Metroid: Blue Minerva

[Lunaria]

Reminds me of what I see out of bounds in WoW. :p

[Waker]

Reminds me of what I see out of bounds in WoW. :p

lol.

It is relatively low-poly, but then again, it's a map worth the size.

I can't smooth any more or I lose the geometry. Things are supposed to be ragged and rocky. It's natural.

[Lunaria]

Actually, if it was natural you would have cracks everywhere and not make the slopes such even. :p

Also, when are you going to make objects to place in?

[Waker]

Now.

:V

[Waker]

DOORS.

DOORS, I TELL YOU, DOORS!

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[snarfblam]

Looks cartoony.

[Waker]

Updated.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Hopefully it doesn't look cartoony any more.

[Katelyn]

Looks low-res.

[Waker]

Deal with it.

[Waker]

Mucking with texturing is FUN!

[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]

These aren't final.

EDIT: 11:07 PM.

OPEN UP WINGS 3D.
CREATE A 4096x4096 TEXTURE.
NOISE FILTER.
GAUSSIAN BLUR.
ALL OF THE ABOVE X10
48 MB TEXTURE
RAGETRAIN
???
This.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Hiroshi Mishima]

Slightly goofy or cartoony-looking graphics I can handle, and anyone else here should be able to as well. We're talking 1 guy with maybe a couple friends on occasion, not a whole gods-damned company with unlimited resources. For a fan-made game, especially one of the scope implied, I'd say graphics of this caliber are perfectly acceptable. As someone else said, it's more about the gameplay (and the storyline, at least for me). If you can achieve a stable style of look/design through-out the map, I'd say you succeeded.

I actually think this reminds me of early 3-D computer games, so that's a plus right there for you. I can't really provide much more input than that, and saying that the current Landing Site in that last update for it you showed us looked really nice. Landing on some remote cliff or elevation leading into the first area seems like it'd make perfect sense.. keep the ship out of the way of hostiles and give a nice little view of the surrounding terrain.

Oh, just noticed a third pic in your last post. If the little tiny door we're seeing at the bottom is what it'll look like.. that's fucking beautiful and shouldn't need to worry too much about it. :D

[Waker]

Slightly goofy or cartoony-looking graphics I can handle, and anyone else here should be able to as well. We're talking 1 guy with maybe a couple friends on occasion, not a whole gods-damned company with unlimited resources. For a fan-made game, especially one of the scope implied, I'd say graphics of this caliber are perfectly acceptable. As someone else said, it's more about the gameplay (and the storyline, at least for me). If you can achieve a stable style of look/design through-out the map, I'd say you succeeded.

I actually think this reminds me of early 3-D computer games, so that's a plus right there for you. I can't really provide much more input than that, and saying that the current Landing Site in that last update for it you showed us looked really nice. Landing on some remote cliff or elevation leading into the first area seems like it'd make perfect sense.. keep the ship out of the way of hostiles and give a nice little view of the surrounding terrain.

Oh, just noticed a third pic in your last post. If the little tiny door we're seeing at the bottom is what it'll look like.. that's fraking beautiful and shouldn't need to worry too much about it. :D

Haha, thanks, Hiroshi.

It's really a tough choice in terms of graphics. Yeah, gameplay is cool and all, but if the visuals aren't even remotely appealing then I doubt people will want to look at it long enough to play it.

I'm doing this by myself, by the way. No help on my part. I'm also doing it with rather low-poly resources, so I try to squeeze the best out of this engine and toolset. That door took a while to figure and iron out, same with the cannon. And with the landing site, it was a bitch to get that down to 8,000 polys. There's no shortage of rendering capabilities with this low-res of graphics, which I'm thankful for. It's about compatibility for me while maintaining presentation!

Oh, and that door is this in-dev shot.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[snarfblam]

That door looks better, but it would look even better in the landing site.

[Crashtour99]

It's really a tough choice in terms of graphics. Yeah, gameplay is cool and all, but if the visuals aren't even remotely appealing then I doubt people will want to look at it long enough to play it.

