What needs to change(graphically) and why.

[Nicol Bolas]

Nicol, are you a programmer?

Yes.

I find it funny that in the block of text above you answer your own question in the first sentence :P applying a noise (very small texture file and blurring it) would give the illusion of bounce lighting.

No, it wouldn't. It would create random illumination in a shadowed area that a person might mistake for indirect lighting. However, it has no relation to actual indirect lighting.

No.. so we fake it so it looks like we are reproducing reality but in actuality it is something far more simplistic. Its not real, the rules are made to be broken.

No, but the good rules are at least a legitimate approximation of reality. clamp(dot(N, L), 0.0, 1.0) * C may not be exactly how light diffusely reflects from a surface, but it is a valid approximation of that. There are other, more accurate approximations that can be used, of course.

Randomly throwing a noise function into lighting isn't an approximation of anything real. It's just a hack.

Again the idea isn't to create a Terran army that looks like those images but to invoke the same feeling of mystery and intrigue as those images I posted.

There are several things wrong with that.

1: Those images don't evoke mystery and intrigue.

2: Your additions do not invoke mystery and intrigue.

3: Your additions do not invoke the same feeling that those images do.

Everything I say you seem to take literally.

How should it be taken? You post a number of images with "corrections" on them, but you don't actually want them the objects to look like that?

[ZealotPowerade]

I find it funny that in the block of text above you answer your own question in the first sentence :P applying a noise (very small texture file and blurring it) would give the illusion of bounce lighting.

No, it wouldn't. It would create random illumination in a shadowed area that a person might mistake for indirect lighting. However, it has no relation to actual indirect lighting.

I rest my case. :P
Glad to see you agree with me while somehow still managing to argue with what I said. :P I consider this debate over good sir.
Illusion of bounce lighting? yes. No relation to actual indirect lighting? yes. Looks like indirect lighting? yes.

[The_Blade]

Lighting could easily be fixed, and there are more ways to portray the terrans into looking better. I agree with you ZP on that some lighting effects could make terrans look far more realistic and cooler, but sometimes, you have to sacrifice stetic issues to survive. As an example, if you have mirror like metal as your base, wouldn't it flash around saying "attack me"?

And also, cool is a subjective term to use...

[Nicol Bolas]

Illusion of bounce lighting? yes. No relation to actual indirect lighting? yes. Looks like indirect lighting? yes.

You clearly missed the word "might". Now read it again. A person might mistake it for indirect illumination. Or they might mistake it for a broken rendering system.

[protoswarrior]

What good is conveying an idea if it cannot actually be implemented?

What good is complaining about new ideas then, if it won't change any outcome of personal preference, nor will it change anything at Blizz HQ?

Why are you posting Nicol if your overall attitude towards this subject is nothing but "what's the point?"

You need to be a little bit more understanding imho. Criticizing is not a bad thing in itself, but doing so with you current attitude is. The guy put some effort in showing us new ideas for the art side / aesthetic side of the game, and he seems quite knowledgeable about the world of CG, so back off a little with the "holier than thou" attitude k?

I don't oppose you in most threads Nicol, because you make good points, but here you need to rethink your angle, respectfully.

Thumbs up to your POV, however. Opinion is subjective.

[ZealotPowerade]

You clearly missed the word "might". Now read it again. A person might mistake it for indirect illumination. Or they might mistake it for a broken rendering system.

Thats why its up to the artist to implement it. So that it does look proper. What your saying is just as silly as saying that you shouldn't paint any highlights or shadows into your diffuse texture. I will say it again, it doesn't matter how you arrive at the end result if it looks good. At the end of the day a pixel is a pixel. No one cares if the lighting model is accurate or not. This is why artists are paid to make art and programmers are made to create tools for the artists. We artists end up using your tools in ways that you never intended but it still looks dam good.

[Triceron]

Having taken a look at a lot of the textures in the game, they already have painted shadows in the textures that fake lighting. If you turn off all the lighting in the game, you see only the Color textures. It's simply a matter of painting in more shading and highlights.

This will of course affect the look of the end result if you add in the spec maps and normal maps, but there should be the option of using a color map that has all this stuff 'baked' into it, so it at least looks like its high-res counterpart. This makes the low end stuff look less like Warcraft and more like Starcraft, and it'll help pop out the buildings even on high res settings.

Fears of looking like Unreal? Give me a break, please. This isn't a matter of adding more greys or browns, it's a matter of contrasting the shadows and highlights. The game looks too 'warcraft' as it is, even SC1 had more contrasting values than what we have right now.

[Nicol Bolas]

What your saying is just as silly as saying that you shouldn't paint any highlights or shadows into your diffuse texture.

I'm against that too, and it's 100% wrong the moment the lighting direction is different from the one that the texture artist painted on it. That's why we have bump/normal maps now; so we don't have to deal with those kinds of hacks.

No one cares if the lighting model is accurate or not.

Yes they do. Because an accurate lighting model will always look correct. Whereas a hack may look correct to some and not to others, or look correct under certain conditions but not others, etc.

This is why artists are paid to make art and programmers are made to create tools for the artists. We artists end up using your tools in ways that you never intended but it still looks dam good.

I've written artist tools before. And when you "end up using your tools in ways that you never intended," it's always up to the programmer in the office at 3:00 am to fix the subtle problems this created in order to ship the game on time while you're home blissfully asleep.

but there should be the option of using a color map that has all this stuff 'baked' into it, so it at least looks like its high-res counterpart.

It'll look awful if you have, for instance, a day/night cycle. Or just lighting in different places on different maps.

The beauty of 3D is that you can put anything into any environment. Thus, the artistic challenge of 3D is making things look reasonable in any environment. That necessarily includes giving up a degree of control over the finished product.

[Triceron]

While you're right that more modern techniques would use diffuse maps (color) that are as flat as possible to make the most out of lighting, SC2 doesn't indicate this at all. Take a look at any texture in the game, and you'll see there's highlights and shading painted in. They still use a lot of oldschool techniques to fake lighting.

You can still have light and shadow painted onto a model that is intended to be seen from mainly one angle. There are many techniques to do this, ranging from hand-painting to baking lighting from a top-down angle. Even with ambient occlusion baked into the texture map you aren't going to disrupt dynamic lighting very much.

[Rizhall]

High quality metals, especially military grade, tend to not reflect as much light unless it reflects from a VERY specific angle.
If there's light reflecting at a lot of different areas, or it looks very "metallic shiny", then chances are, the quality is not that good.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7NYExymQkB...ane%2B(17).jpg

VS

http://www.sz-wholesale.com/uploadFi...Kettle_600.jpg

Technically, Blizzard is doing it the right way.

Also, I think the Archon needs a complete overhaul. I'm not digging the dinky handshake attack or the fact that is has clothes for it's body.