WC! & 2 mod's meshes....

Preacher

Preacher

Swabbie
Banned
WC 1 & 2 mod's meshes....

I have a problem w/ the way many of the meshes for WC1 & 2 ships (for various of the WC mods out there that are available) end up coming out. Once textures are applied, they look coarse; rather cartoonish & "blocky" being the end result. To me the main purpose for re-doing WC1 & 2 ships is so the original stories & battles can be re-lived in a more modern (read: realistic), up to date graphics medium. What good is lens flare & other modern graphics engine wonders if I'm battling with cartoonish-looking ships?--the whole sense of "realism" is destroyed.

Obviously the folks who work on these things are far more talented than such results would indicate, so why the discrepancy?... I understand trying to be faithful to the original, but the reason the ORIGINALS looked so cartoonish is that that was the most "state of the art" they COULD be back in that day. If your gonna go to the trouble of "updating" an old game to a newer medium, at least attempt to go "all the way" by creating more realistic (updated-looking) ships to go with it. What gives here? Can anyone explain?...
 
Not really. If they wanted to make them realistic looking, they would have. They were only sprites, so making something look closer to realistic is almost as easy as making them look cartoonish.

The ships that will be used for Standoff, as I understand it, will still be somewhat cartoonish, as you will notice from the shots that have been released, however I do have plans to have alternative models available to use, perhaps not for Standoff, but for other games on the ECE to allow things to look realistic, a la WC4 (or better).

Doing all Direct3D/OpenGL effects like Lense Flares etc is all nice, but you have to remember that for some of these projects we DO want them to be able to be run on lower end systems - not just 1.33GHz Athlons with Quadro DCCs in them.

As always, not to sound like I'm annoyed or anything by this post (I'm sure you know what I mean), if you don't like what's being created, there's nothing stopping you going and writing your own engine.
 
I can only speak for Standoff, but here goes.

Call me a purist, but I don't see any point in trying to make the ships look any more "realistic", as you put it. There's simply no reason for me to believe that the cartoonish way in which ships are depicted in WC1-WC2 wasn't Origin's intent, but rather a limitation of the engine. Please note that I DO acknowledge that they look cartoonish and "unrealistic" (if that term can ever be applied to spacecraft 600 years from now), but I think that is just because they are supposed to be that way. Therefore, who am I, or the other WC modellers, to change the look of the WC1-2 ships, based only on our opinion of how they should look like?

Actually, if you really think about it, it's much easier to believe that WC3-4's blocky ships with low detail textures are the ones which got limited by the engine. For WC2 at least, the sprites were actually sized-down renders of high-polycount, fully textured 3D models... so if you can show me one good reason why the game designers decided to make those models (for which they had absolutely no limitations, since they would be rendered to sprites, after all) look like cartoonish versions of how the actual ships were supposed to look, please do so.

Yes, I am far more talented than making cartoonish textures. I just don't have a reason to put that talent to use when I'm trying to re-create ships which, to the extent of my knowledge, ARE cartoonish. And I think that goes for most other mod artists too. UE is set during the Nephilim conflict and uses the SO engine, and as talented as they've already proved that they are, you don't see them making their Scimitars look like Prophecy ships either.

And if I sound a little defensive, I'm sorry, but I kind of got a negative impression of you from some of the posts you start, and I can't help but expressing that in my own posts... nothing personal, it's just that our views on most subjects differ quite a lot :)

--Eder
 
Originally posted by akashra

a) ..however I do have plans to have alternative models available to use, perhaps not for Standoff, but for other games on the ECE to allow things to look realistic, a la WC4 (or better).

b) ...but you have to remember that for some of these projects we DO want them to be able to be run on lower end systems - not just 1.33GHz Athlons with Quadro DCCs in them.

c) ...As always, not to sound like I'm annoyed or anything by this post (I'm sure you know what I mean), if you don't like what's being created, there's nothing stopping you going and writing your own engine.
Click to expand...

Questions:
a) What is "the ECE" referred to above?...

b) I understand the need to write to include lower end systems, (& thus broaden yer user base & fan appeal) but that statement doesn't really address the "beef" I have about the meshes. I mean, fer cryin' out loud, I was playin' WC3 & lovin' it on a 486DX2 running @66Mhz, 4-5 years ago!!... To borrow from Tina Turner: "What's lower end systems got to do with it?"

c) Nothing to stop me but a complete lack of talent, skill, and knowledge about programming!... I could maybe contribute to some fanboy project in the area of graphics or art (I have a wee bit of experience w/ Truspace2 & Amorphium), but that's about it. Programming ain't my bag.

I don't like criticizing without being able to offer an alternative solution, but sometimes when what yer seein' don't seem to make sense, and you can't understand why, ya need to speak up. I honestly don't see how WC3's artwork on the meshes can be so good in 94 (or WC4 in 96-7), running just fine on a 486-66, and the meshes today designed for Pentium 2 or better can be so primitive & blocky-lookin'.

