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On February 19 2010 11:22 yoshi_yoshi wrote:
Yea another thing is that I don't know why they decreased the effect of player colors. In BW every unit except Archon is instantly recognizable as to what team they belong to. I especially appreciated how Zerglings had skin color matching their team color. From the streams it looks like team colors are less noticeable - sometimes in mirror matchups it's hard to tell what belongs to who. Zerg is just 'dark', no real colors.
Because the fanboys over at the Battle.net forums gave feedback to Blizzard that the colors were too bright and that they should tone it down. Blizzard listened to them and this is what we have now.
FYI, those fanboys seem to care little about the spectating aspect of SC2. Most likely, many of them are WOW players and will probably throw SC2 to the side when the latest and greatest WOW expansion comes out. Just read this thread here:
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23307650832&sid=3000
See how many fanboys want the colors to be kept dark?
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On February 20 2010 05:23 milly9 wrote:
People that are saying they see everything clearly, are clearly deluded. Try putting some of the flying Protoss Ships overtop of the Protoss Buildings- now you see it, now you don't! And as mentioned this is quite prominent with Zerg creep.
We're in this predicament because fanboys asked Blizzard to tone the colors down. Now they are TOO TONED DOWN and it makes it hard for spectator viewing - especially ZvZ on creep.
The community has to push back now, especially communities like TL where SC2 spectating is important to our future. We can start with TL beta testers leaving feedback for Blizzard.
IMHO, this is a smoking gun that can kill the SC2 pro scene - if casual viewers can't figure out what's going on, SC2 will fail as a spectator e-sport.
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On February 19 2010 20:44 Kentucky wrote:
The game should have been designed in high resolution 2D with proper art direction and maybe some optional lighting and explosion effects, with an engine that borrowed from original Starcraft to preserve the overall 1 in a million feel of Starcraft gameplay
As an oldchool gamer I am kinda with you here. Just love love love the 2D isometric games. Also gameplay >>>>>> gfx every time. Hell it's even the same with shooters. IMHO UT classic and Q3 are so much better for e-sports than any modern shooter.
Nonetheless I've been thinking about SC in 3D and suddenly Diablo 3 came to my mind. From the video footage I have seen Blizzard has made a much beeter job with D3 in preserving the original game feeling. I instantly get the diablo feeling. SC2 just does not have the same effect. It is a new game resembling some but not all facettes of SC1. Not that I'd say SC2 is bad. But compared to Diablo Blizzard just did a worse job on SC.
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hmm i havent noticed any problems. Ill keep checking.
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i've played ~40games as random so far and i had no problems with visibility. especially zerg is no problem at all, although i can't identify all the buildings yet.
the only time i didn't really see what happened was in a ~120 vs 120 unit supply battle in pvt - in a tight corner of the map.
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On February 20 2010 20:42 Arikuna wrote:
i've played ~40games as random so far and i had no problems with visibility. especially zerg is no problem at all, although i can't identify all the buildings yet.
the only time i didn't really see what happened was in a ~120 vs 120 unit supply battle in pvt - in a tight corner of the map.
hmm maybe spells need to be less juicy in color. Less bright spells maybe?
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On February 20 2010 20:30 XOR3000 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2010 20:44 Kentucky wrote:
The game should have been designed in high resolution 2D with proper art direction and maybe some optional lighting and explosion effects, with an engine that borrowed from original Starcraft to preserve the overall 1 in a million feel of Starcraft gameplay
As an oldchool gamer I am kinda with you here. Just love love love the 2D isometric games. Also gameplay >>>>>> gfx every time. Hell it's even the same with shooters. IMHO UT classic and Q3 are so much better for e-sports than any modern shooter. Nonetheless I've been thinking about SC in 3D and suddenly Diablo 3 came to my mind. From the video footage I have seen Blizzard has made a much beeter job with D3 in preserving the original game feeling. I instantly get the diablo feeling. SC2 just does not have the same effect. It is a new game resembling some but not all facettes of SC1. Not that I'd say SC2 is bad. But compared to Diablo Blizzard just did a worse job on SC.
To me sc2 does resemble more wc3 than original sc and I agree with you about this aspect. It doesn't feel like sc from what I've seen, it kinda fails in that direction. I hope the gameplay will be ok, as the graphics aspect I could ignore.
