LAIR Thread - * Rules: post #469

No that's not true. The main character is the guy. The dragon is sorta like the horse in Shadow of the Colossus.

 

The water will look good if it animates realistically, and reacts at least partially convincingly against rocks and sea-monsters. The overall look here has an ICO/SOTC style, which works in creating ambience, but I feel the lighting and shading in these stills is still fairly weak. In motion, it might not look so much like computer polys. This screen



Just doesn't work. And the fire! Egads, someone please sort out the fire! It's a frequently used, often visible effect. A stream of yellow splodges doesn't cut it. There's much better renderings of fire out there.

 

Weak compared to what? Real life? Someone dig up a photo of a real life dragon and giant Oprah monster for reference.

 

Well, some detail on the landscape would be nice. Fix fire, fix lightning, give it more colors.

 

Colors are already in the game. LOOK!





They're snow/tundra levels, jungle, ocean, desert, and wasteland/volcano levels. And there's a day/night cycle in the game like Grand Theft Auto so the sky will change as you play it.

You may fly through areas of the game and notice the sky changing as you fly over the ocean right in front of you.

 

This game makes me interested from the latest screens despite the inconsistency in graphics. Some parts look exceptionally good. Others look weird

The fire needs lots of work as well as the annoying glowing effect that makes me blind

 

Guys should i remind you that the game is'nt finished or the fact we dont know if these shots are from a new build of the game or an old one.

 

I still think it's bad.
The lighting is terrible, that big monster looks pretty lame with the huge black shadows from the oversimplified geometry + overdone normal mapping + lack of ambient lighting.
The water has only one direction in waves, a simple 1D deformation, just look at it in the distance. Pretty lame again.

I could go on but the point is, it lacks any kind of polish, and even though some of the source art is good, the result is a rushed, ugly look...

That's my 2 cents here. Seems like my tastes are quite different from the majority here.

 

They need to make the fire look in the same way it looked in the old trailer:

 

I totally agree with you

 

Why did you mention this?

Everybody here knows that, but we can still pass judgement on whatever we are shown.

 

It is shaping up very nice. I need to see some vids first, but I think this game will be a true showcase for the PS3.

Edit: The pics in this thread arent full size (they look even better) + There are more screens out there.

 

I feel it has come a long way since the last couple of screens were released. Definitly reignited my interest in the title. It'd be better if they toned done the intensity of their normal mapping a bit. Also, the lightning feels quite inconsistent in some screens (note the cut & paste look).

 

Omfg people, it's on the PS3, it looks horrible!

Nah but seriously, the new pics do make me more interested in the game. Could be a pretty epic game actually with some very cool monsters..

 

Yes. And you don't need a real-life dragon and giant Oprah monster for reference. You've a lifetime of viewing real lighting to know how real things are supposed to look. The Oprah monster look fairly flat, without subtle lighting effects that add realism, and with extreme normal maps. It looks more like a SOTC type critter running on PS2. The poly-count looks low; the lighting and shading looks simplistic, and overall it looks fake. As one example of a particular fault, the near tusk is dark on the underside. It's beige on top. This communicates a beige tusk in deep shadow where the light doesn't reach. If that's the case, how come the underside of the creature isn't also in deep shadow? This isn't something that I carefully examine, reason it's wrong, and so dislike. I look at the image and my gut reaction is 'it looks wrong.' I can then analyze the image and determine why it's wrong, but if the image was right, there wouldn't be this gut reaction.

I think overall, the lack of self-shadowing is hurting this title a lot. That alone would fix it. At the moment the lighting appears to be entirely baked on, which is why different parts of the monster are showing different lighting.

 

Now this looks VERY promising, unlike the older ones. I really dig the dark atmosphere and high contrast in this. I'll be drooling to see these in motion.

 

Honestly, I did this in one hour, deliberately breaking a lot of artistic 'rules' anc concepts:

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/5066/lairvazehy4.jpg

Like, lots of bloom, only 1 light source, overdone bump mapping... Oh and it's rendered at 960*1080 and resized in Photoshop to 1920*1080.

Just to make things clear, I only made this image to demonstrate to some guys on another forum that in my opinion, the graphics look very very rushed, lacking any polish. There's something strange going on with this game, they've put a lot of effort into some assets like the dragon characters - and then they create this kind of enviroment and bad lighting... why?

 

Umh..I'm not sure your image prove anything. I'm sure any skilled artits can outdo the vast majority of games out there in a few hours with the proper tools.

 

I'm having a tough time understanding what the gameplay is from any of these shots. Whether or not they look good or bad is important, but if you aren't playing these sections does it really matter anyway?

For example, are any of these screens:

http://www.gfdata.de/archiv02-2007-gamefront/2786.html

taken from actual gameplay? I dont fully understand how one would interact with these angles and screens. Has anyone seen gameplay and can explain if these are interactive gameplay and how it actually works in these perspectives?

 

I don't understand why some people just want to tear this game apart.
Gears has this kind of grainy look all over it, I mean the entire game, and people said wow that's next gen.
While this game has more variety, it's not welcomed. I call it "double-standard". This game has been in development for quite awhile that means you cannot say it copied Gears. I feel there are a lot of insecurities in this thread.