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Games with the best low fantasy combat visuals?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by frosted, May 29, 2016.

  1. frosted

    frosted

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    I'm looking for a sampling of games that have the best presentation of low fantasy combat in 3rd person.

    I'm most interested in examples of: particles, post effects, camera movement.

    Currently the best two examples I can find are Witcher 3 (not exactly low fantasy but close enough) and Assassins Creed. I'm curious about other high quality examples, and most especially in particle effect usage (what kind of visual effects make sense in a low fantasy setting).

    Any examples or videos are really appreciated!

    Anything that has 'special abilities' while maintaining a low fantasy feel is doubly appreciated!
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2016
  2. Martin_H

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    What's low fantasy? No orcs and no magic? I'd have named Shadow of Mordor, but that probably doesn't count, right?
    What about Dark Souls?
     
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  3. frosted

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    Combat that wouldn't look too out of place in a Game of Thrones kind of environment. Shadow of Mordor, Batman, Assassins Creed. These are all kind of the same family. I've never really looked at dark souls, I'll check that out.

    Witcher 3 has some killer combat treatment without relying purely on 'execution' animations as much.

    I'm just trying to collect as many examples as possible.
     
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  4. Arowx

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    Just to clarify melee combat, hand to hand (style?), hand weapons (era/theme?), firearms?
     
  5. frosted

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    Yes. Swords and stuff - melee combat. Stabby stab.
     
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  6. Arowx

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    Can't say I've seen a great implementation of this style of combat.

    Mind you if someone implemented a combination of these two it could be good.


    Realistic Physics


    Realistic Damage


    It will be interesting to see BF1's Melee combat system in action, but I doubt it will be realistic.

    But if you went full VR with a padded RL robot opponent there are markets outside of games that would be very interested.
     
  7. frosted

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    Thanks dude, I'll keep Sniper Elite 3 and Battlefield 1 in mind as good models for low fantasy RPG melee combat!
     
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  8. KnightsHouseGames

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    I think the closest the world ever got to a realistic sword fighting game was Bushido Blade 1.
     
  9. frosted

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    To clarify - I'm not nessecarially looking for realism. I'm just looking for a 'gritty' aesthetic. So just stuff that isn't all particle effect driven.

    Assassins Creed / Batman / Shadow are good examples:


    These games tend to use a mixture of slow motion, post effects and camera to present great looking combat.



    Witcher involves magic but it still kind of retains a more realistic feel, I don't think Witcher leans on as many post effects as it does camera shake and particle effects.

    "High fantasy" is more like Dragon Age, and is almost all particle effect driven

    Most RPGs use this style, and really unload crazy particle effects.

    I'm trying to figure out how to best accomplish good looking combat without heavy reliance on glowing particles and stuff.

    I want to present a "gritty low fantasy" feel, like Game of Thrones... but there aren't many good examples. Sadly, the Game of Thrones game went with high fantasy combat aesthetic:

    And it still looks terrible.
     
  10. Arowx

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    Sniper Elites damage system, something missing from melee combat.

    Watch the trailer for BF1 some great shovel action, they are also going to have bayonet and cavalry charges, a lot of trench warfare drops down to close quarters.
     
  11. Arowx

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    What do you think of Mad Max's Melee combat?

     
  12. frosted

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    I'm not looking to build "revolutionary new perfect combat system" I'm trying to look for visual techniques that will spice up combat in a low fantasy setting.
    This is actually kind of useful and has some good examples, more impact time shifting + camera shake, but they do some impact effects that almost border on subtle, and I love the spit and blood.

    Basically, I'm trying to figure out the cheapest tricks and techniques to make combat look as good as possible without resorting to glowing particles or animations I can't afford to produce.

    So I'm looking for the best examples of time shifting, camera shaking, the best examples of more subtle particle effects (dust, blood, smoke, possibly trails, etc), the best examples of post effects (assassins creed's time shift)... stuff that I can possibly accomplish without spending 2.3 million dollars on animation - but that also won't break the game's aesthetic.
     
