I disagree, I think it does a good job of concealing him, and it’s more realistic than a shadowed wall that only works from a single fixed camera angle.

But remember I’m not advocating for the continued use of smoke vents, at least not exclusively. They need to mix it up with more varied hiding places.

Yeah, Varrok, like I always felt Slog chases packed no punch because the combination of music and sound effects never worked liked they did in the original. Sound design was really a major part of the original but it sort of became a cacophony in NnT.

I just assumed it would be more difficult for players to tell what was a Shadow Zone and what's a shadow created by real time lighting. I think it probably could be done - but perhaps it would take a lot more rethinking. In NnT it seems like they designed everything with shadow zones in mind but replaced it with steam late in development.

But camera in NnT is almost as close to being fixed angle as can be. Especially in the hiding segments. It doesn't rotate much. The shadows would work. And it's not a first stealth game in 3D.

Many other, older games have succesfully created believable, hideable shadows. It's nothing more than an excuse because they didn't decide to put effort to details. Failed to create shadows? Let's replace every single one with a smoke particle generator.

Nepsotic, I'm not talking about what you like or dislike: at the end, it's Lanning who decides. So AE's remake will not be less goofy than NnT. Sorry.

There. It's decided. No more discussion needed.

Shut up, Vlam.

Anyway, like I said, it would make sense if the Slig visors were infrared. That explains why we can see them in steam when Sligs can't. I always thought it was dumb how Slig couldn't see Abe in shadows in AO. No shadow is that dark in a lit environment.

No, you are allowed to talk. I'm just warning you guys. After the release of AE's remake: "hey, that's not the game I wanted, why?".

We already know it won't be the game we want. No game is perfect, except maybe Silent Hill 2.

No talking to fellow employees.

Silent Hill 2 remake, you mean?

And anyway, when i say keep this remake dark etc etc, i'm referring to things like in NnT when Abe does the comical finger biting when he finds out about Mudokon Pops. the original was far better. In NnT it just looked ridiculous

vlam is warning us, guys. Who knows what might happen if we ignore his warnings.

e: Casual reminder to just ignore vlam, seriously he’s either trolling or too stubborn to be argued with and neither of those options are worth trying to engage.

“As it can be” is a pretty significant qualifier though, for the reasons I stated above. The camera does shift, both in perspective and from side to side as the player moves along the path, and it combines with the 3D perspective to fully highlight that the Shadow Zone is an object in 3D space. It only works in AO because there is no true depth and zero camera movement, it’s much easier to fake it without those complications.


All I’m coming up with here is Splinter Cell, and that game never relied on shadows being on a single plane.


It would literally have taken less effort to just copy the old visual effect than to try and think of an alternative that works for 3D space. They could very easily have just made shadows as solid black planes that completely obscure Abe and it would have achieved the same effect.

It sounds like Varrok just wants them to re-release Abe's Exoddus.

Manco, you are skilled. You should post in the "fan corner" section more often.

@Manco, while I still believe the shadows would be a better choice in NnT even as a black panes, I don't want to try to sound like I'm justifing the decision of making the remake in 3D.

Frankly, the whole situation makes me thing whether it was a good idea to begin with. Not just because problems like smoke etc., but a scale of AO. The idea of making a 3D remake seems too ambitious for a small team, using an engine popular mostly through amateur developers. Maybe it would've worked out better if they just sticked to 2D and polished it more.

Speaking of amateur engines, I think that's why they dropped the previous one (Bitsquid engine). I think the programmers weren't experienced enough for this project. And it's not them who should be blamed (you don't start as an expert), but whoever thought this team at this state could handle the project.

If they released it in higher resolution (with hq renders of original sprites), I'll be the happiest person. Too bad mr. Lanning left the source code in his other pants.

What are you talking about? From a technical standpoint it's pretty solid, the biggest issue is the atmosphere.

Pretty solid, with stiff broken animations, broken mines, broken saws (at least when I played it), not-very-good collision boxes, bad controller support at release, abundance of bloom, glitches, pretty high system requirements compared to the visuals etc.

EDIT: Oh and audio balancing issues throughout the whole game

IN game animations don't bother me all that much, and the only thing that pisses me off is the insanely fast meat saws. Didn't come across that many glitches either. Bad controller support was annoying but it was fixed pretty quickly so I'm not too arsed.

They bother me greatly, feels like playing an early beta.

If you watch the early 2012 footage the character animations for Abe were very smooth - but very slow (particularly when compared to the original). It really just seems like they sped them up for gameplay purposes but didn't have the time or money to re-animate things.

That's probably what happened. It wasn't a good thing it happened, though.

here it is

Why do I feel like the screen at around 0:20 better encapsulates the feel of the original than most of NnT... :(

Because it does

Wow that's a shame. That footage seems a lot better overall in terms of atmosphere.

Aye, it was before they made the decision to do a more re-designed version of AO rather than a 3D translation of the original. I think owi_alex mentioned it once.

But yeah, Abe's movement here is much slower than the original.

Also, here you can see shadows really do work in 3D to a satisfactory extent.

shadow zones

http://orig02.deviantart.net/72e9/f/...er-d9slise.png

Either way it's dumb to have shadows in lit environments. There's no way a Slig wouldn't see him.

No, it doesn’t. It shows the shadows look nice for ambience but there’s no practical demonstration of Abe hiding from Sligs at any point in that video. Again, the shadows only obscure Abe from one perspective.


This doesn’t solve the basic problem of Shadow Zones, which is that Abe’s silhouette would be plainly visible from the viewpoint of another character on the same path as Abe.

I agree with Nepsotic here. The shadows in the original games didn't make much sense either. The best thing they could do in TzF would be to use other stuff in place of the steam, like Manco suggested.

But then, we'd have another problem. Using different visual cues for the same thing would get super confusing. It has to be a compromise. The shadows in the originals work because those were 2D games. The steam in NnT works because it's a 3D game. It's not ideal but it does a good job of visually notifying the player of the presence of hiding spots. TzF is probably going to go with steam again because it'd make at least a bit of sense anywhere the shadows did in AO.

It would make more sense for Abe to sneak behind barrels, pillars, walls etc, but steam is probably easier to see for the players.

WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY ELSE SEE HOW AMAZING MY INFRARED IDEA IS.

How do sligs see through their visors? Is that infra red or ordinary vision? Because if it's infra red, then that pretty much makes shadows and steam vents redundant.

The gameplay happens on a 2D plane. If Abe goes "behind" the barrel from the player's perspective the slig can still see him.

Changing shadows for steam vents made sense transitioning the system into a 3D world, but I do agree that there might be a better way.

Steam would mask Abe's body heat, making him invisible to Sligs, would it not?

Only if the steam was hot and the same temperature as Abe, whose body temperature would fluctuate throughout his body.

Looks like this myth has been busted.

I used to dislike the idea of hiding in steam, mainly because they appear in random locations and looked kinda weird having them.

But after all the points made in this thread. It actually makes so much sense.

All we need know is Wil to confirm if Sligs see infra-red and if the steam is the same temperature as Abe.



EDIT: 7000th Post! Jesus I've been here a long time...

I bet that's the only thing Wil doesn't know about Oddworld

I personally want to see 899 Mudokons. You've started it now, OWI, you gotta stay consistent.

I don't actually want to see 899 Mudokons. That'd be fucking stupid.