I like what I see from the maps, especially in the raw gameplay footage, I think that they look gritty and colorful, just like the maps of S1. This really shines through with the matte oil splatters on the shiny floor.
The lighting is really cool. The mix of light and shadows adds to the dark-but-not-depressing vibe of the original game. The contrast between indoor and outdoor areas, along with different areas will really shine through.
Cons:
Inconsistent application of lighting makes some parts feel toy-like. This is especially true of the walls in the indoor areas, and all the characters. They look very plasticky and fake, especially set against the realistic ambiance.
The modeling of the characters is inconsistent with the original game. This is true both in their smaller design aspects like color and shape, and also in their overall proportions. The original robots and androids looked tough and menacing, these new ones look like action figures, and the lack of consistent lighting on them makes this look even worse.
The UI looks bad. Not just mildly different, but like, discord redesign bad. Its small and overly detailed and it lacks the perfect functionality that made the original game shine. It also dispenses with the sharp edges of the original font and replaces them with a softer, less gritty typeface. If I were in charge of this, I'd just copy paste the original game's HUD into the new game and call it a day. The new HUD is distracting, and it detracts from the game's positives.
Finally the new weapon art is atrocious, which is a shame because the original art was so good. Due to the way weapons are shown in the game, the weapon art is the players real impression of what the weapon is, and my impressions of the weapons shown (especially the **cough cough, Valorant, cough cough** Judge revolver) was not good. They lacked personality and they looked really boring.
Synopsis:
The new graphics shine in their expansion of the realism of the game, especially that of texture and lighting. The new changes add to immersion and give the same ambiance that makes S1 a great game.
Where the changes fall short is in their adaptation of key elements in S1, chiefly, the Robots and UI. These changes do not fit the original artstyle and they feel soft, as opposed to the gritty, punishing, and tough feeling of S1.
A smart approach to fixing these issues would be a careful comparison of each new element to those of the original game. The things that have the same overall feeling stay, the things that don't go straight to the bin.
It is hard for me to tell till Synthetik 2 upload gameplay trailer. In Synthetik 1, not just the graphic but also many important elements like Sound design, Gameplay, Mechanic, the Motions, etc makes the game so freaking good to play and have fun. I really want to see how S2 going to re-create combat in S1 or taking it to the next level of brutality.
I hope Shrike understand what i meant. S1 staying in so many hearts not just because the graphic. I clear a room in my heart for the Heart of Armageddon to stay. S1 being loved by many cause the game is like Jigsaw art puzzle that have been solved perfectly.
Always a Go for everything Shrike's Team want to do. I just hope they dont "dry drowning" themself because they want to reaching for more players than S1. Forgetting about being a better Synthetik but a more popular game.
3D is cool for trying out various lighting effects, so I'm hoping you're doing that.Other than that... the camera seems a bit too slanted, which isn't great for a game where vision is so important. I'm wondering if the camera will also be adjustable?
(Not entirely sure why you didn't choose Unreal Engine btw)
I think it looks a very smooth transition from the 1st game. Just don't know if will keep the same intensity in the gun fights and difficulty curve too because that is what was so appealing for most of the player base I suppose.
It looked a lot like Ruiner, which is fine, but that low angle of the camera left me a bit confused. I suppose it will be one of those things that you must try for yourself to make sense of it
Personally, I love the new graphic style and art style. I hope that the game will handle coop well, and be optimized for even more chaos on the screen!
I think the transition from 2D to 3D works almost, but is let down by a few settings. This should be rather easy to test out, as I'd say all the 3D models / textures / shading are fine mostly.
Things I suggest you try:
1 - Camera field of view. I think the main reason this looks (imo) more like a "generic top down shooter" instead of "Synthetik in 3D", is the loss of the orthographic / 2D projection look. Try reducing the camera fov to 25% of it's current value and move the camera further away to compensate (so the area covered by the screen stays the same). You should still benefit from the nice shading and 3D assets, but it should feel waaay more like the Synthetik we love.
2 - While talking about the camera, one thing that felt awkward in the short teaser was how sluggish the camera felt. This also meant that the screen content feels rather static, making the action on screen seem more boring than it actually is. Try making the camera more snappy.
3 - Shadows. I think darker shadows might help make the levels more readable. Currently I get the feel that the contrast is too low, and the lighting, shading and shadows blend together too much to produce a visual mush.
Overall I like the idea of transitioning to 3D, but it should still capture that orthographic / 2D projection feel from the 1st game. Keep up the great work! :)
Not the Artist in the team, but a quick point regarding the fov. We tried pretty much exactly that and everybody in the team hated how that felt when playing. It makes everything super flat and especially the backgrounds very boring but still feels very different than S1.
@Taro I see .... and a bit bummed out that didn't work. Anyways, I'm intrested were you'll be taking the look and feel during further development. Perhaps the fov just needs to grow a bit on me.
