Saga Releases Final Destroyer Shots (May 24, 2010)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
The WC Saga team is finishing up their Southampton class destroyer, and it's looking pretty mean. I like how the window lights on the bow in the middle shot look like they spell 'CIC'.





These versatile and multi-purpose vessels can be found as part of larger battle groups or in destroyer squadrons or alone, competent in both a standup fight with other hard-hitting warships or assisting in anti-aircraft duties. Very well shielded and armored for its size, they are capable of engaging in ship-to-ship combat with either its powerful energy weapons or its array of missile batteries.


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Original update published on May 24, 2010
 
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Either the ambient lighting is too dark or the textures are too dark. Or maybe it's both. I guess it's nice to have touch ups to old designs, but did I mention it's too dark?
 
Do you have an old CRT screen or (if you don't) is your screen's brightness turned down?
You might check that because on my screen everything looks almost as bright as in WC3.
 
Yeah. Let me update my sound drives while I'm at it. I might not be hearing the colors right.

Be sure and check to see if your eyes are closed; blink a few times and see if anything becomes visible at any point.
 
@t.c.cgi

I didn't mean to insult anyone, I just checked that on my old CRT screen and it is VERY dark there.

Concerning your pictures: Those are pictures of objects that are VERY close to huge reflecting surfaces or bodies (for example earth), or with a very bright light source nearby. Space is really, really dark. Mostly darker than any SciFi depicts it. And of course a lot darker than any picture that was released by any game or mod here.

Also I don't get your sound joke, you may want to explain it to me.
 
Concerning your pictures: Those are pictures of objects that are VERY close to huge reflecting surfaces or bodies (for example earth), or with a very bright light source nearby. Space is really, really dark.

I thought Wing Commander took place mostly in or very near solar systems.

Mostly darker than any SciFi depicts it. And of course a lot darker than any picture that was released by any game or mod here.

I'm trying my best not to sound like a jackass here, but this is the only way I can explain it. It's like you know those sentences but don't understand the artistic concept of why it is as it is.

Science fiction is popularly very bright everywhere because the idea of making cool space warships and having them explode each other is to show it off. It looks to me the Saga team has gotten stuck into some fanwank idea that Wing Commander needs to be more real, and thus the player should be robbed of the ability to enjoy the wonderful artwork in all its splendor. It's like the Saga team is trying to hide something from me.

It's not even like it's super high contrast like BSG and the new Star Trek use where one side is very bright and the shadows are very dark. It's just plain dark all over. It makes me want to not ever play it so very, very bad.

Also I don't get your sound joke, you may want to explain it to me.

Either a joke is funny or it is not funny.

EDIT:

'SAGA is dark' is a tired truism.

I love my dead horses.
 
'SAGA is dark' is a tired truism.

Yeah, I wasn't going to bring it up, but there's more screens than these that are even darker, to the point where what you see are mainly lit windows that look like stars in a blank starscape. http://www.wcsaga.com/images/stories/20100523/2010052304.jpg

It's not my monitor, and I know WC Saga the game will have an options menu that lets you crank up the brightness to a reasonable level, but I just don't really see the point. I get the impression that it's intended to be moody and foreboding, but it doesn't seem like the right place for that. If I made a beautiful spaceship, I'd want people to be able to see it.
 
It *is* dark, and the 2nd picture almost looks like cell shading thanks to the thick black edges. Everything is viewable on my semi-calibrated HP LP2475w though, which is a moderately expensive IPS display.

Most LCD monitors have default settings that are far too bright, so that they'll stand out more against other monitors in a computer store (my monitor defaults to something like 90 brightness, now it's set to 17!). Anyone who uses a modern LCD monitor as-is will probably disagree that Saga is too dark, but they're also probably risking eye damage! Someone with a cheaper (with worse black levels and distinction) LCD that is set up not to be blindingly bright is going to have a hard time with saga.

As far as actual space being bright, that's hard to know. Pictures of space are often touched up to make them look more vibrant, especially shots of distant nebulas and other phenomena. But even assuming those photos are touched up, the reason for doing it is that a moderate amount of contrast *looks good*. Ditto for how most sci-fi series portray space. Is it the most important thing for Saga to do right? Definitely not -- but making things brighter would be a definite improvement.
 
Ok how about this?
Southhampton.jpg


edit: does this forum support lvlshot?
 
...my monitor defaults to something like 90 brightness, now it's set to 17!
I thought I was the only one who didn't like the default brightness settings on monitors. I don't know if my eyes are just sensitive, but most of the time when I'm working, I'm dealing with dark text on white backgrounds, so having the monitor at default settings is far, far too bright for me, even in the office where the lights are quite bright. I only turn up the brightness when playing games or watching videos, when there's not so much white to burn my eyes in.
 
I thought I was the only one who didn't like the default brightness settings on monitors.

Pretty much any serious photo-shopper or graphic artist will turn the brightness waaayyy down. I'm not a serious graphics artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like not being blinded all the same ;)

@scoobydoo

Yeah, that looks perfectly fine in terms of brightness. In terms of the model/texture though, I'm still not digging the accented dark edges on the model itself... kind of adds a cell shaded look to the ship IMO, and I don't think that's what you're going for.
 
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