Vault Dweller said:
I pointed out that the majority within group A (the Codex) likes the visuals. You're trying to claim that my argument is invalid because in the past the opinion of the majority of group B (the ESF) has been rejected [because groups A and B have different values].
The opinion of the majority of group A within group A is valid because the values are consistent. The opinion of the majority of group B within group A is irrelevant because the values are different.
Which brings us to the binary "us against them" mentality which I find hilarious. The values are different indeed, but on completely different levels as not to be mutually exclusive or at least I think so.
But of course I am; can't let it get too serious.
First, there is nothing to sympathize with. The opinions are of the "banal. shit. boring" variety -
link. To put it plainly, they are stupid.
Another binary take. Anyway, art direction can mean a lot of things and saying it's hideous is indeed vague, but I guess I kinda see her point (or in my own conviction, think that some of the things she and I find problematic overlap). For instance, texture quality across these shots is noticeably inconsistent. Some look low res, some look high and detailed and together they look bad, not to mention bad choice of textures. Some examples are library walls, plants in the car shot, supposedly metallic surfaces in the kitchen and the fast-food joint.
Level geometry is also inconsistent. Half the geometry in the fast-food joint, for instance, look like lifted from Quake 1. In the library, wall height makes the room look like a basement with low ceiling. Libraries tend to have a little higher ceilings but higher bookshelves ending right beneath the wall top gives it that impression. Ok, that it's so gives
me that impression. It looks more like some ghetto building repurposed into a library and you know what, maybe it is, that would certainly explain the crumbling walls at the least. It shouldn't be a problem to make the walls a little higher or make 2-level walls where the "excess" top part disappears or becomes transparent depending on the camera position. Lots of games did that too. To me, such a thing would easily improve the "library" look of this room by several factors.
In the library again, the window bays, while not entirely unrealistic, look blunt and the simplicity of their geometry (and the weird selection of whatever that dark green thing is) is jarring with the furniture around, particularly the round tables and curved chairs, plus it makes them look like bunker holes. A simple window frame per bay (8 more polygons per one) with some lighting/tone adjustments could make it look more natural and fitting, which brings me to the other point, lighting.
Over all, lighting looks very amateurish to me and I tend to think that it's a huge problem (even though I can sympathize with it because I know getting the lighting right is a real pain and takes a lot of practice, especially so when working with lightmaps, but let's save the group hugs to post-release); lighting in 3D games is often a case of make or break. Let us look at the library again. What's with the spot-light shadows from weird angles? Especially libraries tend to use soft omni-directional lights, except for individual desks sometimes, which don't cast such dramatic shadows like in that screen and they don't look like cast from sun through a likely sun-roof either. There's also something not so very right about the tone of the brights and darks. It reminds me of spot-lots in an overstage.
Maybe I'm too selective with this stuff, I don't know. I'm a painter and such details aren't really "details" at all to me. They speak volumes about the composition and gives all kinds of ideas about what can not be seen in there, preferably the ones you want to. I'm also a mapper, designing custom levels since Quake 1 (not that that means "I'm good" or an "authority" but just that I have the experience to extrapolate from easier than people who haven't ever done anything of the sort). So I'd definitely agree that, despite the geometric detail on some of the other props, these environments do look slapped together hastily OR they look like they could have easily been done like that. Mind you, I didn't have to think long to "come up with" any of these. Half these things have crossed my mind the moment I saw the library screen months ago at ITS, for instance.
In the end, I assume half the things in the shots will be replaced or improved in time and these
probably aren't 100% representative of the final product, but still, they are given out as screenshots and that's how I filter them in my mind with all their flaws. So yes, I can say that maybe the art direction isn't that good, which is ok but also ok to call it shit if that's how one perceives it, (though I don't; "shit" is just a whole different level of eye-sore).
As a side note, that kitchen does look weird. For a serious establishment, it looks inapt and for a half-assed one, it looks overkill but either way, it's missing a lot of other things, judging from what I've seen of kitchens (that includes having owned a restaurant at some point). But the fast-food kitchen looks spot on.
Zeig bitches about "the sterile environments that evoke memories of interior design software such as Sierra Home Architect" and complains that the "art assets look like they've been directly taken from one of those 3D model library DVDs."
How the fuck are common household and school items supposed to look like in a non-cartoonish game? I'd really like to know.
They sure look like scenes from generic interior design software from late 90s with that sterile feeling in addition to a washed out union of colour tones. As for Zeig, he provided a few game examples too. I've only played L4D2 among those but I was too busy killing zombies or running for my life to notice the indoor details in the game. I haven't played the others.
Clockwork Knight said:
I actually think blood splatters should be avoided whenever possible, or they'll soon be filtered out by the player, ruining the intended feeling of tension. Walking through screens and screens of blood < Walking through normal ambients thenentering a place with blood everywhere, like a mall, stadium or somewhere else with high concentration of people and difficult to escape in an emergency.
I agree but since the game will span over some time and it will be progressively harder to find resources because other human groups will also be scavenging, some gore decals should eventually be obligatory.
Ideally, one would design all levels with all the gore decals in layers, preferably with two or maybe three layers (and when I say layers, I only mean object ID tags, ie. being done since Quake or DN3D) reflecting different intensities and being turned on/off depending on global game time and player exploration. Eg. player visits a mall hours into the game, it's fairly clean of human insides. 20 hours into the game and there are blood splatters or maybe parts and organs here and there. 50 hours into the game and it's a slaughter house.
