NEW Lair Screens Plus Interview!

That image is not in full size, heres the full size picture (1080). Still that picture has been enhanced as it looks like it has high amount of AA if compared to the other screenshots from the same date.

http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/761/761161/img_4008271.html

Looks really blurry actually like it was scaled up or upscaled and scaled back down, kinda hard to tell what they did to the image. Other than that, I cant wait to see the final product.
 
I think thats native 1080p because if you look at the ground, it shows more detail. I wonder how that ground is rendered because it doesnt look like the normal way :?:
 
WOW! the new shots are Swoit looking. definetly some improvments taken place or is it just the 1080p. we can now c depth of field, advanced parralax mapping ground texture"at least wat i think it is" more clearly. the fur on the Taurus actually looks better than i thought. keep up the leap, and just like someone said the "Motorstorm way of leap".
 
Maybe it's just me, but I think the game looks like crap. Waaay too much bloom, poly starved models, and unimpressive textures. Great art on the dragons though. Too bad that is hurt by the low quality models.
 
In someway Lair is impressive in other ways it is not.

The general idea is great and the game looks fun. However, the graphics do need a lot of work. The game does not look bad. It's leaps and bounds beyond anything the PS2 could pull off. But graphically speaking it needs an upgrade. It's already good, but needs to look better.

First of all, the models are simply not detailed enough. I think it's a mixture of not enough polygons (especially for those LARGE dragons) and the textures are not highly detailed. Basically, I think the dragons and the humans all need better textures and more polygons, but especially the dragons. The tails of a few of those dragons looked awful, the bodies really didn't look very distinct, and the textures look stretched out or low resolution.

Second of all, I don't understand the actions of the soldiers on the ground. It seems to me their animations and AI need more work. What would be interesting is if they actually seemed like courageous warriors instead of just play toys to throw around, knock off the bridge, or torch to ashes. They need to be trying to climb on your dragon, sneak up behind you, throw ropes and stuff over your dragon, and utilize some interesting combat techniques against you. Instead they just seemed to lack much vigor.

Now, I don't know anything about AI or animation, but I at least know a tiny bit about texturing and polycount. What do you think is the problem they are coming across at this point? Do you think they are hitting a wall when it comes to the textures they can fit into memory? Do you think they are hitting the maximum polygons they can squeeze into a frame? I really hope that they are in the early stages of polishing this game up, because if they can boost the polycount and texturing I think this game could be awsome.

Quite frankly, with a game this large in scope, with so many characters on screen at once, and with such graphical effects (and at 1080P) how much room do you think they have to push it to look even better?

This is the kind of game that in one way I look at and say, "This is AWSOME!" But then when I look at it more critically I realize they are doing great work of course, but it really still needs something more in a few areas which I'm guessing are polycount and texturing on the human and dragon character models. If they can do that and boost the AI and animation a bit I think this game will be one that will be remembered for generations.
 
i agree with u babcat. if worst come to worst, couldnt they cut down 1000troops and add the poly and texture resources to the dragons? by then it would still hav the massive 2000 troops and more detailed dragons. just a thought.
 
So do I understand correctly that you so far haven't watched a single recent Lair movie? Because it looks nothing like that picture on IGN.

Yes I've seen practically all movies, and the game obviously looks like this. You know, direct feed vs. shakycam...
 
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/761/761161/img_4007510.html

It's not even remotely similar to water... more like a lot of dunes from black sand. To anyone who thinks this is realistic, just where have you seen water like this?

The rest looks as bad as before; lowpoly, low res textures, bad lighting, too much bloom...
The link is broken. Which image did you link? As far as I see the new Oct 20 images I'm sure they have less bloom than the older ones.
 
As far as I see the new Oct 20 images I'm sure they have less bloom than the older ones.
Wow if these are not bshots we are talking for a serious upgrade at their LOD system.
Does anyone remember the "1vs1 dragonfight" screenshot with the ugly NPC dragon (blocky looking model with low detail textures) ? The new one looks alot better.

21 Sept. screenshot
oldnpcsi0.jpg


19 Oct. screenshot
newnpcrm0.jpg


Watch the original size here.
 
Yes I've seen practically all movies, and the game obviously looks like this. You know, direct feed vs. shakycam...

