Original Diablo Dev Talks Diablo 3 Art

[TsunamiWombat]

Original Diablo Dev Talks Diablo 3 Art

Bill Roper [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Roper_(video_game_producer)], one of the key figures behind the original Diablo games and, more recently, Hellgate: London, isn't really sure what to think about Diablo III's somewhat controversial art style, which he doesn't think really screams "Diablo."

Roper, who, after Hellgate: London [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/87042-Hellgate-London-Servers-Shutting-Down] and Flagship Studios' dissolution, has moved onto Cryptic Studios to work on Champions Online, was one of the key figures behind the first two Diablo games, having served as Vice President at Diablo I and II dev Blizzard North. Being someone deeply attached to the gothic-to-the-core Diablos of yore, Roper has some issues with the more painterly style Blizzard has gone with for the company's latest loot-centric clickfest.

"I didn't look at it and go, oh my God that's horrible," Roper told VideoGamer [http://www.videogamer.com/news/diablo_3_what_bill_roper_thinks.html]. "But I looked at it and went, it's not really... to me as a player it just didn't really ring with Diablo."

Roper sees Diablo III as very much the product of the Blizzard Irvine school of art direction, which pursued a bigger and brighter art style in its Warcraft games while Blizzard North's titles took a darker and grittier tone. "I was like, that looks like Blizzard," Roper said. "The guys in Irvine. That's what it looks like to me. Their interpretation of it."

The initial reveal of Diablo III was met with a not insignificant degree of responded [http://i44.tinypic.com/f3wc40.jpg] to the uproar, arguing in favor of the style's design utility and saying that Diablo was never as dark as people thought.

Roper, however, sounds like he's on the fans' side. "You know, I liked the darker grittier," he said. "I liked the differences in art style, to be honest. So, I think I would personally from a player standpoint prefer that." For him, the new art just doesn't convey the same spirit as the older games. "I think that one of the things that we always tried to get across was that Diablo was Gothic fantasy and I think there was just a need that was put in there from the visuals that I didn't necessarily get [in Diablo III]. I got it from the architecture and to a degree from the character design but not the feeling of the world."

As a pretty hardcore Diablo fan, I can say that I know where Roper's coming from, but I don't really have too big of a problem with DIII's art. I mean, I wear this super-cute Diablo III shirt [http://www.nerdyshirts.com/diablo-iii.html?SID=03ov+b5a3jkNRBkKiJLjv+7iOJIyXKYCN5uyHhxPkoY=] in public with pride.





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Oh jesus Roper, why must you FEED THE TROLLS? Now we have to sit through 20 more posts about D3 being "World of Diablo Craft".

 

[Keane Ng]

That shirt is so cute, I want one.

Unfortunately Blizzard sent its lawyers to the company making the shirts, which were TECHNICALLY unlicensed, and they can't make any more. Good thing I got one before they even went on sale!

I have a feeling Blizz will print some of its own. The design was a carbon copy of the shirts that the Blizz dudes were wearing at Blizzcon last year, except those were pink instead of baby blue, which makes them even better.

I begged Jay Wilson. He told me no

Haha, I asked him too when I was there, and he said the same thing. Jay Wilson is a big ol meanie!!!

Then again, why go through so much effort to shut down NerdyShirts' operation if they weren't planning on making their own shirts...

...you were at Blizzcon, dude? We coulda hung out

Yeah, but I wasn't that cool with you guys yet, not that I'm cool with you now. Cause you guys are hella lame.

 

[Credge]

Just remember everyone that we had to fight blue, green and I dare say pink monsters in Diablo 1 and 2.

And this is the argument that shows that many, many, many people have no idea what he, or many, are talking about.

Yes, there were bright colored enemies at higher level, special enemies that were not important enough to dictate a special model (rikimaru), OR when they were under the effects of ailments. Yes, there were bright colored armor and weaponry found at high levels.

No, none of this means that the game was BRIGHT AND COLORFUL.

