PA Game Engine - Graphics

This was posted yesterday on the Forged Alliance Forever page.


I understand PA isn't a Sup Com sequel, but I think we have to recognize just how good Forged Alliance looks.
I know that the art style for PA is intended to be entirely different, and that's OK too.

What I am curious about is if the Uber game engine being built right now will be able to kick out jaw-dropping visuals like this?

I'm going to make an assumption here and say, yes, hopefully?
But lots of assets need to be created in order for this to happen, stuff that just can't be "modded" in.

I honestly think, no offense to the artists and model makers of SupCom, that the art style was very boring and very generic.

You have 3 factions:
The UEF, gritty, blue, boxy
The Cybran, cyberpunk, red, spikey
And the Aeon, glass spires, green, finessed

They all use the same technology to make their units, they all have different-looking units that do the exact same thing, and they all use radically different weapons that have the exact same effect. Now that I think about it, SupCom's art style wasn't forgettable because it was inherently flawed, but because the gameplay made the units forgettable.

Compare this to the art style, of say, Warhammer 40k, where yes, all armies have their paradigms (ex. Space Marines boxy bulky stuff, or Eldar smooth exotic and spindly stuff), but each has sub-groups and microfactions that add some variety and help to identify the purposes of certain units.

Sadly PA style is worst (sorry for the model makers). It's all blocky, and I'm unable to make a visual distinction between units.

I won't start complaining anymore on that, but I was really thinking the current units were placeholders. I was quite shocked to learn they are indeed the final models.

Ever sadder, it's the less problematic thing about PA right now.

Culverin, just have to remember that PA is still in its very early stages, its basically just about making it playable and adding the rest of the features in right now, most of the high resolution textures, post processing and FXAA and all the good stuff will be one of the last things to be fully implemented into the game. So remember that there is a long long way to go in terms of graphics, my guess is they will try to aim for as close as they can to the visuals we've seen in trailers and the Concept Arts.

Here is an example of some of the Biomes

.... My two favs here are the Lava and Desert biomes, that lava concept near the bottom is just absolutely stunning!! and I hope the final lava will look exactly like that, that bloom'd effect to POP out the lava intesity, as well as the raised terrain around it, currently really dont like the lava in its current form in the game right now, lava should not be on the same level as the terrain like water.

Then you have this full sized image of the desert Biome

Which looks absolutely STELLA!!!!! to me, this was one of the reason why I got this game, just look at how damn awesome that terrain and post processing is with the bloom? just amazing in my opinion, and this is what I'm expecting the final product to be. Yes completely different artistic design when you compare it to SupCom, but easierly just as good in my opinion so long as they can achieve what they have in their concept designs, and all evidence points and suggests that they can get very very close to that.

Once all the shaders are in, some sexy FXAA etc. I am sure it will look beautiful. I know this is kinda cliche but it's important to focus on actual features at the moment.

As far I see I'm on GTX 780 playing on High, it is not yet perfect but looks promising.

If I understood Jon correctly in the last livestream he said that Steve is currently working on the post-FX and that they aim for modable shaders.

From the last livestream:
Q:'Will modders have access to post-process-effects?'
A:'Yes. [...] hopefully you'll be able to change the shaders and add new ones to the chain.'
(Quotations not guaranteed to be correct)

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.

I don't know anything about graphics tech at all.
And I totally agree, playability > graphics, especially at this stage.

It's like building a highrise.
First you build the foundation, then you build a structure, you add in the different parts like elevators and plumbing and piping before you build walls, paint and the fancy stuff.

I was just wondering if it's something the engine could do?
You guys sound pretty confident, so I guess my question is answered.

If I look at PA graphics now, and I look at that desert biome render, I think, PA will never look like that screenshot, but I will be happy if Im proven wrong. @Culverin, FA looks great, even after so long time. I would give same amount of money to PA, that I already gave, if it were possible to make PA looking as fine as FA, maybe even better with today's technology. But this is not within the current planing of Uber, probably mainly due to ressources, that they have available.

I'm no expert, but I cannot imagine, that the PA engine could make such a realistic look, as its simply not made for it? But pls correct me, if I am wrong.

That full image of desert biome certainly looks nice and Id expect the relase to look something like that or even better.
Compared to that FA vid it still looks a bit like childsplay, but what matters most is the gameplay, if that is right I could live with this style.

I also thought current units where somewhat of placeholders or temporary fills.
On the other hand, its basically an engine, a framework, made for mods. So hopefully there will be a mod that brings on the stunning visuals one would expect from a 2013/14 game.

But its a beta and not to be judged for its looks by now, month to come before relase day.
As thepilot already said, theres far bigger tasks up than some eye candy.

Frankly I think it's telling of just how expensive and time consuming art is. They needed an art style that they could do for 900K and within a year and to me at least it seems they'd rather spend the extra money they might have with the increased amount of funding on providing more content rather than further refining a smaller amount of content.

