First off, thanks for all the responses to my previous post on this subject! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the various ideas you guys gave me.
Dave and Wynne, the vector idea would be a really good one if the game was space-only, but since I want the player to be able to land on and walk around on planets, that kind of breaks down. So I’m looking for something else. Thanks for the idea anyway.
Now I am going to reveal something. I have already decided that after I finish Star Revolution, my next project is going to be Inaria II. It’s going to have a real 3D engine, using technologies I am developing for Star Revolution. And I had already decided that I wanted a specific look for Inaria II, a look I first saw in Exult.
Two pictures in this case will be worth a thousand words. Here’s Ultima VII at double-res (640×400). (Click each image to view it at full size.)
Now here’s the same scene (still at 640×400) with the HQ2X image filter applied to it:
When I first saw a version of this filter (called Scale2X) in Exult I was very attracted to it. It doesn’t make things look blurry like most filters do. The tone and composition of the scene are still very apparent, but the blockiness has been smoothed over. I especially liked what the filters did to the trees – they almost look like watercolors now.
And just for the record, here’s how Inaria I would have looked with the HQ2X filter applied to it:
I had not intended to use this look for Star Revolution, and I hadn’t intended to get the look by using a filter but by composing my textures to provide the look…but the more I think about it, the more I feel that Star Revolution would benefit from the look. Hopefully I’ll get this darn combat prototype finished and can mock up some screenshots and you guys can see it for yourselves. I think it’ll give me the feeling I’m going for: high-resolution, but the world/universe almost looks like it’s made out of Lego blocks…I think that would be perfect.
I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen the HQ2X filter applied to a 3D scene before. This will be very interesting.