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I really don't like how they took the green poison effect off the mutas and hydras....
The hydra spines although more realistic is nothing like the original acidic looking spitting animation of SC1...
1. it looks horrible
2. it looks weak
3. IT'S REALLY HARD TO SEE when I view the streams i can't even see the hydra attack... in addition, I can't even see what the hydras are targeting if it is focusing on a target.
Same goes for mutas, there is a bit of green there but still hard to see. anyways... i don't know if anyone has the same thoughts.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
On February 19 2010 23:49 BluzMan wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2010 20:44 Kentucky wrote:On February 19 2010 11:42 Ryoo wrote:
A spectator sport needs to be eye-friendly with a variety of age groups... I don't think adults can keep track of what's happening in SC2.
My father once saw a shuttle/reaver micro vs 3 tanks on a Korean portal site and he said it was amazing, even though he doesn't like games. The problem is that the game is rendered in 3D, which is what I've been warning people about since more than 5 years before SC2 was even announced RTS gameplay is not 3D, it's played on a 2D grid and our minds conceptualize it as a 2D game. Taking gameplay from 2D and translating it into 3D adds a really thick layer of distraction to the human mind and there's no way of getting around it, it doesn't matter how good technology gets The game should have been designed in high resolution 2D with proper art direction and maybe some optional lighting and explosion effects, with an engine that borrowed from original Starcraft to preserve the overall 1 in a million feel of Starcraft gameplay If they did that, SC2 could have potentially been a major improvement on the original Starcraft (expanding the field of visibility with a higher resolution, better 2D graphics and new units and abilities all sound great to me). But they chose to make the game 3D because that's the safer play in terms of profit, 100% guaranteeing that SC2 could not possibly be an improvement over SC1 competitively And I'm not trolling. Trolls don't put thought into their posts, I'm being genuine. SC2 is beyond repair and has been for years, and the only hope is for Blizzard to scrap it and make the very bold decision to pursue designing a 2D game in the year 2010 This is the reason the RTS market is so tiny compared to other genres. It's because of this obligation every developer feels to make every game 3D. It ruins the game in the same way trying to render GTA IV in 2D would ruin that game. The visual element doesn't match the gameplay. There's no fundamental difference in looks for a 2D isometric game and 3D isometric projection camera game. The thing people fail to understand is that 3D doesn't imply perspective. You can use isometry if you wish, it's all camera programming. The difference is in costs and maintenance. SC2 already cost Blizzard a shitton of money, they simply cannot afford 2D development. You argument fails in a funny way because isometry itself is the closest thing to 3D feel that exists in the 2D world. And from the physics standpoint, SC2 is as 2D as SC1 is, height doesn't have any impact on the game (elevation and flight do, as boolean indicators of height, but so it is in SC1, isn't it?), so you're essentially playing on the very same 2D grid.
IMO there are quite a few fundamental differences, such as:
1) Aliasing + small, but highly detailed objects = noise. I think proper use of anti-aliasing is a MUST for a 3D RTS, but as far as I know it is not ever supported in SC2.
2) Perspective, which is present in SC2, constantly changes the perceived screen-space size of the units.
3) Dynamic per-pixel lighting and shading constantly changes the perceived colourisation of the units.
4) (I am not sure how this is implemented in SC2, but it is usually like that in 3D RTSs and looks like shit) Per-pixel z-order comparison instead of per object. The consequence is that in SC1, a unit is drawn either fully beneath, or fully on top of another unit, but never partially here and partially there. For example, a stack of gargoyles in Warcraft 3 looks like a bunch of random triangles thrown together because of the horrible inter-penetration of the 3D models, + Show Spoiler +, but in SC1 units are cleanly overlaid on top of each other so that even in a mess like this + Show Spoiler + you can still easily pick out individual units.
In short, in 2D there is a finite (and very limited) number of ways a unit can look. It is always of same size, in same colours. In 3D, they are rendered in real time, which allows to produce all sorts of fancy lighting&shading effects, plus perspective, which means there is effectively an infinite number of ways the same unit can look. Add the nasty aliasing issues, and in the end it is much more difficult to recognise or "read" a unit.
