Overview | Technical Details | Bonus Observations| Simonschreibt.
Hey sunshine! 🌞 I f*ckd up. This is how I originally planned this article: It should be short, contain 1-2 videos and express the following: “Look! In Infinity Nikki the character has a “real” shadow, but the developers fade it out while jumping to make space for a blob shadow (which helps to navigate while […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. I just noticed, that this window can not be seen through another window on the other side of the building: My guess: It’s an optimization to save some polygons. The back of the wall is most likely one huge quad (instead of at least four), […]| Simonschreibt.
While playing Anno 1800, I noticed something which I’ve never noticed before in any other game (but to be fair, I don’t play too many city builders): The sun keeps a position relative to the camera and thus the shadows always fall from left to right: It almost looks like a time-lapse of a sun […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. This post extends my Fallout 3 – Edges article. While the decal in Fallout “only” added detail to the surface but didn’t change the silhouette, we can see a beautiful breakup of the straight concrete wall in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty: To me, this looks so good, […]| Simonschreibt.
This is a talk I gave for the Toulouse Game Dev Master Class. I talk about my methods of discovering cool game art tricks (which I then document on this blog) by asking around, doing research, using mod tools or injecting into the rendering process with Intel GPA, RenderDoc or NVIDIA NSight. I hope that […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Hey lovely people! I’m working on a small game and here are some techniques I used to create sprites and effects. Big Sprites I tried to use the most efficient workflow depending on the use case. The pixel art style allowed me to create assets fast, but […]| Simonschreibt.
Below, you can see a traffic light in GTA V at night. It has a nice glow. You might think this is nothing special but look at the scrollbar of this website. There is a lot to talk about! Get yourself a tea and then let’s go! Foreword First, we’ll talk about different solutions to […]| Simonschreibt.
Three years ago, while playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, I noticed a nice little trick and tweeted about it – today is the day when I finally release it as an article. Do you guess, what’s this about? Correct answer: The terrain blends nicely with the stone! Let me explain it in more detail: Usually […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. What can I say, I like water textures. You too? If so, let’s take a look at some water effects in Jedi: Fallen Order! If you want, you can jump to specific sections with this index: Splash • Impact • Drops • Bubbles • Waterfalls One day, […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. I’m not so much a Pokefan, but I saw this little burning pony and the VFX for the mane caught my attention in just a split second: Just to underline why I think this is a fascinating effect: Often, especially when using classic approaches (and […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. This article is brought to by the year 2017. Back then, a very kind Madame J. (part of Larian Studios) was aware of my blog, saw that Divinity: Original Sins 2 was on my Steam wishlist and mentioned that to the team. Only a bit later, I […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 4. Hey lovely people! I learned this little trick from a former co-worker and since I saw it the first time I just knew that I must-must-must make a little article about it! Glow So, I build a little Unreal demo scene (which you can download here) and […]| Simonschreibt.
Foreword: Back to the roots! Some people might have noticed, that I didn’t create new “classic” articles lately. This has two reasons: First, my blog is the main reason why I have the privilege to work in VFX, giving talks and teaching classes. Unfortunately, the success of the blog makes me spend a lot of […]| Simonschreibt.
I created this example project for a Tech Art Class I gave for SAE School Australia (but gave the class later also at Enjmin, Nord University, Howest & Vertex School). It is an extension of my previous project called “One Shader to Rule them All”. The basic idea of both projects: (Almost) all materials are […]| Simonschreibt.
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread Here are some of my older VFX (2009/2017) & Breakdowns (also available on two artstation pages https://artstation.com/artwork/KOKkA4 & https://artstation.com/artwork/G8wJE1). Hope you like it or find it useful! Morphing two completely different meshes (Sphinx -> Stairs) was a challenge. I was lucky that everything needed only to be one bright color. […]| Simonschreibt.
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread You may know PureRef for gathering references but I use it as Photoshop alternative. Let me show you how. Sometimes I want to combine 2-3 pictures and add simple notes to communicate something to colleagues (see image below). But starting Photoshop (or similar) takes forever and the workflow feels in […]| Simonschreibt.
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread We all know it: Photoshop, 3DsMax or any #gamedev Engine stops, freezes, turns white and doesn’t even let us press the X to close the software. Waiting for the “Close program”-dialog is annoying. >:| Here is my workflow how I kill every software. WITHOUT. WAITING! In my Taskbar, I have […]| Simonschreibt.
