Changes from SBCG4AP for Season Three?

[Ashton]

Originally Posted by S@bre

I'd be happy if they were able to make the Season 3 the same graphical quality as the Season 2 trailer, what with all the Phong effects, improved normal mapping, dynamic shadows (would beat those blob shadows) and the lovely reflective shine on the DeSoto. The PC can certainly handle that level of graphics, but I don't know about the Wii. Making all new enhancements to this Telltale Tool thing would go down a lot better in my view than merely transferring the ones from Strong Bad. Something certainly needs to be updated, the Sam & Max graphics are starting to look old.

I dont think you really want those kind of graphics... as I said in anther thread, dynamic rendering takes a _LOT_ longer than rendering and converting to a movie.

I dont know about the TTG engine, but I know rendering in maya if I have a car and 2 characters (no scene) a single frame takes around 30 seconds to render. and I have a 2.66ghz dual-core 64-bit system (running 64-bit OS and maya in 64-bit mode) So unless T3 has a way to produce these effects a LOT less resource-intensive, TTG would be limiting their audience to a pawful of people with near-state-of-the-art systems.

Yeah, would be nice, but not possible just yet... but we can keep hoping I suppose... and like I said T3 may have a way to do this, I'm just not holding my breath

[S@bre]

The effects I described would generally be aimed at running on "high" on a four-year or two-year old system. Many of those effects would run on a medium powered computer if in the id Tech 4 engine or the Source engine. Considering how fast computer tech moves these days, it would be hard to describe that as "state of the art". Of course, I might not really know what I'm talking about, my main experience of this stuff is modding the Source engine, hardly comparable to the knowledge of the actual engine designers.

Personally, I really don't think that Season One or Two looked that great in comparision to what little we saw in-game of Freelance Police, which is why I bring up the possibility of these sorts of effects. I realise that Freelance Police's engine was cobbled together from practically every other engine LucasArts had running at the time (Gladius, RTX Red Rock, Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels and Star Wars: Obi-Wan), and Telltale obviously don't have access to those resources, but the bump mapping and lighting effects look better even four years on.

Compare:


Freelance Police, in-game (note Mac Salmon on the noticeboard)


Season One, in-game

The lighting across the street and from the lamp, the way Sam's suit is bump mapped (makes the current one seem somewhat bland in a direct comparison), the way objects (excluding Sam and Max) have proper shadows corresponding to their light source (the fan's shadow on the wall in particular), none of this is really very well represented in the Telltale Tool engine, and in my view it makes Freelance Police seem more atmospheric. This was four, maybe five, years ago, surely Telltale - who afterall contains people from the Freelance Police design team - can conjure up that sort of stuff again for Season 3. If its resource intensive to do so, well, that's what graphics scaling is for. They can be designed to look good and run well regardless of setting, just better on higher ones - Doom 3 is (surprisingly) a good example for that.

[Jon NA]

Yeah, I`m totally agreed with you S@bre.
I guess TellTale should work a lot on 3d modeling this season.
But I guess this makes episodes size will become near 200MB or more.
maybe the reason they didn't made it like the canceled Freelance Police was keeping it`s size small...

[Harald B]

It's very unfair to make a comparison to a static image only instead of something we can actually run. You have no idea what the resolution is in Freelance Police or how smoothly it runs. Also I'm not particularly convinced these object shadows are real-time, and I'm seeing a lot of what may be jpeg compression artifacts but might also be ugly engine shortcuts.
And if you want to talk atmospheric lighting, at least you could look at some of the better stuff in Bright Side, Beelzebub or even Reality 2.0.

[S@bre]

If the GrimE engine (that's technology that's ten years old now) behind Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island can produce dynamic shadows, I'm sure that the Telltale Tool one will with sufficient tinkering. Since LucasArts were already using dynamic shadows in past graphic adventure games prior to Freelance Police, its reasonable to assume that these too were animated.

And the problems you see are jpeg compression problems. IGN got the image from another source where it was rather blurry, and compressed it to make it clearer.

[RMJ1984]

Only thing i want is more action, Sam & max's world is a wee bit static, i want to have big dust clouds and fights between max and someone and so forth

like so, from 5:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oIBu...eature=channel

[Quuux]

Of the poll options, I dislike the idea of all of them except for the map (or some other fast travel system).

[MaxFan]

The only one I like is the map, too. Or the keys to the car in your inventory to bring up the travel dialogue.

[Some Manner Of...]

I like the car keys idea, Maxfan.

[Mooshiiii]

I dont really care shading or no shading but a map would be awsome because going through all the rooms just to gt to one place becomes really annoying, especiallywhen there is a lot of going back and foth. Also, the icons worked for SBCG4AP, but would the lines are one of my favorite parts of Sam and max.

[RobD]

I'd be interested in seeing in what it would look like with the cell shading, but not sure about using it.

[Yellowtail]

Originally Posted by Harald B

Only four save slots.
I'm going to assume this was because of Wii limitations. Otherwise: what were you thinking?!

If I remember correctly, the PC version doesn't have a save limit.
And map= YES! VERY YES! And Map Club= mmmmhhhRRRREEEEEhhhh!

[Derwin]

Wow, I am surprised everyone seems so intent on the map. I guess maybe it is a good idea, as it makes quick travel easier and is more like Hit the Road.

[Cardcaptor Stacey]

A map would be very useful to quickly travel to places. With the map, you could add lots more places to go Some mini games would be nice as long as they are in good taste. Hit the Road's Car Bomb was hilarious. Games like that would be awesome

[LuigiHann]

I think it'd be cute if they used cartoon shading for a specific scene or location, along the lines of the intro scene to Dangeresque 3 using the "super-real" graphics.

[Hero1]

Yeah the only one I maybe interested in there is the map, but if theres only 2 or 3 locations in an episode its not even worth it..

[Harald B]

Don't underestimate the value of having a map. Remember the walk from Bosco's to the war room and back in 104? Remember how incredibly convenient the setup in 204 was? It makes a difference.

[Lachlan_is]

Originally Posted by Hero1

Yeah the only one I maybe interested in there is the map, but if theres only 2 or 3 locations in an episode its not even worth it..

A map is a little impractical, I agree, I mean, now sam can run anyway and there are more locations kinda like a "hub", eg. Hell Office

[wisp]

Originally Posted by Yellowtail

If I remember correctly, the PC version doesn't have a save limit.

it didn't? i only had four save slots...can you scroll them or something?

anyway, i really liked the icon based dialogue system in sbcg4ap...but season one and two already had the line system and changing that now isn't necessary.

furthermore, the map idea is also nice. i liked it, how you collected locations in hit the road. if might be funny, if you could do that over the whole season...and in the end you have a full map. on the other hand, you can't revisit most of them older ones in the newer episodes, so you'd have to mark them as "solved" somehow.

the minigames and collectibles really added some extra play value or at least play time in sbcg4ap. so did the car upgrades in season two. so, some bonus stuff would definitely be good...

as for the graphics, i want more shading and different lighting. season two introduced some new light settings to old locations, but i want more.
like, for example, have the introduction part be placed at a night setting, but the rest of the episode could take place during the day.
also, different weather conditions would be awesome. i don't know how possible this would be though...

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Harald B

Don't underestimate the value of having a map. Remember the walk from Bosco's to the war room and back in 104? Remember how incredibly convenient the setup in 204 was? It makes a difference.

Did 204 have a map? I guess it had the list of time-cards. That's not really a map, it's a list... but then again the "map" in SBCG4AP isn't a map either, it's also just a list of shortcuts which is presented like a map for comedic purposes. The defense rests.