XCOM:EU Art style

**babis** · 03-02-2012

Art style for me is effectively 3 separate things: modelling(+animation), lighting and image tone/post-processing.
IMO models are cool, lighting is ok but image tone is a bit too colourful for my taste.
Would be awesome if we got modding access for some of the post-proc part, as that shouldn't be difficult to expose.

**anotherdevil** · 03-02-2012

I think the aliens should look different, but they should all look like they belong on the same screenshot. To me there is just something jarringly off about them...

**SectoidSquisher** · 03-02-2012

That's because the sectoids are basically naked, while the Mutons are clad in armour.

**heniv** · 03-12-2012

I was bashing on the Apocalype art-style earlier in this post. Now I have been playing ME3 and saw a simmilarity.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HgUIgwdtD7...r_Ingame01.jpg (ME3 Collector armour)
http://i34.tinypic.com/jsyhd5.jpg (Aplocalype Megapole Armour)

The concept is really similar, but the execution of idea and the context in witch it is used makes all the difference.

**podtech115** · 03-14-2012

Originally Posted by heniv

I was bashing on the Apocalype art-style earlier in this post. Now I have been playing ME3 and saw a simmilarity.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HgUIgwdtD7...r_Ingame01.jpg (ME3 Collector armour)
http://i34.tinypic.com/jsyhd5.jpg (Aplocalype Megapole Armour)

The concept is really similar, but the execution of idea and the context in witch it is used makes all the difference.

I'm sorry for sounding like an idiot, but what does that mean? I have no idea what you are getting at. They both kind-of look alike, but they have nothing to do with each other.

**apoxwrhthrio1980** · 03-14-2012

i think the art style is great and it reminds me of the intro animation of the original xcom (colors, comic style etc). I believe that if the developers had the tech back then, the graphics would be like this one.

**badoguer** · 03-14-2012

I think the art style is great.

Half cartonish half realistic, in a perfect balance, repecting the original cartoonish concept but not turning in something childish like World of Warcraft.

**Inkidu** · 03-14-2012

I'm one of the few people who likes what's dubbed, "Real is brown", but like anything doing it too much or employing it improperly only detracts, but the same can be said for over saturated color styles, too. Personally, I like the art if it fits. For example. I don't like the art of Fallout. Why? There's not enough of it. However, I love Fallout 3 because there's all this retro futurism in your face.

So I like X-Com: UFO Defense's art style in terms of color, but I really don't like some of the choices for weapons. Most of it looks good and my predominant gripes are with the auto and heavy cannon. They look just a little too cartoonish.

I'm really digging XCom: Enemy Unknown's (2012) art style though. It's got that perfect blend of color and realism. Sure the sniper rifle's a little on the big side, but a lot of the tech and aliens look really cool, especially the mutons now that they've dropped the whole alien-metal workout leotard look.

EDIT: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...y-unknown.aspx

I think this explains some of the questions floating around in the forums.

EDIT 2: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...s-enemies.aspx

Also.

**heniv** · 03-15-2012

Originally Posted by podtech115

I'm sorry for sounding like an idiot, but what does that mean? I have no idea what you are getting at. They both kind-of look alike, but they have nothing to do with each other.

My point: They ☺☺☺☺ed up the art in Apocalypse, items, armour, weapons, soldier looks, soldier avatars and more.
Bioware succeeded in their art of making a Bio-type of armour.

One is aesthetically pleasing and logical, the other one is not.

**podtech115** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by heniv

My point: They ****ed up the art in Apocalypse, items, armour, weapons, soldier looks, soldier avatars and more.
Bioware succeeded in their art of making a Bio-type of armour.

One is aesthetically pleasing and logical, the other one is not.

Well, I don't know about that.

