This was an early engine test. The guys made me promise to put a disclaimer that the final game will not look like this and that it’s MUCH better looking than this.
Wow, that looks great. Honestly I'd be happy even if that's the end of the graphical evolution of the strategic portion of the game - but happier still if it just gets better
I actually like the black oultines in almost every case, but I do see a few places where something about them looks off. For example, the outline at the bottom of the big building in the middle makes it look a little strange to me. But all in all I hope you guys stay with the outline. And I agree with other people that making the ground more detailed, so it doesn't look so smooth, would go a long way.
The only thing I really want in terms of city aesthetics that I don't see the makings of in this image is for city graphics to reflect populations. I want a settlement of 100 people to be small, simple, and dominated by a few central structures; and I want a settlement of 20,000 people to look like a thriving, busy populated area with houses tucked tightly together.
I am exciiited!
P.S. does anyone else think the roadside barriers look like wooden power lines? Especially on the far side of the town.
Very pretty already, IMO.
My first thought about those was "magical telegraph lines?" But the ones on the left kind of look like fences maybe?
True, but putting them inside the walls makes sense due to the setup of most games... Farm has X hp, soldier does Y damage. So a single soldier can come along and destroy a farm and often times destroy it within 30 seconds. Most games do not take into acount that farms, unlike other buildings, have both a standard building/cluster which can be burned/razed very quickly, as well as the fields which would take much longer to destroy. And unfortunately, one does not have to hide their torch... The AI often are not smart enough to leave the garison of the nearby town to go kill that lone soldier before he razes your food production to the ground. So until these problems are solved (standard hp system for farms and unresponsive gaurds), I think farms will continue to be found primarily inside walls out of convenience. There is nothing worse than having to check your towns every 5 minutes to rebuild farms a few enemy scouts decided to raze.
Although I wouldn't be suprised if the reason they are in the walls in Elemental is because the walls mark out the town's boundaries and putting stuff outside the town would clutter up the map to much.
Looks good so far. Now show the place being ransacked and put on fire cause thats how my bandits roll... which lead to my army taking over the place.
I like it. If it lives up to the high standard you've already set (GC II, SOASE) we're in for a good time.
It could look exactly like that when released, and I would love it. That is a pretty impressive looking scene.
Great or Superb graphics can wait... the most important parts of a game are the features, game stability, content, game balance and optional settings. Few of the fantasy TBS gamers would place graphics in the top three.
Looks great, any chance of us getting our hands on it early?
I think the fields need to be inside the walls for this particular town, since it's built perilously close to a cave that has "monster residence" written all over it.
But seriously, it's probably like someone said, all the structures beonging to a city are inside the wall. Think of it like a bunch of city-states united under a Channeller, if you like. A "Great Wall of China" like thing around every inhabited area might not be a luxury item in a monster haunted post-magical-apocalypse world.
I like the black outlines. They add to the whole children's-fairytale-storybook vibe, and they also give the important map features some much-needed visual "pop". My eyesight isn't all that great, and I find most newer games are so overly intent on being "photorealistic" that they let important elements get lost in the background clutter. (The latest Super Smash Bros. and Burnout games are particularly strong examples of this.)
I can see everything very clearly in this screenshot (except the fence/power lines) and I like that. Please don't change everything to be super-detailed.
Looks very nice.I've only two little peanuts I don't like.The power lines/fences are much too regular and thus look a bit silly/artificial.The black lines are mostly fine, but when they're used at the bottom of the buildings/wall they make everything look like it is floating. I wonder if it would look better with improved shadows or more detailed grounds.Else, it looks very good and is pleasing to the eye.
Oh, and I second the request for a higher resolution screenshot.
If you didn't say this was an ingame screenshot then I would have thought it was art. Looks really good though.
Am in agreement with most posts. I really like the artwork and if the game will look llike this (with a few tweaks here and there, eg slightly more detailed ground) then i will be very, very happy. My one complaint would be the outlines at the bottom of buildings, it seems to seperate them from the background a bit too much.
Are they shards or sources of metal at the bottom of the picture (outside the town, to the right of the gates as we look at the picture)? They certainly don't look like rocks.
this pic looks very very nice.
I can't wait to play this game. It's getting closer and closer to the Beta phase...
Keep up the good work.
Just so we're all on the same page, this is a shot taken of in-game assets then given some post-process love by the artists to recreate what we're shooting for (read: not a pure screenshot).
There's alot of work involved getting to this point (and beyond, of course) but the engine is really coming along Glad we're shooting in the right direction!!!
You MUST keep that graphical touch.
so fresh... It reminds me think of the first days of warcraft3 and TF2 (well it does not look like the same, but it is as original as those two).
Looks great. Keep up the great work.
I like the artistic style a lot. I was a little on-the-fence at first, but as more artwork and semi-screenshots have come out, I can see how it works well. The style should lend itself to easy-to-see UIs as well, assuming UI placement and workflow is decent.
The most interesting feature displayed in the shot is the cave entrance just 'north' of the town walls. The explorer in me wants to find out what's inside.
re: I agree that having the crop fields within the walls is odd.
Aesthetics aside, from a gameplay standpoint I'm curious about that strictly because I'm leaning towards a preference of having such resource nodes (if that's the purpose they serve) outside of the walls and (theoretically) more vulnerable to attack. Not that you shouldn't be able to fortify such locations (either or both with combat units and fortifying structures such as a local guard tower), but not necessarily heavily fortified by a town/stronghold.
Also, I enjoy setting up logistics (e.g., supply lines) where the peasants get to cart wheat or what-not back and forth to a facility to process into foodstuffs (in this example). Such mechanics tend to appease my desire for details, and add to a sense that the game world is 'alive'.
The artwork style itself is different enough to make it interesting. I suppose I'd be happy with detailed 3D renders of units/structures/terrain. But this more abstracted style is pleasant to look at as well.
Those may not be grain fields, it could be the herb garden for the alchemist/wizard/healer, too.
Looks very nice, thanks.
Im soo pumped! I can't stop staring at it!!
And I will second this But they did it in MoM and CIV so I think we can expect it Though wouldnt be awesome to see a 20,000 people settlement take up like 10 map spaces and 20,000 visible little houses we could count!? lol right...
and whats in the cave do you think? Looks like a monster cave to me! lol
Frogboy said that he wants to be able to keep zooming in until you can see the "leaves on a tree" so maybe you might be able to see all the little people in a crowd. that being said, I think you will either need some changes of perpesctive or something for it to work.
Demigod does this wierd wide-lens effect (I think that is what it is, I'm not a camera person) when you zoom all the way out. It changes the scope a little, or makes it seem that way. I bring it up just because it is a strang camura effect I imagine could be used for the transition between levels of detail and scale of objects.
Since cities will spread on the map (each size increase gives you another tile to spread your city towards, ie. no one-tile cities like civIV, but multiple tile cities) I think we'll get a good representation of city sizes on the map.
Thats beatiful, very rich in details like each piece of the house roofs and cleary see the fence shape even from afar. I really liked this one a lot. I wonder how would that look in closer view.
I like how they are, but aren't the trees to big? The pines are much taller than the walls and even taller than the multi-floor buildings. I think they would give more dimension being smaller, they make that place look like a very small village (or more than it is). Anyway, maybe there trees grow bigger.
Nice use of colors and light too. I like the attention in looking for a small touch of a more vivid color to the enviroment, like with the blue building. The effects for grass illusion looks great that way.
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