Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #49 - Graphics Overview

[Max_Art]

Can babies still get beards? Can that be kept in for release if they do?

We're sadly shaving the beards of minors in the game as we speak, a lot of people with bad beard growth had a real problem with them.

 

[Max_Art]

Everything looks good other than the fire. It's just a flat texture. Would that be improved upon release?

It will be! Though it will remain a flat surface we're fading it towards the bottom and making the surrounding terrain a bit burnt to better blend and anchor it.

 

[Max_Art]

Really loving the visual style and the emphasis on communicating information visually. Victoria III will be daunting for new players but the interface looks like it'll smooth out the learning curve.

Just curious if you will try to make some characters ressemble their IRL appearance. Louis Phillipe looks like he's lost weight and gained a beard in the Victoria III timeline

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Yes, our intent is to make as many of them as possible closely resemble their real life appearance, we're not gonna hit all of them but this is something we love to get feedback on to regularly improve!

 

[Max_Art]

I couldn't help but notice that the fellow in the aging animation got a lot fatter as he aged. Does everyone start off in decent shape and start getting fatter around 50?

This is correct, though I should mention that we also do have people who are a bit overweight at an earlier stage as well!

 

[Max_Art]

Any chance we could get animals on the map? I would love to see zebras and elephants roaming around central Africa and buffalo in the Great Plains.

That is a very nice idea, we're always looking to add new life to the map and currently only have big seagulls and vultures and we'll see what we're able to do!

 

[Max_Art]

How much of the artwork and sfx stuff is modable? I'm think mainly about the occupation zone thing. Would for example custom states have their own flag there, or could it even be removed completely if one wished so?

A lot of it should be quite easy to mod, things like clouds, devastation and war border for example. When it comes to the occupied territories we are utilizing a shader that directly calls on our flag system that was previously covered in an earlier DD and while I'm not certain that entirely custom flags outside that system will be covered it might not be impossible.

 

[Max_Art]

All the graphics, 3d or 2d, from the characters to the maps, are very beautiful. The only thing that still didn't convince me was this "fire" effect and the apparent lack of military units visually on the map (despite the front system).

I mentioned in another reply that the fire wall (the war border) will be adjusted and while we won't have units permanently on a front all battles taking place will feature a 3D unit (the most advanced one) of the appropriate PM you have under your general in that battle.

 

[Max_Art]

Everything looks good except the frontline fire. And it's d'Orléans, not De Orléans.

Frontline fire will be adjusted, wrote a longer reply of it a bit earlier

 

[Max_Art]

The map for the most part looks fantastic… which makes those diagonal stripes for contested land stick out like a sore thumb. With so much evolution on graphics, how have we not come up with a better method than jarring stripes that have been the visual language from the beginning. Something that does not disrupt the visual integrity of the map- overlapping border color, a gradient, anything but stripes!

Alright, to walk you through my train of thought here; I am very aware that diagonal stripes have been used as visual language for a long time, my intent with the flags where to try to steer away from them by actually providing visualization of the country taking the territory in question. The diagonal angle we currently have for the flags was a way to still have some kind of resemblance of the old, since upon implementation of the new system and horizontal flags we thought people might have an easier time understanding the new visual language better with some elements that are familiar. Still, I think having flags instead of just stripes in country colors is a big improvement and if people are scarred by the old diagonals then we could look into adjusting it.