Project Offset

Yeah, I saw that in a few other places too. Still goes to show what three people (I think) can do with a bit of effort and time.

Hope is not lost yet in making good-looking games with a small team.

The last time I checked they had a publisher, and were hiring people to join the company. The movie they have there is just so awesome. This is one of those projects that while people can say whatever about gameplay, but Im more interested in the tech and graphics.

edit: nm, it says 'very close to having a publisher'

I was blown away that it is only 3 people so far. But with that quality, I wouldn't be suprised if they can recruit more people for the game.

So, first I looked at the screenshots.

Excellent work with shadowing, texturing, and shading. The HDR and specular, not so much. Their glow is overused and as a result makes most of their screens ugly. They've made use of the glows in some of the tackiest ways possible. I hate to break it to you guys, but making a sky a bright white sheet is not good looking. Neither is making characters shine like the focus poitn of a windshield in direct sunlight. So, my overall judgement for the screenshots is low. They have some extremely well done artwork, and then they went and raped themselves with the glows.

So, now I just watched the movie.

The glows. And the lens/sun flare at the end. They screwed up everything. The motion blur is slightly too strong, but other than that I didn't mind it. But the glows were just plain bad. Unfortunate, really. The artists are clearly skilled, as are the developers, but their taste for glow destroys it.

I think that it's a lot easier since they all live in the same apartment together and they also have expierence together as a team since they made savage.

Quote:

Original post by Promit They've made use of the glows in some of the tackiest ways possible. I hate to break it to you guys, but making a sky a bright white sheet is not good looking.

It should probably be configurable for those who still think glow is cool [smile] I myself prefer skies like in Dmytry's volumetric cloud renderer [grin]

Quote:

Original post by Promit The glows. And the lens/sun flare at the end. They screwed up everything. The motion blur is slightly too strong, but other than that I didn't mind it. But the glows were just plain bad. Unfortunate, really. The artists are clearly skilled, as are the developers, but their taste for glow destroys it.

That's your opinion; I personally love the effect that the glow creates. It greatly softens the overall image. In the interview, McGrath showed what the ogre looked like without the specular bloom, and it just didn't look nearly as nice. Also not sure why you feel that the motion blur is "too strong;" I could hardly detect its presence while the game was in motion. All I could tell was that something felt far more natural about the movement in the videos than I was used to.

In short, you're wrong.

I think that the glows are fine but that the reflections off objects are a bit to overdone.

Screenshots looks great (for realtime). By the way, the node editor is much like Houdini's one.

Quote:

Original post by mittens Quote: Original post by Promit The glows. And the lens/sun flare at the end. They screwed up everything. The motion blur is slightly too strong, but other than that I didn't mind it. But the glows were just plain bad. Unfortunate, really. The artists are clearly skilled, as are the developers, but their taste for glow destroys it. That's your opinion; I personally love the effect that the glow creates. It greatly softens the overall image. In the interview, McGrath showed what the ogre looked like without the specular bloom, and it just didn't look nearly as nice. Also not sure why you feel that the motion blur is "too strong;" I could hardly detect its presence while the game was in motion. All I could tell was that something felt far more natural about the movement in the videos than I was used to. In short, you're wrong.

In short, plenty of people thought the lens flare had a great effect too.