GalCiv III visuals

Published on January 28, 2014 By Frogboy In GalCiv III Dev Journals

So yesterday the art team gave me a tour of the new rendering technology being used for GalCIv III. If you’ve been with us for many years, you know that I’m not a graphics guy. I drew the original OS/2 version “art” myself with the built in OS/2 icon editor. As you can imagine, that means I have only a little understanding of all the cool stuff they’re doing.

To me, I thought the GalCiv II ships looked pretty good. But the art team cringes when I say that. I am intimately familiar with DirectX, Mantle, OpenGL and the other technical side of things. But I’m a lot less familiar with how different features affect the beautification of a game. So I’m just going to tell you some of the stuff in the engine and you tell me (And other clueless people like me) whether it’s cool or not…

GalCiv III 3D engine features

First off, the game will require DirectX 10 minimum. Ships are made of many different types of materials which the player can control in the ship designer. The materials affect how light interacts with them. The lighting in much truer in GalCiv III than in GalCiv II making the ships look more real (not real as in photo realistic but less like computer graphics, GalCiv III still has its own surreal art style).

The Ship Designer is expected to export your ship designs as FBX files which should pave the way for lots of interesting things being done to them outside of GalCiv.

The ships reflect what is around them. So for instance, you can see the reflection of nebula and such on reflective surfaces. They are also in the process of implementing diffused point lights which should result in ships “popping” more on the screen because the light affects the ship much more realistically than traditional harsh directional lighting.

Now, how much of this gets in by the Alpha remains to be seen. Currently, my opinion is that the ships look better than GalCiv II but not spectacularly so but we have over a year to go on that aspect so by the time we ship, they should look amazing.

Was anyone here in the GalCiv II beta? Remember how sad the game looked? The alpha of GC3 will look far far better.

Comments (Page 3)

DreadLordQuark

on Jan 31, 2014

Hi this is fabulous that you export FBX files. What is the licensing regarding the exports ?

I`m an hobbyist game developer (Unity3d). As a coder with little 3d modeling experiance (allright none) a space ship models run me about $5. While the price is right the model is generally over sold and over used (appearing in many indie games). Being able to export a custom designed models to my projects would be super.

Hell, Gal-Civ for Android / IOS here I come.

Anyhow here are some requested features from a mobile developer pov.

Simple textures. An option to use an alternative "simple" texture
Texture reuse. An option to reuse textures (for all models)
Simple Models. The ability to reduce poly count would be nice
Lighting and reflections. Not needed or wanted for mobile.
Sprites. The ability to export a 2d bitmap of the ship from your desired camera angle (3/4s, overhead, ect). This would be really cool not only from a mobile pov, but also a web one. I could see this aiding in the creation of fan websites and th

DreadLordQuark

on Jan 31, 2014

Flamescreen

on Jan 31, 2014

Tridus

reply 30

There's been talk about the AI harvesting designs used by successful players, which means this should be somewhat alleviated.

That would be awesome.

Ericridge

on Jan 31, 2014

GalCivius

reply 29

FBX export is certainly a nice feature for anyone familiar with 3d modelling. Good news for me

(Ericridge: you need a 3d modelling software that can handle the FBX format. Professional Autodesk stuff like 3ds MAX will work, but it's very expensive. There are alternatives tho...) edit: no idea why this line appears as hyperlink...

One thing I hated in GalCiv2 was that the AI was able to make even the nicest ship design look ugly by placing weapons and other components in absurd sizes and positions onto it. If something could be done to remedy this it would be great.

About the UI: I always found the bright white/greyish frames of windows and other UI elements a bit annoying, esp. in contrast to the mostly dark galaxy and also dark UI backgrounds. Not sure whether it's too outlandish to ask for a solution that allows to player to customize that too (I mean easier than via that Stardock Win UI software - forgot the name)?

Finally I'd still be curious whether the leaders seen during negotiations are pre-rendered vids aas in GC2, or real-time rendered 3d models (that maybe can be FBX-exported too?)

Alright thank u.

SF1 Raptor

on Jan 31, 2014

Tridus

reply 30

Quoting GalCivius, reply 29
One thing I hated in GalCiv2 was that the AI was able to make even the nicest ship design look ugly by placing weapons and other components in absurd sizes and positions onto it. If something could be done to remedy this it would be great.

There's been talk about the AI harvesting designs used by successful players, which means this should be somewhat alleviated.

Ok.That'll be cool.It'd be neat to fight one of my Raptors.

matrix_v

on Jan 31, 2014

Tridus

reply 30

There's been talk about the AI harvesting designs used by successful players, which means this should be somewhat alleviated.

The moment at which you see fleets of your own design bearing down upon your empire is the moment at which you know you've done both something right, and something horribly wrong.

chuck1es

on Jan 31, 2014

Egads. I'm going to need to get a new computer.

For one game.

This reminds me of the 486 days.

psalmy

on Feb 01, 2014

I am so glad you guys are taking the UI seriously. After playing SC2 and customizing my hotkeys there, GalCiv II hurts me !

Please let us create custom hotkeys, even if it's just through editing a .txt

satoru1

on Feb 01, 2014

psalmy

reply 38

I am so glad you guys are taking the UI seriously. After playing SC2 and customizing my hotkeys there, GalCiv II hurts me !

Please let us create custom hotkeys, even if it's just through editing a .txt

Every once and while I start up ALpha Centauri for kicks. The game still is awesome but GOD TEH UI IS SO GOD DAMN TERRIBLE. Some 'retro' stuff really does need to stay dead. And UIs of the past is one of them.

Ericridge

on Feb 02, 2014

jim_viebke

reply 36

Quoting Tridus, reply 30There's been talk about the AI harvesting designs used by successful players, which means this should be somewhat alleviated.

The moment at which you see fleets of your own design bearing down upon your empire is the moment at which you know you've done both something right, and something horribly wrong.

I like your comment lols.

admiralWillyWilber

on Feb 02, 2014

I think that we need to be able to right click planets for our build Que's. Smarter ship and improvement build Que's.

If you want to be able to make an avatar without nonething more than windows please visit this post https://forums.galciv3.com/450709, and leave a comment when you are done.

Tridus

on Feb 02, 2014

Yeah, some of the old UIs are really bad. "Fun" is subjective and eternal, but UI has taken major leaps forward.

Sanati

on Feb 02, 2014

I hope the player colored glow we see in the first screenshots isn't changed. I really liked how that looked, and I'd hate to see it removed because somebody wanted to make the ships more shiny or whatever.

satoru1

reply 20

DX11 would more or less force users into Windows 7 or Window 8.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Vista supports DX11. XP only goes up to DX9. Either way, DX10 or DX11, Vista or higher is required.

Tridus

on Feb 02, 2014

Sanati

reply 43

Quoting satoru1, reply 20DX11 would more or less force users into Windows 7 or Window 8.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Vista supports DX11. XP only goes up to DX9. Either way, DX10 or DX11, Vista or higher is required.

The bigger issue is people on 7 with DX10 but not 11 hardware. Vista isn't supported as an OS by the game, although it's possible it'll work.

It will require a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or 8 along with a DirectX 10 or 11 compatible video card. There will be no 32-bit version. Most PC gamers in 2013 have this kind of hardware, and it allows us to create the best game possible for the majority of our customers.

Misaniovent

on Feb 02, 2014

I would politely caution you guys to avoid the mistakes you made as GalCiv II evolved from the base game to TA: equating complexity with quality. A lot of the parts and textures grew busy in an attempt to improve them, but they just ended up being looking overdone and unattractive. That's opinion, of course, and the visuals won't make or break this game.

I look forward to seeing more!

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