Love the new Art direction! It looks great! Like a few have stated I'm still missing that feeling of punchy guns and heavy impacts ie. screenshake but it sounds like you guys are working on this already. Tbh I don't really care how "good" the graphics are as long as that addictive feeling of blowing away enemy androids remains intact. Love everything else so far! Oh and a small question that doesn't really matter but it's something I noticed about the old game, will there still be variation in direction and shape/size of oil blood splatters on the floors depending on the on the damage dealt and the direction it was received in? I know it's small but I thought it really added a lot to the satisfying feeling of combat in your last game!
Less ambient occlusion and soft shadows. Reminds me of Warframe overdone unreal engine type stuff. Revising the visuals even slightly with an aim towards the game's more rigid, hard edge, purposefully lacking of anti-aliasing arcade feel would do wonders.
I don't know how to embed images on here, but if you look up Overwatch Training Range images, it looks almost identical from an overhead view in some places :I
The destruction made me cream my pants. As long as the new perspective doesn't make it harder to know where you can/can't shoot around the corner I'm game.
I'm late to the party. Wow, a web site message board, feels so 1999, I love it. :)imho, like any drastic visual change, it'll probably take time for veteran Synthetik players to get used to the idea. I like that it's not just "more of the same," in which case, it would be like Doom II back in the day -- same game with a few levels and a double barrel shotgun :)
I haven't seen enough beyond this short teaser to form a decisive opinion. Currently however I'm inclined to agree with others that it looks too shiny and plastic. Perhaps it's a product of the pre alpha lighting/shading but Synthetik went from a gritty and angular, distinctive and readable 2D game to a generic, blurry and shiny plastic looking 3D game. Maybe this will change as more is shown but so far I'm not really liking the stylistic change.
Honestly, I loved the sharp, angular, oldstyle cyberpunk-y look of the androids in the first game, and I'm hoping to see more of it in this one, and admittedly something about the terrain looks a little.. Plastic-y, but it still looks brilliant, looking forward to seeing more.
There is SO much blue in this map layout. The only thing you can clearly see is the yellow/orange stripe because it the only thing in contrast. Everything else blends in
Wasn't too sure about it when I first saw the trailer, but the video is quite compressed, I think it looks alright on the screenshots. Tho I think the models need some sharp edge normals, for example the visor (and pretty much the whole body) of the android in the trailer seems to have smooth shading around the edges, which just makes it look too round.
Really liking the new style so far, but I expected a much grittier, mechanical look to it. The actual materials and textures look far too soft in my opinion. The model work, though, seems great!
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Here are my two cents:
Pros:
I like what I see from the maps, especially in the raw gameplay footage, I think that they look gritty and colorful, just like the maps of S1. This really shines through with the matte oil splatters on the shiny floor.
The lighting is really cool. The mix of light and shadows adds to the dark-but-not-depressing vibe of the original game. The contrast between indoor and outdoor areas, along with different areas will really shine through.
Cons:
Inconsistent application of lighting makes some parts feel toy-like. This is especially true of the walls in the indoor areas, and all the characters. They look very plasticky and fake, especially set against the realistic ambiance.
The modeling of the characters is inconsistent with the original game. This is true both in their smaller design aspects like color and shape, and also in their overall proportions. The original robots and androids looked tough and menacing, these new ones look like action figures, and the lack of consistent lighting on them makes this look even worse.
The UI looks bad. Not just mildly different, but like, discord redesign bad. Its small and overly detailed and it lacks the perfect functionality that made the original game shine. It also dispenses with the sharp edges of the original font and replaces them with a softer, less gritty typeface. If I were in charge of this, I'd just copy paste the original game's HUD into the new game and call it a day. The new HUD is distracting, and it detracts from the game's positives.
Finally the new weapon art is atrocious, which is a shame because the original art was so good. Due to the way weapons are shown in the game, the weapon art is the players real impression of what the weapon is, and my impressions of the weapons shown (especially the **cough cough, Valorant, cough cough** Judge revolver) was not good. They lacked personality and they looked really boring.
Synopsis:
The new graphics shine in their expansion of the realism of the game, especially that of texture and lighting. The new changes add to immersion and give the same ambiance that makes S1 a great game.
Where the changes fall short is in their adaptation of key elements in S1, chiefly, the Robots and UI. These changes do not fit the original artstyle and they feel soft, as opposed to the gritty, punishing, and tough feeling of S1.
A smart approach to fixing these issues would be a careful comparison of each new element to those of the original game. The things that have the same overall feeling stay, the things that don't go straight to the bin.
Pandering to a greater audience is generally a bad idea, because you'll inevitable get rid of the things that got you an audience in the first place.
It is hard for me to tell till Synthetik 2 upload gameplay trailer. In Synthetik 1, not just the graphic but also many important elements like Sound design, Gameplay, Mechanic, the Motions, etc makes the game so freaking good to play and have fun. I really want to see how S2 going to re-create combat in S1 or taking it to the next level of brutality.
