Preview The Witcher Screenshot

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: CD Projekt; Witcher, The

It's been a slow news day, alas. The Witcher Official Website has been <a href=http://www.thewitcher.com/gallery.asp>updated</a> with a new screenshot revealing the game's newly implemented weather effects system. Who knew they could make the game look so good?

 

[jiujitsu]

Such news!

The game looks really good though.

 

[NeverwinterKnight]

not a bad looking game, but character creation seems very limited.

 

[asa]

The Witcher is using a modified version of BioWare's Aurora Engine?

 

[Elwro]

Yes. From the webpage (can't link directly to the subpage):

"The Witcher" is powered by a new version of the BioWare Aurora Engine(TM), modified for a single-player experience. A number of changes have been introduced to the original BioWare Aurora Engine(TM), and some of them are described below.

World visualization
One of the most important of which is modification to the world-visualization method. In BioWare Aurora Engine(TM), the world is designed exactly as it was envisioned, rather than utilizing a tile-based system. Because of this, the visuals are unique and rich in detail. All the environments are created in 3D Studio Max 6.0, and then exported into the game engine.

Lightmaps
Our version of the engine supports lightmaps, generated in 3DS Max. Shadows generated this way look more realistic and are better performance-wise.

Texture paint
This is a special tool that enables us to paint the environment using custom textures, which saves a lot of time and looks more natural than ordinary mapping.

Skybox and water effects
We have added new realistic skybox and water effects to the engine.

Rendering
All the in game and toolset rendering is done using DirectX9, and the engine supports now plenty of different shaders (water effect, bump mapping, environment mapping, etc). Additionally the whole rendering system has been unified and a new light manager was added.

Other changes
Other important changes include the following: motion-captured animation, physics effects, new mechanics and combat system. There are also many other modifications, like introduction of portals, additional graphical effects (glows, advanced dynamic shadows, blurs), and will describe them in detail later.

 

[Rhombus]

not a bad looking game, but character creation seems very limited.

Since you play a pre-set character yes... I want to make my own pc..


Edti: But the game looks great. Isn't NwN2 supposed to use Aurora too... this brings hope that it may look good too.

 

[Fez]

I don't mind the idea of a preset PC, but if they are making you use a preset PC, I hope they put in extra effort into the rest, as they don't need to worry about the usual problems of accommodating the various combinations you might make with a generator.

It does look pretty. It'd better be optimised well too, I don't want to see another Bloodlines uproar.

 

[Elwro]

I guess no tiles means no easy modding, although the developers have said that they're thinking about releasing some modding tools.

 

[Sol Invictus]

not a bad looking game, but character creation seems very limited.

Since you play a pre-set character yes... I want to make my own pc..


Edti: But the game looks great. Isn't NwN2 supposed to use Aurora too... this brings hope that it may look good too.

No. NWN2 isn't using Aurora, it's only using the Aurora codebase/engine and nothing else. It's not using the Aurora toolset, so graphics, characters and so forth will not be anything like Neverwinter Nights. They're using their own in-house engine called the Electron Graphics Engine to render the graphics, models, terrain and so forth, but NPC scripts and AI will be handled by Aurora. Mods from NWN can't be converted to NWN2 because of this. The terrain system is entirely different. Only parts of those mods can be converted, for instance the AI and the NPC dialogue scripts.

 

[Volourn]

"No. NWN2 isn't using Aurora, it's only using the Aurora codebase/engine and nothing else. It's not using the Aurora toolset, so graphics, characters and so forth will not be anything like Neverwinter Nights. They're using their own in-house engine called the Electron Graphics Engine to render the graphics, models, terrain and so forth, but NPC scripts and AI will be handled by Aurora. Mods from NWN can't be converted to NWN2 because of this. The terrain system is entirely different. Only parts of those mods can be converted, for instance the AI and the NPC dialogue scripts."

Idiot. It's still using Aurora. Just not the Aurora Grahics Engine. get it right; or don't get it at all. As for mods, it'll be rather "easy" to convert NWN1 mods to NWN2 since the hardest part of mod making are scripts. Crafting terrain and laying down placeables is the easy part.


Still; until I actually see the graphics for NWN2; i'm going to take Obsidan's bragging on that with a grain of salt. Espicially since they want us all to belive it'll be as grahically enhanced as Oblivion.