" 'Splain it to me, Lucy; I just don't understan' "
 
You know, I really don't see what the heck you're complaining about. The Scimitar we use in UE, for example, is about as far as one could possibly get from blocky. It's a beautiful, high-detailed mesh with a great-looking texture. I'd say it's a hundred times better than any WCP ship.
 
Originally posted by Preacher
I honestly don't see how WC3's artwork on the meshes can be so good in 94 (or WC4 in 96-7), running just fine on a 486-66, and the meshes today designed for Pentium 2 or better can be so primitive & blocky-lookin'.
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comparison.JPG


I suggest you re-work your arguments on this subject.

--Eder
 
One of the things that Eder has asked of me is the ability to use different texture/meshes on models. Hence, with the ECE if you wanted, you could effectively choose wether you want to use the 'cartoonish', or 'realistic' models, assuming someone makes both.

Preacher, 'ECE' is the 'Elemental Combat Engine', the working title for what is otherwise known as the 'Jacinta' project.

The meshes used today when they use less faces generally have lightmaps applied to them though.

PS: Eder's models F@%*!% own! :p
 
I must agree with Eder, you don't have to update the actual look of the models too much, Adding more polygonal detail is all to the good, but changing textures is bad, I have some of the Original meshes used in WC2 some of those have over 40,000 faces, but they still look cartoonish. I think they meant for the meshees to look that way.
 
No offence Darkmage, but I think you might be talking out of your *cough*...

Where do you claim you obtained this model file from then.

I still honestly don't believe you know the difference between a polygon and a sprite - even moreso shown here.
 
You know I really agree with Quarto on this, our scimitar really does just look believeable at the same time as staying true to the original, same goes for the bengal, ralari and gratha :D
I have my reservations about the Fralthi, its a bit too orangey for my taste but damnit if you can get bright green cars why not bright green capships?!?

As for the models, they are so not blocky :)
 
Originally posted by akashra
No offence Darkmage, but I think you might be talking out of your *cough*...

Where do you claim you obtained this model file from then.

I still honestly don't believe you know the difference between a polygon and a sprite - even moreso shown here.
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Actually, Zero, I believe Darkmage has got some of the original WC2 models from LOAF. Don't ask me how LOAF got them, though... but from the renders I have, what Darkmage said seems pretty accurate: those models are clearly high on the poly count side, but the textures seem quite cartoonish, almost to the point of being 16-color :p

--Eder
 
What makes a ship look 'cartoonish', anyway? If it's just a low colour depth, then that can be changed easily, can't it?
 
Actually, I think it's the eyes. After all, they've never looked any more or less cartoonish than WC3/4/P models to me, so it must be something in the eyes of the beholder :).

Heck, if you compare the Academy Jrathek with the Armada Jrathek, you will find that the latter was made to look as close to the original as possible - despite the fact that Academy used bitmap sprites while Armada used polygon sprites.
 
Well, take the ferret for example. The whiteish color certainly makes it look cartoonish as opposed to the metallic grey that it would probably be in real life - and the Kilrathi ships all being Yellow/Orange/red... whereas in WC3 they're grey...
 
Have you heard of 'paint'? ;)

But really, the Retro Talon is white as well, as are Imperial Star Destroyers. Close enough to white, anyway. Not very good for blending in with the stars.

And I think Kilrathi ships were painted red/orange, or at least that's the tinge of the metals they use. Capships especially, in WC3 had red colour schemes.
 
Originally posted by Quarto
You know, I really don't see what the heck you're complaining about. The Scimitar we use in UE, for example, is about as far as one could possibly get from blocky. It's a beautiful, high-detailed mesh with a great-looking texture. I'd say it's a hundred times better than any WCP ship.
Click to expand...

I'm not complaining about any one mod in particular. Fact is (since all I've had is a laptop to work with since October), the only one I've played to date is VS. I'm basing my impression on (most of the) meshes I've seen posted on the CIC main page, and how blocky & coarse they've tended to look, at least the many that I've seen, anyway. No offense intended to UE or any other specific mod.
 
Originally posted by akashra
and the Kilrathi ships all being Yellow/Orange/red... whereas in WC3 they're grey...
Click to expand...

Well, actually WC3 Kilrathi ships are kind of a "beige-y" color (almost a light sepia tone), which goes well with the red markings (paint, I assume). What I really like is how, in WC Armada, the graphics engine used for combat shows the K. ships as kind of a coppery color, and with a distinct metallic look to their "skin", which was IMO, a great step fwd for the realism aspect. I was impressed (I played Armada AFTER I had gotten & played WC3...)
 
Of course Kilrathi ships are orange... that's because their plasteel is naturally of this colour. So, if WC3 ships aren't like this, than they're the ones that are unrealistic and cartoony :p.

And the Ferret, as many other ships, has a coat of paint. Who knows, maybe the paint helps insulate the inside of the ship or something.

Heck, are WWII fighters unrealistic because they were painted blue underneath and green on top when, of course, they should have been gray? :p
 
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