link above shows that this is actually remedied in some instance of their engine's running.

 

If you are talking about the shots further down the page, then those are darker because the shadow is more vertical. The shot at the top of the page has the same issue.

[Lephys]

^ I'm talking about the shot of the red-attired hooded figure facing the metal-wearing figure, the one in the specific post I linked directly to. The shot at the top of the page, with the sentry standing about beside a rounded turret-like corner of a building is the one someone pointed out as "still floaty" a page or so back.

 

If the only difference is simply the angle of the shadows, then I dare say there is still an issue with the floatyness, and that it seems to me to be entirely fixed by simply always having some portion of more substantial shadow immediately surrounding the character's feet (where they connect with the ground).

 

The team knows what's what, so, just for what it's worth, I saw that someone pointed out that screenshot in the Arms and Armor thread, and I noticed the floatiness was not present in it, so I felt it worth noting.