R00fles!

 

[Sol Invictus]

I said that didn't I, Volourn?

Perhaps I should have clarified since you fail to grasp the obvious: when the guy asked if they were using Aurora in reference to the graphics the simple answer is no, they aren't using Aurora.

 

[Volourn]

Stop babbling. The problem with what you wrote is you took an entire paragrph to say what it took me one sentence to write. Keep. It. Simple. Stupid. More words does not = more complex or more deep. Not surprising you think KOTOR2's writing is the best ever since you think it's cool it keeps the same 8 responses for each npc for the entire game.

R00fles!

 

[Sol Invictus]

You're really fond of launching into those non-sequitur remarks, aren't you Volourn? You talk about mouth stuffing when you do it yourself better than anybody else. How ironic.

 

[Volourn]

I only mouth stuff penises and boobies; not words.

 

[Kamaz]

There is just one I can say about Volourn after this - owned and wont admit. What a shame.

 

[Volourn]

"There is just one I can say about Volourn after this - owned and wont admit."

Ahh. I won't admit to being a slave. I was NEVER owned by anyone. Nice try though.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

I could care less if it looks gorgeous. What I want to know is will it have decent gameplay? Although I hate not being able to make my own character, if the gameplay is there then I can live.

 

[space captain]

i love watching computer geeks posture - highly entertaining

 

[bryce777]

I could care less if it looks gorgeous. What I want to know is will it have decent gameplay? Although I hate not being able to make my own character, if the gameplay is there then I can live.

Well, at least it is written by a real author, I guess.

I dont think it looks much different than gothic, except that the water effects are very good, though, anyhow.

The peeks looked like the writing was sort of over the top to me, though, so maybe he is not really a *good* auther. heh.

Well, I guess we will see.

 

[NeverwinterKnight]

I don't mind the idea of a preset PC, but if they are making you use a preset PC, I hope they put in extra effort into the rest, as they don't need to worry about the usual problems of accommodating the various combinations you might make with a generator.

just how "preset" is the character, though? for instance, ps:t had a preset character, but you were still able to choose different classes and skills for him. is that what the witcher will be like? because, for some reason (not sure where i saw an article) it sounded like you had zero input into what class he was.

 

[dunduks]

just how "preset" is the character, though? for instance, ps:t had a preset character, but you were still able to choose different classes and skills for him. is that what the witcher will be like? because, for some reason (not sure where i saw an article) it sounded like you had zero input into what class he was.

You have a preset class and its witcher.

 

[NeverwinterKnight]

You have a preset class and its witcher.

that sounds boring.

 

[yarpen]

There's one thing you need to understand - "The Witcher" is something like adventure RPG basing on one, specific storyline (sure, there are side quests, but basically it focuses on the main story, which should be one of the game's biggest advantages). In other words, it's much closer to KOTOR in this aspect than to Morrowind for example. Another thing is that the limitation to one class only makes more sense after you've read the books (this sucks they were not translated to English) - you rarely see this kind of discussions on Polish forums. Anyway, of course some people may just not like this kind of RPGs, I only want to say that it was our conscious choice, and not caused by our laziness .
Another common misconception is the usage of Aurora Engine. I guess our modifications are quite similar to those done by Obsidian for NWN2 (not exactly of course, for example we kicked tilesets out), we just didn't come out with any fancy name for the modified engine. Renderer has been totally rewritten, toolset is heavily modified, in practice the only piece of code that has not been touched is the NWN script compiler.

 

[Balor]

No "Witcher" book were trainslated into english? What a shame.
Well, there were tralnslated into Russian, and the series are considered classic of fantasy. The 'love story' is rather boring, IMHO . But great setting.
Anyway, I suspect that you'll not be able to actually influence the story much, right?
If I were to create a game based on Witcher series, I'd just take the setting, make Geralt NPC and PC is some other witcher... thus allowing the player much greater freedom in defining gameplay style, roleplay style, etc.
But it's not me who's making this, so *shrug*
And it's too late to change anything right now. But anyway, I wish you success - and I'm looking forward for this game.

 

[yarpen]

Sure, you *will* be able to influence the story (the storyline itself is not based on the books, it takes place few years later). Here we'd like to take the Fallout route.