It may not be immediatly visible to everyone, because this is armor on a horse - it's even a bit silly that everything isn't tied down. But I'll point it out; Watch the front part of the horse armor, and how it bounces as the legs move.

That looks absolutely great, Frogboy, and even if the graphics doesn't improve further (which I in no way would be suprised if they do) that will look great for a 4x TBS.

I'd love to see an armor-less horse for absolute comparison, though.

I can see a big furball scuttle around with a leather armor harness already.

I reserve the right to arm bears.

Looks fantastic.

From the screenshots I've seen so far and that video, I can say that I'm a fan of the graphics. One trend I've noticed with Strategy games over the years is that as graphics improved and complexity increased, the amount of units on screen has reduced. The Total War series is, nevertheless, an excellent example of some large scale combat. The upcoming Empire: Total War looks inspiring!

By keeping the overal graphics simple and compatible with a lot of systems, it frees up a lot of room for the developers to get more units, particle effects and other eye candy/mechanics on screen. While we've not seen the magic and the carnage yet, I'm sure if SD is going for epic battles (careful with the "thousands and thousands of units" statement, it can backfire! *cough Black&White2 cough*) and super destructive spells, a less intense graphics engine would accomodate that. Important to note is also that SD want to have the game work on as many different PC rigs as possible so it always ends up as a this or that equation.

I prefer a more epic game with awesome units, spells and stylized graphics to super realistic graphics but only 10 units to look at.

Having said that, I can't wait for the day when Crysis Graphics + Populus Gameplay combine, but it's not here yet.

I played GC2 for a long while on a sub-spec box, so I avoided the 3D views b/c they could really mess me up. I'm also pretty hung up on the largest maps. But I definitely like the zoomed-in view in GC2 now that I have a box that can handle it, and I suspect Elemental might be a big factor the timing of my next graphics hardware purchase--even though I'm still likely to spend most of my time out on the cloth map level.

Niiiiiiiice. Next video could be one of those paladins with armor, helmet and shield?

Bear Paladins of Pooh, the Honey God!

Wooooo that looks great It really does look like all the individual elements have their heft to them and interact together as solid objects should I can imagine with a thousand such units it will look absolutely awesome!

I'm really enjoying the process of watching the development of this game come along bit by bit, it's really addictive! I just want more more more

The individual pieces of this game keep growing more and more tasty.  I'm confident you guys can pull them all together and make an amazing game.

Looks great

Though I do have one question.  You talk about the physics engine future-proofing the game.  How much more detail could we expect on a higher end system? Or even a future, say 5 years, high end system? I ask this because if you can do fine details such as hair (as in the horses tail moving more like hair), you can also do things like, grass and leaves and other minute details, that can truely bring the entire world to life. If you zoom in on a tree and a breeze blows and the leaves ruffle in the wind in a believable manner, while that may be no more then eye candy, it can profoundly impact the visual immersion for your game.

I'm pretty sure such detail isnt going to be possible with this particular engine, at least maybe not without heavy modification down the road. And even if it is possible the problem then becomes, is it worth the cost?  But I'm still curious to know just how far you think the tech can go with this games engine.

Keep the tid bits coming!

awesome.  What was rendering that?  (I know 3D max doesn't let you move the camura in rendering... at least not the copy I use )  It didn't look like in-game per say, but then you said it had physics on it?

So is custom content going to have the physics automatically applied to it?   I mean that movement on the horse straps could have been scripted for all I know, and if its not, how hard is it going to be for custom user content to take advantage of those physics?

They weren't rendering that with 3d Max or something like that, it was real time, like... a 3d game. Because it is a 3d game .

well, sure.    But that doesn't mean it wasn't in something.  You saw the grid floor right?   What game engine defaults to having something that looks like that?  (well, you could say 'their's does'  but that isn't the point)it looked like the modeling program to me.

First, I can't imagine 3D max won't allow you to render motion shots. I've never used 3D max, but from my experience with other software I imagine you would have to create a new camera object to do so, rather than to use the default. Or possibly play with render settings.

Secondly, there would be no point in having a physics engine if the animations are scripted. The point of Frogboy's post was to show the physics engine in action, not to show Stardock's scripted animation skills. And like Luckmann said, the whole point of using a physics engine is so that the user-designed units will still move realistically.

Although I guess there is a difference between units designed in the unit editor vs. user-made models. I guess if somebody wants to mod in bears and have the physics work well with their bear model, they would have to provide some extra information, like mass.

This looks awesome! I especially like the soft feel of the texture of the graphics, you almost feel you want to pat the horse ...     The only part that could need some extra work is the horse's tail.

Next thing will be to see how the units really moves, when attacking and not least when being blown out of the way by a dragon's breath. This will be as important as the look of the unit, especially when the game is going for the "LOTR Sauron making people fly on the battlefield" look. Would be incredibly cool if it is pulled off well, but could look extremely corny if not done well. We're keeping our faith in SD.