I've been waiting for Diablo III for a long time. And I have to say that while the gameplay looks to live up to everything I've hoped for, I'm thrown off by the lack of grit in the visuals.
I do actually work as a professional visual effects artist, and the WoW style, low poly 3D is so unflattering for the artwork. Couldn't we use some Displacement or Normal Mapping at least.
I don't think there is an easy solution to the problem. The 2D work of Diablo 2 ended up being gritty because it was imperfect, pixellated, kinda LoFi.........it felt genuine...and a bit underground. How to translate this into a fully 3D environment will be challenging. But it needs to be done, the world of Diablo needs some dissonance and chaos, more contrast, grain, and crushed blacks.
It's hard to put into words really...its just lacks the epic feel......try harder on this one Blizzard...the right materials/shaders will take this game from great to AWE-INSPIRING..
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*cringe*
It looks like a 1995 N64 game...
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I do actually work as a professional visual effects artist, and the WoW style, low poly 3D is so unflattering for the artwork. Couldn't we use some Displacement or Normal Mapping at least.
I don't think there is an easy solution to the problem. The 2D work of Diablo 2 ended up being gritty because it was imperfect, pixellated, kinda LoFi.........it felt genuine...and a bit underground. How to translate this into a fully 3D environment will be challenging. But it needs to be done, the world of Diablo needs some dissonance and chaos, more contrast, grain, and crushed blacks.
It's hard to put into words really...its just lacks the epic feel......try harder on this one Blizzard...the right materials/shaders will take this game from great to AWE-INSPIRING..