216 réponses à ce sujet

[AtreiyaN7]

I wouldn't call it pseudo-cartoony, myself. I certainly didn't like the redesign of the elves in DA2, but on the whole, I thought the graphics were generally better on a technical level.

Modifié par AtreiyaN7, 11 mars 2013 - 06:48 .

[Masha Potato]

cJohnOne wrote...

The Qunari were different looking and probably improved in being distinct but I thought they were unrealistically muscled and bulky.

Unrealistically compared to real life qunari i take it?

[Das Tentakel]

 @Indoctrination (and others who missed this):

Here's three earlier, fairly extensive threads on the subject of DA2 and its art style:

social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/315/index/14102163/1 
social.bioware.com/forum%3Cbr%20/%3E%3Ca%20href=/forum/1/topic/315/index/10529698/1 
social.bioware.com/msg.forum/forum/1/topic/371/index/14149699/1

There are doubtless many more, buried deep in the BSN´s murky depths.

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 11 mars 2013 - 06:55 .

[eroeru]

DA2 didn't have even one redeeeming quality.

[Nerevar-as]

Masha Potato wrote...

cJohnOne wrote...

The Qunari were different looking and probably improved in being distinct but I thought they were unrealistically muscled and bulky.

Unrealistically compared to real life qunari i take it?

Probably compared to the way a body that size and shape should be. Although I have no idea of that, and had no problem with the qunari. It could also be a matter of reality being unrealistic.

But it is necessary to be careful. Having dragons in the setting doesn´t mean you can have no rules in the setting. Fiction worlds that work the best are the ones that have rules and  follow them.

[grumpymooselion]

Nerevar-as wrote...

Masha Potato wrote...

cJohnOne wrote...

The Qunari were different looking and probably improved in being distinct but I thought they were unrealistically muscled and bulky.

Unrealistically compared to real life qunari i take it?

Probably compared to the way a body that size and shape should be. Although I have no idea of that, and had no problem with the qunari. It could also be a matter of reality being unrealistic.

But it is necessary to be careful. Having dragons in the setting doesn´t mean you can have no rules in the setting. Fiction worlds that work the best are the ones that have rules and  follow them.

Of course, while rules should be present, to ground a setting and give a reader or player an idea of what is possible, it should also be noted that those rules don't have to be 'our' rules. They just have to be consistent.

[Cainhurst Crow]

I prefered DA2's artstyle of DAO's artstyle for most things, but when it came to smaller stuff like armor and weapons, it sorta went downhill in a bad way.

[Sir George Parr]

By and large i found it improved over Origins. I would say that Origins art style won't age all that well as on console's it does look dated. I think DA2 will age better.

[Nashiktal]

I loved the art direction of DA2! I just hope they can make the world feel more populated and alive. I often felt lonely running around the city. The world felt so small because we could only explore a city, yet that large city felt barely populated until the cutscenes started rolling.

Also, the ability to enjoy all the hard work put into set design, without having to look up. Seriously, the surrounding areas looked great, but unless someone told you to look up you would never notice it.

[Melca36]

Indoctrination wrote...

I found that in DA2, it was really, really easy to make a good looking character in the game's face builder. I noticed that this was significantly harder in games like Origins and especially Mass Effect 3 without the aid of extensive fan modding.

I'm wondering if it was the unique art style in DA2 that made it easier to make cool looking characters, and I'm wondering if its the realistic art style that made custom Shepards look so old and generally terrible, half of the time in ME3. It would be nice if a developer familiar with the graphical side of the game could fill us in on how much the art style affects their face builders.

I hope the face builder in Dragon Age 3 lives up to its predecessor, because it was really good!

Its going to be a different game engine so I would NOT  expect everything to be the same if I were you

[Melca36]

Yrkoon wrote...

Indoctrination wrote...

Yrkoon wrote...

