Art Dept next steps?

[Kaityra]

Since there seems to be an interest of the Art Dept to get to know our opinion we should seize this opportunity. And to fulfill the wish of Xillix to keep the thread Art Dept Poll simple, I have started this thread, where we can discuss what we think should be implemented right after the "rest of the player races" have been added.

But there may be some undiscovered talents for the other issues. Especially, I think about "Fixes to old areas"... I am certain that you could avoid almost all invisible walls in heightfield maps, by correctly using the heightfield features. I was ... well, at least surprised, to see that you re-used an existing heightfield for the Gugrontid map. And banned half of the area, unnecessarily.

Before the expansion beyond the existing **road maps continues, I really hope that you will consider using the existing unused halves of the maps. Making and editing heightfields is simple when you understood the limits and features. I made a whole map with matching texture layer alpha maps, I just still wait for any kind of feedback about it.

Yes, the replacement of invisible barriers with natural terrain limitations would be nice but I don't think that it is a major issue at the moment. And I don't see any necessity at the moment to expand any map. I think it would be more important to fill up the existing maps with interesting features (creatures, towns or settlements of other races, NPCs, etc.) to make exploring more fun.

But if I had to choose I would say that we need more diversity in existing player models, either by clothing or addition features during the character creation.

[Geckolous]

The ability to enchant armors and weapons could be used to visually define characters further...

If the type of enchantment resulted in a color modifation / particle effect etc on the item in question,
and the strength of the enchantment made for the intensity,
and if multiple enchantments were allowed....

it would give us further gameplay options,
lets characters get more diversity in their appeal (eg 'evil' characters could have a dark enchantment on their armor that acts like a shadow around them)
and can be done without new mesh's.

It may even be possible to do this with a few engine tweaks, and the the 'artwork' being defining the effects of different enchantments on existing models and textures.

[macchesney]

Interesting idea there geckolous but do you know if the engine would support such a feature?

[Caarrie]

Interesting idea there geckolous but do you know if the engine would support such a feature?

It does not yet, so it is not something to spend time on as art till engine is closer to supporting it

[Geckolous]

At a very basic level, it may be possible to tint the color of items (add a tint to the texture).
It'd be a start, and may only be a few lines of code.
(Don't know Crystal Space myself yet, so I'm assuming that'd be a quick job?)

[Caarrie]

At a very basic level, it may be possible to tint the color of items (add a tint to the texture).
It'd be a start, and may only be a few lines of code.
(Don't know Crystal Space myself yet, so I'm assuming that'd be a quick job?)

but just changing color will not make all players happy, already we can "shade" hair to give them different color, but armor is not the same and such a shader i am not exists, also there has to be a way to purchance the ablity to change the color or even more. In Short this is a lot of work and i am not sure CS can support shading armor or even other items other then hair.

[LigH]

I can imagine a few ways to change the appearance of single avatars, using features of OpenGL and the CS engine. But they would require to change the game engine of PS remarkably (to allow a single render step per avatar - which would not at all speed up the game).

Let them first fix more obvious rendering problems, let them implement missing races, and whatever comes before... for now you can look at the character descriptions, and listen to their actions.

...


P.S.: Players, please - keep your descriptions tight. I will not read a descriptions which takes pages of scrolling - that is obviously more than one could see while just passing by. This was already suggested a few times.

[Pizik]

We need more coloured lamps, like the one near the old Kran spawn point that is lit blue. I think it is one of the best looking spots in the game ;o)

[Kaityra]

Maybe we should keep in mind that things that benefit most players will be implemented more likely. Everybody has something he or she would like to see in the game but is it always something that benefits others as well?

[Xordan]

The ability to enchant armors and weapons could be used to visually define characters further...

If the type of enchantment resulted in a color modifation / particle effect etc on the item in question,
and the strength of the enchantment made for the intensity,
and if multiple enchantments were allowed....

it would give us further gameplay options,
lets characters get more diversity in their appeal (eg 'evil' characters could have a dark enchantment on their armor that acts like a shadow around them)
and can be done without new mesh's.

Particle effects and lights on items are supported (so glowing armour etc). So we could do this quite easily yes.
As for applying colour changes to item meshes, CS does support this and it would be quite trivial for me to write us a shader.
So please don't spread totally false information people

[macchesney]

Mmm.. i like the idea! 

[MustangMR]

If I may, the one thing that strikes me in the current outdoor zones is that they are very sparse and plain.  You've built the basics of the outdoor world, but they just don't seem complete, to me anyway.  Just as an example, I've hear rumors of farming taking place, yet there are no farms anywhere.  I would also like to see more vegetation and landmark type features.  And maybe bound the outdoor zones with billboards of forests or mountains/fog so you don't end up looking out over nothing so often.  There are also a few scenes where houses seem to float in the air when you put render to max distance on that could be cleaned up.  Weather?

And there is also descriptions of flying mounts and caravans to speed up travel between cities.  Has any thought been given to those animations?  Before you consider expanding the world again, you may want to address these ideas.

BTW, I voted to beef up the existing zones, so I'm just following up here with my thoughts.

[Prolix]

I found some carrots yesterday, it might be the beginning of a market garden.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

We keep stating and restating, different artists are skilled with different aspects of the game building process.

So the people who build areas are often NOT the people who make mobs, and the people who make mobs may or may not be skilled enough to make character models for the player races.

I wanted to establish these things before people get upset when we add something new despite that fact that older content is not updated, or more desired content is added.

Architecture is easier for people to model than creatures in many cases for instance.

[Kaityra]

But Xillix, you mixed up the different "aspects" in your poll as well. Does this mean that "just" because making player models seems to be the hardest job that we won't see this happening despite the result of the poll?