The Collector armour looks like every other sci-fi armour I have seen for the last 10 years, at least. I bet it was made by the same people of Duke Nukem Forever, or Gears of War, or Vanquish, or Quantum Theory, or Rage, or Crysis.... I'm not saying it's bad, it's just I've seen it all before, and it's feels so bland. (But it is better then what we're getting with the FPS xcom.)

As for the Apocalypse Armour: other then just saying 'ell it looks well it looks different ' I really don't know what to say. But! I still think it could have been a good piece of Armour if it was made a bit differently. lo:
http://pics.mobygames.com/images/cov...8260539-00.jpg
http://fc09.deviantart.net/images2/i...apocalypse.jpg
The point is: if we give it a bit of a change, I'm sure it will look just fine.

As for "items, armour, weapons", now your just being a fanboy. Tsk,Tsk

. The weapons (like the Marsec M4000 Machine Gun) it was a cross between 1940s guns, and sci-fi like that of Men In Black guns . So I don't see the problem. The weapons look cool and new.

As for the soldier avatars .... you got me there, it looks bad. (he looks like Dave Lister from Red Dwarf)

You know, you are lucky that you didn't get the guys who made the star control aliens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH57VFpUGj8

Originally Posted by anotherdevil

I just love the line "and the game thinks we should care if the planet gets destroyed" ... I mean, why would humans care if their home planet got utterly devastated. I mean, who cares right? Mum and dad dead? Meh

It's not new. Not in gaming, not in anywhere. In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Earth goes Boom in the first pages of that book, and I care about that, as much as I do for ME3's Earth.

Originally Posted by anotherdevil

As for why the reapers are taking their time... who knows? Maybe that's something we will find out. If they don't explain it, then I'll be disappointed.

Are you disappointed?

**Nosmirc** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by Podtech

The point of showing you all this is because I want the next X-COM (without 2k marin, thanks) to look this photorealistic. When I play an PS4/PS5 game, I don't want to be thinking I'm play a game, I want to be thinking 'Am I seeing a portal into another world?'

I know we've discussed this at length in the past, but I have two words for you. John Carter.

That movie underlines the danger of using every bell and whistle you can find for your product: Your production costs WILL be through the roof. In John Carter's case, Disney needed to make 600 million to break even. Six. Hundred. Million. Just to break even! Fine movie, but you're sailing into a territory where unless you have a massive surplus of money, you're not going to make a profit making products like that. You'll end up having to go down the checklist of "what makes a movie/game/whatever a smash hit?", trying to ensure that you won't be operating on a massive loss.

Basically, if the goalline for being profitable is lower, you have more freedom to make what you want, rather then what the market finds hot at the moment.

PS: That Nivida demo with the elf? Yeah, hair doesn't work that way. Ever. Hello uncanny valley!

**Alucardex** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by Nosmirc

PS: That Nivida demo with the elf? Yeah, hair doesn't work that way. Ever. Hello uncanny valley!

Haha yeah I tought the same thing.
Some of those tech demos are just breathtakingly realistic. For example the SSSS demo: It looks completely photorealistic.

The CryEngine 3 demos however hit some kind of Uncanney valley for me: They look almost realistic... but not quite and that sort of irritates me.

**podtech115** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by Nosmirc

I know we've discussed this at length in the past, but I have two words for you. John Carter.

That movie underlines the danger of using every bell and whistle you can find for your product: Your production costs WILL be through the roof. In John Carter's case, Disney needed to make 600 million to break even. Six. Hundred. Million. Just to break even! Fine movie, but you're sailing into a territory where unless you have a massive surplus of money, you're not going to make a profit making products like that. You'll end up having to go down the checklist of "what makes a movie/game/whatever a smash hit?", trying to ensure that you won't be operating on a massive loss.

ooww yeeah, ouch.

poor John Carter.

But what other option are there? All the games of 2011 were just boring Shooters. And almost all of them had '3s' in them. Where are the RTSs? Where are the sims, and 4x games? (don't answer that)

The problem I hear is that there isn't enough RAM In the consoles. Developers can't try anything new because of it. I think even the guys who are making XCOM:EU said they are having problems too, and had to work hard to keep the destructible environments in.

