There is something very messy concerning the screen shots on previews.
Some are 720 x 540!
Some are 800 x 600.
The last two at the imps’ village are 1024 x 768
Ok, so to test the quality I set my desktop background as one of those last two and adjust my resolution accordingly. At 1600 x 1200 the avatar is too small and unacceptable. At 1024 x 768 the size is not bad but the details are washed out into limbs and torso identification only (no features whatsoever). Even by setting the resolution at 800 x 600 and centring the 1024 x 768 screen I get a bigger avatar with the same bad details.
Some of you posted that the details were very good, but I am left reeling to such declarations. What is the meaning of good or bad details unless there were some technical benchmarks? It is not a matter of personal taste or polite favours. I would consider myself to be a liar if I declared that the avatar details are wonderful or fabulous. I would be misleading the Larians. I said before that creating the screens at 800 x 600 and zooming out is a bad technical choice. To support high resolutions the avatar must be created at the highest supported resolution with full details so that zooming in makes no difference else than size enlargement while keeping the good details intact.
To cut it very short, I have concluded that the polygon count of the avatar was severely cut down beyond necessary thresholds to enable T3D rendering in real-time and fast game speed. I would rather suggest fixing the game speed at 24 fps to allow time for better rendering than to cut down on details to allow a 100 fps, which is hardly required. It is not true that a difficulty level should be such that the avatar must perform reflexes in a crazy speed. Hit points and the number of generated foes should be quite enough for difficulty levels.
We might have all missed the fact that in some screens there would be a horde of foes which all demand rendering in real time. I would rather limit the maximum number of NPCs per screen than limit the detail resolution of each NPC. We also have particle effects of casting spells and glowing items etcetera, so time is really valuable but mathematics is there to solve those problems by setting priorities and calculating limits accordingly.
Think about it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/think.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/idea.gif" alt="" />
