Season Pass: Giant Pile of Gushing Praise #2
Let me preface by saying that my position in life allows me to know exactly what all the devs were talking about and how they achieved everything, terminology, etc, therefore this post is not really about 'how cool it is' exactly.
I want to congratulate the team from the bottom of my heart for having the vision, the daring, and the forward thinking to expect and desire this to be possible, even six years ago, because six years ago, the technology to do this at the scale we are seeing, even at the scale they probably envisioned, would not have been viable.
So much of what was shown in that update 'relies' on tech that has become available only recently, both from the input and somewhat even the output perspective, that 'being ready for it' and having that as the main plan from the beginning gives me hope for a ton of things, but anyways, in we go!
1. The wind. Thank you thank you thank you thank you I needed this in an MMORPG so much. Almost all my time with games like Monster Hunter is spent wishing that an MMO could do it, and I explicitly remember being in a windstorm in FFXI and just... thinking how much it would increase the already immersive flow if there was some reaction on my character.
2. The snow effects. I know how these are done, and I know they're not strictly speaking 'very hard to do', but artistically they're really hard to do right and I'm blown away by how precisely placed and perfectly chosen the positions for the snow are, even to the point where it melts perfectly even when the heightmap isn't directly driving it (or maybe it is, and you've taken it even further with new tech).
3. The footsteps. Sound design is so important to this. Memories of 'hating the sound of mud-squelching shoes in Pashhow Marshlands' now rushing back. It's 'obvious', but so many games overlook the obvious, that I am just truly SO appreciative to see a team that is trying to make it to this level.
4. Semirandom flower rotations. I know how these are done too, so for me, the key part is actually just how perfectly placed, spaced, and modeled, the flowers themselves are. They look like they're going to be highly performant, while still probably looking at least not-immersion-breaking even at very close ranges.
5. Mushrooms! The thing about these isn't what we saw, it's the amount of implications for every other biome. The underlying structure used to make the mushrooms work is part of the terrain CODE, I'm almost certain, and that means it can be used for so many other things in so many other places that I expect Verra to be even more of an explorer's paradise than it seemed possible to be.
6. Spawner interactions. This goes along with the mushrooms. This is also part of realizing the way creatures move, and knowing that there's probably some detection in there, a basic implementation capable of making at least the herbivores appear to be grazing. Not sure if it is in, but if you told me it was, I'd believe it. Any creatures that 'spawn and/or move differently due to spring bringing out the shrooms' will just be beyond top tier.
7. The specific implementation of lighting vs fog. Fog models are easy to build but hard to make perform, I think. Maybe it's different now in UE5, but even if it is 'easy now', the artistic skill applied is impressive at least to me, and I work with someone who does this sort of thing for multiple small projects, so I know how a lot of this works too. Will we see denser fog actually 'rolling in'? I'm just imagining this at sea.
8. Cloth physics. Separate from the concept of the wind itself, knowing that even if you can't tie the physical material or shader settings to 'put snow on people's armor', that we're most likely getting 'wind effects', water effects, and a bunch of other minor changes that would reasonably tie into this data, is great. It's 'what I'd expect' from this generation of games, but more importantly, the 'gust' effect on the headdress shows the amount of detail consideration relative to this, and knowing the way it's implemented gives me additional hope for both 'sandstorms' and 'wind effects based on dragon attacks and big spells'.
9. The ice melting. I imagined that one happening in much slower time, and realizing that the probable implementation means that it's a deform and not necessary to re-render, means that tiny bit of ever-so-slow dynamism to keep one feeling like the world is real. It's a touch that I don't think many would even aim for these days, and the games that do that sort of thing enough to care never had the technology available.
10. Rivulets running off stone. I need to go back to get the exact terms used here, to verify that they are what I am thinking of, but I'm gushing right now first. Even if manually placed, I'm going to spend time literally 'watching while the rain causes water to drip and then run off of places'. Knowing that the heightmap puddle method is being used means that a manually placed depression under such a runoff point will add even more realism without even needing to specifically check for a 'runoff-to-surface' interaction, is just so soothing right now.
And above all else, my faith in the other systems is somewhat bolstered by this alone, because the care and dedication shines through in it. I have thought many times over the last few months that if Ashes turns out to be this beautiful, this intentional, this lovingly made, and then messes up its other systems, it will literally make me cry. Now, though I should have had this level of faith before, I believe that it would make you all cry too, and therefore that you won't let it happen.
Thank you, Intrepid, we stand awaiting your next show of love for the genre.
