Graphics leap from D:OS 2 to BG3, explained by Larian's Lead Artist

[Antimatter]

A few snippets from the article by Alena Dubrovina.

"After Divinity: Original Sin 2, we made quite a big leap in model quality. It involved improving the character art tools, picking up new pipelines, and getting a lot of support from our graphics programming team. Roughly I can divide these changes into 4 categories:

• Heads photogrammetry
• New hair pipeline
• New graphics features and shaders
• New Character Editor tools"

"We wanted to improve our head models since we now have cinematic dialogues. So adapting the photogrammetry pipeline for our character modeling was the most natural thing for us. We partnered with the Ten24 team and scanned 36 photo models that we used as a base for our in-game models. Head scans can not only serve as a base but also can be a great source of reference and knowledge for artists. It helps you grasp the anatomy and natural shapes of the face much better than if you would try to study it yourself only from the photo refs. In ZBrush, things look a bit different than in real life so by just looking at your sculpt and the scanned head, you can spot anatomy errors much easier. "

"Graphics programmers also helped us push our work forward with new skin and hair shading models, improved lighting and shadow quality on characters. Volumetric Fog, SSS, automated LODs system through Houdini, and more things are yet to come.

We realized that the scope of this project is going to be huge and with the quality bar we wanted to achieve we needed to focus on modularity and establish a system that would allow us to build unique NPCs from parts right in the game engine. We called this tool Character Editor, it allows you to assign meshes that are grouped by related categories to your character and exposes every parameter that is available in their shader in the right menu.

This tool allows us for quick iterations and customization for hundreds of characters and creatures in BG3."

Check out more information at https://80.lv/articles/creating-characters-for-baldur-s-gate-3/

For me, personally, these changes look and feel HUGE.

 

[mlnevese]

That's very interesting. I have always wondered how they create accurate 3D models and why the anatomy is often a bit off, particularly in older games.
Being able to make 3D scans of multiple people makes a huge difference, I imagine. A skilled painter isn't necessarily a skilled sculptor, and translating information from pictures to 3D bodies is difficult.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a great game, but yes, the characters wouldn't look good in cinematic dialogue scenes. I never gave much thought to why that is the case, or how they would make it possible to easily create and control a more natural anatomy, but at the same time with the wide variety that humans have. Not to mention the fictional races or species.

I haven't played BG3 Early Access yet, only seen a few videos, so I can't judge it that well, but it looks as of they didn't focus on the heads only. The legs and body movements are looking more natural, too.

One thing I've learned is that videos never portray the experience you have playing the game. Neither videos or screenshots can give you the experience of seeing water reflecting the environment while your character is portrayed fully equipped and moves in a a natural way on screen.

BG 3 and Pathfinder go into an amazing level of detail. You can see every detail of your equipment on screen. The environments are highly detailed. Both are games that would convince me to buy a good graphics card even if I already didn't have one

 

[Antimatter]

One thing I've learned is that videos never portray the experience you have playing the game. Neither videos or screenshots can give you the experience of seeing water reflecting the environment while your character is portrayed fully equipped and moves in a a natural way on screen.

This is so spot on. I've seen so many times how people try to judge this or that game, this or that companion, personality, quest etc. etc. just by videos or screenshots, or reviews. Just spending time in the game, looking at stuff, hearing stuff (and some games are really cool at sound design), interacting with people, changes one's opinion substantially.

 

[alice_ashpool]

I put 250 hours into the BG3 beta, mostly shortly after release, and It does look fantastic. I think that is something that will keep people coming back to it (so long as quality stays up for release). Character creation feels great and character appearance in game is likewise great. In one of the later beta patches they put in Deity specific graphics for clerical spellcasting and that just made me go like this: O_O

 

[mlnevese]

I hope BG 3 won't be like some other games where all effort and quality is on Chapter 1 and it just declines in later chapters.

 

[Antimatter]

I hope BG 3 won't be like some other games where all effort and quality is on Chapter 1 and it just declines in later chapters.

Well, people will always compare the part that has stayed in the beta for 3 years and the rest of the game. I think no matter how much the developers try, they will never be able to polish the rest of the game in a similar way to the Early Access build, just because of hundreds of thousands of players and their feedback.

That said, story-wise, D:OS games are pretty solid all the way until the end (I heard players don't like the 3rd chapter in D:OS 2, but I always found the ending, chapter 4, more than on par with the start of that game). So I have high hopes regarding this for BG3 as well.