Game looks great, but...

[Zwiebelchen]

After watching some of the gameplay videos, I have mixed feelings about the graphical presentation.

 

First: The UI looks awesome! And it catches that Infinity engine vibe just fine. I also love how big the letters on the dialogue box are. The handful of tweaks (like the character select buttons in the looting window) that had been done over the IWD UI are well thought-out. Trade window is a little aged in terms of user comfort, but it catches the classic feel just fine.

 

However, I have a lot of concerns about the general game graphics, especially the textures. The backgrounds vary from being extremely detailed (I love some of the floor tiles on the temple), to totally blurry (the earth parts in the first area). I guess the paintover job is already done on the starting area? I feel that the IWD 2 backgrounds looked a lot more crisp and sharp compared to the first videos of PoE... I hope it's just the movie resolution fooling me.

 

And then, there's the character models. They look great in the isometric perspective, but in the inventory and character creation, they just don't match the graphical quality of the UI. I don't think the 3D models should be shown in both menues. Why not just show a sketch-like drawing of an adventurer in the background with icons of the equipments in the specific positions?

 

In the character creation screen, I guess such a preview is unavoidable if we want to select colors, but at least a little downscaling couldn't hurt... you could possibly make the windows a bit larger (like the description window) and reduce the space for the preview picture. It's not the perfect solution, but having the character that big in the character creation menu really reveals the low texture resolution of characters in PoE.

[Tuckey]

Check out the pc gamer preview if you haven't because the video is better quality. I certainly noticed a lot of fine details I didn't before. As for the 3d model during character creation....I got nothing. Not sure what they can do to the model given there budget, but its not bad, just kind of washed out skin tone wise.

 

If all else fails they can go the Michael Bay route and add lens flare. Lens flare fixes everything!

[Zwiebelchen]

Check out the pc gamer preview if you haven't because the video is better quality. I certainly noticed a lot of fine details I didn't before. As for the 3d model during character creation....I got nothing. Not sure what they can do to the model given there budget, but its not bad, just kind of washed out skin tone wise.

 

If all else fails they can go the Michael Bay route and add lens flare. Lens flare fixes everything!

 

The models were clearly made to be viewed from a high distance, so that's basicly the way to go. Make the preview window a lot smaller or change the UI structure in the character creation screen so that this issue isn't as much... obvious.

 

Or instead of a preview window, make sketches and drawings for the options you currently pre-selected. Like for example, if you pick a race in the race menu, have a drawing/concept art of the typical man/woman of that species.

Or if you select a class, have a concept art of that class. The 3D preview should imho only be visible in the appearance tab of the character creation (kind of like it was in BG2). That would also help a lot to make the style of the character creation more consistent with the UI. Basicly use that scroll/wooden kind of UI background for the character creation combined with drawings instead of that blueish 3D room.

 

PoE has all these awesome pick-your-own-adventure animated drawings. Why not use them for the character creation aswell?

 

Or they can just redo some of the most clunky armor and body textures. I don't know, really...

It's not really the amount of polygons that is the problem here. So no need to actually remake the models. It's the resolution and detail of the textures. The textures lack ... physical structure. A proper bump/normal-map would help a lot.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[Elzarath]

I understand what you're saying but I don't agree that sketches / drawings are the way to go. I want to see what my character will look like before I start the game proper

[Zwiebelchen]

I understand what you're saying but I don't agree that sketches / drawings are the way to go. I want to see what my character will look like before I start the game proper

 

As I said, they could always go the IWD/BG route and show the preview only at the appearance tab of the character creation.

 

Imho, it doesn't really make sense to show the appearance before that anyway, as you haven't even selected the portrait at that point.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[PrimeJunta]

The smeary-looking ground is due to video compression, I'm quite certain. You'll see the textures sharpen up when the camera stops for a while.

[Zwiebelchen]

The smeary-looking ground is due to video compression, I'm quite certain. You'll see the textures sharpen up when the camera stops for a while.

 

Are you positive about that?

Because ground often looks blurry even on official screenshots:

http://gamona-images.de/501791/scale,960,576,outside/27bb99c9daa6682ca868de6e47b06b9e.jpg

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/5/2/4/1/1/pe_wilderness_01_1920x1080.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1920x-1

Edited July 30, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Are you positive about that?

Because ground often looks blurry even on official screenshots:

http://gamona-images.de/501791/scale,960,576,outside/27bb99c9daa6682ca868de6e47b06b9e.jpg

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/5/2/4/1/1/pe_wilderness_01_1920x1080.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1920x-1

 

Those are pretty old screen shots. Like really old.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Watch the PcGamer vid- it has pretty high rez, and having a new monitor and all, I see no blur at all. It's all pretty crisp.

[Zwiebelchen]

 

Are you positive about that?

Because ground often looks blurry even on official screenshots:

http://gamona-images.de/501791/scale,960,576,outside/27bb99c9daa6682ca868de6e47b06b9e.jpg

http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/articles//a/1/6/5/2/4/1/1/pe_wilderness_01_1920x1080.jpg.jpg/EG11/resize/1920x-1

 

Those are pretty old screen shots. Like really old.

 

 

But they look pretty much exactly like in the video, so I don't think there have been improvements on this topic. Which was my point here. I feel that the backgrounds could be a lot sharper and crisper. I suspect it has something to do with how the backgrounds get compressed in the game. Proper filtering could help a lot.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I just watched the PC Gamer video and it looks pretty good to me.

[dorkboy]

Is there a screenshot of the dialog UI somewhere? Just curious whether the background (where the text goes) is blurry or low contrast. In the video it's clearly got lots of video compression going on, so maybe that's the case with the ground as well?

 

The skin texture does actually look a bit dull/flat. (Not that I really find it bothersome, but I can kind of see the issue there..)

