Eldron on 24/10/2011 at 19:08
I will put a likeness to rage,
every environment is handcrafted, that is what makes those old games look good.
Jason Moyer on 24/10/2011 at 19:21
Damn, yeah, that does look pretty good hi-res.
Sulphur on 24/10/2011 at 19:40
Almost all of the IE games look good hi-res. Most 2D games with large, intricate maps would compared to viewing them at a paltry 640x480 resolution, as they were back in the day. Lots of attention to detail in those backgrounds.
Having said that, Eldron has a point. Those really are 2D bitmaps at the end of the day. Recreating them is going to take time, effort, and talent. Even without as much talent as Bioware's artists, time and effort are going to be the bigger problems because it's no longer just sketching stuff or putting together pre-rendered assets and pasting them into the final scene composition via Photoshop, it's modelling all of them in 3D, then texturing and lighting them, and keeping in mind poly budgets as well.
Given the breadth and number of B'sG 2's maps, being as faithful as possible in recreating them is not an undertaking for the faint of heart.
nicked on 24/10/2011 at 20:02
Really this just highlights a mild bugbear of mine which is the almost universal attitude of 3d>2d under any circumstances. With today's computing power, team sizes and budgets, you would have thought that there could be a market for some absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful hand-painted 2D games from AAA developers. But it seems to be a forgotten art by all except indie studios who often don't have the time/budget/talent to push the envelope in that department.
Jason Moyer on 24/10/2011 at 20:53
In regards to 2D vs 3D, I thought ToEE looked fantastic and it had a similar style to the IE games imho.
Eldron on 24/10/2011 at 21:48
Quote Posted by nicked
Really this just highlights a mild bugbear of mine which is the almost universal attitude of 3d>2d under any circumstances. With today's computing power, team sizes and budgets, you would have thought that there could be a market for some absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful hand-painted 2D games from AAA developers. But it seems to be a forgotten art by all except indie studios who often don't have the time/budget/talent to push the envelope in that department.
Good 2d is always better than bad 3d, but good 2d is just as good as good 3d, only with 3d we can actually have a 3-dimensional world to walk around in, not just a static 2d background.
Had for example bioware back in the day had the capability to render the 3d environments in realtime in baldurs gate, they would've done it, and they could've used the same 3d environments they made for baldurs gate, and instead of rendering it out to 2d, they would've rendered it in realtime.
I would even dare say that if someone dug up the original 3d scenes, they could be rendered in real-time, they would most likely even be quite low-poly by todays standards.
Yakoob on 25/10/2011 at 04:42
Im playing through PlanescapeTorment right now and tbh Im hating the graphics, everything looks like gray-brown ass. No really, I cant fucking tell where one building begins and another ends, I cant tell where the actual doorway is (not to mention half of them are hidden facing away from the camera), and I cant quite say wtf that random pile-of-rubble-looking-like thing is actually supposed to be. Albeit that's more of art direction issue, not much to do with the engine itself.
Koki on 25/10/2011 at 05:42
That's more of a Planescape issue, yeah. Can't say I'm a huge fan of the setting myself.
Thirith on 25/10/2011 at 06:27
@Yakoob: Are you playing with one of the widescreen/resolution mods? I quite like the Planescape art direction, but it looks pretty bad at its original resolution on modern screens.