ℹ Cross-Post of my Twitter-Thread In most studios I’ve been, at some point coworkers asked me “Simon, how do you create so many videos/gifs/screenshots so quickly?” (because I make a TON each day to show work results, visualize bugs or explain workflows) – Here are my 3 main tools for my 3 main usecases. General […]| Simonschreibt.
Welcome A while ago I gave a Tech Art Course and another one called 3D Engines for Artists. Here I share my materials and if you find them useful or inspiring, feel free to use them for your own teaching. Please note, that sometimes there are no long explanations on the slides or in the […]| Simonschreibt.
I had the pleasure to give this talk at the GDC 2022 / ADDON 2022 which focuses on the creation of textures for VFX. Click here to watch it: The topic wasn’t discussed too much in the past and as I often struggle(d) making cool textures, I thought making a talk about it could help […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I stumbled across this funny video and after a short period of lolling I was thinking… maybe this isn’t a bug at all! Source: Artificial Stupidity (Game Fails #305) What we […]| Simonschreibt.
This article was updated. Jump to Update 1. Update 2. Update 3. Update 4. Update 5. You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Grand Theft Auto V has some nice fountains which I would like to present you – but sometimes it’s a bit hard to […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Preface This article was originally an interview for 80lv. For the 2k19 edition, I ditched the introduction but added more content: Advanced alignment & placement of particle systems around the obstacles (jump to section) Automated Reflection-Probe placement (jump to […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Welcome! Today we’re going to talk about: An apple. Actually, it’s not directly the apple, but the bling-effect on the apple (from Zelda: Breath of the Wild) we’re interested in. Notice, that we still do see the effect even […]| Simonschreibt.
This is a talk I gave on the Unreal Fest Europe 2018 about three stylized effects in RIME. It’s based on the one I gave 2017 but extended about the water materials of RiME. Thanks to Tequila Works for letting me speak about the effects and all the nice people I had the opportunity to […]| Simonschreibt.
I gave this talk at the Digital Art Conference 2017 and it’s about how Textures can be used for other stuff than color. Almost all the content is based on a game I had the pleasure working on: The Invisible Hours from Tequila Works. Below the video you’ll find a lot of extra content. Extra […]| Simonschreibt.
This is a talk I gave on the ADDON Conference about three stylized effects in RIME. Since it wasn’t based on an article, this time I can only offer a video and no text-version. Tips for better listening Play the video in 1.5x speed (saves time & reduces echo/reverb a little bit) I placed the […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. If your game demands for having boats swimming in water you might get interesting problems to solve. Since boat-water-interaction is pretty expensive to simulate, normally the water-plane just cuts through the boat-geometry like in this example: Today we’ll look […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. “The Joy of VFX” is thought as a happy place where several VFX artists come together and try to mimic awesome effects seen for example in movies. The goal is look at the different approaches and learn of their […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Welcome guys to the yearly welding contest! Are you ready to show off your skills? With pleasure! Yes, Sir! Today we’ll compare the cutting torch of Alien Isolation with the one in Wolfenstein. At first let’s see which one […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I noticed a very interesting way how Dark Maus handles trees and vegetation. If you would give this assignment to me… Assignment Make a swaying tree. You’re allowed to use TWO sprites. …I think my initial reaction would be […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I really like the design of Tyrael in the Diablo games and I LOVE the design and animation of his wings: Source: Diablo II & Diablo III Not only in the great cutscene but also directly in Diablo II […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Do you need a fish tank for your game? No problem! This brochure contains three different fish tank solutions and at the end you’ll find two extra fish tricks! FlatFish 3000 Perfect for those who like it classic and […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Alpha1-Materials only support 1 Bit color depth for transparency which means you can either see a pixel or you can not. You can NOT have half-transparent pixels like with Materials/Shaders supporting 8 Bit color depth (Alpha8): Alpha1 vs. Alpha8 […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. For me one of the hardest things while doing art is learning What makes things look good? For example: It is easy to notice, that the left sphere is missing a shadow to be “grounded” in the scene: Now […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. I don’t know why but when I started learning to do game art I thought a good artist must be able to draw/model/sculpt anything by memory without using references. That was stupid and took me nowhere. It just made […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain (almost) the same content. Case File Msh/Rm We’ve got a new case to solve: How did Bethesda do these fine mushroom-like explosion clouds? Source: Fallout 4 If you don’t know what’s so hard doing such effects, just continue reading. If you do know […]| Simonschreibt.
