Tales of MI - graphic issues and some examples

[HoppyDragon]

All I did was a few color changes and a bloom filter, and it gives the game just the little extra oomph that it's lacking right now. Although I've said this before, can't remember if it was in this thread or another, from what I've heard from the developers, the screenshots and videos are not from the final version and things could change. I wouldn't expect drastic changes, but Telltale is aiming to please, they're well aware of the harsh critique they're getting, and they've said they listen to all the comments people make. So what we're saying is not falling on deaf ears.

They're made up of people that made all the other Monkey Island games and big fans on the series themselves, so I trust they're pushing themselves harder on this series than they have on the previous ones they've done so far. With every series they release, they include some enhancements, so don't base Monkey Island on Wallace & Gromit. They're probably holding back on us to leave us pleasantly surprised when the game nears release.

[VagrantWulf]

@RockNRoll

That kind of comment reminds me of something I saw in the Oblivion community from quite a few of the younger members when it came to mods.

They'd add in all kinds of mods until they thought the end result looked sweet, and then they shared the screenshots. Oh Gods, the screenshots. Some of what they added might've looked decent on its own, or standing by its own merits, some of it was awful, and they'd just mash it all together regardless. It was painful to see.

There were one or two good screenshots, but you see, these were screenshots from people who understood what worked and what didn't with the setting, they understood cohesion with an artistic representation, what fit the style and what just stuck out like a sore thumb, and they could tell a good idea from a bad one, so that was an improvement.

Now take the Monkey Island ideal as Oblivion, Telltale are the smart kids who understand sticking with the style, and giving things a cohesive, solid look, they don't add things which stick out or look out of place, everything in their screenshots looks like it was supposed to be there.

And then we have those who're doing representations of how the game could be made "better", and they remind me of those Oblivion kids who thought they'd made their game sweet, as opposed to a gut-wrenchingly horrible messy mesh of opposites, interspersed with things that were just plain bad.

Ex: The sand that looks "A LOT better"? To me, that looks totally out of place, it looks like someone dumped a bunch of gravel on a beach and then stuck a chest in the gravel. It looks like gravel in contrast with the other sand, which is yellow and vibrant. You can have one or the other, but the contrast between the two makes the new sand look like gravel. Why would there be gravel there? The end result is that it looks out of place and unprofessional, that's bad art direction.

So no, in my opinion, the edits aren't a lot better, they're much, much worse. But again, there's always going to be those who have absolutely no idea of how art works and they're going to toss any old junk together and think it looks great, just because they don't really know better.

[HoppyDragon]

I don't recall if you ever directly critiqued my changes? I'm just curious on your opinion of them.

[Irishmile]

I think its pretty unfair to say people "have absolutely no idea of how art works" Just because they disagree with the things you like.... Art is not so black and white... what one person thinks is garbage could be in an art gallery next week.

[LukeSW]

For the record, of all the suggestions on this thread, the only modification that I consider to enhance the visuals rather than ruin them is this one:



It's tasteful and subtle, yet it really enhances the "feel" of the environment. If the game looked like this, it might actually be my favourite game in the series in terms of aesthetics.

The others all suffer from the problems that VagrantWulf mentions.

[PariahKing]

I like the colorful look to be honest.

[onemanandhisdroid]

Originally Posted by LukeSW

For the record, of all the suggestions on this thread, the only modification that I consider to enhance the visuals rather than ruin them is this one:



It's tasteful and subtle, yet it really enhances the "feel" of the environment. If the game looked like this, it might actually be my favourite game in the series in terms of aesthetics.

The others all suffer from the problems that VagrantWulf mentions.

Honestly though, this is by far the best looking screenie of the bunch anyway. The trick is to add a bit more depth to the ones where the edges and simplicity of the models are more apparent. Say, this one:


http://www.cynamite.de/_misc/galleri...7/original.jpg


I noticed that there is a brief moment in the W&G demo where Telltale used some depth of field effects, which looked real great. Anyway, I agree that by just adding some filters, adjusting the colors and lighting this could look way less "flat". The ship in the background in particular... there's a lot of visual trickery that could hide the geometrical simplicity.

