Game News Wasteland 2 to have pretty portraits

[Oesophagus]

can you romance him, that is the next gen question

 

[Clockwork Knight]

>comparing concept art to ingame portraits

 

[Ion Prothon II]

I'd also like to add, the 4- bit (16 colors) color images cannot have soul; they get it only with 5- bit palette (32 colors) and higher, and even this is arguable. Some sources say 8- bit (256) is the absolute minimum. Even the Holy Bible says so, but I cannot recall the correct fragment at the moment, so you must just believe my words.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Fucking hipsters. CGA graphics are one of the last graphical things I could feel a sentiment to, no matter what they'd show. 4- bit color, yeah, so fucking vibrant and full of soul. Everything is better than the original. Unless it involves bloom and cartoon style with wrong colors.

How about hiring the guy that did graphics in the Watchmen comic or someone similar instead?

 

[Outlander]

Remember folks, don't express your dislike for something lest you want to be labeled a 'shitposter'.

 

[Kahlis]

I'd also like to add, the 4- bit (16 colors) color images cannot have soul

 

[Morkar Left]

Complaining how shit the new realistic portraits will look while praising the comic portraits of the original while complaining that the ingame screenshot looks to comical and not realitic enough ... only on the codex

 

[Ion Prothon II]

Fucking hipsters. CGA graphics are one of the last graphical things I could feel a sentiment to, no matter what they'd show. 4- bit color, yeah, so fucking vibrant and full of soul. Everything is better than the original. Unless it involves bloom and cartoon style with wrong colors.

How about hiring the guy that did graphics in the Watchmen comic or someone similar instead?

Propably similar as if they bought a licence for CryEngine and hired a small group of 3D pro masters.

 

[General Maxson]

Complaining how shit the new realistic portraits will look while praising the comic portraits of the original while complaining that the ingame screenshot looks to comical and not realitic enough ... only on the codex

Well, FFS, there should be some consistency in the game!

 

[Ion Prothon II]

I'd also like to add, the 4- bit (16 colors) color images cannot have soul

No soul. You can perform the abortion and it won't be a sin.

Wasn't Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday 4 bit? Doesn't get much more heart and soul than that.

They've been trying hard, but still no soul.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

The thing is that Wasteland character graphics gave a pretty strong comic-book/cartoon vibe. It's just a generic digital painting.

Not really.

Complaining how shit the new realistic portraits will look while praising the comic portraits of the original while complaining that the ingame screenshot looks to comical and not realitic enough ... only on the codex

Which person did it? Also there are a lot of Fallout fanboys here which aren't interested in a game similar in tone and mechanics to Wasteland.

 

[Ion Prothon II]

The thing is that Wasteland character graphics gave a pretty strong comic-book/cartoon vibe. It's just a generic digital painting.

Show some fucking respect. Maybe it's a digital painting, but it has an exceptional good quality. Today the generic digital painting, especially those related to computer games looks like that:

Because it fucking cheap and fast and photoshop has those all fucking pencils, so why anybody should do better than this.

 

[UnknownBro]

Looking GOOD, but I can you really say the face is the predominant feature in that picture?
MAN, look at that GUN! It's HUGE!

 

[General Maxson]

The thing is that Wasteland character graphics gave a pretty strong comic-book/cartoon vibe. It's just a generic digital painting.

Not really.

Complaining how shit the new realistic portraits will look while praising the comic portraits of the original while complaining that the ingame screenshot looks to comical and not realitic enough ... only on the codex

Which person did it? Also there are a lot of Fallout fanboys here which aren't interested in a game similar in tone and mechanics to Wasteland.

I just want to say that I am a Fallout fanboy, but didn't the Codex itself vote Fallout as one of the best crpgs ever?

Now, I don't want W2 to loose its soul and become a Fallout clone. For example I consider Wasteland setting even more interesting. Can you imagine walking through a forest of gigantic broccoli? Or through Guardian citadel, and they seem a lot more interesting than brotherhood of steel, which is a "reworked" or copyed idea from Wasteland. I just don't want it to be a parody, because look at the remake of bard's tale. It's shitty. It should have its "quirky" humor but it shouldn't try to be ridiculous. And say what you will but that screenshot looks ugly. And I don't consider original Wasteland ugly, even now, its combat "pictures" look great. And the rest of the game looks good for its time. But I guess I'll have to wait more before bringing "ultimate" judgement about graphics.