Guest Article This post was written by Richard Nunes da Silva and he kindly allowed me to publish it here. If you have any feedback feel free to write into the comments or contact Richard directly via Mail. Today we’re going back in time, more precisely to 2008, to talk a little bit about Braid, […]| Simonschreibt.
You can choose! Read the article or watch the movie. Both contain the same content. I didn’t believe in color banding. I trusted some half-knowledge for years and now I write about it so that you don’t make the same mistake. I’ll explain what color banding is and that texture-compression might look very similar – […]| Simonschreibt.
Wasteland Diary – Doctor Kron Today a woman with imploded head came to me. Only eyes and teeth were left but everything else was fine. Her eyeballs looked great. Source: www.eggplante.com / Funny Assassins Creed Unity Bug Wasteland Diary – Doctor Kron This morning a guy came to me – also with an imploded head. […]| Simonschreibt.
Lensflares are usually done by using textures (like the one below) which are oriented to the camera or may also be created via post effect. For X:Rebirth we used textures at first but had some problems with compression artifacts especially when we had huge lensflares like the haze around the sun which dominates big parts […]| Simonschreibt.
++ Update ++ Not only for Notepad++!! ëRiC pointed out that there are ways to use this functionality with every selected text. Independent from any text editor! Click here to read how. Preface This article is about an easy-to-use plugin for Notepad++ which makes it possible to work in a TXT or XML and directly […]| Simonschreibt.
Do you know the situation when you read or hear about a game design idea and think: That’s the stupidest idea ever thought of! But then you actually play the game and suddenly it makes *click* and you feel how great the idea turns out. This happens quiet often to me and I’m fascinated by […]| Simonschreibt.
Thanks a lot Egosoft that I’m allowed to publish these internal infos about the in-house tools. Foreword Game Development is complicated an it’s just common that mistakes happen. For example: Can you see the difference between the upper and lower screenshot below? Answer: In the lower image the green highway tube is a bit brighter. […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Choose your weapon Before you start creating the script you have to choose a scripting/programming language. I started with BAT-Files but later ported everything to C# because it runs faster and you have more functionality. The BAT-Syntax is sometimes a bit cryptic. For example this %%~ni […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Make the game make Screenshots The first step is to make the game create screenshots. In X:Rebirth we had already a screenshot function that could write out PNG, BMP or JPG and we had a scripting language BUT both were not connected! So the first step […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Game Setup The first thing our program/script must do is start the game and tell it to create screenshots. For that it needs some parameters which were handed over to the wd.exe/watchdog.bat (described here). The minimum setup for us looks like this: XRebirth.exe -module effecttest -screenshotmode […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Compression The next step is necessary because we had to use BMP (instead of PNG) as output format. There are two reasons for that: We could not use PNG because of problems with the transparency channel.You’ll find more details in the problem section. Not all screenshots […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Compare Comparing the shots is relatively easy. First we have to iterate over all screenshot-directories which begin with “bait_” in their name and get a list of all PNG files in that folder. It’s important that you receive the files ordered by date. If you made […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Mail Content Sending mails as an status or error report is essential because you don’t want to manually check all the folders and images for an error every day. Whenever a higher pixel difference (than our threshold) appears, a mail is sent out to a responsible […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. Why? In theory you don’t need to create a gallery but I think it’s important to not only have a lot data but also have a good overview about it. Also it’s very important to be able to show other people a problem by just giving […]| Simonschreibt.
This post is one part of the Watchdog Series. PNG Transparency I don’t know if this is the standard, but when our game stored a screenshot as BMP it had an Alpha-Channel – which was not empty! This is how the BMP looks: And this is how the Alpha-Channel looks. This is some our debug […]| Simonschreibt.
🇨🇳 Chinese Version by Leon He 🇻🇳 Vietnamese Version by Vu Phuong Hoang Added a whole new book covering the pipeline in detail Added 2 new videos and 32 new links to great articles, whitepapers, … Extended the section copying data from HDD to graphic card. Updated some terms in the pipeline animation and made […]| Simonschreibt.