[Macrae]

I totally agree on some points, for example in my opinions the character 3d models look great in isometric view in-game but beyond aweful in the character creation screen...

Man, there is a reason why BG and ID were very appreciated for their artistic design and not pool of radiance or neverwinter...3d clunky models make your eyes hurt from close up while 2d hand drawn pictures make you dream...can't compete with that...

[mkreku]

The biggest problem for me is that the backgrounds are so dead. Walk over grass, nothing happens. Walk through bushes, nothing happens. It's like watching a movie on top of static cartoon backgrounds.

[Sensuki]

The 2D backgrounds won't be blurry in the game. That's most likely just jpeg compression raping the quality.

 

Unfortunately no one has ever done a PNG / BMP upload of a screeny before.

 

I think a lot of people would like 2D Paperdolls, but they would require a massive amount of 2D art time, this project only has 2 x 2D artists that I am aware of.

 

It's crazy the amount of stuff that Kaz has to do, which means we may not get heaps of his portraits :(

Edited July 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[Karkarov]

Yeah after watching these videos I am upset too.  The game is great but it doesn't make me a sandwich or blow my nose for me.  What the hell Obsidian?

 

Seriously guys, stop trying to make graphic quality assessments based on uploaded video.  I have uploaded hundreds of videos to youtube, I don't care what you do when you upload them, what format you record them too, how high quality you create the video itself, or what resolution you recorded at.  When the upload is done there will always be quality loss, period.  A video is NEVER a 100% perfect representation of graphical quality.

 

Does the character model zoomed in look great?  No.  Does it look as good a Diablo 3 characters?  Yeah, I would say pretty close maybe a slight bit worse.  Does it look a ton better than Wasteland 2 character models?  Yes.

 

There is no time or resources left to dedicate to making higher quality models or redoing character creations backbone.  Maybe they can throw something in on the inventory screen but I bet for every person who doesn't like the character there at least 1 other person thinks it is okay.  I certainly do.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Karkarov

[Fearabbit]

Regarding the character models: I don't understand why they don't at least use higher-res textures for the menus. Usually artists start with high-res versions of their textures anyway and downscale later... and the way textures work nowadays, with mip-maps and all that, it's actually not a performance issue at all, even if the player character had a high-res texture in the game itself.

 

But it's really not a big issue for me. It's more important that there are some cool hairstyles available, and that the armor looks good from a distance.

[Archaven]

To OP i kind of agree with you. The graphics looks really dated. The sole reason they mentioned why they went 2D was the visuals can look visually stunning on lower end machines. I've seen Wasteland2 and Divinity Original Sins which were 3D looks far more beautiful.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 

Does the character model zoomed in look great?  No.  Does it look as good a Diablo 3 characters?  Yeah, I would say pretty close maybe a slight bit worse.  Does it look a ton better than Wasteland 2 character models?  Yes.

 

I took the time and looked at the char models in D3 and DoS, and I have to underline this. So, to me, it's fine as is. What matters is gameplay and immersion (dare I even say that? Will I be dogpiled with ee-muhr-sion-comments now?).

[Karkarov]

To OP i kind of agree with you. The graphics looks really dated. The sole reason they mentioned why they went 2D was the visuals can look visually stunning on lower end machines. I've seen Wasteland2 and Divinity Original Sins which were 3D looks far more beautiful.

Uh Wasteland 2 looks like crap.  No seriously, the game is ugly as hell.  I guess it is intended due to the setting but seriously dude.  Divinity Original Sin I will also bet money had a much much larger budget than Eternity does, additionally, Eternity is being made as a modern reboot of the IE games.  The IE games didn't have 3d backgrounds.

 

Here is a pic I made purely for people to see some of the most complained about or considered UI features.  I made it using the very detailed and complete PC Gamer full demo video that posted their video in as good a quality as can be done.  There is still quality loss of course but it gives at least a better idea.

 

 

The key things I want to point out is #1: It is actually the Dialogue window which has the blurry harder to read text in my opinion.  None of them are actually that bad though and I imagine without the compression of video they would both be perfectly legible by any normal person.  The character model does look rough on the inventory screen, but much of that could be the nature of the ugly hide gear and the uh.... interesting color choices for their main and secondary colors.  All of these elements are merged into one picture but are at their 100% normal full screen resolution if you were playing the game in 1080.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah, most of it works pretty well as a UI. Unfortunately, just like in interior design, it rarely looks very nice mixing all sorts of woods, and here I do honestly think those lighter boards of the store shop just looks pretty bad. In addition, as I've mentioned before, the egg-white font on top of those light boards aren't very legible. I'm not sure drop shadows will save the day. I propose a re-think of those panels and the colour of the font, including its design.

Edited July 30, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Sensuki]

In contrast to the Barbarian who does have hide armor that needs a bit more work and uses colors that don't look right, the Ixamitl Plains Brigandine armored guy looked freaking sweet.

[hulahoptereyaglıballıekmek]

Character models look good enough. From now on animation variety is more important then character models in my opinion. 

 

Combat doesn't look convincing enough without parrying, bashing and swinging animations variety. One animation for swinging weapon and one for getting hit, thats all. 

 

Idle animations need some variety as well. Characters just stand still, breathe and stare at a single point when they are not running around.

 

Finally, trees and bushes on the backgrounds need at least some subtle animations. Without them backgrounds look like still images in various places.

[Mannock]

Graphical complaints regarding a game trying to hit the feel of the IE-games? Give me a break. 

 

The graphics are more than good enough.

[Karkarov]

In contrast to the Barbarian who does have hide armor that needs a bit more work and uses colors that don't look right, the Ixamitl Plains Brigandine armored guy looked freaking sweet.

I felt the paladin and fighter looked pretty solid too in their chainmail and breastplate.