 

[Stelcio]

Also there are a lot of Fallout fanboys here which aren't interested in a game similar in tone and mechanics to Wasteland.

What the fuck mechanics has to do with all of this? We don't know too much about them for now, so not that there's something to complain about, even for Fallout fanboys (such as myself ).

 

[PorkaMorka]

I'd also like to add, the 4- bit (16 colors) color images cannot have soul; they get it only with 5- bit palette (32 colors) and higher, and even this is arguable. Some sources say 8- bit (256) is the absolute minimum. Even the Holy Bible says so, but I cannot recall the correct fragment at the moment, so you must just believe my words.

I disagree, although I have trouble understanding your use of the word "soul" in this context.

Good pixel art in EGA games is very impressive to me, since the artist is forced to work within strict limitations. For example, take Lord Soth below. That portrait is adapted from a painting, but the pixel artist had to do some impressive work to fit it into the limitations of EGA. Instead of just making Soth's helmet out of a gray metal color, the author used that hideous EGA turquoise. Yet he made it look damn good, through very careful use of the colors (and lack of color) available to him.

I don't have a problem with using digital paintings (or real paintings) for portraits in games. But it does mean that the art is usually going to come off as rather mediocre.

Artists producing digital paintings (or regular paintings) for implementation into a modern game aren't working with very significant medium based limitations, like the EGA artists were. They're working just like any other artist producing work on commission. The game will most likely be capable of displaying the art that they produce with few changes, aside from the fact that it will probably be re-sized. This fact invites the mind to compare the video game art to regular, non video game art. This is a comparison that rarely comes off all that favorably for the game art. Compared to the best portraits, you'd generally expect game art to be kind of soulless and mediocre.

As such, I wasn't particularly impressed by the Wasteland 2 portrait. But I also didn't find it objectionable, so that is good. They avoided a huge number of potentially irritating cliches, so that is good.

I didn't really expect them to use EGA portraits. Sad to say, that type of video game art is mostly dead. Instead, we just have regular art "scanned" into video games.

 

[Baron]

Where's the moral complexity? Ranger needs a necklace of ears or the buildings behind him set ablaze. I'm outraged, upset and etcetera.

 

[Kahlis]

Good pixel art in EGA games is very impressive to me, since the artist is forced to work within strict limitations. For example, take Lord Soth below. That portrait is adapted from a painting, but the pixel artist had to do some impressive work to fit it into the limitations of EGA. Instead of just making Soth's helmet out of a gray metal color, the author used that hideous EGA turquoise. Yet he made it look damn good, through very careful use of the colors (and lack of color) available to him.

I agree with you completely - low resolution artwork is a bit of a unique trade in and of itself, since virtually every pixel has to convey just the right level of detail and contrast. You can get away with far muddier and ill-defined work at higher resolutions. I don't really have anything negative to say about the WL2 portrait, but one must remember that artists from the era of WL1 were just as much, if more skilled - and generally came from conventional artistic backgrounds rather than strictly video game ones, so they probably had stronger technical foundations.

Surely you've noticed the countless 80's/90's boxes that featured oil paintings for their artwork, for example - and all the LucasArts/Sierra adventure games that had painted backgrounds as well.

 

[Davaris]

I think I prefer the original games portraits... Sure this is detailed and realistic and shit, but it lacks soul.

The colours remind me of Death Race 2000.

 

[kaizoku]

fuck the haters


I love pixel artwork too. But I can appreciate both.
And I'm glad we can (hopefully) finally have a good game with updated graphics.
Was anyone expecting W2 to have pixel art? srly

 

[Stinger]

Looks pretty fucking awesome- if this is how good the portraits are going to look I won't need to bother with custom ones.

I really hope we get the agricultural centre concept art (community voted) soon. I need more Wasteland wallpapers.

 

[Oriental European]

tacticool modern warfare-ready soldier
I wonder how women will look like.

 

[Zed]

tacticool modern warfare-ready soldier
I wonder how women will look like.

probably like the one on the right in this picture. I mean, the bearded guy is basically the same.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Rangers are well equipped.

 

[Whisky]

Hope the other ones look at least half as cool as that one.