), I noticed that they have the same problem as Force Commander, the Star Wars 3D RTS: Unit scale! If you zoom out far enough, you can get a good picture of the battle, but can''t see who the small units are. But if you zoom in, it''s the same problem in reverse.
Games like Starcraft / C&C don''t have this problem. Why do you think this is? Is it relative scale, or detail level of the art, or what? I suppose you could make troopers look as big as an AT-AT, but that would look dumb when you zoomed in.
How would you do scale properly in a 3D environment?
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Just waiting for the mothership...
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What's up with 3D RTS games and scale?!?!
Just read a review on Gamespot of Star Trek: New Worlds, a new 3D RTS. Besides indulging in a little dark joy that they got a 4 (can''t do 3D math, so I''m envious ), I noticed that they have the same problem as Force Commander, the Star Wars 3D RTS: Unit scale! If you zoom out far enough, you can get a good picture of the battle, but can''t see who the small units are. But if you zoom in, it''s the same problem in reverse.
Games like Starcraft / C&C don''t have this problem. Why do you think this is? Is it relative scale, or detail level of the art, or what? I suppose you could make troopers look as big as an AT-AT, but that would look dumb when you zoomed in.
How would you do scale properly in a 3D environment?
--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...
), I noticed that they have the same problem as Force Commander, the Star Wars 3D RTS: Unit scale! If you zoom out far enough, you can get a good picture of the battle, but can''t see who the small units are. But if you zoom in, it''s the same problem in reverse.
Games like Starcraft / C&C don''t have this problem. Why do you think this is? Is it relative scale, or detail level of the art, or what? I suppose you could make troopers look as big as an AT-AT, but that would look dumb when you zoomed in.
How would you do scale properly in a 3D environment?
--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...
If you mean you can''t tell what side the small units are on, why not give them a colored aura or something. I haven''t seen those games, so I dunno if that would work.
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well for one thing they probably aren''t exaggerating them enough. A cartoony style make things easier to recognize, check out recent screenshots of warcraft III to see a 3d RTS that doesn''t have those problems. When you go for too much realism it is hard to tell things apart, all infantry end up looking pretty similar. Only the details let you tell them apart. However people don''t look at detail, they look at overall shape, learned that in art school. Units aren''t pictures, they are icons that you essentially click and drag. Good good isn''t necessarily good unit art.
agreed with Anonymous poster ... I think I mentioned that in one of Paul''s topics, it seems that 3D artists think that because they have 3D l33t skillZ and toolZ that allow them to do realistic graphics, they have to. The problem is that games are not supposed to look real, but rather be useful to the game representation, and gameplay. If you check out Starcraft, they use the classic exagerated scales used in most wargames, for instance compare a Battlecruiser and a soldier ... now look at the cutscenes and tell me, is a Battlecruiser *THAT* small ?
One solution I could think of if you really want to keep the realistic grpahics / sizes would be to use icons that don''t scale. A bit like in Shogun where you have those cools flags when you select a unit (if I remember correctly).
As well, as designer, I would try to make it so that the smallest unit in game would still be visible from far distance, if it means that the more massive units can''t be seen without being clipped, why not, that would give them even more presence on screen and emphasizes there gigantic scale (a bit like the Titans in Epic 40K).
youpla :-P
One solution I could think of if you really want to keep the realistic grpahics / sizes would be to use icons that don''t scale. A bit like in Shogun where you have those cools flags when you select a unit (if I remember correctly).
As well, as designer, I would try to make it so that the smallest unit in game would still be visible from far distance, if it means that the more massive units can''t be seen without being clipped, why not, that would give them even more presence on screen and emphasizes there gigantic scale (a bit like the Titans in Epic 40K).
youpla :-P
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