Color and Environment

ArchivedUser

Just putting this out there to give some ideas...

Here is an excellent post that describes what I'm trying to explain:

You just don't get that in ESO. The game's scale is too small, and the vegetation is far too sparse. And outside Valenwood, "woodland" is just one large tree every 50-100 yards, that mostly still looks like open fields with randomly dotted fully matured trees, rarely ever any understory and saplings, and certainly no emphasis on unique groundflora within woodland. It's just the same grass everywhere, and in some cases no grass beyond ground textures at all. Completely artificial and bizarre look: So while WoW looks incredibly cartoony, which can be a turn off in itself, at least its level designers put effort into understanding how woodlands and forests really develop. It leads to more believable forests than ESO despite the cartoony vibe. You just don't get this level of density and detail in ESO:

In Ashes of Creation each zone's color and flavor is a small % the same. What I mean by this is when you compare Black Desert to WoW, in WoW each zone is totally different.  Enlynn Forest to Westfall and so on..

And when you even have the zones in WoW with the same basic concept such as all green and trees.

The thing with Black Desert is, all the zones look almost the same. Its like whoever made the textures used the exact same textures in the whole world in each and every zone, I read on reddit too some guy saying that Black Desert's design on zones were very bland,

They also make some zones, and give off a cozy feeling:

In WoW's beauitful Stormwind for example, each party of the city has its own type of design and colors. The bricks on the roofs change,etc,etc....

ArchivedUser

Like @SaintJ I'm not sure what the point was, but in Ashes so far, I've seen a heavy use of florescent colors and spiky crystals which are fine for some areas but not everywhere.  I definitely hope for a very diverse landscape as Verra is touted as being the largest in land area for an MMO.

ArchivedUser

What I got from it is that they'd like the regions to look distinct from one another, utilizing things such as color (though there's a lot more to it than that, really!) to make those areas feel different and recognizable and for each zone to have a very distinct character.

I believe there are two things to consider with this:

1.  You have to pay attention to how "large" these zones are intended to be.  In WoW with the way their maps are designed, you can get these closed off little areas because (from what I understand, I really only played once) the "zones" aren't extremely massive.  What I mean by this is that one particular forest will have its own dedicated map and is intended to be its own distinct zone.  In BDO the beginning regions of Balenos/Serendia/Calpheon, for the most part, are intended to be the same type of the environment.  They did it this way on purpose, to contrast the semi-arid climate of Mediah, the arid climate of Valencia, the temperate rainforest climate of Kamasylvia, and the desolate/barren climate of Drieghan.  They were specifically going for environments that felt more "realistic", and it shows — in real life if you go from one forest to a bordering forest they don't look very different most of the time.

So there I think you have to pay close attention to what the intention is.  Each forest seeming like a distinctly different region with a completely different design and color scheme is definitely a form of stylization.  It can be used well, but it all depends on the intention of the game designer.

WoW can also afford these denser forests because it is "more cartoony".  It doesn't hurt the performance as much to render all of that.

2.  I think another major difference here are "heavy borders" vs. a "blend from one environment type to another".  When your maps are very distinctly cut-off regions, such as in WoW or GW2, you can afford to make one look extremely different from the other.  You can design them to be entirely different because you don't have to pay as much mind as to how it'll blend with the next region over.  In an open-world game, such as BDO or how Ashes plans to be however—if the next region over is too different what you get is this effect between regions:



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I would say that from what we've seen so far they do intend to make use of color and environmental design to make the regions feel different.  Is it as distinct as WoW?  No.  But I'd say it isn't as uniform as BDO or from what you've shown of ESO in those two screens either.  I think it meets a happy middle ground of distinctly different regions with their own character and feeling partially believable.

Another example would be comparing the environment in this video and the environment shown here.  I think it's safe to say they're going for a more varied approach, and all of the regions won't look the same!

They've also specifically discussed this, in regards to the Underrealm:

"One of the important aspects of color play as well is going to be some of the distinguishing factor between the different under realms and their regions that exist in the world what their color influences are that kind of set them apart from different regions."
(source)

ArchivedUser

What @Maevynn says makes sense and I totally agree. In addition seasons will have some influence over environment visuals, which will change weekly. I really like these concept arts because they give us a glimpse to the diversity of environments in Ashes.

ArchivedUser

Their best showcase was this 

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUJugtqTBxw&t=1747s

At some point they go to the Forest

ArchivedUser

Mind boggling post...

ArchivedUser

This is a weird example, but still just putting an idea out there.

CS Source (Released in 2004)

MW3 (Released in end of 2011)

While indeed the MW3 may look 'newer', the color shading in it is SHIT. The sandy texture in CS Source looked way better in comparison.

ArchivedUser

I still have no idea what you mean. you need to add context 

ArchivedUser

In ritfin’s latest post it looks like the color scheme is low-contrast and washed-out even though it uses high resolution textures.

In the original post there was a concern of every zone looking the same and there being a lack of variety.

If Diura’s sample is indicative of what we should expect in AoC then I don’t think either  will be a problem.

ArchivedUser

Here's some new wow mccrap game, but see how the houses and everything are just 'placed there', I know its not a mmorpg. but it can help give an idea of Where and How to place Inns,Stables,etc,etc, and what fading of grass or whatever around it.

[img]https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/803172.jpg[/img]