Dev Blog 01/11/18

[parsehtml]<p><img class="frame" src="https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/News/blog_post_64_taleworldswebsite.jpg" alt="" width="575" height="290" /></p> <p>3D artists give shape to the world we see and experience in a video game. But the devil is in the details, and sometimes what makes a game live and breathe are the small things: not the main characters and impressive buildings, but day-to-day objects such as tools, weapons, and clothes. Gameplay can be as immersive as can be to make you feel like a medieval warrior, but if you’re clothed in sweatpants and the world around you is made of cardboard, immersion jumps out of the window. Today, we talk with one of our 3D artists, Ülker Dikmen, who is one of the people responsible for making Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord not just beautiful, but also a believable world.</p></br> [/parsehtml]Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/84

 

[Duh]

I would love to see the wealth of my kingdom (fiefdom) by the quality of clothes that my subjects wear. If I am doing good in the game and create a wealthy realm then I would love to see that reflected in the clothes of my subjects. I have no idea of how to implement that but would make succeeding in the game more rewarding if my subjects also had some indicator to show that they also benefit from my success.

Check fief prosperity upon loading a scene and equip NPC appropriately/load appropriate walkers. I believe the general sentiment has a decent chance of making it into the game in some form.

 

[Grumpy181155]

I would love to see the wealth of my kingdom (fiefdom) by the quality of clothes that my subjects wear. If I am doing good in the game and create a wealthy realm then I would love to see that reflected in the clothes of my subjects. I have no idea of how to implement that but would make succeeding in the game more rewarding if my subjects also had some indicator to show that they also benefit from my success.

I love this idea.  In Warband you had the small information block about the economic state of the village / town you were entering.  It would be nice to see that reflected in the people on the streets in what they wear and their general behaviour.  For example for a thriving, prosperous town the people would be well dressed and busily going about their business while in a poorer town the people would be dressed not as well and more people would be standing around on street corners talking and lazing around.  Street crime might also be affected.

edit -  and a good blog.  Thanks TW.

 

[formergamer]

No.  We don't need a dev to spend all their time making all the horse's muscle move.  We won't see it while riding and won't see it as the horse passes by us. 

Also, hating again.  You can focus and make the clothes move all you want, but the face details still look meh. 

 

[Luftikus]

"I love making tattered and dirty clothes because I enjoy experiencing a depressingly dull and bleak atmosphere in games" 
"I draw much of my inspiration from medieval TV shows and movies"     and she only checks historical books when she's out of ideas
Please make zombie games then
other than that, it's ****ing impressive! The cloth feels real and the faces have character

 

[lolbash]

she only checks historical books when she's out of ideas

And what exactly is the problem with making creating Original designs? Bannerlord is not meant to be historical, as the game is set in a Fantasy world, and does not comply to real life 1:1.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Medieval TV shows and movies have notoriously poor design, while history generally doesn't

 

[NPC99]

I think it's great that there's the option of on/off the cloth physics.

I suspect we will get both in the same scene. Active cloth physics for those characters nearby and no cloth physics for those further away. The switch may be tied to the LOD level as opposed to something the player can control. Remember the same clothes will now appear on our world map icons as we wear in scenes, but there won’t be any cloth physics on the world map.

It makes sense what you say of course it does. But this time I don't agree with your opinion,
If you look at the last official video, just at 0:38 min you can see how far away the LOD is barely modified (pay attention to the dresses mainly).  I think that enough graphical load of the gpu will be relieved thanks to the "parallel processing" of which we have been told, to deal with the use of these physics.

Spoiler

14/09/17 blog: The rendering and postFX system has been revamped. We have a Physically Based Rendering engine which ensures that the materials in the game are visually appealing and consistent. Better Depth of Field, High Dynamic Range imaging, Screen Space Reflection and Ambient Occlusion techniques have been added and optimized. A GPU simulated cloth system has been introduced, (which has a general material system that supports different kinds of meshes,) enhancing the animations and visuals of the game.

I think that in the game configuration options we will find different options to balance the playable experience according to the capabilities of our hardware thanks to Taleworlds seems to be betting heavily on optimization (let's cross our fingers).

Display mode
Screen resolution
Brightness
Refresh rate
Texture quality
Texture filtering
Anti-aliasing
Motion blur
Volumetric Lightning
Cloth physics: ON/OFF
Ambient occlusion
Vertical sync
Tesselation
Reflection
Terrain quality
Water quality
Grass density
Population density

Regardless of our opinion, what a dev says is the law.
gkx please speak to us and resolve our concerns.