The bright colors for weaponry and monsters were used only to denote power or ailment. This was a limit to sprites. You had to maintain the status quo with monsters. For example, rikimaru. You had to show that he was a fallen one. Well, what do fallen ones look like? So, what do you do to make him stand out? He's obviously a threat. So, what do you do? Make a completely different sprite? You have to make it in such a way where it still looks like a Fallen One.

With 3D, it becomes much easier to do this. You can simply add bigger armor to him, or increase his size, or do any number of things you couldn't do with 2D sprites.

Of course, Jay Wilson seems to disagree.

If you look at Diablo II, it's a far more colorful game than people give it credit for -- especially in their creatures. What we found was a lot of the art design in Diablo II does not translate well into 3-D. An example that I like to use is if you take a comic book hero and put him into a movie and you translate their costume exactly, they look ridiculous because the art style is so much more simplistic in a 2-D drawing than when you up-res it and put it in 3-D. We try to make garish monsters on a more drab background, and it didn't come out most of the time because the lighting itself would gray everything down. So we found that we had to make the general background more vibrant.

He also misses the point and fails at every point he mentions.

Diablo 2 was about as colorful as Diablo 1. The only thing colorful were the above mentioned things. If something did have a color, it was a very muted and dark version of that color. The only BRIGHT place in the game was the desert, which was bright for a reason.

However, this completely misses the entire point of what people said. Dark does not mean a lack of color. Dark does not mean that it's shadowy or visible hard to see. Dark is an emotion, and dark has only been conveyed in one set of screenshots (the nearly pitch black abysmal ones with the pile of corpses and a fire). Dark is a feeling.

Also, comic book costumes not translating well to 3D? I think Watchmen completely destroyed that. As did Spiderman and Superman. So... eh?

Even further...

We try to make garish monsters on a more drab background, and it didn't come out most of the time because the lighting itself would gray everything down.

Isn't that the point? To have difficulty identifying exactly what that is on the outside of your light radius? Is that just a zombie or a one of those big mummy guys? Could it be a boss? I don't know. I'm scared. It could be The Butcher. It could just be a Skeleton.

With the lighting they have, where I can see everything at all times... I'm not getting that. I'm not talking about the outside areas ~ those weren't ever spooky or scary. The inside areas... those were truly well made in D1 and D2. Just bring back that sort of lighting. For the love of god get rid of that blue-green hue crap that floods every bit of dungeon we've seen. Change that to something neutral and lower the light in the surrounding areas a bit and increase the light in the middle of the screen. It doesn't have to be a light radius stat. It can just be something passive that is the same throughout the game.

Something, anything.

 

[SonofSeth]

You were scared because you were 12.

Did you just write, Dark is an Emotion??

 

[scotth266]

This again? Are people forgetting how colourfull D2 is? Do I need to post every single screenshot I posted in the other thread? The diference betewen D2 and D3 is that D2 uses 16 bit colour pallete and D3 a 32 bit colour pallete.Also that man needs to shut cause Hellgate:London has fail all written over it.

Huh. I was about to say, this looks rather similar to that thread, but it's news now! Yippie!
Anywho, from what I've seen this game looks to be rather grim anyway. It strikes more of dungeons than ponies to me.
Note: As I have never played the Diablo games, I'd like to think I have a nuetral base from which to give opinions...

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Diablo 3 looks fairly bleak, anyway if they want to silence people just throw a light drizzle of rain over it.

 

[oliveira8]

This again? Are people forgetting how colourfull D2 is? Do I need to post every single screenshot I posted in the other thread? The diference betewen D2 and D3 is that D2 uses 16 bit colour pallete and D3 a 32 bit colour pallete.Also that man needs to shut cause Hellgate:London has fail all written over it.

Huh. I was about to say, this looks rather similar to that thread, but it's news now! Yippie!
Anywho, from what I've seen this game looks to be rather grim anyway. It strikes more of dungeons than ponies to me.
Note: As I have never played the Diablo games, I'd like to think I have a nuetral base from which to give opinions...

This has been news since Diablo 3 became official. ^^

And I will always say the art style of Diablo 3 looks so diferent cause of the graphics are tens of thousands times better than Diablo 2. D2 graphics were outdated when it came out nevermind now...

