Loading screens

[Sensuki]

The Infinity Engine games all used a very different art style for their loading screens.

 

Baldur's Gate had lovely black on parchment drawings of adventurers in the wilderness. One of these drawings in particular looks so much like a shot from Lord of the Rings (which would be released a few years later).

 

 

Baldur's Gate 2 mostly had the game logo with a loading bar around it, which changed sometimes based on location

 

 

This style of loading screen is definitely cheaper to produce than the BG method, but just not as cool.

 

Icewind Dale had some incredible load screens as well. They look to be the original 3D scene in SoftImage (which is what I think they used back then). This one has some IRL sky photoshopped to the back.

 

I believe Planescape Torment also used this method (to some extent).

 

 

I'm not sure if these are expensive to produce or not, but they looked cool.

 

 

Icewind Dale 2 also loaded up on the artwork, with some 2D art.

 

What loading screen style would you prefer to see in Pillars of Eternity?

 

Personally I think the Baldur's Gate style would be really cool, but that's being used for Scripted Interactions anyway, so it might be a bit superfluous. But having a different load screen for every major location in the game would be sweet.

[Chilloutman]

BG1 got the best, I like those drawnings

[WorstUsernameEver]

I really liked the Baldur's Gate 1 loading screens. Alternatively, a cheap method might be to use Dark Souls-style loading screens, aka, a weapon/item's artwork and its description.

[Messier-31]

BG1 loading screens FTW - would love to see it in high-res.

[Nonek]

Though I did like the typical party hiking across the Swordcoast in BG I think you're right that this may clash with the scripted interactions, thus i'd prefer to see concept art of the pertinent area from a different angle, it might make a nice change from the isometric perspective it's usually presented in.

 

Edit: That said i'm fine with fairly much anything, unlike the majority I do not have a pathological hatred of loading screens, in fact I quite like the respite. Perhaps impressionistic watercolours of the areas we are seeing might be nice, they were quite evocative in the first Witcher.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Nonek

[Chilloutman]

Though I did like the typical party hiking across the Swordcoast in BG I think you're right that this may clash with the scripted interactions, thus i'd prefer to see concept art of the pertinent area from a different angle, it might make a nice change from the isometric perspective it's usually presented in.

 

Edit: That said i'm fine with fairly much anything, unlike the majority I do not have a pathological hatred of loading screens, in fact I quite like the respite. Perhaps impressionistic watercolours of the areas we are seeing might be nice, they were quite evocative in the first Witcher.

 

Why clash? I would rather say complement

[Azmodiuz]

I think some people load so fast, in the most file size intensive games, that there would be no loading screen. I know wasteland 2, only has a loading screen for a split second for me. But, guess still better to have something nice to look at.

[Sensuki]

Edit: That said i'm fine with fairly much anything, unlike the majority I do not have a pathological hatred of loading screens, in fact I quite like the respite. Perhaps impressionistic watercolours of the areas we are seeing might be nice, they were quite evocative in the first Witcher.

Yes those were sublime.

[Darth_Gandalf]

I like the imagery from the BG2 and IWD2 opening cutscenes: flipping pages in tomes of lore. Beautiful hand-drawn pictures with scribbled notes alongside. I'd love it if the PoE loading screens were like that. Maybe the page could occasionally turn.

[Karkarov]

This is the modern age, you don't want to spend too much time on loading screen artwork.  Most people won't even look at them all that long.  For example in the already mentioned Dark Souls on PC I clear the loading screen in roughly 10 seconds normally.  Eternity is going to be much less graphically intensive so I don't anticipate staring very long at load screens.  Just go the shadowrun returns route and have stock images maybe of a major landmark for the area you are loading and include a tiny bit of flavor text.

 

Basically don't make a bunch of fancy custom art for screens most players will only see for 5-10 seconds once every 30 minutes or longer most of the time.

[Darth_Gandalf]

They can just put sepiatone over their existing concept art, and there you go: fancy lore tome.

[Mor]

They can just put sepiatone over their existing concept art, and there you go: fancy lore tome.

I'd like to think some of those concept (like the undead ones) were from the cyclopedia entries.

[Mor]

Though I did like the typical party hiking across the Swordcoast in BG I think you're right that this may clash with the scripted interactions, thus i'd prefer to see concept art of the pertinent area from a different angle, it might make a nice change from the isometric perspective it's usually presented in.

Exactly, i have no doubt that Kaz can make spectacular "bg1 variants" from above, as he already proved with scripted interactions screens we seen, but concept arts of the areas from different angle capturing their essence or give us a sense of the surrounding will add that much more.

 

Along the lines of those concepts:

 

 

 

 

other examples from quick google image search:

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2014 by Mor

[rjshae]

Partially animated load screens with acoustics would be a nice touch: leaves moving, waves shifting, merchants waving, people talking, crowd noises, ... that sort of thing. It would add some nice eye candy visual distraction while you're waiting. The added load on memory and CPU shouldn't impact the I/O throughput much, I would think.