And some of the tech shown here will be free in the next gen. like photorealistic lighting.

**Alucardex** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by podtech115

ooww yeeah, ouch.

poor John Carter.

But what other option are there? All the games of 2011 were just boring Shooters. And almost all of them had '3s' in them. Where are the RTSs? Where are the sims, and 4x games? (don't answer that)

The problem I hear is that there isn't enough RAM In the consoles. Developers can't try anything new because of it. I think even the guys who are making XCOM:EU said they are having problems too, and had to work hard to keep the destructible environments in.

And some of the tech shown here will be free in the next gen. like photorealistic lighting.

Personally I'd blame the lack of new RTS games on the consoles and their control scheme. Let's face it: It sucks to play an RTS with pretty much any current gen controllers and no developer managed to work out a solution to that problem.

I think with photorealistic graphics we will rather see MORE generic shooters, because thats the genre were graphics count most.

**IllusionOfLife** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by Nosmirc

That movie underlines the danger of using every bell and whistle you can find for your product: Your production costs WILL be through the roof. In John Carter's case, Disney needed to make 600 million to break even.

I have to interrupt our regularly scheduled XCOM discussion to clear up a few facts on this one (since the journalists reporting on John Carter have been less interested in delivering real facts than they have been devouring it like a pack of ravenous wolves). The movie's budget was $250 million. Definitely a very expensive film, but not the highest Hollywood's ever seen. It also had a reported marketing budget of $100 million, which is extremely fishy because all that came out of the marketing campaign was some posters, some trailers, and some TV Spots, without even a speck of merchandising. On the other hand TRON: Legacy's marketing campaign was rumored to be about $75 million and it had tons of merchandising, theme park tie-ins, and a full-blown ARG. So while $100 million may be the official number, I don't believe a word of it.

As for where the $600 million comes in. It's the unofficial, yet universal rule that a movie must make back twice it's budget plus marketing to be considered a bonafide "success", which would mean John Carter would need to gross $700 million in order to even think about getting a sequel. To break even, though, at least officially, the movie would only need $350 million (yes, there's percentages taken out by the exhibitors, but when talking about Hollywood sales figures gross sales are all that matters, no one ever knows how much net profits a movie makes except for the studio accountants).

And if you hear someone calling John Carter the biggest flop of all time, don't believe a word of it. Even if we factor in the completely unrealistic "official" marketing budget, it would have only lost about 20% of its budget. Mars Needs Moms, on the other hand (another Disney effort) lost 77% of its budget. I won't get too much into conspiracy theories here, but the whole thing is just extremely fishy. The change of regime in the marketing department (this being the last film under the old leadership), the horribly overblown and unrealistic marketing budget, the fact that Disney didn't miss a beat to claim losses of $200 million when the film had only been out for 10 days and was doing reasonably well, etc.

More to the point at hand, though, stylized graphics work, especially for something like this where the visuals have to work just as well up-close as they do from a birds' eye perspective. Having a game like this be photo-realistic would be pointless because you'd lose most of that detail from the isometric perspective, and things would be harder to pick out. With stylization you can push things into extremes to make them more recognizable, even at a distance. Also, looking back at the history of X-COM, the games have always been stylized. True, this is probably due to limitations of the technology, but there's still no precedent in the history of the series for photo realism in the games.

**Alucardex** · 04-09-2012

Epic interrupt XD
TBH I never heard of John Carter before. Marketing over here in Germany must have really sucked.

And now for something completely different:

**Inkidu** · 04-09-2012

Being drawn into another world has less to do with graphical fidelity and more to do with imaginative fidelity. Actually, it's better to err on the unrealistic side of the valley because the imagination can fill in the gaps, but the second you go over the edge it's over, immersion is broken.

