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Borderlands PC Gamer Cover
Gearbox just passed along the cover of the PC Gamer issue featuring Borderlands. “The image is an in-game screenshot with no post process,” says Steve Gibson of Gearbox.
Here’s a teaser about the new artistic style from the article.
The new technique uses hand-drawn textures, scanned in and colored in Photoshop, combined with software that draws graphic novel-style outlines around characters and objects, sharpens shadows to look more like something an artist might create, and even draws lines on hills and inclines. Finally the character models were all revamped with more exaggerated proportions, creating the appearance of a detailed comic book in motion.
Personally, I’m liking the new style. It’s fresh and distinct. I believe for a new franchise to do well in a climate like this, it really needs to stick out. This certainly helps.
I am confused though. Why is Gearbox denying the game is cel-shaded? All the images I’m seeing look cel-shaded to me. Is there some nuanced difference in the Borderlands process from cel-shading? Or are they just worried that the "cel-shaded" tag will turn people off the game because it sounds too cartoony?
exagerrated proportions?
hmm, hope that does'nt turn sour
cel shading is a process where you flatten an image into simple colors and patterns -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel-shaded_animation
We have outlines, and we have a stylized look, but we aren't using the cel-shading technique at all. Cel shading results in a very flat 2D world. We've gone in the opposite direction, making things pop out into a deeper more 3D feel.
So yeah, it's a pet peeve for many computer artists that most people see outlines and a hand drawn feel to the art and say "ah! cel shading!" when it really isn't. Cel shading flattens the world and makes it very very cartoony. This is more like playing a graphic novel that moves.
I also hate it when people say "irregardless" and "I could care less".
My brother hates when people let the fork scrape their teeth.
Here's a fun story... fun to me anyway...
Oh, quick disclaimer - this is talking about behind the scenes terms used in design. None of these terms are used in the game and all these terms are invisible to the player.
Okay, story:
In the game, I set up all the weighting rules for everything. We named the rarity levels COMMON, UNCOMMON, and RARE with the intent of adding more as needed. So we found that for health/cash drops we needed "VERY COMMON". Then with a few super rare items we needed "VERY RARE".
But then we ran into a problem with the gap between UNCOMMON and RARE. So I added "UNCOMMONER".
Coder/Engineer response: "Uncommoner?!? Are you kidding me? That's not even a word."
"Yeah," I said, "But you know instantly what it means, so it works."
Very Common, Common, Uncommon, Uncommoner, Rare, Very Rare.
We all have our peeves.
p.s.
To reiterate, these terms are only for design and code balancing in the background. They don't show up on screen ever.
looks like a paw or something like that to me
anyone else guess?
In the future you only NEED 1 key!
MMmmmmm technology.
Someone else gets it! If people know what it means and no existing word is available to describe it, there's no reason that it can't work. Except mine was outlandish so there was no possibility with an existing variable. My only gripe with Uncommoner is that you may subconsciously read Uncommon. I just hit the two outermost keys on each side of the keyboard to make qwpo, then changed that to make quopu so it could easily be spoken. It'd be very difficult to confuse quopu with Uncommon, no?
So what are they calling their "new" type of animation?
Really, really excited about this now we have a details in-game scan!
Does anybody know when this issue is released in the UK?
Don't think we have much to worry about regarding the exagerrated proportions, the first screen picked up saw a rather slender look to the character and this screen shows rather a bulky guy that would be big in real world standards but on the whole he isn't massive.
Also looks like his hands are being held together with bolts....That must hurt!
"Animation"? I wasn't aware animation had different names... TF2 uses the same type of "animation" that L4D does. But the renderer is radically different.
Thanks for the writeup Hellface, saves me the time =)
My 2cents on Terrain rendering. From my experiance you get more leeway with character rendering than terrain rendering. Graphic novels generally try to imitate realism as much as possible for terrain rendering, or often put a heavy gausian blur on the background scene to mask obvious line art. In games it's even more important, because the way the scene is rendered effects heavily how the player perceives depth. Even the Strobel edge on the characters will confuse a little bit if it's too blatant, but the effect is magnified several times for terrain, expecially while moving fast, for example, while in a vehical, or while flying a jetpack (I don't expect jetpacks, but a few games I like have them and the example just came to mind). I'm sure if it degrades play it will be caught in playtesting, but I'm just gonna recommend an eye is kept out for it =)
The latter, worried the Cel-Shaded tag will turn people right off.