  13. Arowx

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    Try just listening to the combat sequences with your eyes closed. Or play the best fight scene you can find in a movie, watch it then just listen to it. It might be the Sfx you're missing?
     
  14. KnightsHouseGames

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    Ohh, so you are looking for aesthetic effects, not mechanics.

    The problem here is you need to adjust both if you want the look you are going for. If the sword just passes through the enemy and you just pull off sweet combos all day, it's already too late

    Something I found really annoying about an example you give, Assassin's Creed 3, was the fact that so many of the moves he does to some of the regular enemies would most definitely be fatal, but the enemy keeps fighting unphased if you don't keep hitting him over and over, and it just ends up breaking immersion. In reality, people don't take hits and lose HP, they get hit and either die, or become incapacitated. So if you want a more dark, real look, first off, get rid of combos. Second, when you or the enemy gets hit, and it isn't fatal, there needs to be consequences, like some form of injury or incapacitation. This is the anatomy of a real fight if lethal weapons are involved.

    Once you understand that, look into something like this



    While you obviously aren't looking for comedy and want to make gritty game #9,000,001, the visual pacing is still important. This should give you some good hints about the visual aspects of action sequences.

    Now, if you want to do this cheaply, you need to swallow the difficult fact that something like this, especially if it's 3D, just isn't possible to do cheaply, unless you know a guy who owns a mocap studio who will let you use it for free.
     
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  15. neginfinity

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    Blade of Darkness (aka Severance)? It is sorta old, but combat-wise it is pretty much similar to dark souls.

    I wouldn't call Witcher "low-fantasy", but I remembered Dragon age the moment you mentioned witcher.
    Thief games.... Dishonered... Vampire Masquerade: Redemption.... Hexen... Heretic.... Die by the sword? can't think of anything else at the moment.

    I suspect this won't won't be possible. Because you'll either need particles OR you'll need root motion-based animation which will give you tension of darksouls game. If you can't produce either of those you'll need to go some different route, like making the game turn-based, for example.
     
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  16. Billy4184

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    I think good sfx would really help, I remember one of the Prince of Persia games had some really nice 'ripping' sfx during combat and that was one of the most memorable things for me the few times I played it.

    I think the most important thing is player feedback. You have to look at your combat mechanics, your animations, so on, and look for every opportunity to amplify the feedback when a player does something. Amplify the slashing sound, amplify the grunt the enemy makes when hit, amplify the visuals (with weapon trails/vfx). Make the animations with follow-through for emphasis, and hold the position at the end of the swing to really drive it in. Also make an extended 'stumble' sequence for the enemy when a particularly good swipe found its mark.

    If you make an example perhaps it would be easier for people to comment on what could be improved.

    IMO for a turn-based game, where the gameplay is broken up into small set-pieces, it would be important to have an intro and outro to really mark the beginning and end, and so as not to make it look like the characters simply decided to stop fighting. A short dialogue or some poses wouldn't be a bad idea imo.
     
  17. neginfinity

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    For turn based games it might make sense to look at shin-megami tensei nocturne and related series (Digital Devil Saga, too). The combat there is a blast, however amount of animation clips per monster is very low (however they have a large number of monsters in the game).
     
  18. neginfinity

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    Before I forget about it...

    There aren't many fantasy games that grab player with combat mechanics. Mostly they use visuals/storytelling/sound. Ones that have awesome combat are pretty much blade of darkness/dark souls.

    For more combat mechanics take a look at Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Enclave.

    For more fantasy games, take a look at games based on DarkEye (Demonicon, Blackguards, Drakensang)
     
  19. frosted

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    Alright - here's a clip of my current combat system. It's a turnbased game but it's using animation techniques that aren't generally associated with turn based games. I am using root motion based animation.



    Obviously, I am not up to the standard set in the AAA examples above, but in the turn based genre, it's probably one of the most active and responsive examples I've come across. I'm looking for examples of games that do excellent visuals so I can better attempt to steal stuff.