Well for me it's the first time the water is brown rather than blue, and so far I've seen fully animated waves with nice ripples and reflections on them, and some (rather limited) water splashes against rocks. But maybe you were linking to another picture than I guessed, because as mentioned that link doesn't work so I just took the most recent picture I fould find yesterday that had water in it and looked ugly.

EDIT: actually in the latest gamespot footage I thought I saw the water flow under the bridge. Nice detail.
 
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I have watched the lastest videos and screenshots and analyzed them a bit. First the Graphics seems much like before but they seem to have tweaked the blooming and perhaps the LOD a bit but the videos are dark and so are the screenies which makes it hard to see details.

Am I the only one to notice the horrible FPS, watching the videos the game runs at 15-20fps almost all the time (depends on scene) and 20fps average. Where theres little action to none and less to render it mantains 30fps with slight image tearing (vsync off). So in short it barely ever runs at 30fps but instead at 15.20fps and sometimes 20-25fps. And to clarify it is not the video recording as it then would not go from looking at the sky with dragon at 30fps to lanscape looking a 20fps and bridge fighting a 15-20fps.
Yes I can estimate the FPS with high accuracy as I have trained my eyes in this for 10 years of gamming on PC and consoles.:cool:

The AI for the ground troops arent activated until the player dragon/character comes near the bridge.

The water does look very good but then it is from far away but still good as I dont think it is necessary to bath the dragon regularly. The geometry for the landscape looks good but not high polygon (well still quite high but not anything beyond what has been done already in games like Oblivion, FS2004/x), reminds of Oblivion landscape geometry in design.

Neverthless seems like a good game if you like games like Serious Sam gameplay style but with different theme and more freedom?
 
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"Wow if these are not bshots we are talking for a serious upgrade at their LOD system.
Does anyone remember the "1vs1 dragonfight" screenshot with the ugly NPC dragon (blocky looking model with low detail textures) ? The new one looks alot better."
yeah, the new ones definatly hav improved. they seem to increased polygons on the dragons if u compare the belly surface on the big dragon. lighting also seems better i can now c more depth. well, IGN did say the latest build was improved and actually run 5-10fps faster. incredible.
 
I have watched the lastest videos and screenshots and analyzed them a bit. First the Graphics seems much like before but they seem to have tweaked the blooming and perhaps the LOD a bit but the videos are dark and so are the screenies which makes it hard to see details.

Am I the only one to notice the horrible FPS, watching the videos the game runs at 15-20fps almost all the time (depends on scene) and 20fps average. Where theres little action to none and less to render it mantains 30fps with slight image tearing (vsync off). So in short it barely ever runs at 30fps but instead at 15.20fps and sometimes 20-25fps. And to clarify it is not the video recording as it then would not go from looking at the sky with dragon at 30fps to lanscape looking a 20fps and bridge fighting a 15-20fps.
Yes I can estimate the FPS with high accuracy as I have trained my eyes in this for 10 years of gamming on PC and consoles.:cool:

The AI for the ground troops arent activated until the player dragon/character comes near the bridge.

The water does look very good but then it is from far away but still good as I dont think it is necessary to bath the dragon regularly. The geometry for the landscape looks good but not high polygon (well still quite high but not anything beyond what has been done already in games like Oblivion, FS2004/x), reminds of Oblivion landscape geometry in design.

Neverthless seems like a good game if you like games like Serious Sam gameplay style but with different theme and more freedom?
"but the company has made a few visual improvements in the weeks since. Specifically, Factor 5 has enhanced the framerate when running in 1080p (the resolution we played both levels in), and it moved along at a pace 5-10 frames faster than last month."
those videos are likely from the older build as they look evidently different from the new and improved Oct shots.
 
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actually the new videos could simply be the 720p feed of the older build.
look this comparison. one from the new video one from the new shot.
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/8238/1jk3.jpg

I see basically the same detail except the "better" looking dragon has differnt textures and som added detail, maybe it is another dragon?

Heres the picture enhanced to see detail (ignore the artifacts as I made this one fast).
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b113/Polygon_crusher/1jk3enhanced.jpg
 
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i checked the video again, it's the same dragon. but wether through more added detail or different texture or better lighting. the new screenshot definetly looked better than the videos. thus giving me the impression that the new shots are from newer build.
 
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