In fact, I would argue that realism of worlds is more important than the realism of people any day. Look at Skyrim. Nice big, real world, pretty uncanny people. It works though.

**Alucardex** · 04-09-2012

Don't forget the most insane physics i have ever seen in a game: Get hit by a giant and you get catapulted into the orbit.

**Inkidu** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by Alucardex

Don't forget the most insane physics i have ever seen in a game: Get hit by a giant and you get catapulted into the orbit.

Might makes physics. True fact.

**Nosmirc** · 04-09-2012

Originally Posted by podtech115

But what other option are there? All the games of 2011 were just boring Shooters. And almost all of them had '3s' in them. Where are the RTSs? Where are the sims, and 4x games? (don't answer that)

That's the point I'm trying to make. The higher your production costs are, the more you have to ensure your product is a massive success. And right now, there are a bunch of highly successful franchises, which are of the shooter gameplay style. They have to go with what sells very well.

Making things photorealistic is expensive. If you don't need to, or you can pull off a reasonable facsimile that doesn't require the costly assets required for photorealistic, then why do it? Keep your production value lower means you have more options in what you make, because you can hit profit much faster. It's the same sort of thing when it comes to physics. If your game (like this one) doesn't need it, why spend funds on licensing the software for that purpose?

Originally Posted by IllusionofLIfe

I have to interrupt our regularly scheduled XCOM discussion to clear up a few facts on this one (since the journalists reporting on John Carter have been less interested in delivering real facts than they have been devouring it like a pack of ravenous wolves). The movie's budget was $250 million. Definitely a very expensive film, but not the highest Hollywood's ever seen. It also had a reported marketing budget of $100 million, which is extremely fishy because all that came out of the marketing campaign was some posters, some trailers, and some TV Spots, without even a speck of merchandising. On the other hand TRON: Legacy's marketing campaign was rumored to be about $75 million and it had tons of merchandising, theme park tie-ins, and a full-blown ARG. So while $100 million may be the official number, I don't believe a word of it.

Fair enough. I didn't really follow John Carter much, and saw an article in my paper a while ago quoting the 600 mil figure. In any case, it's still was an extremely expensive movie, and as such, it's profit threshold was that much higher. The 100 mil marketing is kinda odd...I hardly heard anything about it. I was surprised when my friends were like "lets go see it, k?", as I didn't even know it was out.

Originally Posted by Alucardex

TBH I never heard of John Carter before. Marketing over here in Germany must have really sucked.

I would said that's surprising, but like I said, I hardly heard about it aside from the odd snippet here and there. Hardly a massive marketing campaign >.>

**Brian Damage** · 04-09-2012

Yeah, Nos' general point of higher budgets pushing entertainment projects into Wider Appealsville to get their money back still stands. That's why I'm thrilled to see stuff like the Double Fine Adventure and Wasteland 2 kickstarters doing so well.

As for recent generation 3D stuff, the elements I'm keenest on at the moment are order-independent transparency (nicer looking transparent elements without having to sort items for rendering so transparent bits render in the right order - basically the pixels are depth-sorted instead and stored in a linked list buffer to be blended in the right order) and the dynamic realtime destruction stuff they've got leveraging the graphics card vector prcessing units.

**BlueBeat** · 04-10-2012

Well, I'll crash this party too.

First, I have to say that I absolutely agree that trying to mimic Apocalypse's art style today would be a complete commercial suicide.

But then... I really liked the creatures from Apocalypse. No, I mean really.

They were just so alien in this whole retro-futuristic, spotlessly clean, chrome-o-rama of a city. It was like The Thing invaded Pleasantville, USA in 2150 A.D.!

Plus, they had a... Lovecraftian quality to them that just wasn't there in the first two games.

Here's hoping they find their way to Xcom:EU through some DLC expansion or something.

**Akinaba** · 04-11-2012

Aliens should be as classic as they could

Didn't read the thread.

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