Sure graphics are nice, and it's important to make it look pretty, but think about how many people are addicted to Minecraft.  I'd say that right there is proof enough that graphics come second to gameplay, cause if it's not enjoyable people aren't gonna give a rat's ass what it looks like.

[Lunaria]

Minecraft does not have high res graphics, true, but it has GOOD graphics and a nice art style. So while I play minecraft for the gameplay, the graphics DO matter for me. If it had shit graphics I would not play it. =)

[Waker]

Exactly.

While I'm not aiming for crysis-level, I'm keeping shit relatively small (that texture map is only about 4-5KB) and compact, while looking nice.

[snarfblam]

Crash, with something like Metroid graphics really do matter. They might come second to gameplay, but not by much. The graphics need to create atmosphere, which is very necessary to make the game fun. The original doors weren't that horrible, but something too cartoony can pull you right out of the game. It's not really about graphic detail, but consistent style.

[Crashtour99]

I think we're actually all agreeing, aren't we?

...it's important to make it look pretty...   ...graphics come second to gameplay...

All I was trying to say was basically, as long as the gameplay is there, I don't think people are going to mind slight reductions in graphics quality.  Of course you want it to look awesome, but not at the cost of playability.    :wink:

[Zero One]

I will agree that graphics come second to gameplay. I've played many games with fantastic graphics, but the gameplay is so horrible, I won't go back to it.

However, I also agree that graphics shouldn't be too far behind gameplay either. Like it was said, it needs to create the correct environment for the player to be enveloped in the game.

The stuff I've seen so far is fantastic. I think you'll have no trouble creating the correct feel. Good luck  :grin:

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I guess I'm just weird, then.. which wouldn't surprise me much, I suppose. I am more than willing to put up sub-par graphics if everything is fine, otherwise I wouldn't still play half of the games that I do. Hell, I hate to bring it up, but compared to many other games that came out around the same time, Final Fantasy VII has horrible graphics, yet it's got tons of somewhat strange fans who feel it's arguably the best game in the series... which is laudable, at best.

And we can't exactly forget that MZM had rather cartoony graphics, too.

EDIT: Not saying this has cartoony graphics, I think that was someone else who brought it up. I'm just saying that at this point in the development, we shouldn't be worried about the quality of some early development areas insofar as graphics are concerned. I personally kind of liked that smooth arm cannon from earlier, but had not seen this topic in time to voice my opinion.. which might've been drowned out anyways, as happens on occasion. :p

[Qactis]

And we can't exactly forget that MZM had rather cartoony graphics, too.

It did?

[snarfblam]

It did?

More so than others. The backgrounds looked like something out of a comic book, as well as the cut scenes, and many parts of the game are very saturated. The cartooniness didn't appeal to me, but it was applied judiciously and consistently, so it didn't really detract from the game. If you're going for a realistic look, putting something cartoony can irk the players because it looks out of place, especially something like the doors, which the player will be seeing in every room (though the last image for the doors looks okay).

[Waker]

This is Metroid.

Realism isn't through the roof.

I'm going to design the game the way I want to from now on. Cartoony or not, I'll be the judge of that.

Don't like it, don't play it.

[interdpth]

It did?

More so than others. The backgrounds looked like something out of a comic book, as well as the cut scenes, and many parts of the game are very saturated. The cartooniness didn't appeal to me, but it was applied judiciously and consistently, so it didn't really detract from the game. If you're going for a realistic look, putting something cartoony can irk the players because it looks out of place, especially something like the doors, which the player will be seeing in every room (though the last image for the doors looks okay).

>Implying 2D games look real and not cartoony

[Qactis]

Last time I remember peple were ripping fusion and mzm graphics and putting them into Super Metroid because they thought those games had cool graphics, and as dark and realistic as super metroid looked in comparison it's a wonder people were putting in the gba games' graphics and it still looked great after a palette change. So uh, come again?

Edit: There you go waker