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The Visual Look of Star Trek Online

Posted by Zonk on from the corridor-after-corridor dept.

Gamasutra has a piece on the development of the visual look of Star Trek Online. From the article: "We set out to reproduce the interior of a starship from the television show, so we began by examining shots of the sets. Looking over the images, we made a few observations. There are many light sources. The lighting is diffuse. Shadows are soft. There are several types of material with different reflectivity and specularity. These were the features we wanted to reproduce in game. We thought they were the key to the look."

11 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Why are they focused on the look? by Random+Utinni · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Forget replicating the look of the TV show... focus on building a decent game. It's not like if they get the lighting in the game world 'just so', they'll have a smash hit that people want to play... or these days, maybe they will.

    1. Re:Why are they focused on the look? by MrShaggy · · Score: 3, Informative

      I am a lighting guy.. and it is important. It has to go with the feel of what is around you. The problem is that you need a hook for the fanbois, so you get a reasonably passing grade. But they have an uphil climb. SW:Galaxies bombed even though it looked good. However I still havent checkked the pictures.

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    2. Re:Why are they focused on the look? by tfinniga · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Meh. I'm sure the gameplay people are focused on gameplay. The developers are focused on development. But this article was written by the artists, which are focused on the art.

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    3. Re:Why are they focused on the look? by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 4, Funny

      You have a funny way of spelling 'complain on the Internet.'

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    4. Re:Why are they focused on the look? by vertinox · · Score: 4, Funny

      Forget replicating the look of the TV show... focus on building a decent game.

      That would be kind of like releasing an MMOG about Star Wars without the space battles... Oh wait...

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  2. Looks great. by Nightspark · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While the two screenshots they showed might look relatively simple, they definitely look like the Enterprise D -- and that may be the most important thing.

  3. Redundancy... by softspokenrevolution · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm sorry, but after they work on the visual look are they going to fix the auditory sound?

  4. ObNitpick by Stephen+Williams · · Score: 5, Informative

    Those shots captioned "ready room" are actually of the observation lounge, not the ready room.

    -Stephen (yes, I'm single; no, this doesn't surprise me)

  5. Game Design by cubicledrone · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. There will be a massively powerful race/class combination (Borg Shadow Priest) that can do 350 dps perpetually at extreme ranges against which no other class will have any defense. When the other classes complain, they will be told that PvP isn't balanced for 1 vs 1 (unless you're a Borg Shadow Priest) and that it's Rock Paper Scissors (unless you're a Borg Shadow Priest, which is a block of solid iron)

    2. The system of rank will be exactly like World of Queuecraft's pvp system, meaning there will be one Admiral and 175,934 Ensigns on every server.

    3. Experience will be the most fun. Since there are no murlocs to fight, grinding will be retuning the deflector dish 150,000 times a day.

    Sounds like fun!

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  6. 3rd demo shot by Quell · · Score: 3, Informative

    Change the URL to final_01.jpg and there is a shot of the turbo lift.

  7. Crossover? by Cyno01 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Could one go to the holodeck and play WoW?

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