Without clicking on the thumbnail, what differences do you notice between the two? Not in terms of what units appear on what. But in terms of general visuals. One of the things we’ve done with Legendary Heroes is revisit the underlying lighting and shadowing engine in Kumquat.
Earlier this year, we got a visit from Intel who brought forth many new tools that we’ve used to have our cake and eat it too – Legendary Heroes has a faster graphics engine than Fallen Enchantress does. We’ve backported as much as we could of this into what will become FE v1.3 but much of it is unique to Legendary Heroes.
These screenshots show how important lighting is not just in terms of making things "pretty" but in terms of controlling what game elements you want to have stand out.
Nice. LH definitely seems to have the objects pop more.
I don't reaaaaallly like the comparisons too much , lack of reference points.
The road also seems lighter on nr 2, easier to spot.Trees are waaaaay better on pic nr 2.
Also -mountain textures waaay better.River still looks odd (could it atleast change slightly in size?) but the river on pic nr 2 is better
Thats what I see without enlarging the pictures.it seems that it will be much clearer to notice the important things in the new lighting engine though.
Sincerely~ Kongdej
The first things I noticed was the Dragon's Shadow and the Mountains.
The most noticeable difference is that in the 2nd screenshot, some people are about to get eaten by a dragon.
I also noticed that the trees conform to the square tiles better, which looks odd, but makes it easier to tell which tiles are forest tiles (in the first shot, there's some questionable tiles).
First shot has hills, second does not. First shot does not have mountains, second shot does (I think there actually are mountains in the first shot, so this may be a testament to the new mountain texturing).
Road's clearer in the 2nd shot.
Selection Window is slightly wider in the 2nd shot. Doesn't seem to actually have anything more in it, though.
2nd shot is missing city info blurbs. That's bad.
I don't care about the shadows. I'm just going to turn them off so my GPU runs cooler. I know I'm probably in the minority on this, though.
Everything's loading slow I want to read this info now folks, come back later.
Damn it looks so good.
LH's textures and overall feel is really a step in a much nicer art direction!! I never could really get into the art deco softness that WOM and to a lesser extent FE, it never struck me as fitting the post-apocalyptic world it was depicting.
Push it further, and maaaybe back off the super saturated colors.
The roads to me do pop out a bit more in the lower pic not because of the color - the green grass is lighter, too, not to mention the contrast with the purple terrain - but because the road texture is more distinct from the grass texture. Although, I'm not sure if I actually like the grass texture - it kind of looks like green skin.
Definite improvement on the river.
I actually like the trees from the top image better. The darker green of the leaves provides a bit more contrast to the underlying grass color, and the tree trunks are a bit more clear.
The mountains in the bottom image definitely look sharp - but with the sharpness comes an effect of the sides of the mountains looking overly 'stretched' which the mountain/hill in the top picture does not have.
Also, because the colors in the bottom picture are brighter, the city borders actually pop out more in the top picture for me.
The major thing I notice is that the first picture has much warmer colors then the second. After closer examination the roads and rivers are better in the second picture. Hmm... The mountains look more like mountains, rather then big hills, in the second picture. I also miss the little plants on the soil in the second picture.Edit: The shadows on the units look amazing!
It would be great if the two pictures where of same spot, just rendered the two "engines".
So:+ Rivers+ Roads+ Mountains+ Shadows- No grass- Bleaker
So to be honest, the warmth of the picture is really important to me. I like the old 32-bit style (Or whatever the super nintendo was). So I like the FE version better.
P.S. I liked the older versions of the forest better on lower end PC's. (The new forest was better on a "high end" PC.)P.P.S I made a small inclusion.
I definitely prefer the LH version. The image is so much sharper and crisp; the colors pop out better and soften the "dark" feel that seems to pervade FE. Also love the new shading. As for FE, the game always looks washed out to me, like someone spilled water on a watercolor painting.
That's what I loved about FE graphics. It's like looking through a stained glass window into another world!
While looking at only one image of each it's difficult to say, but from the two shots, I like the old graphic better. (not to say that the new graphic is bad..cause it isn't...)