Edited May 29, 2014 by rjshae

[Sad Panda]

I think some people load so fast, in the most file size intensive games, that there would be no loading screen. I know wasteland 2, only has a loading screen for a split second for me. But, guess still better to have something nice to look at.

In principle, this could be managed by adding a setting that makes it so that you only exit the loading screen upon pressing a key. That being said, I can appreciate that creating even a modest amount of detailed images would be a lot of work put into a feature few people would be likely to use, though perhaps existing concept art could be used? It would be foresightful of the devs to at least leave placeholder screens that could later be filled by them or the community.

[Lephys]

I think all the loading screens should be tributes to deceased features, such as romance and durability.

[Helz]

 

In principle, this could be managed by adding a setting that makes it so that you only exit the loading screen upon pressing a key.

 

I was going to suggest this.  Its annoying when loading screens have useful hints or information about the area written on them and you only get to see it for a split second before its gone. 

[Silent Winter]

Personally, I like the idea of using concept art of the main areas.

A different angle 3D-scene render + paintover would be great too (a la IWD) but probably take too much time/money.

 

BG2 style was ok, but you got the same few screens a lot.  That's ok if the load time is short though.  The hints on it were actually useful.  If those same hints could be made to show up in the dialogue-log bar after loading (or just pause the load screen to read them) that'd be handy too.

 

The animated scene idea:

Partially animated load screens with acoustics would be a nice touch: leaves moving, waves shifting, merchants waving, people talking, crowd noises, ... that sort of thing. It would add some nice eye candy visual distraction while you're waiting. The added load on memory and CPU shouldn't impact the I/O throughput much, I would think.

is probably my favourite, but again, animations cost time+money.  I guess it depends on the style they went for.  Simple animations of 2D paintings might take too much.

[AGX-17]

I can't remember what game it was, but some Namco game back in the PSX days actually had Pac-Man as a playable minigame while waiting for the load to complete. I don't think anyone can really argue with that, except that load times should be so insignificant in this day and age that it shouldn't matter.

 

A pretty picture is fine enough. Or a wavy "PILLARS OF ETERNITY" logo that you can warp by hitting the arrow/WADS keys while it flails around wildly.

[Chilloutman]

I am really for BG1 style black/white drawnings

 

1) it remains me PnP sessions where DM draw what is happening

2) its quite cheap for development and graphic artists have mostly all work complete later in development so they dont take resources for important work

[IndiraLightfoot]

A nice 2D drawing would be great for a loading screen along the lines of the event pop-ups Obsidian have shown us. But I'd like to see that idea taken to the next level: Loading Screen Plus!

 

The game keeps track of the area you are leaving and your destination area, and then it gives us a drawing splat with cultural info on places and events in-between those areas: some obscure village, a bizarre rumour, a minor natural disaster, animals stampeding, a weird ritual obfuscating your passage, a strange recollection, a flashback, whatever - but it all fits the order of areas loaded.

[Sensuki]

I'll take a Kaz colored painting of the area if there's time to do them. If not, black and white is fine.

 

I want more Kaz portraits than anything ^_^

[mstark]

I wouldn't be surprised if they go with the old parchment style, as this is already similar to something they're doing in-game already.

 

I also wouldn't be surprised if they just slap concept art onto the loading screen, since they should have plenty of that around, and it's gorgeous.

 

Personally, I have a soft spot for the BG2/ToB loading symbols. For me, they have a lot of emotional value attached to them, and were much more memorable to me than the random art loading screens. The fact that it only changed rarely, based on location, got me very excited the times when it did change. It heralded something new, without spoiling it as artwork might.

Edited May 30, 2014 by mstark

[Karkarov]

I also wouldn't be surprised if they just slap concept art onto the loading screen, since they should have plenty of that around, and it's gorgeous.

If they just "have" to use art panels this is exactly what they should do.  Saves them the time and money of making new pictures and gets more use out of the already very nice looking concept art.

[Mor]

I wouldn't be surprised if they go with the old parchment style, as this is already similar to something they're doing in-game already.

That is exactly the reason why they shouldn't.. if they duplicate the scripted interaction it will be huge missed opportunity. The scripted interaction style is on purpose vague and nondescript sketches to fit with any surrounding and let the written description of the event and choices to drive your imagination like in PnP sessions - its perfect. Loading screen on the other hand is your prelude into a new area, its a chance to bring the setting alive in as much vivid detail as possible. To add to the examples from the previous page here are some more:

 

From close or afar:

 

Torment: Tides of Numenera

 

 

Something for wilderness area which always seem small and repetitive. From close or afar:

 

 

 

 

If they just "have" to use art panels this is exactly what they should do.  Saves them the time and money of making new pictures and gets more use out of the already very nice looking concept art.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Defiance Bay birds eye view of the city from the Razed panelthat we don't exactly suppose to have, would end up or was planed all along as its loading screen. Which would be great. Edited May 30, 2014 by Mor