 

[scotth266]

This has been news since Diablo 3 became official. ^^

And I will always say the art style of Diablo 3 looks so diferent cause of the graphics are tens of thousands times better than Diablo 2. D2 graphics were outdated when it came out nevermind now...

Hmm... so why all the fuss now? Seems to me to be a good thing that Blizz went and thought up some new concepts, schemes, enviornments and whatnot.
I mean, SC2 got a major art upgrade as well, with little bother so far...

 

[oliveira8]

This has been news since Diablo 3 became official. ^^

And I will always say the art style of Diablo 3 looks so diferent cause of the graphics are tens of thousands times better than Diablo 2. D2 graphics were outdated when it came out nevermind now...

Hmm... so why all the fuss now? Seems to me to be a good thing that Blizz went and thought up some new concepts, schemes, enviornments and whatnot.
I mean, SC2 got a major art upgrade as well, with little bother so far...

Cause thats how fanboys work. When Diablo 2 came out fanboys of D1 burned D2 to hell cause it had more outdoor areas.

 

[Ciran]

Y'know I can kinda see both sides of the argument. I understand, to an extent, why people want the dingier atmosphere; it breeds a sense of tension. When you have no idea what's on the outside of your tiny radius of light, it taps into the deepest fear humans have had since the beginning of time; fear of the unkown. When you have no idea if the thing charging you is a simple monster or a boss creature, it keeps you on your toes and the tension levels run high as you try to survive.

On the other hand,I can kind of see where Jay Wilson is coming from, if for a slightly different reason. With the change of Diablo III going into full, obvious 3D there are obviously going to have to be some changes. Most notably, if you work long and hard to create some monster, you're not going to want the details destroyed by poor lighting. In addition, a lot of the spells (namely the wizards energy beam spell) would lose a lot of their aesthetic effectiveness because they would have to be muted to fit with the rest of the game. And again, if you look at the levels, there is a vast difference between the detail within Diablo II and Diablo III. The dungeons in Diablo II were dingy and mostly just rock, maybe some statues, a pedestal or column. but all of these were fairly plain. The detail that has gone into the levels in Diablo III is a realy big difference, and I actually enjoy that part of it. If the light level was reduced and you were dropped back to your original circle of visibility and lot of the detail work would have been for nought.

All in all, I can see why the hardcore fans are upset and I am a bit dissapointed by the lack of atmosphere as well, but I can also see why what was done with Diablo III was done. It was a necessary change to keep up with the rising effectiveness of the graphics. Hopefully, if they make a fourth Diablo, maybe they'll be able to find a happy medium beween both the gritty atmosphere and making use of the advanced graphics.

 

[Dectilon]

Bill Roper thinks D3 doesn't scream Diablo? Well... the only thing Hellgate screams is "Kiiiill meeeeee..."

Personally I don't see why people care about keeping D3 dark considering how utterly ridiculous D2 was. D1 had some semblance of atmosphere, but that's not the game D3 will be. D3 is most like Painkiller or Serious Sam: You jump in and smash tons of monsters with various over-the-top attacks. Plot is secondary or even tertiary!

It's not that I don't think it's possible to make a full-blown RPG in this style, but I think we can all agree that D3 won't be one.

 

[Abedeus]

It's funny how someone that has made a (fun, but failed) game with flying pink monsters criticizes another game, where giant fat men are killed and bugs come out of their stomachs.


Also, you can always turn the graphics down. Because it's not the graphics that made Diablo and Diablo 2's atmosphere so dark and grimey - it's the SOUNDTRACK!

You were scared because you were 12.

Did you just write, Dark is an Emotion??

EEEEEEEEEEMOOOOOOOOOO!!1

 

[Blindem]

I could not care less about Roper's opinion. He has no credibility in my book at all after the absolute crap that was HG:L and the mismanagement of that fiasco. I would pay more attention to a genuine fan of the series' comments than I would his, because at least the fan has the courage of his/her convictions.

 

[johnthenerd]

Hellgate was awful, but Mythos was looking pretty tight. Too bad it got cancelled before it was finished.