Interview Brian Fargo talks about the Wasteland 2 beta at Eurogamer

[Commissar Draco]

Yes wanted to laugh at shortened M1 carbine being the size of WWI era Riffles, but this can be fixed and new models added via DLCs and Mods and Wasn't post ITZ scenery supposed to unpleasent to eyes if we go towards the realism in this game? (Not to mention cheap 3D Graphics being shit by default).

 

[Darkzone]

Yes a cheap 3D Graphics may look bad by default.
But let me broaden this attribute to: every cheap Graphic may look bad by default.
3d has the problem that it has much more possible view angles and one dimension more, than a 2d graphic. Therefore there exist much more space of doing it wrong, than in a 2d Graphic. And to keep the principle of the golden angles, cuts and proportions is much more difficult in a 3d space, than in a 2d. The discovery of the golden ratio was made by Euclid von Alexandria, Fibbonaci, Campanus Nouariensis and etc. but integrated and utilized it was on a larger scale in the renessaince, and mainly by the italian artists. Also the scaling of a 3d model provides many problems, because our
perception is a experience value one, and not reality bound scanning system. Therefore some things are 'felt' different, if the size is not the usual one, and even more strange it becomes, if the view angles are also not the usaual ones. And sometimes one has to hurt the reality and the proportions to make it look right again. That was also the explanation that inXile has given for the size of the weapons in comparison to the other models, in Wasteland 2. And yes i have just recently made a experience that would validate InXile statement: as a 3d graphic a piece looked awful wrong, but then 3d printed, it was perfect.

 

[Brother None]

Wasteland 2 not only uses the brightest color of them all, but it also fails to properly contrast it, using nothing but shades of brown & yellow.

Again I have to bring up the issue that you're being highly selective. As Darkzone points out, how many areas that you played in the beta does that yellow-to-brown low-contrast spectrum apply to? AgCenter has greens and greys, Ranger Citadel inside is dominated by greys and heavy metals, RNC contrasts yellow sand with green water and grey and multi-colored buildings, and Highpool is a mix of greys, blues, yellows and greens. So it applies to the radio tower (sans caves), outside of Ranger Citadel (so admittedly the first two areas you encounter), and parts of the Prison which is unlocking next. Is that really a problem? Some areas will just look like deserts look, because this part of the game is in a desert. That's fine as long as there's variance, which there is. I know you're making an argument here and thus exaggerating the point so that's fine, but I do hope the folks brofisting you realize your display there is an exaggeration, not an accurate representation of WL2's color spectrum.

I do realize it's a promotional shot but again, we consider variance a strength, and I think that's the first "yellow spectrum!" promotional shot we've used since the very first test shot. If all of WL2 looked like that than yeah, yuck, but there being some areas that just look like desert like that helps reinforce the Arizona Wasteland feel in my opinion, and both that desert look and the high variance (particularly heavy plantlife) elsewhere help contrast it to Fallout or to more standard post-apocalyptic fare. We haven't shown much of any "ruins from before the war" locations yet, those are cool too.

 

[hiver]

Those areas dont look like deserts at all. They look like some bad attempt at making a desert area.

Plus, every random encounter uses that "desert" with glowing ground ridiculous setup. (hopefully you managed to update those too). Instead of finding out excuses and calling it a desert - which it is not, how about you guys just remove that fing horrible glow?
It cant be that hard to do...


also, i rather think felipepepe was talking specifically about these "desert" areas, not about the color palette of the whole game, being perfectly aware how other areas look.

regardless of what darkzone..err... "thinks".


- :unignores darkzone post:

 

[sea]

and the lack of contrast in some places.

This is actually my number one graphics complaint because it hurts visibility in some cases significantly, which in turn affects gameplay negatively. There are some places where it's very hard to tell your characters apart from the background, for instance. Definitely something to work on tweaking - maybe adding more highlights to characters, for example, or just lighting them a little brighter than the backgrounds, could help that.

 

[hiver]

This is actually my number one graphics complaint because it hurts visibility in some cases significantly, which in turn affects gameplay negatively.

The what? wtf?

There are some places where it's very hard to tell your characters apart from the background,

where?

I never noticed. And i would have if it was "significant".

 

[Darkzone]

sea
I had not such a problem, but that does not mean that under certain circumstances, it does not exist. If you could name the places or post some screenshots, than i could also look into it. And perhaps we could together (the codex) point out, where it does come from, and how it could be solved.

 

[sea]

where?

I never noticed. And i would have if it was "significant".