    I am not asking "how do you" or "where is the make me a game button" - I am looking for examples of great looking games so I can improve the current combat visuals as well as learn additional techniques.

    Yes, I am aware of the fact that if a guy gets hit with a sword he isn't going to go back to 'standing there till his hp goes to 0' - but I am trying to make a video game. Not talk about making video games.

    I am not shooting for 'realism' as much as I am a narrative that involves your men being not special, as in non-magical. Like a peasant with a pitch fork, and a drunk. These kinds of characters should not glow with magic power. They are not "chosen ones", they're random bums and deviants. So I'm trying to keep a consistent aesthetic for narrative purposes, not to make a realistic combat simulator.

    So -- does anyone have any videos of good looking medieval style combat other than mad max, battlefield 1 and jakie chan film analysis?

    I need like real examples of stuff like debuff indicators and the like, specific types of impact effects, etc. Examples of HUD indicator and damage information. Stuff so I can see different techniques and approaches in action.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2016
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  20. Billy4184

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    The thing that strikes me the most about the gameplay you just showed, is how the "why isn't this guy doing anything" feeling ONLY comes when the characters are able to move and make adjustments during the turn.

    I think it would be better to try to paint each turn as a single 'blow' to the enemy, in that you mark your moves by each member, and then the combat happens in one continuous action, followed by the opposite team's turn. I think the worst feeling is when one of your players delivers a blow to the enemy, and then the camera moves to one of your teammates and the enemy that just got damaged is still immobile while your teammate makes adjustments. It would be better if the enemy responded immediately following any action in which it received damage (i.e., the enemy's turn begins immediately after any damage is done to it).

    Have you played Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic? Combat isn't turn based, but the scene freezes when an enemy is sighted so that you can coordinate an attack amongst your team-mates. The crucial point is that once you've coordinated the attack, all your team strikes at the same time.
     
  21. frosted

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    Yes, but I'm not making a real time game. I'm making a turn based game... turn based is different from real time with pause. It's actually kind of a different genre.

    You guys are killing me.

    Does anyone have some examples of 'low fantasy' games that have fun visual combat?
     
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  22. Billy4184

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    I didn't say anything about realtime (the Star Wars thing was just an example). The point is that there is a single turn for the player and the enemy each (not broken up between the teammates), so the player has to set up the attacks of all their team members at once for that turn. Does that make sense? I think a turn-based game would work better that way.
     
  23. OCASM

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  24. frosted

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    Thank you so much for posting a video of a melee based combat game! :)

    Anyone have other good examples?
     
  25. Martin_H

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    Watched the first minute of that video. For me the most immersion breaking thing was how almost a dozen soldiers with loaded rifles does not even try to shoot the assassin while he brutally murders their friends one by one. I can get over some Orcs not attacking in the most sensible manner but, but trained soldiers with rifles not shooting and instead standing around patiently waiting for their turn to be murdered is pushing it...

    I'm pretty sure that project is far enough in development that such changes are no longer feasible.

    I suggest watching all the reference videos with the sound off too, so that you can really focus on the visuals. Imho the most important factor for making it feel gritty and grounded is attacks not clipping through objects unless it's meant to actually be a lethal stab. Of course that's not easily realized without a big animation budget. Particle effects might be the "biggest bang for the buck". I'd try sparks for metal on metal hits and suble puffs of dust for everything else, plus blood splatter for hits that do damage of course.

    At the beginning of this video you see how Dark Souls 3 handles these impacts. I think it would need to be toned down a fair bit for your game but the concept seems solid:
     
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  26. KnightsHouseGames

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    OK....Yeah, I was kinda unclear what you were going for before, now I think I'm starting to get it a little more. I thought it was supposed to be a straight action game.

    The thing that bothers me about this kind of turn based system is when the characters can move real time, and it's just the actions that are turn based. It kinda breaks the 4th wall of it all, because you are always questioning why you can run up to the guy, and he does nothing in response to you doing stuff.