What?  No.  Anyone who knows anything about mods will tell you that they use them because they can.    Because they're there to be used.  It's really as simple as that.  It doesn't  -at all-  mean that the vanilla face builder "sucks"  or "isn't good enough" .  Hell, does DA2 even have character face building mods?

And this is a red herring argument anyway.  We were comparing  DA:O's artstyle with DA2s.  And there's *no question*  on which one's face builder   is more popular.  Take a look at any thread on this forum.   Including this one.   Look at the avatars of the users.    for every one person who's using  a face from DA2,    you'll  see  at least  5   using one from Origins.  Why?  Because they look better,   the DA:O character creator allows for Vastly  larger variety and customization.  Even beyond  it's 3 different  race options.

You're making this up as you go along though! People don't mod games "because they can." They mod them because they want to change something in the game more to their liking. Origins has 200 face mods because modders buid much prettier faces than the game itself does. You see more Origins avatars than DA2 ones and they're almost uniformly modded faces.

Nope.  Do I need to get David Gaider in here to remind  you  that Gamers always want more, no matter how much you give them?    The fact that mods exist for just about every game ever  confirms this, it doesn't *at all* mean that the vanilla game was somehow empty or void of  (____insert lacking feature here____).  if it did, you wouldn't see 100,000+ Skyrim *content* mods, for example,  since skyrim is Hardly lacking  in content.  It's got hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of hours of content right out of the box.

And again, this aspect of the discussion is moot.  Lets discuss DA2.    the reason you don't see many mods for DA2 is NOT because "everyone's satisfied with it" or whatever nonsense you're trying to argue.... it's because the game isn't very moddable.  we have no modding tools for it.    if Bioware Had released a  tool kit for it, I assure you,   you'd see  thousands of face-building mods.

If there had had been a fully functional toolset for DA2, I definitely agree there would be as many mods for it as Origins.  

Its funny how the die hard fanatics forget this

[Foolsfolly]

Liamv2 wrote...

It was good for female chars in the CC but awful for the male one

Really? Most of my chick-Hawkes looked about the same. Whereas all of my men looked the same. I pretty much just played a game of "This one's got this kind of awful hair this time!"

[Melca36]

Indoctrination wrote...

I found that in DA2, it was really, really easy to make a good looking character in the game's face builder. I noticed that this was significantly harder in games like Origins and especially Mass Effect 3 without the aid of extensive fan modding.

I'm wondering if it was the unique art style in DA2 that made it easier to make cool looking characters, and I'm wondering if its the realistic art style that made custom Shepards look so old and generally terrible, half of the time in ME3. It would be nice if a developer familiar with the graphical side of the game could fill us in on how much the art style affects their face builders.

I hope the face builder in Dragon Age 3 lives up to its predecessor, because it was really good!

So you consider  these badly 2D rendered non speaking characters artistic innovation? 

[BeatoSama]

Those faceless citizens have nothing to do with art style. They're like that because of a short development cycle and/or memory issues. Seriously stop nitpicking about stuff that has nothing to do with art.

[Lord Issa]

A little review on the main aspects of the graphics:

Human design: Main characters were much the same as in DA:O. Good, but skin textures could be much improved IMO. 8/10 for design, only because to be fair the skin texture issue affects all races.

Elven Design: The concept art was superb, as was Merril's design as well as Marethari's. However, the other elves looked rather poor IMO. If they looked like they did in the concept art it'd be fantastic. 6/10 ingame, 10/10 concept art.

Dwarven Design: Solid. Only flaw, again, is that the skin textures look like those of a 5 year old game. 8/10

Qunari Design: Superb. Relatively unique, well designed and implemented. 10/10

Monster/Demon Design: Pretty great. Demons are much the same, but I love the Rock Wraiths. Dragons could use some touching up, as well as the Rage Demons (look perhaps animated flowing lava rather than just glowing orange?) 9/10

Darkspawn Design: Hurlocks and Ogres are utterly pathetic, the legacy designs are a lot better. Still a big step backwars IMO. 4/10

Architecture: Superb in the the richer parts of Kirkwall, felt that the poorer parts and the dungeons were utterly generic however. 10/10 in places, mainly around 7/10 and worse in some places.

