24 replies to this topic

[feeWAIVER]

So I've been having the thought cross my mind for quite a while now, and I'm interested in people's opinion.

Mechwarrior has always gone for a more realistic style with their graphics and environments. Even the old titles, for their day..

My question is, do you think going with a lower poly, more stylized cartoon graphic style would detract from the game or turn off the core audience? Or do you think it could be an improvement? I'm thinking like WoW style graphics or even Borderlands.

Just hypothetically.. I'm curious.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 16 November 2022 - 09:01 PM.

[Meep Meep]

I wasn't a fan of the cell shaded robotech games even though they were fun to play and would feel much the same here about those types of graphics. The battletech illustrations were typically simplistic and sometimes just downright awful and I won't even bring up the battletech cartoon. Or maybe I should as an example.

[LordNothing]

the problem i think is that some things are more complicated than they need to be while other things look like crap. that is to be expected because cry engine uses a terrain maps (i believe this is dynamic geometry generated from heightmaps) to lay down most of the map and then supplements that terrain with prefab models. remember when tourmaline's prefabs glitched out leaving only the terrain? i remember people asking that it be made a permanent map.

i think they spent too much effort on microdetails in the prefabs. thats kind of what they are for. the bad hitboxes on tourmaline is because the artists wanted to have all these pointy crystals on the ridges, yet the physics engine cant handle that much detail in its hit boxes and so you just uses a crude hitbox to cover multiple points. art department did not check in to see that the art they were designing was compatible with the physics of the engine, and nobody told the artists to cut it out.

tourmaline is one thing but i think where they really screwed the pooch is in the city maps. there is an absurd amount of detail on a lot of the buildings. i kind of expect more crude structures being used in the battletech universe, as there is a lot of war and in a lot of situations cities are being destroyed in the conflicts. so it seems that such art deco architecture would be reserved for the core systems for each faction where mech combat is seldom seen.

there is also a lot of detail being thrown at things way below the scale of a mech, covered walkways and awnings, which serve no purpose but to give me things to trip over. all that crap needs to go. even with solaris city i think all that glass would have shattered the second an srm exploded (try to find an intact window in any modern urban war zone). objects shorter than a locust knee should not exist or at least shouldn't have hitboxes.

i think simple bloc style structures and clean ridge lines would add a lot more to the game than any stunning visuals an overdetailed art deco masterpiece or well modeled complex natural structure could. simply because you can put good clean hit boxes on those. they are easy to fight around and the player doesnt have to be constantly reminded that everything is a poorly crafted illusion.

[Duke Falcon]

LordNothing, on 18 November 2022 - 04:03 PM, said:

the problem i think is that some things are more complicated than they need to be while other things look like crap. that is to be expected because cry engine uses a terrain maps (i believe this is dynamic geometry generated from heightmaps) to lay down most of the map and then supplements that terrain with prefab models. remember when tourmaline's prefabs glitched out leaving only the terrain? i remember people asking that it be made a permanent map.

i think they spent too much effort on microdetails in the prefabs. thats kind of what they are for. the bad hitboxes on tourmaline is because the artists wanted to have all these pointy crystals on the ridges, yet the physics engine cant handle that much detail in its hit boxes and so you just uses a crude hitbox to cover multiple points. art department did not check in to see that the art they were designing was compatible with the physics of the engine, and nobody told the artists to cut it out.

tourmaline is one thing but i think where they really screwed the pooch is in the city maps. there is an absurd amount of detail on a lot of the buildings. i kind of expect more crude structures being used in the battletech universe, as there is a lot of war and in a lot of situations cities are being destroyed in the conflicts. so it seems that such art deco architecture would be reserved for the core systems for each faction where mech combat is seldom seen.

there is also a lot of detail being thrown at things way below the scale of a mech, covered walkways and awnings, which serve no purpose but to give me things to trip over. all that crap needs to go. even with solaris city i think all that glass would have shattered the second an srm exploded (try to find an intact window in any modern urban war zone). objects shorter than a locust knee should not exist or at least shouldn't have hitboxes.

i think simple bloc style structures and clean ridge lines would add a lot more to the game than any stunning visuals an overdetailed art deco masterpiece or well modeled complex natural structure could. simply because you can put good clean hit boxes on those. they are easy to fight around and the player doesnt have to be constantly reminded that everything is a poorly crafted illusion.

That.
I just yesterday asked connecting the map fixes of the new patch:

Quote

BTW seen the screenies of 3D editor... Ever thought render terrain base in TerraGen? Gives a very natural landscape and could be imported into other softwares to add buildings and stuffs. Just wonder'd 'ere a bit...

That mean a lot of basic objects (low-poly) with no extra 3d-details but use textures and bump-maps to create the illusion of details. Faster to display and fit more to hitboxes. Near same graphic with better performance.
Or maybe it is me who overthinks stuffs...

[LordNothing]

im glad they are doing some much needed map cleanup, because some of those maps (even the new ones) are a nasty mess of glitches.

[Meep Meep]

LordNothing, on 19 November 2022 - 04:37 PM, said:

im glad they are doing some much needed map cleanup, because some of those maps (even the new ones) are a nasty mess of glitches.

So they have hired a new map guy? I thought the old one had left or been fired?

[Mechteric]

maybe something like this?



just some thing I'm still working on

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 20 November 2022 - 12:33 PM.

[martian]

Meep Meep, on 20 November 2022 - 11:27 AM, said:

So they have hired a new map guy? I thought the old one had left or been fired?

Read this:

Matt Newman, on 18 November 2022 - 09:51 AM, said:

Yes I can can confirm that we have a Level Designer and a new Gameplay / Mech Designer (Cauldron changes and Mech implementation) We hope to introduce them to you in a Dev Log soon. We are still looking for a Mech Artist to be able to add new Variants.

