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Victoria 3 - Dev Diary #49 - Graphics Overview

16_9.jpg

​
Hey everyone! I’m Max, Art Director of Victoria 3, here to go over the different visual elements of the game and give you some insight into our process. The games’ visual pillars center around Elegance, Hopefulness and some of the older visual elements of the Victorian era, this will be present within each visual category and discipline.

To start off, a lot of things have happened visually over the last year, even in these last few weeks a lot of tweaks and improvements have been made thanks to the team! To go over some of these improvements I’ll be giving a brief overview, starting with:

Interface
The lead of the 2D art team, Kenneth Lim, talked a lot about our interface visuals in Dev Diary #30 so make sure to check that out! The components of the interface have not changed drastically since then, but have rather been refined and more illustrations have been incorporated into menus that are very text heavy or where a bit more flavor helps. In general the interface direction wants to provide visuals that are elegant and ornate but not too heavy, with a palette that compliments the visuals of the map and illustrations, making icons and button interactions pop out from it. Working closely with the UX designers we aim to put the visual emphasis and focus where your important decisions can be made, ensuring that interactable objectives and buttons are clear and have an order of importance.

Interface for the politics, showing various different elements
politicsui.png


Buildings and lots of icons
buildingsui.png


Outliner for the market UI
marketui.png

Illustrations
As illustrations are being incorporated more frequently in the game we want to ensure they have a consistent style, a style that is something of a mix between modern digital art and some older 19th century style and technique with clear brush strokes. We also try to ensure that they all have a hopeful (though some quite grim) feel to them that gives flavor to your decisions and the Events that do occur while still not discouraging you. The illustrations for Events are quite vast, and with so many different possible events occurring one thing we have tried to ensure is that all different cultures of the game are represented within Events. The downside of this decision is that some of our events will look pretty specific to a culture while applicable to almost everyone, this is something we will look to improve in the future!

Event Illustration within the interface
eventillustration.png


Character background illustrations
characterbackgroundillustration.png


Illustrations for the different Institutions
illustrationsinstitutes.png

​
Map
The map of the world is something we’ve put a lot of effort into making sure looks both very interesting yet soothing enough not to compete in complexity with the interface and the actions you take, steering clear of too much clutter and maintaining the visual pillars that gives the player satisfaction of seeing their course of the world progress. We also try to ensure a visual hierarchy of what is important to look at by balancing the complexity of assets as well as their scale. During next week’s’ DD I’ll be talking more about the elements that help make the map feel alive and how we visually change the world as the game progresses. But aside from that the papermap, the zoomed out version of the 3d map, also has a lot of visual detail put into it, lots of small illustrations and details that make it more interesting to look at alongside the scene with the table and objects surrounding it to contextualize that this is you overlooking the world as a whole. Other elements present on the map are the buildings of different cultures that make up the Hubs that range from small farms to huge monuments, in addition there’s also a vast assortment of military 3d units that appear when battles take place.

Trade in the Dardanelles Strait
tradeindardanelles.png


Rome and the Vatican
romeandvatican.png


Asian building set
asianbuildingset.png


Papermap and the surrounding scene
papermap.png

Characters
The characters of Victoria 3 aim to be visually representative not only of the stratas they inhabit but also of their profession and its characteristics. Butchers sporting cleavers, farmers have pitchforks and servicemen have rifles, all this in combination with various different appearances for different cultures, a large age spectrum as well as a plethora of different outfits ranging from farmer rags to exquisite dresses gives a really varied appearance of the game's characters. While our visual pillars still stand even for the characters, ensuring that their appearance is a bit softer and filled with a bit of hope, they also show when they are not doing well, giving starving Pops altered idle animations where they look displeased and hunched forward. We are still finding new ways of increasing the personalities of characters and their overall visuals and look forward to giving them even more life in the future!