Background characters: Awful. 3/10

Modifié par Lord Issa, 11 mars 2013 - 08:37 .

[Melca36]

BeatoSama wrote...

Those faceless citizens have nothing to do with art style. They're like that because of a short development cycle and/or memory issues. Seriously stop nitpicking about stuff that has nothing to do with art.

There is still no excuse for them and they are beneath the standards of what I expect for a Bioware game.

[Blazomancer]

I didn't realize that one can actually pass through these NPC's until after a couple of playthroughs.

[Corto81]

eroeru wrote...


DA2 didn't have even one redeeeming quality.

Pretty much. And bland, empty, cartooy graphics certainly wasn't a positive.

At a time where there are AAA games like Skyrim, TW2, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, etc. are coming out, DA2 looked  like it was made by an indie studio.
Not to mention all the other games gave you huge worlds with those graphics, while DA2 opted to limit your sorry a*s to one city - and even that was done half-assedly.

[Uccio]

Didn´t like the art style but did like the character builder.

[Rawgrim]

The elves, the darkspawn, the oversized weapons, the power rangers combat (+ blood), the ghasts, the wyvern....all looked way cartoony. I had a very very hard time getting into the serious tones of the game because of it.

[The Elder King]

Corto81 wrote...

eroeru wrote...


DA2 didn't have even one redeeeming quality.

Pretty much. And bland, empty, cartooy graphics certainly wasn't a positive.

At a time where there are AAA games like Skyrim, TW2, Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, etc. are coming out, DA2 looked  like it was made by an indie studio.
Not to mention all the other games gave you huge worlds with those graphics, while DA2 opted to limit your sorry a*s to one city - and even that was done half-assedly.

TW2 isn't that big. It's bigger than DA2, but it's not a "huge world".

[katiebour]

 Here are some of the many, many screens I've taken of DA2.  I'm not playing on the highest settings, because I'm still running Windows XP and it can't run DX11.

I do install mods, but they're pretty much limited to things that let me dress the characters as I please or swap head morphs, since DA2 has no toolset and is harder to mod than DA:O.

So what you see is what you get in my screens- all original game content, repurposed.  The only editing I've done is to crop them.  Enjoy!

Seb in Chantry Robes:



My own Justice morph:



My friend's Hawke swapped in, along with Justice, whom she adores:


Anders:


closeup of Fen's armor:


Beautiful Izzy:


My girl:


Anders' gorgeous expression plus the beautiful aging around his eyes:



The Gallows:


The Gallows has some amazing and creepy artwork:


Screenie of my boy casting:


Fight at the Bone Pit:


Loved the colors in the Deep Roads:


LOVED this lighting:


The Blooming Rose:  Love those cornices! XD


Love both the painting and the upholstery on the chair here in the Blooming Rose:


Lighting in the Rose:


Amazing textures:


Nate's very sexy legs in this very sexy rogue armor:


Lyrium Ghost is an amazing spell effect:


I have a ton more, but as the above demonstrate, I think that DA2 had some beautiful models and textures, great use of lighting in some areas, beautiful expressions and more.  And these are NOT on the highest graphic settings.

Did DA2 have its problems?  Absolutely.  But some of us loved it.

[ThisIsZad]

Indoctrination wrote...

I found that in DA2, it was really, really easy to make a good looking character in the game's face builder. I noticed that this was significantly harder in games like Origins and especially Mass Effect 3 without the aid of extensive fan modding.

I'm wondering if it was the unique art style in DA2 that made it easier to make cool looking characters, and I'm wondering if its the realistic art style that made custom Shepards look so old and generally terrible, half of the time in ME3. It would be nice if a developer familiar with the graphical side of the game could fill us in on how much the art style affects their face builders.

I hope the face builder in Dragon Age 3 lives up to its predecessor, because it was really good!

NOPE! :3

You are not alone!