[Zocky]

It's not colors that bothers me so much, i expect them to be quite saturated, it's the texture itself..it just doesn't really look like a leaves to me at all...looks like a mess of something....and the lighting on it seems a bit weird...

for example:
http://web.physik.rwth-aachen.de/~me...l/imgp0254.jpg

It looks very saturated and contrasted lighting too, but you clearly see very single leaf there on the trees very nicely. On r2 trees....if you shown me the leaves alone, i would never gueesed it it was leaves texture...that's what i mean.
Kinda like leaves had alpha-test, and not alpha blend to start with. And like they used some sort of randome noise texture or something like that for the leaves .

On the other hand, water does look awesome to me.

[Nisarg]

http://web.physik.rwth-aachen.de/~me...l/imgp0254.jpg

It looks very saturated and contrasted lighting too, but you clearly see very single leaf there on the trees very nicely.

No, that's not what I meant by saturated. In your example, look at the colour of the leaves. And then look at the colour of the leaves in the screenshot. You'll see that the leaves in the screenshot look impossibly green. I've never seen any leaf look that green. In fact, in the screenshot, compare the green on trees to the left to the green of the vegetation hanging from the ruin on the top right corner of the screenshot. The green on most of the vegetation is overkill and should be toned down. In Photoshop, it would be done by lowering the saturation of the offending texture. That is what I meant by saturated.

In your example, the saturated stuff is actually due to sub-surface scattering. That's all right. But in Risen 2, the texture itself is very saturated even if the sub-surface scattering shader is contributing nothing to it.

On r2 trees....if you shown me the leaves alone, i would never gueesed it it was leaves texture

Of course you'd have guessed it correctly. What else do you think would be that shade of green?

Kinda like leaves had alpha-test, and not alpha blend to start with. And like they used some sort of randome noise texture or something like that for the leaves .

Now that you mention it, the leaves do look a very unusual type to me. I'm not sure if I've ever seen such leaves. But with a colour like that, it's a wonder you even noticed the details.

EDIT:
I tried some tweaks on the screenshot in Photoshop, and I think that apart from lowering saturation by about 20%, you also need to make the leaves yellowish (again 20% or so change in Hue), and darken them a bit.

If it's perfectly fine with the mods, I'd like to upload it (scaled down though, because it would take a LOT of time to upload).

[Zocky]

well yeah, the colors do look like they have very saturated green...Maybe that's the problem of lighting.....if it's in shadow, it can't be THAT saturated i guess...especially if you compare one on the right, bottom part, with the leaves on top, right part, that are very desaturared....

But it's the shape of those tree leaves that bother me way more that the colors...
But man, that water looks totaly awesome...

[SlamDunk]

GDC 2012 screenshots pack.

[Bild: risen2-all-all-screenleu41.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screen4uutq.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screenjpuj4.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screenawuph.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screenrxuct.jpg]

[Bild: risen2-all-all-screengfuhb.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screen4pu63.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screenv2uqg.jpg] [Bild: risen2-all-all-screenzmusr.jpg]

[Nisarg]

In many cases, the sleeves appear to be very tight fitting though they shouldn't be. Steelbeard is an exception.

Also, I've noticed it before but never asked, what on earth are those weird black spots on the sand? And, I think that there's something rather wrong with the normal map of the water. Either that or the shader.

In the second screenshot, what are those horizontal lines in the distance? (The distant water near the upper sail on the forward mast)

The third screenshot looks very good, if one ignores the blurry distant vegetation.

The fourth screenshot has a very good atmosphere. But we see an animation problem - NH doesn't grasp the shovel or even touch it.

In the fifth, the fixed torches don't seem to contribute to the lighting at all. At least in Risen, we had lightmaps in which the fixed torches figured. But the general atmosphere looks nice.

In the next screenshot, the guy with his back to us seems to have twisted his neck in an odd way. More importantly, NH doesn't open his mouth while breathing fire.

In the seventh screenshot, the tribal warriors at the back look good. But the 'old' guy's left hand clips through his sleeve, which looks downright odd. Also, his face looks quite young, the only things suggesting that he is old are his thin arms, and his white facial hair. But the beard still manages to look odd, and the white eyebrows look like they're painted over black ones. Still, his clothes look very nice.

In the next one, the rope knots on the bridge don't look like knots at all. Also, not only does NH's hand clip through his sleeve in a royal way, he even seems to have aimed the shot with his right eye. His right eye, by the way, is the one which is patched. Also, animation bug - the swords held by Patty and the two mooks clip through their hands. But since they seem to have held their weapons properly in other screenshots, I think the problem lies with the sword and not the animation.

And I think that the ghouls in Risen looked better than their equivalent in Risen 2. But that's just a personal opinion.

[Aetherian]

In many cases, the sleeves appear to be very tight fitting though they shouldn't be. Steelbeard is an exception.

Also, I've noticed it before but never asked, what on earth are those weird black spots on the sand? And, I think that there's something rather wrong with the normal map of the water. Either that or the shader.

I think it's intentional and not a problem with the shader, they probably want their beach to look something like this. Or this.

[Maladiq]

Also, I've noticed it before but never asked, what on earth are those weird black spots on the sand?