In Ag Center and Highpool Underground I ran into several locations where my characters and enemies blended into the backgrounds. Lack of contrast + darkness means you are often relying on character highlighting to see anything. Would be nice if in combat enemies and characters got lit up a bit (maybe even depending on your Perception score).

 

[hiver]

No it wouldnt. It would make them look like ridiculous Christmas trees.

And there were no such locations where character and enemies blended into the background. I wish there were - because if there was then that could be used to easily setup some camouflaged enemies ambushes. Which would be a positive addition to horribly boring combat - as it was in that balpha.

 

[felipepepe]

also, i rather think felipepepe was talking specifically about these "desert" areas, not about the color palette of the whole game, being perfectly aware how other areas look.

Yeah, I'm not saying that all of Wasteland 2's areas are ugly. Some parts of Ag. Center are great, making good use of dark shades of green + gray buildings and a "twlight" light. But those desert with tons of bloom really annoy me.

 

[Darkzone]

sea
Do you have a TN display? With a low aRGB or sRGB space? This areas are very dark, especialy the Highpool underground. Perhaps a little bit more of ambient lighting to the characters or the enviroment would solve the problem, but than on the other side we would lose the darkness effect, which contributes to a certain atmosphere. If i would be an asshole, i would say adjust gamma or the brightness. I have not noticed this as a problem (or better said i thought about this not as a problem), for me it was a contributing part of the darker enviroment, that a character is not quite visible.

 

[sea]

sea
Do you have a TN display? With a low aRGB or sRGB space? This areas are very dark, especialy the Highpool underground. Perhaps a little bit more of ambient lighting to the characters or the enviroment would solve the problem, but than on the other side we would lose the darkness effect, which contributes to a certain atmosphere. If i would be an asshole, i would say adjust gamma or the brightness. I have not noticed this as a problem (or better said i thought about this not as a problem), for me it was a contributing part of the darker enviroment, that a character is not quite visible.

I have an IPS monitor and still occasionally have problems.

Example:

Tell me how many of my party members are in that scene.

 

[Excidium]

@_@

 

[hiver]

I see two.

Its probably the monitor. Hopefully after a few years of slaving for InXile they will give you some money so you will be able to buy yourself a decent led LCD.

Alternatively, it seems that greens are enhanced a lot there. Maybe going into RGB options, lowering greens and raising some blues will help?

I dont think i ever chose green khaki uniform for any of my characters so that could be the difference too.


- and it seems your rangers lost their shadows too....

 

[Darkzone]

Yes i see the problem.
I think that i did not notice it, in this way before, because i play with the grid on, in fights. Without the circles and grid it can be real problematic. The enviroment and the characters should be different (high) lighthed. I don't know, but can we give differnt ambient light to different entities in Unity in the same instance? Then there would be different value or lighting and the different vector would lead to a better recognition of the entities (in our case the partymembers). So we could recognise, if there are one or two or three player characters on the screen. The enemies in my opinion could stay this way because it could be its attribute to blend into this enviroment.

 

[Arkeus]

Wow, yeah, this is something they need to fix, or else force grids in fights or something.

 

[Darkzone]

I think in Unity, you can add different shaders to different objects, this could be used to add value to the color. And if inxile would change the value according to the distance of the object to the camera, then we could much better distinguish the different objects from each other even if they have the same color. This is also used in a similar manner in Kinect or other similar deepth sensors like the Asus Xtion and its oni files from OpenNi, to distinguish the distance.
A very cheap solution that i have seen, is to use a low intensity light with fast degrade rates of the intesity, coming from the place of the camera.

 

[hiver]

please continue....


waste time and money on something that may very well be the product of his monitor and that rarely ever happens - even in the crazy case its true.

- which i never saw when playing.


listen to the darkzone, he has the cheapest solutions.

Magnificent ideas! forcing grid too!



(not maybe - if thats true across the board - just fucking change the tone of those character "clothes")

And especially dont actually use it to enhance the gameplay.

ffs...

 

[sea]

Careful hiver, if you keep it up I'll start asking Monty if we can add romances, child adoption and player housing systems.

 

[hiver]

its all Vault dweller fault!

i surrender! ill come peacefully. (umm... err... that might have been worded better... VD fault too!)

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Wasteland 2's look is more a reflection of the low budget (and I don't necessarily mean low overall budget, I mean we apportioned a relatively lower amount of money to graphics for this size of a project) than talent of our artists.

Nope, the assets are fine.

Colour theory is free, you should tell your bean counters that.