Farmers in Burma
farmersburma.png


French heir
frenchheir.png


Now that’s a fancy outfit
fancyoutfit.png


Aristocrats in Harar
aristocratsharar.png


Growing old
growingold.gif

VFX
The visual effects that we have in game range from emphasizing certain button presses to atmospheric weather effects like rain, sand and snowstorms but where it’s most prevalent is through wars and battles where units fire devastating cannon shots or even flamethrowers, really emphasizing the situation! The game’s VFX also helps provide a sense of what’s happening on the map, visualizing things like buildings being built and completed, turmoil, revolutions and celebrations among many.

It does snow a lot between Sweden and Norway
snowbetweenswedenandnorway.png


Sandstorms can be daunting
sandstorm.png


Fire!
fire.png

Technical Solutions
For a lot of the neat details and dynamic elements of the game we have Technical Art providing smart solutions to things like waves around shorelines, the clouds that provide depth and fog of war to the map as well as how country borders and occupied territories look.

Smart shader work makes waves not take up too much performance
Waves.png


Clouds and Contested Territories
cloudsandcontestedterritory.png

That should give you some insight into how we work on the visual side of Victoria 3! As mentioned before, next week will have another Developer Diary from yours truly with a more in-depth look at the Living Map and how things change through the course of the game. We are still making a lot of nifty changes to things and can’t wait for you all to experience Victoria 3 in all its glory!
 
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Little bit disappointed by Louis-Philippe, he is not a minor character and his face is well knowned (at least by French).

Even a peer would be better than the actual portrait :

images (3).jpeg

"Les poires" ("The Pears"), published 1834 in Le Charivari.
 
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Max_Art said:
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.
Click to expand...

Maybe contested territories have a different visual for the zoomed-out paper map and zoomed-in terrain versions?

For example, the zoomed-out paper map version could use the traditional diagonal lines design sketched in with a textured to look like hastily hatched lines of ink in the national colors of the occupying nation (recent manual changes to the printed map)?

Likewise, the zoomed-in terrain version could feature battle-weathered model flags of the occupying nation flying over captured states (cities, forts, ports, etc)?
 
On the topic of borders, one could use the visual language of their rendering to communicate the type &/or situation of the polity within:


For example, the rank of a nation could affect a stylish fringe (culturally appropriate?) along the inner border edge with tiered levels of ornamentation.

Unrecognized nations (& colonies) could use faded, dashed, or stippled borders, porous contrasts to the solid borders of recognized nations on the map (where, presumably, such borders would be part of some written agreement between other nations) with specific delineations.

As mentioned previously, the integral states of major unification regions with an active unification candidate could mark the borders of the potential nation in some embellished way (though not as a solid line since it is not recognized ;)).

Borders around common markets could use an external band, or in a faint gradient crosshatch, in the color of the market leader, to convey the economic expansion of empires.

The borders of contested regions could showcase tattered &/or singed edges from the fiery front lines burning past (maybe the zoomed-out paper map carries that through as scorched borderlines in the paper?).
 
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Have to echo the comments who express dislike of the "fire" borders. I know there have been assurances of improvements but the statement that it will remain a flat texture means that this will always remain off to me.

What are those fires adding to the game? They stand out way too much, and drown out everything else on the map. They add no information and no legibility, and diminish the impacts of other map elements. After talking so much about all the thought and care you put into everything else displayed on the map, and making sure that only important elements stand out, it seems at odds to have these garish distracting fires everywhere as soon as a war breaks out.

They make me think of cheap animated History Channel "how the war evolved" maps, and not in a good way. I thought Victoria 3 had a more refined approach to its artistic representation, especially because that actually shows for everything else!

Will definitely be looking for a mod to turn them off right at release.
 
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What are the considerations for people with less than stellar computers? How are you working to make it also look alright and still be playable at lower settings?
 
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Max_Art said:
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.
Click to expand...
I wonder whether the "contested" diagonals/hatching might be done as a sort of "tooltip", where you hover the mouse over a specific icon (in the map type panel, maybe?) to get the diagonals etc. to show up? So, you would have the pristine 'base' map to look at, but could just hover over a button to get the informational hatching and so on showing on the map. Maybe even clicking the button would act as a toggle to toggle the hatching on and off?

Edit to say: as I think about this it might fit for other map elements, too, such as the "war frontier" flames. I can imagine being able to toggle a bunch of elements on and off could be very handy. Dunno how well the engine would support this, but tooltips are already a thing, so maybe?
 
