BU Podcast: Episode Six Now Available!

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Sir_Brizz

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Feb 3, 2000
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Yo, yo, yo! Week 6 is up on our Youtube channel! This weeks not a ton of change on the development front of UT4, so we talk about the art livestream this week as well as how much TWD hates things.... well, give it a listen and let us know what you think.
[m]http://youtu.be/IutlSzJTdBU[/m]
 

[GU]elmur_fud

I have balls of Depleted Uranium
Mar 15, 2005
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You guys hit on visual clarity a lot, but some of the things you said have me scratching my head wondering if you actually understand what is meant by that artistically in this scenario. It sounds like you do when you state that it is hard to pick out players in UT3, and that would be the end result of a lack of visual clarity, but the level of detail has little to do with it and you harp on that a lot.

So what am I on about?...
Fig. A:
[SCREENSHOT]http://i.imgur.com/2pHXgkF.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]
Fig. B:
[SCREENSHOT]http://i.imgur.com/CFvcnCz.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

Fig.A is clearly concept art for Deck. Specifically UT3 Deck. Fig. B is the execution of that concept. Both exhibit hi levels of detail, yet the visual clarity of the concept is 100x that of the execution. (I like the hyperbole, I am gonna role with it.) Clearly it is not the level of detail at fault. Nor in fact is it the post processing as there is little to none visible in the SS. What is visible and I would think apparent to everyone is how washed out Fig. B is. The tones are so muted as to be almost monochromatic. There is both lighting and color contrast in Fig. A the halls are lit in blue and the ooze is toxic glowing green While light streams in from above. This results in a scene that is both pleasing to the eye and easy to visually navigate. Fig. B is dead it's lifeless picking out the individual elements is a visual chore. The fact that there are 2 players in this scene and the gore from 1 that was just gibbed is extremely easy to miss. If I didn't know what a link gun looked like and was viewing this SS I might think that it was a ugly odd lamp.

Now for shits-n-giggles Fig. C:
[SCREENSHOT]http://i.imgur.com/zUIMGB5.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]
All I did here was paint a little color onto the original SS and it made a hell of a difference. Same amount of detail.

Not that I am against a cleaner look. Bonescraper is a decent example of that and perhaps that is why you used it... but it also has more vivid lighting.

Crisp edges on things do help but only moderately. I really boils down to the characters not blending into the background and/or everything turning into one nondescript blur when playing.
 

Sir_Brizz

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I don't necessarily disagree. Also, I don't think the problem is that bad outside of DM. The team skins in UT3 actually work really well. The problem is those dark, muted colors on DM maps.
 

[GU]elmur_fud

I have balls of Depleted Uranium
Mar 15, 2005
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I don't necessarily disagree. Also, I don't think the problem is that bad outside of DM. The team skins in UT3 actually work really well. The problem is those dark, muted colors on DM maps.

Yes but they are dark and muted everywhere. The team colors themselves are pretty low-key albeit more contrasted and colorful but beyond that everything seems to have a singular tonal approach. The net affect of that is eye strain and a sedatory experience. Where the latter may be useful in an art noir game were you want to make an experience baleful right up until you drop them into combat to make the combat more dramatic. The effect isn't the same on a constant combat game.

For all it's other faults UT3 probably would have fared better with richer tones. If one looks at UT/UT2k3/UT2k4 vs UT3 one will see a vast difference in the tonal pallets. On the one hand you have contrast and realistic colors and it takes not time at all for your brain to pick out interactive items(I believe Epic themselves touched on this in the area of pickups a couple weeks ago). On the other everything is muted and discerning the various elements take more mental processing making the game as a whole more of a chore to play.
 
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Sir_Brizz

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I definitely don't disagree that color would make the environments way more interesting. Characters aren't exactly hard to see in team games, they did some thing where the colors get more vivid as the character gets further away which seems like a decent approach.
[screenshot]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3242904710757628064/48F6CB8EAB6FF3649005D2644EB7833152451E20/[/screenshot]
[screenshot]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3242904710757629484/FF93EEE832177624D1DAB7E440F3B8EE4B8936B7/[/screenshot]
[screenshot]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/3242904710757626594/26D1625A80FE826FD87D9F77928E0AC3C4AB1F20/[/screenshot]

I mean, Deck is the case we are using anyway so I think these are relevant. The thing is, even with the brighter skins the environment is SO BORING. There is nothing bright about it. And then you have CTF maps where the visual quality suffers a lot because of weird post processing like these:

[screenshot]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3242904710744784194/9656B002D33318FDA26C5B8B47232963F15C116E/[/screenshot]
[screenshot]http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3242904710744783250/3E62E5E84EA0FE5BCFA11B5A46F96BD5AA6C3CA5/[/screenshot]

I mean that Searchlight image is just bad in every way. It looks so bland.
 

[GU]elmur_fud

I have balls of Depleted Uranium
Mar 15, 2005
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mtbp.deviantart.com
At least there was some custom content that tried to address the visual issues, and to that end was met with some degree of success.

The total conversion mod Rooks Keep, NeoDuck’s WAR-Tropico, and DM-Shrift by genthly come to mind. Because War-Tropico and Rooks Keep weren't bound to stock content as genthly was with DM-Shrift they certainly succeeded to a greater degree. I must say though IMO given the asset limitations, genthly did a damn fine job.