Dead shells, leaves etc.

And, I think that there's something rather wrong with the normal map of the water. Either that or the shader.

I for one think this is the best water in a PB game we have seen. As for the distant line, I think that might just be the distance draw lines.

he even seems to have aimed the shot with his right eye. His right eye, by the way, is the one which is patched.

I loll'd.

[Nisarg]

I think it's intentional and not a problem with the shader, they probably want their beach to look something like this. Or this.

Dead shells, leaves etc.

But black spots in the sand? Shouldn't they be textured like stone or pebbles or something instead of looking like inexplicable black blobs?

I for one think this is the best water in a PB game we have seen.

I don't know, it just looks a bit odd to me in screenshots featuring the ocean. Oh wait, I noticed the problem. In these extra large screenshots, the water doesn't reflect anything but the sky.

[foobar]

But black spots in the sand? Shouldn't they be textured like stone or pebbles or something instead of looking like inexplicable black blobs?

Of course they should. But the textures should also have a low memory footprint for the console. Guess what took precedence.

[Nisarg]

But surely grey would be a more suitable colour? Why black?

[foobar]

But surely grey would be a more suitable colour? Why black?

Probably because black explains why there is no visible structure in those spots. It is just so dark (volcanic stones or whatever) that its surface structure is not recognisable. If they were grey, you would need to see a stone texture or something. A spot of plain grey looks even more ugly than a spot of plain black.

[Nisarg]

Wasn't there some PR talk of the PC version having higher resolution textures or something? Or is the ground texture even more low-res than this in X360 version? Besides, the texture doesn't look so low-res that they would have to resort to black blobs. The smallest black spots are quite small, so they could have pebbles instead.

Why all these discrepancies in PB graphics? I mean, they have some nice high-poly barrels side by side with some really low poly 8-sided barrels. And then they have these blobs on the ground everywhere. By their own admission, the game uses DirectX 9 only and not DirectX 10 or 11, so tessellation is out of the question. And given the frequency of all these bulges, doesn't it look like that the ground is at least as high poly as the clothes? Wouldn't normal mapping those blobs have been way more efficient than having such a high-poly ground? Heck, they could even go for parallax mapping if they want that slight parallax effect.

P.S. By high poly, I don't mean the absolute polycount (the level mesh is huge compared to character models) but the density of the polygons.

[foobar]

Wasn't there some PR talk of the PC version having higher resolution textures or something?

There was also PR talk about the pirate theme not being cliché. And how did that turn out?

And given the frequency of all these bulges, doesn't it look like that the ground is at least as high poly as the clothes? Wouldn't normal mapping those blobs have been way more efficient than having such a high-poly ground?

I think the problem is not the poly count of the mesh but simply the resolution of its texture. Even a high poly model with tessellation and whatnot look crappy if you slap a low-res texture on it. Thing is, textures need to be stored in VRAM. Of which the PS3 has only 250MB total and the Xbox360 512 MB shared with normal memory. That was about medium to low end for PC graphics cards over half a decade ago.

[Nisarg]

I think the problem is not the poly count of the mesh but simply the resolution of its texture. Even a high poly model with tessellation and whatnot look crappy if you slap a low-res texture on it. Thing is, textures need to be stored in VRAM. Of which the PS3 has only 250MB total and the Xbox360 512 MB shared with normal memory. That was about medium to low end for PC graphics cards over half a decade ago.

The point I wanted to make was that if they used 'low-poly' ground mesh instead of making those black spots stand up, most people wouldn't notice it at all. I mean, why do they want to use such high-poly sand if they don't put a high-res texture to match?

And then, they could use a higher LOD switching distance so that the popping plants and vases wouldn't be so noticeable (at least a vase materialising 10 metres away is not as disturbing as a vase popping 5 metres away). While also increasing performance in general. And yet to optimise the rendering, they drastically reduce the polycount of half the barrels in the world.

[lightchris]

Those black bumps were also a thing which immediately struck my eyes. Even if they needed to be done in this low quality due to limited RAM (which i doubt, there has to be a better compromise, look at other games), they just should have left them out completely after noticing that it doesn't look right. Problem solved.

I pretty much agree to all the other things Nisarg pointed out about the screenshots. Though it looks quite charming overall, there are a lot of things which could be improved. You just notice that the production value is not as high as in more expensive blockbusters.

[Demonium]

The water looks bad. Its extremely transparent like there is no sky to reflect...Risen 1 water looked much better IMO
The vegetation couldnt be worse...Badly made textures and tree models...
And the view distance is very limited, looks very blurry and generally looks like shit...

Some textures in the same picture look detailed and fine, wile other look bad and low resolution...

[Maladiq]

And the view distance is very limited, looks very blurry and generally looks like shit...

Just wait until you'll see it without DoF

[Nisarg]

Just wait until you'll see it without DoF

Is there much difference (except aliasing)? I wouldn't have thought that DoF would make much difference on textures THAT blurry.

[Aetherian]

Just wait until you'll see it without DoF

Is it better or worse?

[Maladiq]

Is it better or worse?

A lot better. DoF never looks good in a game.