StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[Marco]

Hey Joel, long time no see.

I for one think map sizes are as big as are needed, but I guess I can just work with the sizes of them.  12 player limit is good.  Restrictions are mainly there for the players benefit.  Although they have annoyed me, I don't think they are terribly unreasonable.  Besides, some third party will always find a way around the preset restrictions.  A few things I hope they improve on:

- Make units look better close up.  Often times I would zoom in on units and they were really ugly.
- Looks like they are going back to 'movie-type' animated portraits.  (In StarCraft, usually this was like 12 frames in a SMK)  Thank goodness.
- Improved AI control.  I would like to be able to instruct the AI to do things through predefined scripts rather than commanding single or groups of units manually.
- Better unit ability control.  Having units casts spells should be an easy matter.
- More 'story' unit animations.  Would love to see, in the single player, many more unit animations for more realistic cinematics.

[IskatuMesk]

One thing I noticed is that the unit pathing is MANY times better than the horrible, horrible dance-mastery of Wc3. Watch those huge swarm of zerglings attacking the Zealots and the triggered "GG" movement. In wc3, they'd be spinning all over the place flailing to get past each other. In sc2, it's a lot more fluid, like SC1 was.

This was a huge rework of Wc3's engine.

I really, REALLY hope they don't screw the computer players like they've done in every title to date. The bar is so low for AI because no one has ever bothered to raise it.

In either case I will be doing a RequiemD mod.

[Aiursrage2k]

You can hear someone explaining whats going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxzHprN9 ... ed&search=

[IskatuMesk]

Watch the videos at the korean site. You can get a bit higher resolution and more footage.

[JoelS]

- Looks like they are going back to 'movie-type' animated portraits.  (In StarCraft, usually this was like 12 frames in a SMK)  Thank goodness.

I could be wrong, but I assumed in this new footage that those were higher-poly 3d portraits, not canned smk/bink style like the old games used.

[Lavarinth]

They look like they are prerendered animations, in my eye. Blizzard isn't really known for using high-poly in game to allow a more "broad" audience to play the game.

[IskatuMesk]

They are most likely pre-rendered.

[Marco]

Either your eye as an artist is super sharp and I'm wrong, or you totally messed up on that one.  Check out the animations on www.starcraft2.com, they definitely look rendered and not in-game.  I know you didn't actually play WC3 that much, but even their 'portraits' were ugly.  Compared to that, I don't see how this could be using the in-game engine to render.  Although if it is, I pray the models are actually that detailed up close (though I doubt it).

[Aiursrage2k]

It looks like they are using normal mapping, or maybe its just phong shading.

[IskatuMesk]

Desler> Yeah, wc3's portrait was really ugly.

Watch the transmission portrait in those videos. There's no way the game is rendering that. If it is, I'll be astonished. The units aren't nearly that detailed.

The terrain and such could be using normal mapping. I don't think they're using phong... would be surprised if they were. That's a pretty high-end lighting system.

[Marco]

I also think WC3 model-generated portraits might use up many more CPU resources than a SMK-type portrait.  Getting back to the SMK (or AVI or whatever their new standard will be) is really good because its much easier to change a characters identity.  Like in WC3, while you can retexture Arthas, you still know its Arthas.  But in SC, you put a new SMK on Jim Raynor and BOOM - instant Captain Koe Lence.  It's just more believable.  I think when someone looks at a retextured Arthas, they think, 'oh wow, they are using that used up guy again'.  Hah!

Man I'm pumped.  Let's get this party rolling!

[IskatuMesk]

Yeah, the pre-rendered portraits is an incredibly smart move. Not to mention they're in full color, now, so you can make some pretty high detailed characters with crazy effects.

I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I'm actually excited. I don't usually get excited, because I have really low expectations, but this might be the first game to really give me hype since Brood War.

[Ross]

I'll be the first in line to buy this game, after blizzard puts back its release date 5 months.

[JoelS]

Ah, you're right about the portraits / transmissions.  I was just watching some higher-res video of it (as opposed to the YouTube sized clips I'd seen before), and it is prerendered.  That surprises me given how they did WC3.  You can see the zealot play the same canned animations over and over.  Heh just like SC1.

I guess since they probably want SC2 to dominate the Korean pro gaming circuit for the next decade until they do SC3, they have to streamline everything with that in mind.

[Hercanic]

F*CK YES!

*takes trailer into back room and closes door*