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I was more concerned about terran units all looking exactly the same (marines/marauders/hellions), but it seems they fixed that for beta. I agree that it's hard to see some zerg units while theyre on creep, but it's not that big of a problem IMO.
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The biggest problem I have is telling different players of the same race apart.
There's simply not enough color per unit... there's too much neutral color area on units that's not governed by the player's color.
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On February 21 2010 01:47 -orb- wrote:
The biggest problem I have is telling different players of the same race apart.
There's simply not enough color per unit... there's too much neutral color area on units that's not governed by the player's color.
Yeah, I agree with this. Even for some Protoss versus Protoss battles, you have to look a bit more closely to figure out which side is which. It's not as bad as Zerg vs Zerg on creep, but definitely, they need to make the units stand out more from other players' units.
Is anybody in Beta leaving feedback about this?
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
On February 21 2010 01:03 Random() wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2010 23:49 BluzMan wrote:On February 19 2010 20:44 Kentucky wrote:On February 19 2010 11:42 Ryoo wrote:
A spectator sport needs to be eye-friendly with a variety of age groups... I don't think adults can keep track of what's happening in SC2.
My father once saw a shuttle/reaver micro vs 3 tanks on a Korean portal site and he said it was amazing, even though he doesn't like games. The problem is that the game is rendered in 3D, which is what I've been warning people about since more than 5 years before SC2 was even announced RTS gameplay is not 3D, it's played on a 2D grid and our minds conceptualize it as a 2D game. Taking gameplay from 2D and translating it into 3D adds a really thick layer of distraction to the human mind and there's no way of getting around it, it doesn't matter how good technology gets The game should have been designed in high resolution 2D with proper art direction and maybe some optional lighting and explosion effects, with an engine that borrowed from original Starcraft to preserve the overall 1 in a million feel of Starcraft gameplay If they did that, SC2 could have potentially been a major improvement on the original Starcraft (expanding the field of visibility with a higher resolution, better 2D graphics and new units and abilities all sound great to me). But they chose to make the game 3D because that's the safer play in terms of profit, 100% guaranteeing that SC2 could not possibly be an improvement over SC1 competitively And I'm not trolling. Trolls don't put thought into their posts, I'm being genuine. SC2 is beyond repair and has been for years, and the only hope is for Blizzard to scrap it and make the very bold decision to pursue designing a 2D game in the year 2010 This is the reason the RTS market is so tiny compared to other genres. It's because of this obligation every developer feels to make every game 3D. It ruins the game in the same way trying to render GTA IV in 2D would ruin that game. The visual element doesn't match the gameplay. There's no fundamental difference in looks for a 2D isometric game and 3D isometric projection camera game. The thing people fail to understand is that 3D doesn't imply perspective. You can use isometry if you wish, it's all camera programming. The difference is in costs and maintenance. SC2 already cost Blizzard a shitton of money, they simply cannot afford 2D development. You argument fails in a funny way because isometry itself is the closest thing to 3D feel that exists in the 2D world. And from the physics standpoint, SC2 is as 2D as SC1 is, height doesn't have any impact on the game (elevation and flight do, as boolean indicators of height, but so it is in SC1, isn't it?), so you're essentially playing on the very same 2D grid. IMO there are quite a few fundamental differences, such as: 1) Aliasing + small, but highly detailed objects = noise. I think proper use of anti-aliasing is a MUST for a 3D RTS, but as far as I know it is not ever supported in SC2. 2) Perspective, which is present in SC2, constantly changes the perceived screen-space size of the units. 3) Dynamic per-pixel lighting and shading constantly changes the perceived colourisation of the units. 4) (I am not sure how this is implemented in SC2, but it is usually like that in 3D RTSs and looks like shit) Per-pixel z-order comparison instead of per object. The consequence is that in SC1, a unit is drawn either fully beneath, or fully on top of another unit, but never partially here and partially there. For example, a stack of gargoyles in Warcraft 3 looks like a bunch of random triangles thrown together because of the horrible inter-penetration of the 3D models, + Show Spoiler +, but in SC1 units are cleanly overlaid on top of each other so that even in a mess like this + Show Spoiler + you can still easily pick out individual units. In short, in 2D there is a finite (and very limited) number of ways a unit can look. It is always of same size, in same colours. In 3D, they are rendered in real time, which allows to produce all sorts of fancy lighting&shading effects, plus perspective, which means there is effectively an infinite number of ways the same unit can look. Add the nasty aliasing issues, and in the end it is much more difficult to recognise or "read" a unit.
