Graphics style

Haha, sokolek strikes again

The Red Alert series is intentionally goofy. That's the great thing about Red Alert. Albeit the only great thing, since it's a standard, non-TotalAnnihilatian RTS.

Seems correct to me, though may you are projecting a negative connotation towards the phrase "toon-ish".

Right, because your personal taste should be the ground truth for all artist, right? :roll:

I can't resist commenting here. I think the majority of us pledged based on what we saw in the KS video but there might be a few of us who have somehow managed to disregard the video and the others that followed (including the live stream).

Many people have already pointed out that the style has been chosen and the video represents the style that the team want to pursue. Realistic is just not an option so what's the point of this poll? You pledged for a concept video and want to change everything about it?

The same is true for many of the other threads. I see a lot of people who clearly haven't played TA (which is excusable and unfair to expect everyone to have done), who are making suggestions that would see the game far removed from the game archetype.

I'm not going to say "if you joined the war at sup com 2 you need not offer input" because that is just wrong and unfair. And IMO sup com 2 does have some things to offer this game. However, we have all watched the videos and we have all heard what the team want to make. So why are we talking about such things?

Personally I liked sup com 2. It was not a better or worse game, just a different game to sup com and FA. In it's own light it was a good game. But aside from the graphical style (which I grew to like btw), I don't think there is much that is applicable from sup com 2 for PA.

Chunky, easily recognisable units that are distinguishable from each other is important in this kind of game. We are talking about the largest armies ever seen here. The units must stand out to allow you to assess the enemy force quickly and accurately as well as to pick out your own units so that you can manage them more effectively. I don't think the graphical style is going to make or break this game. It put me off sup com 2 for a while but in the end I judged the game on it's own merits and really enjoyed it. For that reason the KS video really excited me, where as some time ago I would have thought twice about laying down my money for this game to get made.

To all of you that pledged: I'm glad you put your money in, but I am not sure that everyone who has pledged is going to get what they thought they were getting.

The term "toon shading" (or cel shading) actually has a very specific meaning in the world of rendering. It refers to surface shading where lighting is done with two or three constant shades with relatively hard transitions. Outlines are often part of toon shading, but not required.

Most people use the term toon shaded to refer to any style that is non realistic. This is a constantly changing mark as often older games that at the time may have been considered realistic would now be considered "toony" just because graphics have gotten better.

PA is not toon shaded, the lighting in the video is actually using very realistic photo metric raytraced final gather lighting, it is however simplified and stylized shapes. The lighting in the final game is likely to be much simpler, and the characters may be more detailed (see the concept art we've released this far), but the game will remain highly stylized.

If someone really wants to make a realistic gritty version, that's what the mod tools are for.

They're not. The PA style is excellent.

Let's do a necro bump, because there is a wish that pops up again and again in the "Dust and Footprints and Swirls (layers)" topic: The wish to talk about the style of the game.

There were many off-topic comments in the "Dust and Footprints and Swirls (layers)" topic.
@mod: Could you please move those comments into this topic?
So we can talk about it here.

I think it began with the post from nanolathe -> viewtopic.php?p=720750#p720750 and ended up with my post-> viewtopic.php?p=721245#p721245.

That comes from the backer's forum though. Which this isn't...?

Anyway, I don't care, I like the looks of Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander 1, Forged Alliance, Supreme Commander 2, and Planetary Annihilation. I voted for 'toon', but I have no idea if that's the right one.

All I know is that it looks nice, and that I don't really care anyway.

When I first saw the gameplay visualization I was immediately turned off to the point where I didn't think I even wanted to buy the game.

However, the more I read about the gameplay and how Uber was actually taking community suggestions to heart, the less I cared about the graphics style.

I understand now why it's being done and I think it looks excellent. During huge battles it'll be much easier to run with the lower polygon counts, and I like how reminiscent the style is of TA.

readability > realistic > toon


I want nitty gritty when possibly. But not at the expense of clarity, legibility and icon conveyance.

I'll take cartoony-ness over realistic only if it actually adds something to the game.

This is what PA looks like to me:


It's a win/win of pure awesomesauce.

And below is what "toon" games really look like:


tl;dr - shhhhhhhuddup.

Obviously, some people new to the discussion are going to misuse technical terms, not being experienced or educated.

If I had to make up a word to describe PA's artstyle, it would be "toylike".