Already posted that in the other thread, but well...
The new image looks much more crisp and sharp. Therefore objects and texture details are distinguished much easier.
Further, the oversaturated colors are gone. The image is much more pleasing to the eyes and not as 'aggressive' as before. However, if some people really prefer the stronger colors from before, it might be a good idea to add a saturation slider to the graphic options.
The first shot looks like a painting. The second shot looks like a game.
And IMHO, that alone makes the 2nd pic far superior. I was a fan of the washed-out style of WoM/FE, but as a game we're better served by the crisper graphics and cleaner lines in the second pic.
I cannot tell you how excited I am to never again move my champion onto a tile I thought was a plain only to have it turn out to be secretly a river or forest which stops his movement and the nearby Dragon I thought I could sneak by promptly eats him. I make enough boneheaded moves thank you very much; I don't need any help from the game.
I agree with you. I understand that shadows are supposed to add realism, but they just serve as a distraction to me. Glad they can be turned off.
The new grpahics look great, btw!
Hm, I always run highest graphics settings myself, so I find this odd ... arh well, thats why we have options!
~ K
IMO, it looks like you guys might have went a bit overboard with sharpening filters...
Certainly on some things (that deserves focus like units/buildings), it does look better. But on other things, like trees and ground, it doesn't seem that great (and I'm not sure they deserve the detail). I much prefer the blurry lush green trees of FE to the super sharp forest of LH especially when it's right next to the fallen trees. The two just looks strangely out of place. I think the mountains also fall into this category as well (although the textures are certainly better)... there's no need to see every ridge line... it just seems out of place from the rest of the landscape. Also, on the topic of the mountains... maybe the blending at the base deserves a bit more work... everything near the mountains is looking really brown and you may recall what many people say about that in WOM.
The lack of any ground covering also makes the ground looks ... well... really empty. I understand the need for performance, but maybe this needs to be an optional thing for those who can handle it. On larger map with sparce resources... it's going to look very bland.
The rivers definitely looks better without the ridges... but no more river head? Not so sure about that.
My personal wish: I just wish the map wasn't so... flat. A bit more realistic topology would make things look a lot better. For example, hills should be... hills (areas where the terrain height differs/changes), not just some bumps on the map (seems like something from decades ago)... etc. I'm a bit surprised that you guys haven't done it with such a powerful terrain deformation system already in place.
I agree with the trees. They look a bit like... icons instead of trees.
I had to turn off all special effects in fallen enchantress because game was too blurred for me and caused excessive strain on eyes. Now it looks like with LH there wont be problem anymore
Overall it looks better because its much clearer.
This game needs more robots.
And steam tanks... can never go wrong with some steam-punk.(Or "Steam-Punkers"... )
~ Kongdej
Well they already have the art assets from the GC2 news robots, so that should be fairly easy to implement.
You know, I always loved the idea of an ancient race of robots who were created by some ancient civilization now long destroyed, but the few immortal robots linger on. Old JRPG games like 7th Saga and Shinning Force had some really cool examples. Then I think I hated the idea after the D&D Eberon campaign setting, looked stupid then. But then again, there are many things that one brand of fiction does that I think is really cool, then I see the D&D version and think...lame. Shadowrun vs d20 Urban Arcana is one too...Shadowrun version = awesome, d20 version = lame.
I see what you mean about the brown around the mountains. Frankly, I think if you can walk on it, it should be the color of the grass.
You're thinking about the screenshot like it's a piece of art. That's fine, but keep in mind that LH is not art, it's a game. And the first consideration has to be that it's playable as a game.
The trees and mountains look like icons because they are icons. The icons describe their tile in an intuitive way. The old design obfuscated the borders between tiles, and it made some pretty pictures, but it resulted in a decrease of reliable information to the user.
Adding more topography to the game would be a beautiful change, but likely brings up whole new problems in because the user is using a 2D plane to interact in a 3D space. So now, behind your pretty map is an arduous struggle for the developer as he tries to prevent user's clicks from going astray.
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