Template:PatchDiff/March 8, 2012 Patch/team fortress 2 content.gcf/tf/resource/closecaption english.txt

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5252"#commentary\tf2-Comment038.wav" "[Moby Francke] In our early discussions of rendering styles for the characters, we decided we wanted them to have a look that was illustrative or stylized, without going to the extremes of most toon shaders. We wanted softer lines for shading than was typical for this sort of rendering. So, we used a 2-D texture to define the lighting on the characters, and at the point where light and dark meet, we added a hint of warmth to give it that burst of color at the transition. Once we had achieved the right shading model, we added a rim-term to the characters, so they would have a nice highlight around the edges of their silhouettes, which helps them to stand out from the surrounding 3d world."
5353"#commentary\tf2-Comment039.wav" "[Dhabih Eng] The challenge of the particle system was to create effects that were fun and visually exciting, without being so 'over the top' that no one could read their meaning in the game. In a typical match, there are so many effects onscreen at the same time, that the biggest danger is visual clutter. Therefore, the effects were refined to be cleaner and simpler. Those that were most important for gameplay were made easier to see, while those that were mainly eye-candy were allowed to fall into the background. "
5454"#commentary\tf2-Comment040.wav" "[Robin Walker] With nine classes of characters, and so many weapons and unique abilities, one of our biggest challenges was exposing all these combinations to players without overwhelming them. Even the shortlist of essential information is intimidating, including map goals, the whereabouts of their friends, who's shooting them with what weapon, and so on. We didn't have any way to make all of this information visual, so first we had to prioritize and come up with an essential list of things every player needed to know in order to just have fun. Information they could learn by playing the game-such as map layout-was of secondary importance; but there was also information, such as the Medic's invulnerability charge, that would be completely invisible unless we exposed it. We tried to avoid attaching 2D elements to the HUD as much as possible, since we wanted players to be looking at the 3D world we'd built rather than some abstract representation. For example, players always see their own team's spies as a spy, but they need to know how the spy is disguised to the other team. We tried a quick hack where we put an icon representing the spy's current disguise floating above his head. The icon proved baffling to playtesters. When we tackled the problem by putting cut-out paper masks on the spy, it not only fit the humorous style of the game, but it let players get all pertinent information directly from a quick look at the spy's model, thus keeping them focused on the characters and on the action of the game. We took this as a lesson, in how holding ourselves to a strong design principle can often force us to come up with better solutions, than if we'd taken the easy route."
55N/A"#commentary\tf2-Comment041.wav" "[Jason Mitchell] To achieve a style of character shading which is consistent with the early 20th Century commercial illustrations that influenced our art direction, we alter the diffuse lighting on characters. Here, we can see the Soldier as he appears in Team Fortress 2, using our illustrative shading style. Note the tight transition between the light and dark sides of the Soldier as he is lit by the light in the next room. Using traditional lighting as seen here, the character lighting appears too soft and does not fit our illustrative style. With the illustrative lighting model, our characters are lit in a way which better fits our overall art style. Another facet of illustrative shading is the use of rim highlights to accentuate the silhouettes of characters to keep them from blending into the scenery. Without the rim lighting, the character blends into the background. With the rimlighting, characters are visible against the rest of the scene and better fit the art style of Team Fortress 2."
N/A55"#commentary\tf2-Comment041.wav" "[Jason Mitchell] To achieve a style of character shading which is consistent with the early 20th Century commercial illustrations that influenced our art direction, we alter the diffuse lighting on characters. Here, we can see the Heavy as he appears in Team Fortress 2, using this type of shading style. Note the tight transition between the light and dark sides of the skin on his upper arm. Using a traditional shading model as seen here, the character lighting appears too soft and lacks the distinctive look seen in hand painted illustrations. Our shading model, however, captures the dramatic transition between light and dark and helps to define the unmistakable look of Team Fortress 2. Another facet of illustrative shading is the use of rim highlights to accentuate the silhouettes of characters. Without the rim lighting, the characters tend to blend into the scenery. With the rim lighting, which you can see specifically on the Heavy's shoulders, neck, and head in this example, our characters are visible against the rest of the scene and better fit the art style of Team Fortress 2."
5656"#commentary\tf2-Comment042.wav" "[Alden Kroll] Two-dimensional HUD elements present a particular art problem, because they have to look good and sharp no matter what resolution the user is running their game at. Given today's availability of high resolution wide-screen displays, this can require a lot of texture memory and a lot of work anticipating different display resolutions. The problem for TF2 was even more daunting because of our desire to include a lot of smooth curved elements in our HUD. We developed a new shader system for drawing 'line art' images. The system allows us to create images at a fixed resolution that produced smooth silhouettes even when scaled up to a very high resolution. This shader system also handles outlining and drop-shadows, and can be applied in the 3D space to world elements such as signs. "
5757"#commentary\tf2-Comment043.wav" "[Chris Green] We intended Team Fortress 2 to feature many special particle effects to enhance the wide variety of weapons and class abilities. In previous versions of the Source engine, all particle effects required that custom code be written by the programmers. For Team Fortress 2, we created a system where designers can rapidly create new particle systems and iteratively refine existing ones, without programmer involvement. An in-game editor allows designers to edit the definitions of particle systems and immediately preview effects in the game itself. The editor also allows artists to connect modular effect 'building blocks' to create complex visual effects. As for the particle system itself, we have offloaded many of the system calculations to the graphics accelerator, which allows us to increase the number of particles onscreen without reducing the framerate."
5858"#commentary\tf2-Comment044.wav" "[Eric Kirchmer] Once we had a handle on the art direction for our world and characters, we turned our attention to the weapons and gadgets. While these objects have some grounding in reality, they usually diverge in significant ways. For instance, the soldier's rocket launcher fits the general mold of a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, but somehow manages to hold four rockets in a clip. To justify this, and play up our stylized Spy-tech fiction, we designed the weapons to look like customized pieces of hardware, personalized and modified by each character to suit his own ends. In keeping with the industrial theme of the game, we looked to 60's era product design principles for the primary weapons, then focused on musical instruments for secondary and melee weapons, thinking these would reinforce the connection between the secondary items and each character's personality."