Joshi Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 as many new animated movies have proved, it is possible to have 3D charcters come out as 2D. maening whatever way you view them, they will still look and act like cartoons (ei, not so much shading as a fully 3D character, but enough to make it lok like a cartoon.) it is also possible to have 3D environments in the same way. this may or may not work, but i really want the charcters to be 2D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayel Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Originally posted by Jake LUA is just the scripting language they used. I'm pretty sure Grim used this too. Theres not a huge difference between EMI and Grim's engines... I guess EMI used a different model format. I think that's right. EMI uses deformable skeletal models while GF uses segmented mesh linked together... I think where EMI went wrong was with the use of all of those static backgrounds. I mean, it's fine for some moments, like more cinematic conversations, and inside buildings... but... A Monkey Island essential is the single map screen that goes down into the vast really nice multiple-screen-scrolling towns... EMI didn't have anything like that and instead of the vast beautiful screen-spanning towns it did things like try to cram it all onto one screen... yeah ack. By gums! you're right! I didn't notice that before. I remember the harbour in Melee Island (in the first game) and Woodtick had beautiful spanning backgrounds also. It's just the latest game they somehow managed to mess up. Come to think of it GF had pretty static backrounds - could it be a limitation of GRIME? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I'm sure it could be coded in but as it stands I think it probably is a limitation. From memory EMI and Grim never really had scrolling backgrounds they just went to a new camera angle/room/super wide shot. Definately not as nice as Puerto Pollo/Woodtick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemon Head Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 surely to have scrolling backgrounds like those of CMI and MI2, wouldnt you need to view guybrush from the side and pan across with him as he moves? I think that this would give the general effect of playing some kind of dodgy 3D platform game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Bah. Walk around the mansion in Eternal Darkness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormy2021 Posted February 12, 2003 Share Posted February 12, 2003 3D point and click can be done, look at WARCRAFT III and tell me it can't be done.They should have an option to stich between point and click and free walk mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scabb Posted February 12, 2003 Share Posted February 12, 2003 The point and click interface will always be two dimensional. It's almost impossible to have it otherwise. The characters, however, can be three dimensional, as this is easier to animate and makes the game look a lot more recent. 2D games have reached the point where it's difficult to make them look any better, because given time, a photo-realistic game could theoretically be created. However, I don't think that Lucas Arts would ever use a 3D point and click system. The whole point of Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 4 is that you are in control of the character. You're no longer pointing and telling Guybrush where to go, you're actually moving him there. This is what has captured a whole new market, as now its not just an adventure, but a run-around explorathon, which seems to attract more people. I'm not saying that the 3D interfaces are better than the 2D ones, but the 2D ones have had over 15 years to develop. If you look at the first Lucas point and click interface, Maniac Mansion, and compare that to the most recent, Curse of Monkey Island, you can see how the improvement is vast. So it stands to reason that the 3D interface has scope for development, and eventually everyone bar a few will favour 3D, just like most people prefer pointing and clicking over text-adventures now. Which is an extremely loose theory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted February 12, 2003 Share Posted February 12, 2003 it is true that we are basically moving on adn developing our ideas as technology moves us forward. therefore from 2d, we must go 3d, it just makes sense. and yes, the 'taking control' of the charcter has it's advantages, but frankly, this did make things a little difficult. with a mouse, it was easy to sweep over hotspots adn there were only two dimensions it could hjave been in. now with a third dimension (meaning we now have different camera angles to look around at) this makes things a lot harder. now i'm all for a 2D monkey island 5, that would be great. but lets face it, lucasarts are only in this to make money and know that the true fans of the game will buy a 3D version just to play the game and they can bring in more customers with better graphics (as seems to be the style at the moment). so in conclusion, i'm really hoping that they come up with a new and much better story for this. they can botch up the graphics however much they want, but i want a good storyline for the new game, otherwise it just isn't worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemon Head Posted February 12, 2003 Share Posted February 12, 2003 Originally posted by Neil Joshi but lets face it, lucasarts are only in this to make money and know that the true fans of the game will buy a 3D version just to play the game and they can bring in more customers with better graphics (as seems to be the style at the moment). You say that like lucasarts are the only development company to want to make money. Games cost substantially more to develop than they did 10 years ago and these days you have to work a lot harder to end up on the positive side of the ledger. The lack of (good) 2d games recently, along with the myst trilogy