Mike

I thought both SupComm and FA looked incredible. But I also thought that their incredible visuals were completely lost on me because I spent the vast majority of the time zoomed out so far that I couldn't see any of the details. Sure, PA has a much simpler art style, but considering most play time is spent zoomed out, the work to add the extra details would be mostly wasted. SC & FA also had a much bigger budget, so of course the art is going to look better. They could hire an army of artists to create it all. And PA still looks pretty good as it is.

I still cannot wait until deserts looks like this ingame. with these huge mountains, where you navigate between, but also the amount of detail

Looks freaking awesome. then building on top of these assets as well.

Yes exactly what I think too RMJ. I've actualyl had a few thread posts back and forth with Garat on this exact subject actually on the steam forums, because I find it hard to believe that the came can look anything like this desert biome shot, and he said they could achieve very close to what we see in the concept picture. It was this discussion which made me believe this CAN ACTUALLY be achieved, though he said gameplay wise the condensed mountain biomes probably would be like that as theoretically only aircraft could really move through a terrain like that, but visually you he thinks they can get very close.

I'm still with Kryovow on thinking PA might never look like that, but I hope to be proven wrong because this art style in my opinion is awesome. As good as that video was for Forged Alliance, I've never got the game too look that good, very close, but I think they might have been modded, too much redish pink colours on some of the explosions thats definitely not in the box standard game and some of the textures look a LOT sharper then I've ever seen on max settings.

As a backer, I really feel like this project is on the right track.
It's a brand spanking new engine, 64-bit native.

I don't care about the textures or fancy art stuff, not yet anyways.
It's the mechanics that matter right now and how all the parts fit together.

I must say, when I first saw that Dessert Biome, I squeed, out loud.
But I don't think it even needs to look that good at launch.

I think having GUI assets in place is more important than having the rocks look amazing.

At least in the publishes builds they havent done anything for some time on planets graphics.

I cant see any reason why we cant have sharp quality textures like this, not like this is super HD or anything, but we only have the lowest quality graphics atm, because its not worth it to make better quality before you know what are final.

Sure it might not be 100% like this, but im definitely expecting that kinda quality for deserts and all planets

Agreed RMJ. on the GUI, what exactly needs to be done anyway? seen it posted just a couple times lately, I think its pretty damn okay right now, doesn't really need changing all that much I don't think, whether it was originally only a place holder to being with or not.

Its always good to have pretty rocks
Better the overall game looks, the more you can immerse yourself into the world in my opinion, and everyone likes a really good looking game, this isn't the 1994 anymore where gameplay is the only thing that matters game already has that down to a tee anyway in my book....

If you want to see what kind of graphics are possible with a game that uses virtual texturing, go look at RAGE. In that game they did a high quality offline rendering of the lighting and baked it into the texture. They put details everywhere at no extra cost to fps. Everything is completely unique with no tiled or repeating textures anywhere. You can use the technology to help blend static pieces of geometry into the rest of the world: almost every grass billboard had grass decals in the texture under it.
Planetary Annihilation won't be going as far as RAGE did with realistic graphics but the tech is there if someone wants to use it.

I am very happy that this thread about graphics arised. It is right time. They probably amend it later, now there are a lot of bugs and graphics glitches could get this worse. But I must agree with anybody who is looking forward to great graphics implemented. Concepts are nice. Did you see PA trailer ? Didn't you say WOW, I MUST play this game ? Would you like to see DX 11 worth game ? Around 70% of your sense is visual. And the graphics is inseparable part of every the game. I would like to see the game as much close to trailer as possible (or even better, like the rendered concepts). The principle is important, but the graphics too

Some thoughts...
- as Jon Mavor said, lights in bases in night could look impressive
- orbital laser - why the projectile ? nice beam would be much better
- more noticeable corona around the planets
-...

Question:
Would you like more cartoon style like in trailer or realistic look like Desert concept ? Or mix ?

I

It's the actual standard "out of the box but online" for FA with Forged Alliance Forever. We've updated shaders, particles effects, explosions/debris and textures (and they are updated regularly). Even sounds are in the pipe.

Of course in that video, they are some post-FX on top of that, most of them can be achieved with sweetFX (soon included too) that sharpen the textures and redoing the colorimetry, even it's probably a video effect in the case of the video, but I don't know for sure, you can achieve a lot of with sweetFX (even it's not always playable, only look great on screenshots/videos

It's probably the most horrible user experience I had in years. Probably the worst in a RTS, dune2 included (at least it didn't tried anything it couldn't do - and I've replayed it recently with the in-browser release).

From the random zoom speed to the visual feedback that are... well, just not there or plain wrong (no feedback on selection, constant feedback on clicking, why??), to the very bad decisions (not turning the ctrl-n option on by default), going through the general layout (why doing a defense/... seperation instead of a clear normal/advanced/orbital tabs and separate each layer economy | land | air | defense | attack | with some spaces?).

I currently feel like I fight more against the UI than against my opponent. And I've played some starcraft.