However, I'm not really the one to bitch about this. Except for Wallace and Gromit for whom a low polygon count didn't matter much, Telltale characters have always been rather edgy, but they made up for that with cool animations. However, particular in screens where the lighting is more colourful and vibrant (like the lighting that eluminates Guybrush and Elaine on the front page), things look a lot more interesting than in the shot above.


edit: Some examples from the game Jack Keane.

http://www.justadventure.com/reviews...JackKeane3.jpg
http://www.adventurespiele.net/Bilde..._Capetown5.jpg
http://static1.filefront.com/images/ruyplkhvkp.jpg

There's also one example that shows what the right lighting can do to scenes that don't look any more complex than those shots from Tales Of MI at all:

http://gameland.com.hr/wp-content/ga...ck-keane_1.jpg


That there's pirates and ships involved too is, of course, coincidence.

[RockNRoll]

Originally Posted by VagrantWulf

@RockNRoll

That kind of comment reminds me of something I saw in the Oblivion community from quite a few of the younger members when it came to mods.

They'd add in all kinds of mods until they thought the end result looked sweet, and then they shared the screenshots. Oh Gods, the screenshots. Some of what they added might've looked decent on its own, or standing by its own merits, some of it was awful, and they'd just mash it all together regardless. It was painful to see.

There were one or two good screenshots, but you see, these were screenshots from people who understood what worked and what didn't with the setting, they understood cohesion with an artistic representation, what fit the style and what just stuck out like a sore thumb, and they could tell a good idea from a bad one, so that was an improvement.

Now take the Monkey Island ideal as Oblivion, Telltale are the smart kids who understand sticking with the style, and giving things a cohesive, solid look, they don't add things which stick out or look out of place, everything in their screenshots looks like it was supposed to be there.

And then we have those who're doing representations of how the game could be made "better", and they remind me of those Oblivion kids who thought they'd made their game sweet, as opposed to a gut-wrenchingly horrible messy mesh of opposites, interspersed with things that were just plain bad.

Ex: The sand that looks "A LOT better"? To me, that looks totally out of place, it looks like someone dumped a bunch of gravel on a beach and then stuck a chest in the gravel. It looks like gravel in contrast with the other sand, which is yellow and vibrant. You can have one or the other, but the contrast between the two makes the new sand look like gravel. Why would there be gravel there? The end result is that it looks out of place and unprofessional, that's bad art direction.

So no, in my opinion, the edits aren't a lot better, they're much, much worse. But again, there's always going to be those who have absolutely no idea of how art works and they're going to toss any old junk together and think it looks great, just because they don't really know better.

The edits were obviously of just small, singled out elements of the picture (like just the sand, or just the water), like I said just samples of an idea, so criticizing the lack of cohesion is really missing the point. To me, I look at them and just see them as better ideas, as good fan art, not necessarily professionally completed.

And I'm NOT an Oblivion kid haha

[LukeSW]

Here's my attempt. I've implemented a bloom filter and a slight blue tint to the image. The top image is the original, the bottom one is modified.



I'm no expert, but I think that it subtly enhances the feel of the image. It's not a huge change, but something like this could easily be implemented by means of a full-screen filter in the game. Personally, I think that Telltale are on the right track, but improved lighting/filtering would take it to another level without requiring a significant amount of work.

They key, I think, is to not go overboard on the filters. They should enhance the visuals, providing a slight feeling of warmth and glow, without becoming a distraction.

[onemanandhisdroid]

Yup, particularly with supposedly photo-realistic art styles I saw this getting a bit overboard. So that all of a sudden what was meant to be a realistic historical war game appears to happen in a fairy land akin to Ridley Scott's Legend. Still, filters like Bloom effects can be taken advantage of, as they can cover lower detailed areas as well. I dunno why Telltale wouldn't do this given their simple geometrics in this case. I took a couple of screenies from Wallace&Gromit which make me quite confident that Telltale know a deal or two about making 3D graphics looking vibrant. But then they ARE professionals.