🇷🇺 Read in Russian 🇨🇳 Read in Chinese 🇻🇳 Read in Vietnamese This post is one part of the series “Render Hell”. Artists must be strong now: From a computers perspective, your assets are just lists of vertex- and texture data. Converting this raw data into a next-gen image, is mainly done by your system […]| Simonschreibt.
🇨🇳 Read in Chinese 🇷🇺 Read in Russian 🇻🇳 Read in Vietnamese This post is one part of the series “Render Hell”. 2.0 Pipeline in Detail Most of the constructive feedback I received about this article was “Nice explanation, but your pipeline is 6 years old!”. I wasn’t sure what that exactly meant until Christoph […]| Simonschreibt.
🇷🇺 Read in Russian 🇨🇳 Read in Chinese 🇻🇳 Read in Vietnamese This post is one part of the series “Render Hell”. Welcome to the 3rd book! Here we’ll checkout some problems which can occur during the rendering process. But first, some practice: To know about a problem is useful. To actually feel the problem […]| Simonschreibt.
🇷🇺 Read in Russian 🇨🇳 Read in Chinese 🇻🇳 Read in Vietnamese Now it gets interesting! Here I will present you some solutions i found during my research. This hopefully gives you an idea how an asset should be optimized to be well renderable. 1. Sorting Firstly you can sort all your commands (e.g. by […]| Simonschreibt.
🇷🇺 Read in Russian 🇨🇳 Read in Chinese 🇻🇳 Read in Vietnamese Here I’ll shortly conclude what we learned so far: Avoid small meshes Check if small meshes are necessary or if you could connect several small to one big mesh. If you have small, talk to a graphic programmer to get infos about the […]| Simonschreibt.
This is a really spontaneous post and it was initiated by this observation about Fallout 3: It made me remember a small trick one of our level designers told me when we were working on Sacred 2. It’s not as crazy cool as the Train-Hat, but I liked it a lot. Here you see a […]| Simonschreibt.
Did you like poetry interpretation during school? Me neither. But thanks to a nice polycount member you’ll get one because throttlekitty mentioned this topic and it was too fascinating to not talk about it: They follow wherever I do a step. This model by Muumin seems to orient its eyes always to the camera, right? […]| Simonschreibt.
Welcome The best travelers guide of Hyrule Index The World History Culling Vegetation Inhabitants Appearance Sport Fashion Activities Astronomy Sailing Fireflying Shadow Theater Thank you for choosing our Travel Guide! Now you own the perfect collection of stunning information about Hyrule – the land where Zelda: The Wind Waker is located in. Before you go […]| Simonschreibt.
I’m neither a carpenter nor a stalker but i strongly love windows. Allow me to show you the most advanced windows i ever saw a game. The NPCs in Assassins Creed 3 definitely suspect that Connor is a stalker because we made him stare at windows for hours in the last article about windows. Just […]| Simonschreibt.
Russian Version by john In the 1990s, games started to move from 2D to 3D and if an alien would have landed on earth back then, it surely would have thought that nobody needs these low-res polygon-models without any filtering. Then it would destroy the earth. Later his mother would teach him what made humans […]| Simonschreibt.
Therapist “Good Morning Mr. Tawodi, how can i help you? What’s your problem?” “When i see a button…i have to…push it!” “And…this is a huge problem for you?” “Oh, it wasn’t all the time! Everyone did it! Freeman, that Doom guy…sometimes we even shot at buttons!” “So, where’s the problem? Seems to work pretty well […]| Simonschreibt.
Once more a Tomb Raider game is starring the beautiful Lara Croft – featuring outstanding and huge visuals which make it easy to stare and get lost like watching flames. In fact, this is todays hot topic: Flames! Or let’s say: a Flame. Don’t tell Lara but I read in her diary and can proudly […]| Simonschreibt.
If a 3D artist would play a memory game and he would uncover a card representing a normal map and another one showing a high poly model he would state that this is the perfect pair. It’s just totally common that normal maps get created out of a 3D mesh (or sometimes the NVidia Photoshop […]| Simonschreibt.
Numbers are useful but when they are over-used in an UI you may end up with some Excel-game. It doesn’t get better when you’ve to deal with floating point numbers. 1.0 In Sacred 2 you can increase the level of your spells with special runes which are dropped by enemies. But it would have been […]| Simonschreibt.
Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome todays opponents… …in the right corner we have a T-T-T-Tree proudly presented by The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and in the left corner we have a P-P-P-Palm brought to us by Enemy Territory: Quake Wars! Aaaaand today every seat costs the same because the fighters look (almost) the same from near […]| Simonschreibt.
Bad news This isn’t a new Game Art Trick! :,( Good news This is the first Game Design Trick (article)! As you know i L♥VE game art. But i also love to think outside of the box and so it happens, that some other aspects of gaming get my attention. Even if I’m not a […]| Simonschreibt.
I hope you appreciate that i died for this article! Twice. I don’t play World of Wacraft that much and so i use a level 1 hero to investigate the graphics of the game. What can i say? The world is full of aggressive creatures! Grrr! I wish there would be a “ghost” account where […]| Simonschreibt.
I’m happy that you found me, because this is the new place where you can find the “Simon schreibt”-Blog! All the Game Art Tricks can be found in this list! But a new article and it’s not a new game art trick?? Boooh! Yes, I’m sorry but it took some time to transfer the blog […]| Simonschreibt.
This blog is about games, right? So let’s play a small text adventure: You feel a bit tired so you need a small encouragement which lets you have a look into your mirror. What do you see? [1] A good looking effect artist! (continue reading at – 4 –) [2] A creative & very smart […]| Simonschreibt.
When I saw that the smoke is shaded (depending of the angle you look at it) I was impressed but had no idea how it works: Sorry for the stuttering, i had to capture it with CamStudio and rotate the Camera by hand. At first I thought maybe they move a gradient along the particle […]| Simonschreibt.
Hi friends! Good to have you back! :,) Something important first: I don’t want to say anything negative here or blame something! It’s only a comparison and of course a subjective view on things! If you wanna kick me anyway, use these tools: Mail, Twitter or Facebook. Like in school, we start with some boring […]| Simonschreibt.
Introduction Forget history! The earth isn’t flat and neither it’s round! It is a repeating iteration of itself! … at least for todays topic: the repetitive worlds of Magic Carpet 2 and 1nsane. (If you think this is blasphemy and wanna punish someone, please contact amassingham on reddit – he “discovered” the issue. I’m just […]| Simonschreibt.
ello Stranger, great to see you! Ahh…you heard that you can find some profound stories here and decided to stay a while and listen? Well, it might be that you are wrong, because today the narrator has only a simple story to tell. But he likes it. Once upon a time there were three types […]| Simonschreibt.
Deep in the dungeons of my brain was something waiting to come out. The last impulse to bring it into the daylight was given to me through Dr. Fj. He mentioned the walls of Dungeon Keeper 2 and made me think and write about it. S t r u c t u r e Let’s […]| Simonschreibt.
LEGO is awesome. LEGO games are awesome. And – at least for me – this trick is awesome. It’s about the crawler “chains”. You know, the things around the wheel rims. Let me explain, why i think this looks really good: If you wanna do such a “conveyor” animation in 3D, you need to animate […]| Simonschreibt.
Do you remember the Kid Icarus article? There i used one of my super powers and it’s again time for me to be SUPER LAZY …because this trick was mentioned to me by Mr. Anonym below the Bioshock Glossiness article and i think it’s so cool, that it deserves its own article. The whole […]| Simonschreibt.
Doom 3 was awesome but i only saw the first 10 minutes of the game since it scared me. Luckily all what i needed for the last and this article can be found in these first 10 minutes, before the first monster appears. This screen shot shows what i want to point at this time: […]| Simonschreibt.
Doom 3 is known for its shadows but in the last days something different got my interest: the volumetric effects around lights. Before we start, let me point something out: The aura around light is called many things. Here’s some terminology (please correct me if got this wrong): Glare occurs when light is too bright […]| Simonschreibt.
The following stuff is only important for Modders! I just do some notes about what i learned during my investigation. Export & test assets from 3Ds Max to Doom 3 3Ds Max Material The documentation (iddevnet) says two different things. The truth is, that you have to define only the diffuse texture in 3Ds Max. […]| Simonschreibt.
Welcome to Simons first German lesson! “Halt!” means “Stop!”. Thanks for joining Simons first German lesson! The “header” of this article was taken from Starcraft 2. If you played the game, it’s most likely that you got a localization in your own language. Including voice and text but also the words you can see on […]| Simonschreibt.