You may be correct, but I see no proof in the video you linked. Clothes will move/deform with animations whether cloth physics is there or not. At the longer LOD distances I doubt our eyes can discern the presence or absence of cloth physics.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Parallel processing only refers to the CPU. GPUs are already processed in parallel, in fact that's the biggest and most important difference between a CPU and a GPU.

Cloth physics are definitely going to be removed at a certain distance. No computer can process more than a few dozen cloth simulated agents, and in most games with cloth physics there is a falloff region where cloth is still simulated but deforms less and less so that the boundary isn't too abrupt.

 

[Ristridin]

No.  We don't need a dev to spend all their time making all the horse's muscle move.  We won't see it while riding and won't see it as the horse passes by us. 

Also, hating again.  You can focus and make the clothes move all you want, but the face details still look meh.

You won't see the face when riding a horse either, unless you want to run in to trees and whatnot Hair/bald head graphics/physics are the most important
I didn't find the face details that bad tbh. But that's just an opinion off course, which everyone is free to have.

Nice blog TW, nice to see some good info about clothing in game, thanks.

 

[Lord Engineer (Castor)]

Good dev blog, nice to see that the clothes (at least some of them) are developed from a pattern. The gif of the dress with cloth simulation also looks very nice and it showcases how far along the game has truly come.

It's also nice to have confirmation that the player can set their height.

Medieval TV shows and movies have notoriously poor design, while history generally doesn't

Not all do, Henry V and the Lion in Winter are both pretty good but I do admit modern depictions do generally fail to accurately depict medieval life. Also history has plenty of poor designs, they were mistakes and didn't last long, people learnt from them. Some of the time.

Anyway most people don't really have an accurate idea of what the time period Bannerlord is based off looked like, when they think medieval they would probably think something more representative of what we see in media. Besides as Lolbash said: it's fantasy they can do whatever they want.

 

[lolbash]

Medieval TV shows and movies have notoriously poor design, while history generally doesn't

I don't know, but these seem pretty cool, and these armors never existed in real life.

 

[Triune Impurity Rites 999]

Loling at Lolbash.

Two of those are puke design. I get for the setting that work, but I've never found such eccentric armour appetizing.  But if you think they're cool...

 

[Bjorn The Dead]

I am pretty sure when Kentucky said "poor design", he meant its effectiveness, not its physical appearance.

 

[Lord Engineer (Castor)]

Yeah I think you're right though most fantasy designs tend to be too spiky, too bulky, or not protective enough. A lot of designs also seem to be ignorant of the fact armour is intended to protect its user, and that deflecting blows is important. Spikes, ridges, and 'boobplates' would all achieve the exact opposite effect, catching the blow instead of deflecting it. You can see history as one big meat grinder for bad ideas, where only good ideas actually survive and get used. Not entirely accurate but the basic logic is people wouldn't use something that didn't work. Like stupidly oversized sledgehammers, another common fantasy trope.

Kentucky was also probably talking about clothing not armour as that is more of the focus of the blog anyway. The 11th century was a lot more colourful than people give it credit for, not everyone was constantly covered in filth.

 

[lolbash]

I agree with Kentucky's statement about the dull lifeless colors in Bannerlord and have spoken against it multiple times before. I just don't agree with his statement on how real life armors are better looking than fantasy armors.

I mean, look at these historically accurate armors.

 

[JuanNieve]

Spoiler

I hope it's easy to add high heels, i always have trouble adding it in other games XD. Also, If Sturgia can't have this kind of end gear

i gonna get disappointed. 

 

[Lord Engineer (Castor)]

Spoiler: Context

I agree with Kentucky's statement about the dull lifeless colors in Bannerlord and have spoken against it multiple times before. I just don't agree with his statement on how real life armors are better looking than fantasy armors.

I mean, look at these historically accurate armors.

As previously stated, I'm pretty sure Kentucky was referring to its effectiveness not its aesthetics. Kentucky could have also been talking about something else but only they would truly know. I think most people would agree that fantasy armours look better but real-life armours are more effective. Practicality and aesthetics don't always go hand in hand and generally people favoured staying alive over looking good when wearing armour. Also maille, a stable of many centuries including the 11th, doesn't really look too bad to me.

 

[Noudelle]

I hope it's easy to add high heels, i always have trouble adding it in other games

Excuse me?

 

[Orion]

Could we keep it classy & not objectify the developers? That'd be neat.

 

[froggyluv]

Spoiler

Awesome clothing, skinning, cloth physics and idle animations. My game persona is in love. Where can I track her down? What’s her favourite poem? Given Bannerlord’s modding potential, I promise to bring colour back into her life. 

Dont be fooled mate thats Kelly Bundy in a waif's outfit. Your poetry will fail you unless it Trent Reznor styled black chaos dissonance. She got bad boy syndrome fo sho.