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Max_Art said:
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.
Click to expand...
I could not disagree more. Even ignoring the aesthetics and whether the new way looks good or not, it introduces a big issue to map readibility.

See, before on the world map it was all about country's map color. Every nation had its own and occupation was shown as overlapping colors. When you saw two countries fighting, just at a glance you saw very literally which nation is encroaching on the other's territory. You wouldn't need to know anything about the conflict or the countries involved to have a broad idea how the war is going, it was all on the map, clear as day.

Replacing old stripes with flags results in the player needing to know how the flags of warring nations look like, for the occupation visuals to be of any use. This is a problem, because:
1. Country flags are not visible directly on the map, not like country colors - the player has to manually use other UI elements to check the flags and then remember how they look like. If one doesn't have all the flags of all the nations perfectly embedded in his memory, he has to manually decode what the occupation visuals are showing, by clicking through menus, looking for who is involved in the war and what do their flags look like. That's additional busywork that wasn't required before and feels like a huge step back.
2. Flags change throughout the game, as governments of nations change. The players will either need to meticulously keep up with these changes, or it's back to checking the flags every time you see a new war on the map.
3. When many nations are involved in a war, before with stripes it could lead to a big unreadable mess of variously-colored stripes. It was already an issue, but with this new system it will be 100x worse.

I don't see how the new way is an improvement over old stripes, in any way. Not even in the aesthetics department, personally I find the flag spam ugly as hell, completely unintuitive and looking very out of place.

Stripes are a good and time-tested method of showing occupation, both in real maps and video games. Don't change things just for the sake of changing them. Please add an option for stripes visual, or at the very least make sure it will be possible to mod them back in.
 
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Great work on the visual. Thanks for your hard work.
 
Max_Art said:
Hey everyone! I’m Max, Art Director of Victoria 3, here to go over the different visual elements of the game and give you some insight into our process. The games’ visual pillars center around Elegance, Hopefulness and some of the older visual elements of the Victorian era, this will be present within each visual category and discipline.

To start off, a lot of things have happened visually over the last year, even in these last few weeks a lot of tweaks and improvements have been made thanks to the team! To go over some of these improvements I’ll be giving a brief overview, starting with:

Interface
The lead of the 2D art team, Kenneth Lim, talked a lot about our interface visuals in Dev Diary #30 so make sure to check that out! The components of the interface have not changed drastically since then, but have rather been refined and more illustrations have been incorporated into menus that are very text heavy or where a bit more flavor helps. In general the interface direction wants to provide visuals that are elegant and ornate but not too heavy, with a palette that compliments the visuals of the map and illustrations, making icons and button interactions pop out from it. Working closely with the UX designers we aim to put the visual emphasis and focus where your important decisions can be made, ensuring that interactable objectives and buttons are clear and have an order of importance.

Interface for the politics, showing various different elements
View attachment 848034

Buildings and lots of icons
View attachment 848035

Outliner for the market UI
View attachment 848036​

Illustrations
As illustrations are being incorporated more frequently in the game we want to ensure they have a consistent style, a style that is something of a mix between modern digital art and some older 19th century style and technique with clear brush strokes. We also try to ensure that they all have a hopeful (though some quite grim) feel to them that gives flavor to your decisions and the Events that do occur while still not discouraging you. The illustrations for Events are quite vast, and with so many different possible events occurring one thing we have tried to ensure is that all different cultures of the game are represented within Events. The downside of this decision is that some of our events will look pretty specific to a culture while applicable to almost everyone, this is something we will look to improve in the future!