You see that i run out of topics by talking about tricks which aren’t existing. Do you know that, if a game looks better in your imagination than it actual does? I had a nice detail in my mind which i saw in Bioshock. So i revisited the game and…it wasn’t made how i thought. […]| Simonschreibt.
Do you remember the days where i just mentioned what impressed me instead of how it was made? Today it’s like that. But i hope you’ll enjoy the article anyway. Oh and by the way: feel free to suggest games or tricks you think this blog should cover. When ships jump around in Homeworld, there’s […]| Simonschreibt.
This is not only the first header picture i use for an article, it shows also one of my favorite effects of Homeworld: The trails. But the engine effects don’t only consist of trails. Engine Glow The engine glows i know, are crossed planes which maybe fade out if you look in a narrow angle […]| Simonschreibt.
Today we’re James Bond and investigate how the world works. Well, the world in a slightly smaller scale. On a display. In a game. But nevertheless, we’ll discover awesome stuff which was created by Q. This is related to the Diablo Case but deserves its own paper. It’s all about the rotating sphere you see […]| Simonschreibt.
Russian Version by Eliiah Korean Version by Woodorl Kim There are 3 things in the world I could look at forever: Fire, other People working and the Diablo 3 resource bubbles. I already fell in love with Blizzards art style like you maybe noticed in my article about their 2.5D trees. But today we’ll have […]| Simonschreibt.
Russian Version by Eliiah Korean Version by Woodorl Kim Some people asked in the Polycount thread how these Homeworld spheres (see this Article) were created. Let’s do it together! What we’ll use here are modding tools. I have no idea how near these are to the original Relic workflow. Download Download this mod tool collection […]| Simonschreibt.
Russian Version by Eliiah Korean Version by Woodorl Kim What you see here is the stunning background art of one of the most beautiful sci-fi games. H o m e w o r l d 2 Thanks for reading. Just kidding. Of course i have something to say about this. In the company we look […]| Simonschreibt.
The reflections in Dead Space 3 got my interest because they “fade out” the “deeper” they reach into the ground. This is an effect i already tried to understand in reality and if you have knowledge or links about it, feel free to contact me! I would love to learn more about it. As far […]| Simonschreibt.
Russian Version by Eliiah In Metal Gear Rising you can slice objects into very small pieces. Of course, something like that was already implemented e.g. in Tiny and Big, Afro Samurai or Crysis. But Rising impressed me the most. It is real, free cutting. This is the tech demo: Crysis I had no idea how […]| Simonschreibt.
This time i talk a bit retro. This is nothing you want to use in actual games. At Egosoft we’ve an Arcade Machine with titles like 1943 (not Battlefield 1943 ;) ) and i really like how they faked their transparent shadows. What do you do, if you can’t use “real” transparency? Stunts just didn’t […]| Simonschreibt.
I like trees. Of course there are many ways of creating them (e.g. explained in this wiki article from polycount) but the tree of Airborn got my special attention because when I saw it the first time, I thought: Another thing I like about trees: you have to care about the leafs, because normally the […]| Simonschreibt.
A basic outdoor light setup would contain a reddish sun and a blueish ambient light to fake some global illumination of the sky. But in AC3 i noticed a third source of light: bouncing light. It’s just the sun light coming back from the ground. I don’t know how they did it, but i would […]| Simonschreibt.
The world map in Sacred 2 not just opened up. It burned in and out! How this looks, is proudly presented by this little GIF animation: So how is such an effect possible? I can’t tell you the deep technical details, because i didn’t understand them. But let me try to explain it in artist […]| Simonschreibt.
Sorry, Gfx-Freaks. This time it’s about sound. I really love Battlefield 2 and besides of the gameplay and graphics i felt in love with the sound they embedded in the game. And one special case was a small eye opener for me. Why? Because they showed, that sound can be used to add a lot […]| Simonschreibt.
BF BC 2 had awesome environments and sometimes contained huge smoke columns in the background. Smoke in far distance moves very slow, so it should be totally OK if you wouldn’t animate it. But when you stand still, you can see some movement in the BF BC 2 smoke! As far as i see, they […]| Simonschreibt.
Introduction| Simonschreibt.