I see where you're coming from, but all that is not fundamental.
The truly fundamental difference between a sprite-based and a model-based game is in maintenance - slight tweaks of an animation for a sprite involves redrawing tens to hundreds of pictures, while tweaking a skeleton animation is just adjusting a few skeleton transformation constants. It's ridiculously easier in 3D and that's why you can maintain a much larger amount of game content with the same costs.
Speaking on what you suggested:
1) It's more a question of visual design than 3D. A general rule of the thumb is not showing more than one needs to see - you have to adjust the amount of detail on a unit in respect to the viewing distance of that unit. No matter how much people hate Warcraft III, i don't think anyone would say aliasing artifacts reduce visual clarity there. Units in WC3 generally have exactly as much detail as they need. I do expect Blizz to work alot on their models during beta and I think most of these will be gone by release. We just have to hope that the lead art designer in Blizzard knows what he's doing so he doesn't end up with something like Disciples 3. Games like Warcraft III or the recent King's Bounty look very well and distinct with or without anti-aliasing.
Yeah, SC2 kinda has problems with unit design, but they come from design decisions themselves, not implementation. In SC, every unit has an unique combination of shape/size/color. You don't even need to look at the details because you know that no other unit has the size of a zealot, the generic color of a zealot and the shape of a zealot at the same time. Take Terran infantry, it's NOT a coincidence that in SC they all have radically different colors (gray, orange, white) - they have the same size and shape so color is their main method of distinction. This rule is not always followed in SC2, protoss goes fairly well, but terran infantry and especially low-tier zerg don't do that (see Hydra vs Roach).
Really, shape, size and color are the three things we perceive without focusing our sight on an image. Just make it so that every unit has an unique combination of the three and you will never have to worry about how much detail it has.
Finally, models just have some artifacts that have to be fixed. Zerg have too much specular lighting on them, they are expected to look slimy, but reflect so much light that instead look as if they were made of plastic.
2) Doesn't hurt that much. Didn't hurt WC3, DoW, C&C3 or any other 3D RTS. Even if it hurted, a switch to isometry is possible. You can have any camera you like, even one that makes distant objects larger than closer ones. Besides, how much are proportions distorted, like 5%? 10%? This is not much and I don't think it alone could cause clarity to go down.
3) Valid point. The thing is most 3D RTS did fine with diffuse and ambient light without any dynamic sources. There's not much difference in a fixed source of diffuse lighting and pre-coloring units with the assumption that the light source is at some distant point in space. In my impression, SC2 doesn't rely on diffuse lighting that much, making use of ambient. But you're right about dynamic and omni-lights. Light from explosions and stuff like that is out of place in an RTS, true, thankfully, it's easier to NOT implement.
4) Afaik, Blizzard was making hacks to the game to make flying units not behave like that. It's definitely possible and not that hard to code and maybe it's already done, I need to have some more hang on the game. But it's definitely not a fundamental feature you cannot work around, just need to filter the objects before rendering.
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They could be easier to distinguish, I agree with that. But it's not really too bad.
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On February 20 2010 11:52 StarcraftMan wrote:
Because the fanboys over at the Battle.net forums gave feedback to Blizzard that the colors were too bright and that they should tone it down. Blizzard listened to them and this is what we have now.
Let's not start making stuff up. When the first screenshots and videos of SC2 were released, it was the SC1 hardcore fanbase and especially TL that complained (and rightly so) about everything looking too bright and comic-y. The problem right now is that Blizzard just went too far in the other direction and now a lot of things just look bland and lack contrast. However, I disagree with the notion that the lack of visual clarity is somehow inherent to 3D games.
On February 21 2010 01:03 Random() wrote:4) but in SC1 units are cleanly overlaid on top of each other so that even in a mess like this + Show Spoiler + you can still easily pick out individual units.
You make a couple of very interesting points, but I was really amused that you picked this screenshot to illustrate the visual clarity of SC1. I assure you for people who have never played SC1 or are simply not familiar with its looks, this looks like a complete mess with no logic or order.
