6 réponses à ce sujet

[StingingVelvet]

Not to offend anyone working on the game but all the screenshots and leaked video so far shows a game with very bad graphics.  I know the console versions of Origins were said to have bad graphics, but comparing the PC version of Origins to these screens leaves a LOT to be desired.  Is it seriously just lacking completed areas and details?  Or is this flat, undetailed look part of the new art style?

For fun, let's compare fur collars from Lost Planet, a 4 year old game, and Dragon Age 2:





Or ground textures from The Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2:





WHAT?

Modifié par StingingVelvet, 02 octobre 2010 - 08:44 .

[Stanley Woo]

Some bickering posts removed.

Not every contemporary game has to have the same sort of graphics. Is Minecraft a terrible game because of its "outdated" graphics? Judging by the number of sales it's seeing, heck no! Is Mafia Wars a better or worse game than Farmville, based on graphics? who can say?

Which Final Fantasy game is better: I, VII, X, or XI? Is your choice based on graphics or gameplay?

Personally, i think there's room in the world for all kinds of different art styles, from cartoony to photorealistic, from monochrome to colour, from hand-drawn to digital. You'll never be able to convince me that WoW graphics aren't just as "good" as Halo 3 graphics, Lego Rock Band graphics, Arkham Asylum graphics and FFX-2 graphics. different games, different styles, different engines, different artists.

Modifié par Stanley Woo, 01 octobre 2010 - 10:52 .

[Mike Laidlaw]

I personally promise that the next time I do a game about being really damn cold all the time and dying because of it, I will encourage the art team to do a better job of rendering insulation.

Similarly, the next time I set a game completely underwater, I will hire a water-interaction programmer like Bioshock did.

As it stands, though, we're going to keep focusing on delivering an engaging, evolving decade-long story with team-based fantasy combat. Also, Chris hit the nail on the head. Comparing pre-rendered cutscenes to in-game is like comparing a passenger train to a sedan and declaring the sedan to be lacking capacity.

Modifié par Mike Laidlaw, 02 octobre 2010 - 02:10 .

[John Epler]

As someone who spends 8-12 hours a day looking at our level art, I can tell you that there's a lot of variety in look. Not every area looks the same, and our art team has become quite skilled at using the entire palette. Colours tell a story too, and I've always felt that our level art makes my job easier - I don't have to have as much going on in a scene when the level around it is interesting and uses a colour scheme that supports the visual storytelling.



I've yet to finish my first coffee of the day, though, so I might be mildly incomprehensible right now.

[John Epler]

SirShreK wrote...

JohnEpler wrote...

As someone who spends 8-12 hours a day looking at our level art, I can tell you that there's a lot of variety in look. Not every area looks the same, and our art team has become quite skilled at using the entire palette. Colours tell a story too, and I've always felt that our level art makes my job easier - I don't have to have as much going on in a scene when the level around it is interesting and uses a colour scheme that supports the visual storytelling.

I've yet to finish my first coffee of the day, though, so I might be mildly incomprehensible right now.

Hmm... I hope the mongeese (???) are busy....

Well, I'm at work on a Saturday, so fairly busy

[Mike Laidlaw]

StingingVelvet wrote...

triggerhappy456 wrote...

In a game like this I never really care about the graphics much

That's odd to me because an immersive RPG is exactly the kind of game where I think graphics matter most.

It's a balancing act, though. If we overload on texture memory or really crazy shaders, we can't support crowds of people and still maintain our framerate. So, you can lose some immersion only to gain a different kind of immersion.

Overall, though, your question seems to be "Will this look better than Origins." My personal, and obviously biased response, is "hell yes." We'll be releasing some more screens from Kirkwall in the near future that I think will prove the point. Or maybe not. I never really know what's key to the hardcore graphics folks. My thing (insofar as it is a thing at all, I'm not Art Director for a reason), is that I would like it to look consistent. Origins featured a few too many instances of really high-fidelity characters standing next to non-high fidelity objects.

[Andreas Papathanasis]

Burdokva wrote...

I hope you've worked on lighting for DAII. And I hope this post has been somewhat helpful.

The lighting engine on Dragon Age 2 has been a major focus of attention and has had already substantial improvements over the old Origins engine. This includes both baked lighting for environments and dynamic lighting for characters, effects etc. I'm sure we'll be talking more about this and other technical improvements, and give out more specific details in the months ahead.

As others have pointed out, Dragon Age 2 is not *about* graphics, but they are still important and we did promise improvements in this area. Keep in mind that for our game, like lots of other games, it makes sense to polish the looks closer to release and you will be seeing that in the screenshots we release closer to March. For the graphics programming team for example, it makes sense for us to work on features that affect workflow of other departments first, and leave polish features that make significant improvements to visual quality for the end. Similarly the level art team needs to rough out their levels to enable other departments like design to work on those levels, and they will work on final lighting closer to the end because lighting doesn't affect as much other departments' workflow. We're still in the process of improving the engine itself as we speak, and I think this will reflect in newer screenshots and videos of the game. Like Mike said, there's nobody internally that doesn't believe graphics will be substantially improved over Origins, both for the PC and console versions.

We're not trying to convince anyone of anything, it's perfectly valid to criticize released screenshots and we welcome such feedback. However at the same time I'd advise you to also be patient and take a look at the final version of the game before dismissing it as looking inferior to other titles on the same platforms, especially titles that have already been released.