    The idea of turn based battle is to simulate as much of the battle as you can, so you can just focus solely on the strategy, and worry less about the tactics.

    I think the biggest problem you have in terms of aesthetics is using that one static camera for everything. If you are controlling multiple characters against a mob of enemies, it might be better to us an overhead, wide shot camera of some sort while you are selecting your actions, then when you are doing the fighting, cut to an action cam, which is already framed up nicely on the two participants in the action, sorta like the little framed action cams you got in Final Fantasy X during some parts of the battle, or the kill animations you see in Assassin's Creed Multiplayer. That would give you the more cinematic experience you're looking for.

    And for the logistics of a system like that, you might want to put the movement on rails a little more. That way you don't have to guess where the camera is gonna need to be for every cinematic cut. So when you are taking action, you move the two characters as subtly as possible to a position where they are lined up cleanly, then move the camera where you want it to be for the nice tight shot.

    I think another problem is the fact that the characters being attacked don't look like they are aware the attack is coming, and just kinda stand there oblivious to the world, so if they had a little bit of reaction to the idea of being hit, like they looked scared, or like they are trying to prepare to take the hit, then it might also create a better look as well.
     
  27. Martin_H

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    More Mad Max:

     
  28. frosted

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    The reason I am using turn based is because I have a party and perma death, it has nothing to do with strategy. I can't have perma death without absolute player control. I am under no pretense of strategy.

    Have any good examples to share?

    Looking at all this stuff is pretty amazing - absolutely everything is derivative of assassins creed no? Everything uses almost the same tricks, it's just a matter of how much camera shake and how much you slow time on the impacts.

    I love the sound design for ryse - everything is booming. It's like over the top trailer effects all the way.

    Actually, I love almost everything about ryse, from the hud to the quicktime events, same stuff as everything else but really slick.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2016
  29. neginfinity

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    Here's the most similar mechanic I know of:



    Valkyria chronicles.

    Turn-based combat with free-form movement. When it is your turn, you can move around, stop at one point and shoot.
    While you're moving enemy that is guarding and can see you will be firing at you. So you'll want to end your movement in cover.

    The weirdest thing about your clip is that the enemies don't stop moving completely. I'd expect them to freeze. Or almost freeze.
     
  30. frosted

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    This game is one of my major inspirations along with mordheim city of the damned.



    In terms of how much motion out of turn - it's delicate. I'm trying to push some boundary a little and do something just a tad different. We'll see how it turns out.

    I appreciate all the advice and stuff - but really - I'm looking for great looking games that I can learn from and improve off of.
     
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  31. hippocoder

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    Nah it's normal for jrpg combat, enemies and player are always animated. This is good because frozen looks a bit crap.
     
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  32. neginfinity

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    I know, however in your average jrpg it doesn't look weird and here it does. probably because enemies do not seem to be completely pinned to the ground (because root motion). Also, I played Valkyria chronicles. In the clip something is off.

    Well, see the list from before. Severance/Blade of Darkness, Enclave, Dark messiah of might and magic, Dark Souls, Heretic/Hexen, Thief, etc. oh, right and Final Fantasy games - i think that variations of combat system in XIII, XIII-2 and lightning returns might be of interest.

    You won't find this specific control scheme, most likely (it is rare), but you should get plenty of ideas.
     
  33. frosted

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    I am not looking for games that use my control scheme.

    I'm looking for games that have top quality combat visuals. Like Witcher, Assassins Creed, Ryse, etc.

    Thanks though.
     
  34. neginfinity

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    Erm. o_O.

    Oh well.

    Try Gothic: Arcania, Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, Lightning Returns, Dark Souls 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Tales of Zesteria.

    Aside from Witcher and Dark Souls I don't remember many of "high-budget top quality visuals" games being released on PC platform recently.

