TMI lighting & mood enhancement suggestions.
Avast Telltale crew!
I did a few quick lighting "improvements" on a couple of frames of the latest trailer and I was wondering if keylights like that would ever be possible with your engine?
I loved the richer blacks and high contrasty color palette of the 2D Monkey Islands and would love a better lighting model for subsequent TMI episodes (or a gradual, evolutionary improvement towards the target renders I posted)
A lighting model with the ability to attach keylights to characters and switch them off and on inbetween shots, the ability to have deeper shadows, vignette and sillhouette techniques could enhance mood and atmosphere tenfold and help focus the viewers attention in hero shots.
If such a thing is not possible (due to Wii compatibility) I'd suggest heavier usage of post-pro fx and filters. Some of the scenes really could benefit from richer contrast and other tweaks.
What do you guys think?
(this was just grabbed from a youtube version of the trailer, so quality is crude.
I did a few quick lighting "improvements" on a couple of frames of the latest trailer and I was wondering if keylights like that would ever be possible with your engine?
I loved the richer blacks and high contrasty color palette of the 2D Monkey Islands and would love a better lighting model for subsequent TMI episodes (or a gradual, evolutionary improvement towards the target renders I posted)
A lighting model with the ability to attach keylights to characters and switch them off and on inbetween shots, the ability to have deeper shadows, vignette and sillhouette techniques could enhance mood and atmosphere tenfold and help focus the viewers attention in hero shots.
If such a thing is not possible (due to Wii compatibility) I'd suggest heavier usage of post-pro fx and filters. Some of the scenes really could benefit from richer contrast and other tweaks.
What do you guys think?
(this was just grabbed from a youtube version of the trailer, so quality is crude.
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The actual TellTale-Lighting is fine, I adore the gameplay-video
Nevertheless, your editing is very good work!
Generally, there's hardly anything that affects the mood and vibe of visuals quite as much as lighting. For the most drastic of examples see this. In some ways this is a matter of style and artistic choice, in others there's technical stuff, like getting people to focus onto certain things whilst hiding others - such low-poly 3d models, for instance.
Awesome! Posting this over at adventuregamers.com or justadventure and insisting on its authenticity would make people go Hoolaboo quicker than you can cry "sellouts!" flipped backwards three times in a row.
Hey.. anybody in?
Did you say... GTA?!?! Oh, no you didn't... my mistake.
Somehow, deep down I knew I would get a desaturated (cause that's all the Rage with types like me!) lenseflare pron, Gears of War-ish fake screenshot as a response. Oh well. Thanks anyway.
As I said, I think your screenshots are looking very nice, but IMO it just doesn’t fit in the Monkey-Island-Universe.
Somebody should send that to kotaku as a leaked screenshot with the subject: "Telltale addresses fan concernes over lighting and tone" or something similar
Very funny stuff
This should be a joke promo page in a gaming mag
Dude, don't bring the arguments to the TellTale forums, it's bad enough hearing it from you in the MixnMojo forums!
I wouldn't say that... the look of that opening is already quite "epic", so a little more defined key-lighting would really benefit the looks. The visuals are good, no question, but I agree that the overall lighting is a little flat... having a defining keylight would make the image more 3D, and give a little more shape and depth to the objects and characters.
I don't think the idea of this thread is to mock the artists... looks more like constructive criticism to me.
What were you hoping to achieve by posting those? The game is six days from release, being made by a core team of at most two dozen people who are in this because we love telling adventure game stories. While I wouldn't mind having some of the features you point out as being something you can "just" put into the game (PS: "just" is an extremely dangerous word, especially when trying to tell someone else how to do their job), we're a small studio which builds our tech in slow iterations with a focus on internal usability -- nearly every piece of the core toolset is built so that anyone in the company can use it, which is the only way we're able to actually turn around content with such small teams and on the rapid schedule episodic online content needs. For the record, we do have some post processing going on right now (for depth of field and glow/soft focus) but we don't have full screen gamut/contrast exposed at this time.
I know you guys are in crunch phase now.
I love your designs and i love cartoony too, in fact I made several cartoon trailers myself, but cartoony is no excuse for lack of proper backlighting, keylights and other lighting techniques. For a new Monkey Island that is set in the Caribbean with it's harsh sun, shadowy rainforests, magically glowing voodoo nights and thunderstorms at sea an advanced lighting model would help a lot. Just saying.
