Question for Garat or any dev about Graphics.

Question for Garat or any Dev, All the trailers show off a cool art style, and having played the alpha only since yesterday, it occurs to me that the vids are all done in CGI correct? The game does look similar, but quite far off at the same time, are you guys going to close the gap in terms of what the graphics and trailer look like? I would love the game to look like the trailers, but not sure its possible with the grand scale you guys have planned for this game.

Also, as a side, I bought PA from steam lastnight, havent needed to sign into anything or register anything yet... Should I be doing anything?? I logged in here presumably as I used to play SMNC and MNC.
Many thanks.

Welcome,

I am not a dev, but I can answer the first question at least. You are correct in that the kickstarter video is CGI, but they have said that they are using it as a base for how they want the game to look when it's done. So while you probably shouldn't expect the exact same thing it will be simmilar. Currently in alpha there are a lot of effects that aren't done yet so as far as I've understood it they are working to close the gap.

You should be able to activate your key from the launcher if I remember correctly, that way you will also be able to post in the alpha forums. I think.

From what I've seen I don't there there are any issues as far as Comparing it to the Visualization, especially considering it's the Alpha, where function is the main focus.

Mike

It's likely your steam account was already linked because of SMNC it should "just work" without you needing to do anything.

The graphics continue to evolve, the concept video was a visualization of the game we want to build. The end result will always be different than a concept to some extent.

Not that i'm in the position to complain, because this game is UBER already and i really love the feel of it!

But from my point of view it's abit more simple, it seems that the colours are just a bit different from CGI trailer and the actual game , and maybe a colour filter, but maybe that isn't possible?

I would also LOVE to see the game like the CGI trailer, but if that isn't possible.......it just isn't possible or maybe allot of people like it as it is already.

iirc the gameplay visualisation trailer used incredibly fancy and expensive lighting techniques, currently impossible to run real-time. But the alpha graphics will be improved with postprocessng and other magic to bring it closer to the pre-vis.

Yes, the trailer used 3ds max's final gather rendering which does multiple passes of bounced lighting and ambient occlusion. I hope to have some high end options to have the game look similar, but most global illumination techniques make assumptions about having a fairly static world and special casing the dynamic objects to either be much slower to handle or less accurate. Everything in PA is dynamic.

Not a Dev

Think of the units and buildings currently in game as placeholders to get the mechanics worked out. More than likely in later alpha things will start looking more 'organic' verse the current box world we have started to revert back to in most games. The placeholders though very basic in and of themselves allow more units to be streamed at once with less hiccups in gameplay. (Loads less polygons and textures to worry about initializing)

A lot more is possible than what's currently there. This is an alpha. Much work remains to be done.