    Also, I think technomancer is going to be released soon.
    -------
    Dragon's Dogma:

    Tales of Zestiria:

    Lightning Returns:
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2016
  35. frosted

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    I'm really looking more for stuff like this - like really high quality visuals - feels solid - particle effects don't break a low magic aesthetic. Really, a lot of rpgs lean very heavily on stuff glowing and particle effects, so it's hard to find examples of games that don't rely on these but still deliver high quality combat.

    Looking for more visual examples of things that don't seem very magical, but are still awesome to look at and feel top quality.

    I understand that I cannot reach the quality of these games, but I'd like to kind of study them.
     
  36. neginfinity

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    The problem is that there aren't many of those games, and most of them aren't "high quality". Gothic, Enclave, Risen, Blade of darkness, Dark Souls.... Witcher. And that's pretty much it. Maybe there are some hidden gems I'm not aware of, though....
     
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  37. frosted

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    The problem is that none of these games have particularly good looking combat except Witcher.

    I'm not trying to say these games don't have fun combat or aren't great looking games in general, but visually the combat in these games is not anywhere near top quality like Ryse, Assassins Creed, Shadow of Mordor or Witcher.

    And yes - in general there aren't many of those games, and it is hard to find them - this is why I started this thread ;)
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2016
  38. neginfinity

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    How about Devil May Cry, then?

    Also, you may want to define what you call "good looking". Dark Souls combat is pretty impressive visually.



    The videos you posted before resemble batman arkham asylum games and look bland/unimpressive to me. Meaning it is highly-scripted combat sequences with quicktime events and huuge reaction window. That includes witcher combat which, frankly, always looked quite bad (with exception of 1st witcher which had absolutely amazing animations, especially on group style).

    If you want to go this route you'll need to check batman games, maybe god of war, etc. It is hack and slash gameplay.

    The reason why combat there looks good is because of their HUGE animation budget.

    You should still check out Severance, though. Nothings adds more to "grittiness" than dismemberment.



    -----

    Either way, I think that I'm done here.

    In my opinion, in low-fantasy melee combat scenario grittiness will pretty much amount to:

    1. High quality animations.
    2. Lots of blood.
    3. Dismemberment (if you can make it work - very low number of games feature proper dismemberment mechanics).

    And that's pretty much it. I don't think there are any additional secrets.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2016
  39. frosted

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    I actually agree with this - Ryse also leans heavily on dismemberment - and it can actually be very cheap to do (just code).

    I don't think this is entirely true - sure the elaborate executions and stuff play the biggest role. But there is so much going on visually in some of these games that you or I could learn from and reproduce cheaply - the time shifting, post effects, particle fx, HUD effects, and camera tricks.

    It's these things that I'm trying to find best of breed examples for (as stated quite plainly in the OP post).

    If you look at those games as a game dev there is a ton to learn, and many of those things can be recreated (at least in part) by any solid programmer solo.

    The big problem is that most of the 'cheap' ways to make games look good involve bright glowing stuff - either particle effects or hud effects and huge 'larger than life' style visuals. The main problem wth a "low fantasy" aesthetic is that it removes a lot of the most accessible techniques for 'juicing' up stuff like combat. The reason for this thread is to find other examples of games that didn't rely on glowing particles or tremendous trails but still present best of breed visual juice.
     
  40. neginfinity

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    //Opinion.
    Sorry, I just don't think so. For example, if you have time shifting, you need to be damn sure that every frame of your animation is polished. Because if it isn't polished, every minor issue in your animation will be 50 times more obvious for a user.

    So, you pretty much want to cheaply replicate something that took dozen people to create in the first place.

    For example, here's this video:


    See those two muscular hulk-like things fight each other? The scene last 5 minutes or so. It took 6 months to finish (they say this in commentary).

    //Opinion.
    No, there's nothing to learn for a programmer. Assassin creed combat has complexity of dance dance revolution pretty much. The rest is polish on animation side of things. In the examples you presented, there are a lot of hours spent polishing visuals and animations, not programming (which is quite obvious when you play witcher, because geralt does not exactly have smooth combat controls).

    You CAN'T cheaply replicate this. The only option here is to just sit and keep working on character animation, until your animation quality approaches mocap level.
     