I hope Shrike understand what i meant. S1 staying in so many hearts not just because the graphic. I clear a room in my heart for the Heart of Armageddon to stay. S1 being loved by many cause the game is like Jigsaw art puzzle that have been solved perfectly.
Always a Go for everything Shrike's Team want to do. I just hope they dont "dry drowning" themself because they want to reaching for more players than S1. Forgetting about being a better Synthetik but a more popular game.
3D is cool for trying out various lighting effects, so I'm hoping you're doing that. Other than that... the camera seems a bit too slanted, which isn't great for a game where vision is so important. I'm wondering if the camera will also be adjustable?
(Not entirely sure why you didn't choose Unreal Engine btw)
I think it looks a very smooth transition from the 1st game. Just don't know if will keep the same intensity in the gun fights and difficulty curve too because that is what was so appealing for most of the player base I suppose.
I really enjoy some of the extra effects from the settings menu, I love the emphasis on speed and pace with the time and particle effects especially!
It looked a lot like Ruiner, which is fine, but that low angle of the camera left me a bit confused. I suppose it will be one of those things that you must try for yourself to make sense of it
Personally, I love the new graphic style and art style. I hope that the game will handle coop well, and be optimized for even more chaos on the screen!
Graphics won't matter too much when the gameplay takes the spotlight, for me it's good enough
I think the transition from 2D to 3D works almost, but is let down by a few settings. This should be rather easy to test out, as I'd say all the 3D models / textures / shading are fine mostly.
Things I suggest you try:
1 - Camera field of view. I think the main reason this looks (imo) more like a "generic top down shooter" instead of "Synthetik in 3D", is the loss of the orthographic / 2D projection look. Try reducing the camera fov to 25% of it's current value and move the camera further away to compensate (so the area covered by the screen stays the same). You should still benefit from the nice shading and 3D assets, but it should feel waaay more like the Synthetik we love.
2 - While talking about the camera, one thing that felt awkward in the short teaser was how sluggish the camera felt. This also meant that the screen content feels rather static, making the action on screen seem more boring than it actually is. Try making the camera more snappy.
3 - Shadows. I think darker shadows might help make the levels more readable. Currently I get the feel that the contrast is too low, and the lighting, shading and shadows blend together too much to produce a visual mush.
Overall I like the idea of transitioning to 3D, but it should still capture that orthographic / 2D projection feel from the 1st game. Keep up the great work! :)
Love the new Art direction! It looks great! Like a few have stated I'm still missing that feeling of punchy guns and heavy impacts ie. screenshake but it sounds like you guys are working on this already. Tbh I don't really care how "good" the graphics are as long as that addictive feeling of blowing away enemy androids remains intact. Love everything else so far! Oh and a small question that doesn't really matter but it's something I noticed about the old game, will there still be variation in direction and shape/size of oil blood splatters on the floors depending on the on the damage dealt and the direction it was received in? I know it's small but I thought it really added a lot to the satisfying feeling of combat in your last game!
Less ambient occlusion and soft shadows. Reminds me of Warframe overdone unreal engine type stuff. Revising the visuals even slightly with an aim towards the game's more rigid, hard edge, purposefully lacking of anti-aliasing arcade feel would do wonders.
I don't know how to embed images on here, but if you look up Overwatch Training Range images, it looks almost identical from an overhead view in some places :I
The destruction made me cream my pants. As long as the new perspective doesn't make it harder to know where you can/can't shoot around the corner I'm game.
I'm late to the party. Wow, a web site message board, feels so 1999, I love it. :) imho, like any drastic visual change, it'll probably take time for veteran Synthetik players to get used to the idea. I like that it's not just "more of the same," in which case, it would be like Doom II back in the day -- same game with a few levels and a double barrel shotgun :)
I haven't seen enough beyond this short teaser to form a decisive opinion. Currently however I'm inclined to agree with others that it looks too shiny and plastic. Perhaps it's a product of the pre alpha lighting/shading but Synthetik went from a gritty and angular, distinctive and readable 2D game to a generic, blurry and shiny plastic looking 3D game. Maybe this will change as more is shown but so far I'm not really liking the stylistic change.
It looks great, but the run cycle looks a little weird
Honestly, I loved the sharp, angular, oldstyle cyberpunk-y look of the androids in the first game, and I'm hoping to see more of it in this one, and admittedly something about the terrain looks a little.. Plastic-y, but it still looks brilliant, looking forward to seeing more.
Here is a screenshot that represents the style better, but right now there are multiple day time setups so it varies heavily in lighting
Wasn't too sure about it when I first saw the trailer, but the video is quite compressed, I think it looks alright on the screenshots. Tho I think the models need some sharp edge normals, for example the visor (and pretty much the whole body) of the android in the trailer seems to have smooth shading around the edges, which just makes it look too round.
Really liking the new style so far, but I expected a much grittier, mechanical look to it. The actual materials and textures look far too soft in my opinion. The model work, though, seems great!