Art Issue

[LLaney]

I'll let Kaz know that you'd like to hear more about animations. I am but a lowly concept artist - as much as lighting tech is not my jurisdiction, animation is even less so lol

[AndreaColombo]

I think Feargus mentioned in Fig comments that animations have been improved a great deal in Deadfire (and what we've been shown so far seems to point in that very direction.)

[mustelidae]

I'm really impressed with the environmental changes we've seen so far (admittedly we haven't seen too much yet). Of course, I also really liked the muted style of the original game. I think it accented the setting very well.

 

Icewind Dale... It's been too long since I played it to really comment on the art. The mind plays too many tricks on memory to be fully trusted. I'm going with that over the screenshots because - if I remember right - the old games never looked as good in pictures as they did during gameplay.

[Thundercat710]

flying meat festival

Amazing

[selkino]

 

 

In POE2 we have access to much more advanced graphical tools. We will have something to demonstrate their effect on the game soon. Basically, we have done everything we can to achieve our POE1 goals (essentially: realism) to much greater effect.

 

That is great news, I'm happy it'll look more realistic. But what do you mean by realism? Better 3D modelling = realism? 

 

To me art is not essentially about realism. IWD didn't perform well in regards of realism. In fact we all know realism was not its strong side, but still, when you look at the art... it comes out on top. And it's not just an issue of taste. It's just amount of artwork put into the game. Hand drawn pictures, little details everywhere.  

 

An oil painting is not realistic and yet... I hope you get what I mean.

 

I do know what you mean, unfortunately I can't really explain the improvement with words The idea of 'richness' (as present in oil paintings for example!) has a lot to do with the subtle nuances of color that you perceive in reality but are often very limited in video games. Different types of light have different effects on the things around it, like how a campfire makes everything around it look different than a lightbulb. Again, we have something coming to demonstrate this, and also this is not my area of expertise - I do think you'll be happy with how things look, though!

 

And as for art in terms of non-3D-graphics related things, we have greatly expanded the presence of scripted interactions and in general put a lot more care into presenting information in UI with visual aids and iconography. Trust me there is a lot to look forward to.

 

This sounds quite interesting, I'm really looking forward to the demonstration  

Also, thank you for letting us know all this sh1t. 

Iconography? Sounds good! 

Any kind of improvement and upgrade in the art department is good news.

 

[Justinian]

I wouldn't say it's an issue per se. Obsidian have decided upon realism as the end goal for art direction, and while I don't think it's the most inspiring of decisions, the end result is adequate.

 

There is no doubt that there was simply superior design and execution of art/backgrounds in many older infinity engine games however.

[selkino]

I wouldn't say it's an issue per se. Obsidian have decided upon realism as the end goal for art direction, and while I don't think it's the most inspiring of decisions, the end result is adequate.

 

There is no doubt that there was simply superior design and execution of art/backgrounds in many older infinity engine games however.

I think an adequate result is not what any developer has in mind when making a game.

 

edit: I still don't get this realism thing.

Edited February 10, 2017 by selkino

[Eurhetemec]

There is no doubt that there was simply superior design and execution of art/backgrounds in many older infinity engine games however.

 

To be fair I think there is SOME doubt.

 

The main issue that makes Pillars not always look as good as the IE games is the greying fog-of-war, which wasn't present after you'd explored an area in IE games. I am really hoping they get rid of it, at least optionally, in Pillars 2 - I'm genuinely fine not knowing exactly how far I can see if the upside is that the environments look more beautiful.