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  41. frosted

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    I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. I'm not asking for advice or council, I'm not asking "is it possible" or "how do I".

    I just want some example videos of games that have great combat juice without glowing particle effects. Is this really so difficult to understand?

    :(:mad:o_O
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2016
  42. neginfinity

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    There's no problem, and you've been given plenty of examples already.
     
  43. Deleted User

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    You've been in every thread that goes off topic / up / down / left / right into a parallel universe and you expected this one to be any different? :D..

    For your type of game, I'd probably highly recommend the Ryse sorta thing. It's pretty much not too far away from your foundations anyway..!
     
  44. Martin_H

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    Some might not understand, but I think the main problem is that there are not many more games than those that have been mentioned. Maybe on console, I'm not familiar with some of the exclusives. But as far as I know, almost all other third person melee combat games lean more on the glowing and stylized side.
    Maybe you can get something out of videos for the two "Condemned" games. They are as gritty as it gets and feature brutal melee, but they are first person and not set in a medieval/fantasy setting.
     
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  45. frosted

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    Yeah that's true. I did debate communism in some thread about like indie dev jealousy or something. I guess this is "off topic" karma!

    The Ryse example is really good. If nothing else, I learned about that game from this thread, so I guess it wasn't all a waste.

    That's kind of the point though - I know there aren't tons of games that don't rely on glowing - which is why I made this thread. I also never really played a lot of action games, so I'm not super familiar with the genre. The best examples will all be action games.
     
  46. Martin_H

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    Maybe you'll get more out of looking at movies for references? "300" comes to mind.
     
  47. frosted

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    Yeah, and Sparticus that stole from the aesthetic. Really though, I'm hoping to find examples of game related juice.
    • Assassin's creed does a blur around the edge of the screen when it time shifts - it's like a vignette post effect only it's a motion blur that draws the eye toward the center of the screen.
    • Ryse always uses a little chime sound when it enters a slow mo sequence - it helps to highlight the transition, train the player, and somehow explain what's happening.
    • Many games shift to some variant of a rim shader as well.
    • Mad Max's daze particles are great, and the slow mo frequently capturing the blood spurt (high opacity blood spit, not just cloud with dots like most blood fx).
    • Ryse's HUD information is not particularly invasive, but can still present a good amount of information relatively quickly and does so without feeling cluttered.
    • Witcher 3's camera shake is kind of unusual - it is often times less of a shake and more of a straight up bounce. It tends to shift in one direction a bit and snap back. It still serves the purpose of camera shake accenting impact, but it's less messy than almost any other camera shake I've ever seen.
    • Ryse's sound design is so extremely over the top - the effects they use are not remotely the kind of thing you see as "impact effect" its closer to super intense trailer sounds with some metallic mixed in.
    These are some of the things I'm looking to learn from and copy. I'm looking for the small details that are done to the best levels of quality.
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2016
  48. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Actually, check out Dragon age 1 & 2.. In DA1 the interactive combat system was far from amazing (clunky etc.) but the strategic portion of it and NPC (follower based logic) was excellent.

    For DA2, you could keep it low fantasy if you chose the warrior class and they did a bang up job on the interactive portion but then the strategy bit suffered and it was a little boring (like button mashing).. But between the two a collective Idea could form taking the best bit from both.
     
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  49. Martin_H

    Martin_H

    Joined:
    Jul 11, 2015
    Posts:
    4,436
    You could experiment with an unsharp mask post effect that is masked to the area around the hit, to crank up contrast even further. Might look weird, might look good, only one way to find out.

    Refractive shaders have been used to show the force of explosions, maybe a subtle variant of such a shader on a particle effect at the hitpoint could work?

    Subtle camera shake on hits maybe?

    If you want to experiment with different dynamic cameras and cuts, there's that asset from the Deserts of Kharak devs I think.
     
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  50. frosted

    frosted

    Joined:
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    Posts:
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    Any examples of stuff similar to the above I can look at or use as reference?