[slightly OT rant]
I was also surprised to read that the consensus among SC1 players seems to be that WC3 is really messy and chaotic and it's generally impossible to tell what's going on. I have played WC3 for many years (omg noob, I know, but bear with me) and I assure you I have absolutely no problems with knowing what's going on. However, every time I went back to playing SC1, for the first minutes I was like "wtf is this?". Every time I tried to get a friend into SC1 they just couldn't be bothered because the game looked so messy to them that they instantly gave up trying to figure out what was happening.
Now, I'm not saying that WC3 is easier to follow than SC1. I have absolutely no doubts that SC1 looks much clearer to you guys than WC3. The simple fact of the matter is, that you can more easily and clearly see those things that you are familiar with. This is just a fact. When you spend ten years looking at the same images, obviously everything will seem easily discernible to you because you instantly know what to focus on.
I'm not saying that SC2 graphics are perfect right now, I was just irritated by the fact that you all seem to think SC1 is the be-all, end-all in terms of visual clarity when that is probably not true from a more objective standpoint. [/slightly OT rant]
Now to get to the point: I think one of the biggest problems right now is that a lot of the units are way too desaturated and gray-ish looking, in part because ally colors are not strong enough. In the best case this leads to the fact that units tend to blend in with the terrain and are just difficult to make out, in the worst case the terrain completely dominates and takes over the visual image.
There is just way too much detail on the map textures, cracks and holes everywhere, you hardly ever see a smooth surface. All the glare and noise on the rocky surfaces is not only offensive to look at but also unrealistic. The high level of detail draws away your attention from what really matters and is perceived as visual overload. The worst part is that all of these details are sort of blurry even on the Ultra quality setting.
Also, on some of the tilesets the terrain is way more colorful and satured than the units. This is obviously the opposite of how it should be, because again, this makes it hard to focus on what really matters. Also, some of the doodads like flora are heavily aliased and not really pleasing to look at.
Some screenshots to illustrate these points:
http://www.dmasn.com/1.jpg
http://www.dmasn.com/2.jpg <- Hydras blend in, noise everywhere
http://www.dmasn.com/3.jpg
http://www.dmasn.com/4.jpg
I find that last tileset especially painful to look at. Here's an artist rendering of what I see when I look at that last shot:
http://www.dmasn.com/5.jpg
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Are the beta testers on TL leaving feedback for Blizzard on this issue? TL beta testers should realize the issues with color are very detrimental to growing SC2 as a spectator sport and as an E-Sport.
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In ZvZ on a low quality stream it's pretty hard to tell apart the team colors on many units.
You can tell from the minimap and by the vision around them, though.
For some units it looks fine (Overlord, Corruptor) but those Zerglings and Roaches look all look the same to me.
I'm in my twenties... maybe younger guys have no problem seeing the difference?
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On February 22 2010 02:51 LordLastDay wrote:
In ZvZ on a low quality stream it's pretty hard to tell apart the team colors on many units.
You can tell from the minimap and by the vision around them, though.
For some units it looks fine (Overlord, Corruptor) but those Zerglings and Roaches look all look the same to me.
I'm in my twenties... maybe younger guys have no problem seeing the difference?
No, this is a widespread issue. I think this will severely hamper SC2 as an E-sport and is a huge turn off to the average viewer.
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On February 19 2010 11:40 talismania wrote:
I think we whined so much about the game being so bright and shiny that they went ahead and made it darker and broodier and now it's too hard to see low-res.
Agree. Doing something about zerg on creep would be good though.
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I can now get used to the graphic of SC2 beta after watching more than 20 replays, but I'd say that SC2 in current state is really not spectator-friendly. For me, it's even harder to tell what's going on in SC2 than in WC3 and CnC3/4.
1. Ground units in SC2 tends to cluster when moving, thus they always get too close to each other and the whole legion turns into a confused mass. It would be better if the collision volume of 3D models were a little bigger, so all the units could keep a litter further away from each other.
2. Units are not distinct enough in visual aspect. My friend even failed to see an Ultralisk when it held in zerg base, he could not tell whether it was a building or an unit, what the hell...
3. The color is too dark. I know many blizzard fanboys like darker world, but it hurts spectators if you go too far in dimming everything.
4. Zerg creep: the No.1 killer to visual clarity.
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