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That's a great use of depth of field effects!

[LukeSW]

Ypu, Telltale have proven that they know how to make fantastic games - and how to make their games look fantastic. I'm sure that come the 7th of July, episode 1 will be pretty as a picture.

[wezzy]

I trust Telltale more than I trust random guys on the internet when it comes to gamedesign and gameart.

[doodo!]

Some of them are interesting but the intensitiy on some hurt my eyes

[Rebirth]

Originally Posted by HoppyDragon

Jumping on the bandwagon!

nice colore sheme, looks like MI2 too mi^^

Originally Posted by LuigiHann

For the sake of participation, though, here's the same screenshot with photoshop's "poster edges" filter applied to everything except the sky:

wow that looks cool.....it looks like hand drawn.....but it wouldnt work ingame because we dont have static Backgrounds....that dont work in 3D movments it would look strange....

[Toothless Gibbon]

Originally Posted by Rebirth

wow that looks cool.....it looks like hand drawn.....but it wouldnt work ingame because we dont have static Backgrounds....that dont work in 3D movments it would look strange....

Would it? Lots of 3D games use cell shading.

[Irishmile]

Originally Posted by wezzy

I trust Telltale more than I trust random guys on the internet when it comes to gamedesign and gameart.

take it easy no one has claimed they know how to make games better than TTG... I surely didn't. This thread (at least I think) was made to introduce how things could have been done different.... I for one am not going to be posting anymore examples due to this thread having such a hostile tone.

[Edward VanHelgen]

Originally Posted by RockNRoll

The edits were obviously of just small, singled out elements of the picture (like just the sand, or just the water), like I said just samples of an idea, so criticizing the lack of cohesion is really missing the point. To me, I look at them and just see them as better ideas, as good fan art, not necessarily professionally completed.

Yes! Thats exactly what i was thinking of. Its not about sand at all, its about example of a variety that can effect the scene. Its also about some colours, variety of patterns, perspective, distance, or slight animations and textures in benefit of whole settings and scenes. I dont see anywhere that someone posted picture and said - "HA HA! Look, I m better graphic designer then Telltale!"

True, its hard to conclusion something based on stil pictures, and while i agree that in motion its looks different, it doesnt look much different in terms like colour scheme, backgrounds, patterns, sky, water design and so on.

[SurplusGamer]

Wait to see what the final shots look like when episode 1 is released. From what I've heard, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how much polish there is left to do.

[LukeSW]

Originally Posted by Edward VanHelgen

... I dont see anywhere that someone posted picture and said - "HA HA! Look, I m better graphic designer then Telltale!"

Quite right. There's no need for hostility on these forums. This topic is just a harmless bit of fun, and people's contributions don't constitute a personal attack on any of the wonderful artists who are working on bringing us a very pretty new instalment of Monkey Island.

We're just having a polite discussion about the look of the new game, nothing more. I'm sure that no one here - myself included - is making demands or claiming that they can do better than the Telltale folks.

[doodo!]

It all looks good, but if you don't want people arguing with you then don't start a thread by saying the game has graphic issuses and reading them off like a priviileged intellect. I suppose their is nothing to be gained, and there for no sign of you being in direct compition with TellTale games so that leaves only opinion. Using something as a frame of reference to build upon however suggests that you could evolve the concept yourself. To be quite honest I do like the clouds over the sea, and the way you described it was like a true graphic designer would. You have some good ideas, and your work on the sand appears very life like and well done. You could be a graphic desinger and this thread apparently wasn't meant for criticsms on your behalf, but its almost unimaginable that everyone is going to come into this thread without an attitude. So , I don't want to carry on I am just offering insights on the side why I think it blew up, but their reasons more worth considering, than debating. You have good ideas