We will have some more MechWarrior news coming before the end of the month.

They have a new map designer.

[Meep Meep]

Good to know. So why did the old map maker leave? I liked his work though the remake of terra could use a few QA passes on all those pits and traps.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 20 November 2022 - 11:27 AM, said:

So they have hired a new map guy? I thought the old one had left or been fired?

idk about that, its just what was in the patch notes. nvm, martiain cleared that up.

CapperDeluxe, on 20 November 2022 - 12:31 PM, said:

maybe something like this?



just some thing I'm still working on

what is this a mod for snes mechwarrior?

Edited by LordNothing, 20 November 2022 - 05:32 PM.

[1Exitar1]

I would drop this game like a hot potato if it went to the cartoonish style you are talking about @OP.

[feeWAIVER]

1Exitar1, on 20 November 2022 - 10:13 PM, said:

I would drop this game like a hot potato if it went to the cartoonish style you are talking about @OP.

I guess this would be a good example of what machines would look like.. Softer edges, softer color pallet.
Imagine an Atlas or Catapult in this style.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 20 November 2022 - 10:36 PM.

[Meep Meep]

feeWAIVER, on 20 November 2022 - 10:33 PM, said:

I guess this would be a good example of what machines would look like.. Softer edges, softer color pallet.
Imagine an Atlas or Catapult in this style.

Not sure kawaii mechs would sail here. I get it and it would be cute but ehhh.

[Mechteric]

LordNothing, on 20 November 2022 - 05:30 PM, said:

what is this a mod for snes mechwarrior?

A custom multiplatform engine of my own creation (Windows, Linux, and Mac compatible). I'm planning to do a bigger teaser announcement with more info by around Christmas time

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 21 November 2022 - 10:54 AM.

[RockmachinE]

Personally I would hate it, I don't like stylized graphics to begin with. It cartoonifies everything, makes things look cutesy and more juvenile. It breaks immersion, kills disbelief, proportions tend to get warped and exaggerated and it makes you feel like youre watching a cartoon. It wouldn't fit well with the tone of the MW universe.

I resented it in Team Fortress 2. Artistically it was a good job, but I just loathe it on a personal level. I think its the solution and go to style for a lot of devs because its easier to pull off well and takes fewer resources to do.

Edited by Louis Brofist, 22 November 2022 - 05:20 PM.

[LordNothing]

the problem with photorealism is that you find that they become overly dependent on 3rd party assets. or you use photogrammetry to capture real world objects. go out on an overcast but otherwise dry day with a high res camera and take 200 photos of every rock you find interesting. or smaller objects can be done under soft studio lights. then get a workstation with a fat processor and beefy workstation class gpus to crunch the data. so it creates a market for 3rd party assets. i prefer games with an intentional artistic style vs games that are just a shopping cart full of stock assets.

[Thorqemada]

Its 2022 and you can run the game at hundreds of FPS, i do not feel that polycount is an issue but map production and a game engine that is now over a decade old (btw. will Star Citizen suffer really hard from this) and servers god knows how "good" they are.

Usually it should make next to no difference in cost efficieny if you start games 8vs8 or 12vs12 but rumor is the latter is more cost efficient so it seems geography is a little heavy on the game...

But really, you can not go for less - people already mock the game for its aged look - but for being more efficiently optimized and in the end eventually a better game engine.

But then there is none...

Edited by Thorqemada, 23 November 2022 - 05:17 PM.

[Meep Meep]

Thorqemada, on 23 November 2022 - 05:17 PM, said:

But really, you can not go for less - people already mock the game for its aged look - but for being more efficiently optimized and in the end eventually a better game engine.

But then there is none...

Aging engine aside they did go overboard with the details at least for the time and the game scales very nicely up to 4k and still looks good. But the catch is that you can't see that unless you heavily tweak the game via user scripts because the game was originally optimized for decade old hardware so even very high didn't start to take advantage of the models and the lodding was just terrible. However with some extreme settings you can force the game to render in full detail at all distances and it really transforms the look of many maps. Alpine peaks is a good example. Even with very high settings its a pixelated jaggy mess with terrible lod pop in of even the most basic terrain. After using my custom script everything is rendered at full lod detail at all distances and the map is barely recognizable.

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6441573

No worries about performance as I've tested it on an i5 4670k with gtx 960 and with all very high settings along with the script it gets around 70~90 fps at 1080p and a solid never varying 60fps with vsync. Anything semi modern will crush it at 1440p or 4k.

[w0qj]

Look up confracto's MWO forum postings and even Announcement discussions since (I think) Aug/Sept 2022 and onwards, think it'll have some indication and hints as to why this was the case.

Anyways, glad that a new MWO Map staff is now onboard, and hope that this staff learns to play/enjoy MWO as well!

Meep Meep, on 20 November 2022 - 12:54 PM, said:

Good to know. So why did the old map maker leave? I liked his work though the remake of terra could use a few QA passes on all those pits and traps.

Edited by w0qj, 24 November 2022 - 01:00 AM.

[RockmachinE]

w0qj, on 24 November 2022 - 12:44 AM, said:

Look up confracto's MWO forum postings and even Announcement discussions since (I think) Aug/Sept 2022 and onwards, think it'll have some indication and hints as to why this was the case.

Anyways, glad that a new MWO Map staff is now onboard, and hope that this staff learns to play/enjoy MWO as well!

I don't want to rip on the guy as a person, but I believe the map designer Francois simply didn't understand MWO. I believe he hurt the existing maps more then upgraded them and the stuff he made from scratch was not very good either. Just seemed to lack experience with MWO dynamics. A good map designer would have to be an experienced MWO player. Its a very specific game.

Edited by Louis Brofist, 24 November 2022 - 06:21 AM.