has demonized the face of the adventure game, and the only way to allow for more quality adventures to be created is to ensure that they are going to be bought. A fan base is simply not going to provide the collateral needed to cover development costs and maintain adventures as a feasible game type. As a last point, it's all very nice and self-satisfying to say that a game doesn't need graphics as long as it's got gameplay, but those people seem to miss out on the fact that graphics (implemented correctly) add a hell of a lot of atmosphere to any game, which in turn increases the gameplay factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 sorry, it wasn't meant to come out like that. yes, all companies are mainly in this for the money (although i would have to say that people like the writers and designers mainly just get a kick from seeing their work enjoyed by thousands) and yes, it does cost a lot for games to be designed and so they would need to appeal to a wide variety of people. i think this is why it would be a good idea to bring out an MI sequel as they wouldprobably make a lot of money not just from the fan base, but from the general audience as well. so no, i'm not making lucasarts out to be heartless money grubbing fiends, as this is a business and a business cannot thrive without the money it makes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bucket-o'-mudd Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 That must explain why the graphic adventure is never as popular as your RTS or 3D shooters - once you've completed the game there is not much longetivety to it I wasn't really against the idea of 3d graphics. In time it'll be more convincing and atmospheric than the previous 3 games were. I guess keyboard controls will allow an easier conversion of the game to the consoles. I was never satisfied with the maps in EMI. You can't really control Guybrush easily in this mode. Perhaps there could have been arrows on the different places you can get to and you could select these with the keyboard instead of physically having to move Guybrush there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 As I've said elsewhere ¬ ¬ it's also pretty delusional to expect Monkey Island to be anything resembling a cash cow. I mean... its a popular series compared to most any other living graphic adventure series, but on the other hand it is a graphic adventure series, on the pc, etc etc. Theres always the chance that the fifth game, if modernized a bit technically and gameplay wise (while still retaining that classic "monkey island feel" of course), will take off on the console market due to the recent repopularization of 3rd person adventure/platformer, action/adventure, and action/rpg games, but its a slim one, and I wouldn't be expecting LEC to think that they'll cash in on it with MI. Maybe they think they will with FT2 though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 As for 3D island maps, benny, I've always thought they could be free roaming like the first 3 games, and maybe have the camera just get in closer to a location as Guybrush gets near it on the map, and as he gets more out into the "wilderness" area or whatever its called where its just map, pull the camera back out to a full island view. The locking him onto a set path think in EMI was frustrating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 Yeah that could work. Its not the map so much as the backgrounds themselves that I care about. Puerto Pollo and Woodtick were fantastic locations because they allowed multiple locations to mesh together really well and...well...they just looked great. The same sort of idea can be achieved by multiple camera changes but it looses its simplicity, elegance and defeats the point of multiple locations being easily accessible in one location. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicardoLuigi... Posted February 13, 2003 Share Posted February 13, 2003 you guys are brainiacs! i don't get any of this stuff you're saying. it just is going in one ear and out the other. well, not really ear, more like eye and... well... not into the brain? i dunno. i'm braindead. oh yeah, and puerto pollo and woodtick really were cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshi Posted February 14, 2003 Share Posted February 14, 2003 going on from bgbennyboy, yes, that is true, but in todays market, this isn't what people are looking for. they are looking for free roaming and 3D objects to interact with. they are also looking for extremely high graphics and superb sound (orf the skywalker sound genre) which means that whenever it come out, we're going to have to go through about five different upgrades before we can get the start screen on the damn game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jannar85 Posted February 19, 2003 Share Posted February 19, 2003 Originally posted by Jake The first 2 games (especially the second game) weren't very cartooney at all, they were pretty realistically proportioned with a couple exceptions, and I personally preferred this look. I think EMI looked bad because it tried to replicate CMI, or worse, tried to take it even further in the direction of goofy-cartoon look (for instance, every building bulges out like a mushroom from a small bottom to a big top... even CMI isn't this goofy and ridiculous), which is bad for 3D... If they'd instead tipped the scales back the other way I think they could have produced some exceptional results. As for cel shading, I think it should be avoided. Maybe a sort of half-assed cel shading would be good. Some approach that still allows the characters clothing to be detailed and textured, but still draws the nice hard sharp cartooney shadows (instead of the really blurry weird shadows seen in EMI)... yeah. Alright, alright... I meant 2D Stupid me :| Anyway, look at Runaway.. MI5 could be made like that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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