The stuff and screenshots that I've seen look very nice already, I was just trying to point out further space for improvement in subsequent installments. Maybe stuff that can be enhanced over time.
EDIT: Why did I post these? Maybe my excitement for a new Monkey Island, the game that brought me into this industry has reached boiling point and I wanted to fiddle around with stuff? I didn't mean to insult the work you've done in any way. I know how it is to work within constraints, both time and team. Please take my posts as a suggestion, not an arrogant "My kung-fu is better than your kung-fu" rant!
I do hope these responses from the TTG staff represent their enthusiasm for improving their games, even if they're bombarded by fans' suggestions (non-pro and professional alike).
It's understandable, that you can't update your engine all the time, especially not a few days before the release. But you might consider that stuff for later versions... maybe even later MI-episodes already.
This is the post I was waiting for. Awesome.
I'm pretty sure it's been considered, Laserschwert... Heck, they have noticeably been improving the graphics since Bone. The Wallace and Gromit games look great! And Guybrush's expressions are a huge improvement. I don't really think that this kind of lighting would suit Monkey Island anyway. At the moment the lighting is very much like both Curse and Escape combined and I think that is exactly what it SHOULD look like.
Maybe if they ever make a point and click Gears of War, then they can think about that kind of detail :P But at the moment it is perfect for the cartoony comedic feel of Monkey Island.
It's not just that. We're part of an industry where we have to work under pretty inflexible time/money constraints. As a profession, this is all about making something look as good as you can as fast and cheap as you can. Per-shot lighting would be nice, but even if everyone in the studio decided that new lighting would be better, that doesn't mean it's feasible. Every little bit of work we do costs real money and doesn't necessarily make money.
It's a night scene, how is there such a harsh and strong lighting source just off screen only aiming in one direction?
I think the originals look better.
I know that my "target renders" are hard to achieve, even if you are using SOURCE, UNREAL, CRYENGINE or whatever.
It was not my intent to insult the hardworking folks over at Telltale which do and did an awesome job on their games. I loved Sam & Max!
I just wanted to point out that a more dramatic key- and backlighting would imho drastically improve ambient atmosphere and for a Monkey Island game that is key.
I know my timing for fiddling with TellTale's trailer screengrabs was more than bad. i apologize for that. Good luck with the release and may your engine tech live long and prosper and grow up to have the most beautiful keylighting tools ever! I'm off to play Gears of Guybrush using my monkeywrench to wreak havoc upon unsuspecting ghost pirates!
Couldn't agree more. But this was all worth it for that Gears of Guybrush picture!
Edit: Fine, Laserschwert... sorry XD he did annoy me though...
No need to be an asshole now.
This has caught my interest. How can I get in on the theoretical money?
Perhaps he was only looking for recognition in saying that if it would/would not be possible down the road (with this or more likely, another series) to implement such elements.
I think audiences tread lightly enough around creative professionals when commenting/critiquing their work. I know you fine folks wouldn't want bombardments of "ooh ooh, I think you need this and this!" with 3/4 of the comments pertaining to Guybrush's chin hair, but I believe a little common interest in the things that do matter would be pleasant enough.
Anyone with enough insight and appreciation of how complicated a syndicated animated television series is and the rapid production timelines, would appreciate your company's schedule. In addition to your company being small, I admire the amount of effort that goes into your products. In return I think you should relay the same amount of respect to those who understand this, and not criticize their comments solely off of the system. It is rude to do such a thing. Your responsibility as professionals is to respond in an appropriate matter, and if you need to, post a set of FAQs pretaining to suggestion giving and outlining the issues that cannot be addressed in accordance to either professional obligations or the pipeline your team needs to follow etc.
True, grammar along with word choice is a big issue on the internet. But your team are the professionals and must have enough responsibility to respond in an appropriate manner. Do not take the just's of this forum the same way you would feel obliged from a producer or director's comments.
However, if your team chooses to respond in the way it did and take all fans comments as ultimatums, then I will certainly triple check my posts to make sure that my comments read as non-invasive as possible.
Spending a lot on something amazing but not promoting it at all, is the easiest way to theoretical success.
"Theoretically, I should be MAKING money *sad face*"
OOH.. I've heard the answer to this from other studios.
Step 1. Licence Unreal Engine 3
Step 2.
Step 3. Profit!!!
I'm pretty sure this wasn't the right time