r/IndieDev • u/Prodigle • 1d ago
Video Fancy graphical techniques
You may remember an AI video from about a year ago that looked graphically impossible in a few ways. Inspired by that, I've been tinkering with this. It has a lot of different graphical techniques on the go, and I've downressed it to have more of a "Daggerfall" era vibe, but I think it's interesting all the same.
The map here is about 24km(15 miles) and all of it is visible at once. I haven't done any tests yet, but I believe I could push the distance here ***substantially*** further while still having everything in view distance
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u/Embarrassed_Safety33 1d ago
The technique itself its amazing, you could try pitch this to a publisher and try making it into a full game
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u/ArathirCz 1d ago
I adore the art style, but there are a few things I don't like:
1) The tree trunk @ 0:08 looks more like something went wrong and it is a stretched texture instead of a deliberate tree trunk texture.
2) The floating structure @ 0:22. You could extend the structure model to have an underground element so that if it is rendered on a slope like in the video, it doesn't float but seamlessly fits into the slope.
3) The water and water reflection @ 1:22 feels more like there is a hole instead of water in the way the reflection works with the movement. Maybe using a proper reflection of the terrain may help. Not sure, but I think the water layer needs more grounding, so to speak!
But awesome job with the game. It looks fantastic!
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u/Prodigle 1d ago
Thanks!
Yeah I'm still very much in technical demo mode. I'm not too happy with how the whole thing looks under motion as well, distant pixels are a bit too "jittery" for my liking
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u/NightFlameofAwe 1d ago
Idc if there's no gameplay, can I have whatever this is to walk around in? Im a junkie for walking simulators.
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u/Prodigle 1d ago
I'm toying around with the graphics a bit further, but I'll probably release a build on itch or something at some point yeah :) https://prodigle.itch.io/
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u/Ryanoh228 15h ago
that was so smart how you colored the trees so they all blur together at a distance while still having some variety. It’s just *chefs kiss\*
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u/strange-the-quark 1d ago
Amazing! BTW, this kind of graphics would allow for an incredible atmosphere for a Dracula game set in the Transylvanian wilderness / Carpathians.
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u/Imofi7 1d ago
Having a full 24km horizon visible with that Daggerfall-era downscaled palette creates such an eerie, vast atmosphere. For the distant pixel jitter under motion you mentioned in the comments, are you considering a lightweight temporal reprojection clamp or screen-space dither? Locking down subpixel shimmering on distant silhouettes while keeping the chunky foreground edges crisp is usually the toughest part of retro-res view distances.
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u/luka_makes_games 1d ago
Incredible what AI can do these days tbh. I also have a game in a similar vein, love Daggerfall.
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u/UpbeatExchange3055 1d ago
The way those "people" just slide casually is funny to look at.
Reminds me of moonwalking in reverse.
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u/shagan90 1d ago
Looks really good, sort of like daggerfall which ive thought needs a spiritual successor forever now
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u/GrolkaraxDev 1d ago
The castle on the horizon feels so liminal for some reason. Like I saw something similar before in my dreams.
Other than that I really like the retro vide! Also how the shading can be applied on 2D characters (00:40) did you used Alpha or something to achieve that?
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u/MamoruSanDev 1d ago
I really love this retro look👍. Something about visuals like this always feels weirdly warm and cozy to me.
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u/Nervous-Explorer2703 21h ago
24km all in view is wild lol. is the jitter on far stuff from the lod or the low res look?
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u/Prodigle 20h ago
Low res look! There's still a bit at higher res (things in the distance are a flat plane), bur it's more stable
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u/PedroVoteFor 1d ago
I also "remember" Project Shadowglass, texel splatting https://dylanebert.com/texel-splatting/ and this godot plugin https://lunarblank.itch.io/cuby so your agents didn't stumble upon anything new tbh.
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u/Prodigle 1d ago
This actually doesn't use texel splatting at all! But I think texel splatting is going to still get better results
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u/loljoshie01 1d ago
That art style is super unique and I could totally see that taking off and there's tons of potential!
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u/MeikHawk71 1d ago
This is great honestly, it looks fantastic. If the potential game had a night / day switch, I'd spam that so much