Event Illustration within the interface
View attachment 848037

Character background illustrations
View attachment 848038

Illustrations for the different Institutions View attachment 848039
​
Map
The map of the world is something we’ve put a lot of effort into making sure looks both very interesting yet soothing enough not to compete in complexity with the interface and the actions you take, steering clear of too much clutter and maintaining the visual pillars that gives the player satisfaction of seeing their course of the world progress. We also try to ensure a visual hierarchy of what is important to look at by balancing the complexity of assets as well as their scale. During next week’s’ DD I’ll be talking more about the elements that help make the map feel alive and how we visually change the world as the game progresses. But aside from that the papermap, the zoomed out version of the 3d map, also has a lot of visual detail put into it, lots of small illustrations and details that make it more interesting to look at alongside the scene with the table and objects surrounding it to contextualize that this is you overlooking the world as a whole. Other elements present on the map are the buildings of different cultures that make up the Hubs that range from small farms to huge monuments, in addition there’s also a vast assortment of military 3d units that appear when battles take place.

Trade in the Dardanelles Strait
View attachment 848041

Rome and the Vatican
View attachment 848042

Asian building set
View attachment 848043

Papermap and the surrounding scene
View attachment 848044​

Characters
The characters of Victoria 3 aim to be visually representative not only of the stratas they inhabit but also of their profession and its characteristics. Butchers sporting cleavers, farmers have pitchforks and servicemen have rifles, all this in combination with various different appearances for different cultures, a large age spectrum as well as a plethora of different outfits ranging from farmer rags to exquisite dresses gives a really varied appearance of the game's characters. While our visual pillars still stand even for the characters, ensuring that their appearance is a bit softer and filled with a bit of hope, they also show when they are not doing well, giving starving Pops altered idle animations where they look displeased and hunched forward. We are still finding new ways of increasing the personalities of characters and their overall visuals and look forward to giving them even more life in the future!

Farmers in Burma
View attachment 848045

French heir
View attachment 848046

Now that’s a fancy outfit
View attachment 848047

Aristocrats in Harar
View attachment 848049

Growing old
View attachment 848051​

VFX
The visual effects that we have in game range from emphasizing certain button presses to atmospheric weather effects like rain, sand and snowstorms but where it’s most prevalent is through wars and battles where units fire devastating cannon shots or even flamethrowers, really emphasizing the situation! The game’s VFX also helps provide a sense of what’s happening on the map, visualizing things like buildings being built and completed, turmoil, revolutions and celebrations among many.

It does snow a lot between Sweden and Norway
View attachment 848053

Sandstorms can be daunting
View attachment 848054

Fire!
View attachment 848056​

Technical Solutions
For a lot of the neat details and dynamic elements of the game we have Technical Art providing smart solutions to things like waves around shorelines, the clouds that provide depth and fog of war to the map as well as how country borders and occupied territories look.

Smart shader work makes waves not take up too much performance
View attachment 848057

Clouds and Contested Territories
View attachment 848058​

That should give you some insight into how we work on the visual side of Victoria 3! As mentioned before, next week will have another Developer Diary from yours truly with a more in-depth look at the Living Map and how things change through the course of the game. We are still making a lot of nifty changes to things and can’t wait for you all to experience Victoria 3 in all its glory!
Click to expand...
The Graphics are awesome, Wish that that UI style was used also in Imperator Rome ... May be in future you could update the UI to give this style or similar one that is more clean , elegand and understandeable !
 
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Can someone provide PC system requirements that can support such huge game please?
Very big and densely shaped World map covered by thousands of different animations along with real time history and events happening at the same time will require a lot of computing and graphics power. I need to prepare to buy a new machine that can run V3 from now.

Very nice Graphics and I cheer all your works done and will be done in the future by the Dev team. Keep us wondering guys.
 
Most of it looks pretty amazing. Characters aren't quite my cup of tea ; too plastic-y and game-y for what I'd like from Vicky, but, eh, kinda understand that for variety this sort of style is probably easier to do than others.

Overall though good stuff.
 
Max_Art said:

​
Hey everyone! I’m Max, Art Director of Victoria 3, here to go over the different visual elements of the game and give you some insight into our process. The games’ visual pillars center around Elegance, Hopefulness and some of the older visual elements of the Victorian era, this will be present within each visual category and discipline.
Click to expand...

1. Can a terrain map be switched off? Or are we again forced into "useless green" like in CK3?

2. How many map modes do You plan on release?
 
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Max_Art said:
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.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot for the reply! I'm delighted now. I can't wait for the game. Keep up the good work!
 
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