Diablo 3 Art Director Resigns
By Lucion Jul 25, 2008
Category Icon News
Over at CVG http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=193852 Brian Morrisroe, the art director for D3, was interviewed on the 23rd July.
Really just a different voice from the same crew that is the D3 team. What I found interesting was this:
...no-one believes the ramblings of the now-aged Deckard Cain and everything has turned into a somewhat baffling legend.
Scope for our hero then to do some exploring to see if those decrepit senile ramblings of Cain's are true? So Cain was really right after all...
The opportunity for humour as well to balance the dark story line - perhaps Cain drifting off on a tangent, his mind awash with dementia?
Additionally the article made me think about the potion/orb system:
[the] health globe system replaces piles of potions with glowing red orbs, dropped by slain enemies, that heal you and anyone near you when they're touched. This makes the game more mobile and in co-operative situations lets you save your partner from a quick death, rewarding those who keep close to each other.
Yes! The new health system makes it a little harder for us to tag along on the edges of battle in normal mode while our friendly uber helper from hell lays waste to all.
I wouldn't say *much* harder to help at this stage without more details. The effective radius will have to be wide to incorporate ranged party members similar to D2 amazons and necromancers.
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Bisso
#54 Bisso
Posted Aug 7, 2008
really bad feeling, hope they dont change the art direction after the community cried like babies
oren88
#55 oren88
Quote from name="biff exploder" »
hmmmm, i dont know why, but i have a bad feeling about this...
Me two.....
But i count on blizzard..
Anyway it means the game will be released in a long long long... (and long) time..
I can't stand the waiting :mad:
Uber_Dudditz
#56 Uber_Dudditz
On one hand, I also hope that this won't delay the game any. I really do.
But on the other hand:
ITT: One kid who thinks the entire game will be like the middle of the game trailer. And a whole bunch of people telling him he's retarded.
rhunex
#59 rhunex
If it does turn out that Blizzard is doing this to respond to the fans who petitioned against the art direction, I think Blizzard is making a wise decision.
Just looking at the petitions you could easily say there are doubles in both(for and against the art), but either way the petition against the artwork has nearly 55,000 signatures, whereas the one for the artwork is just shy of 2,000. Numerically speaking, it behooves Blizzard to reconsider the art direction and changing it accordingly. Keeping the current artwork would be ignoring 55,000 fans(duplicates blah blah, i know...I'll treat them as individuals though) and just because they want a saturated colorful world doesn't mean other aspects of art can't change. Lighting/Shading plays one of the largest roles in creating mood, and is highly susceptible to change in any game.
Hopefully the art director from a game like Doom will take up the mantle
I didn't expect D3 as a christmas release, and I've been waiting 8 years for D3...so I can wait a little longer if Blizzard wants to reconsider the look and feel of Diablo 3 as it is.
Off topic: w00t w00t I used 'behooves' in a sentence!
Medievaldragon
#61 Medievaldragon
Personally, Art Direction is the least of issues if any in Diablo 3. I will rather have them focus on gameplay, trading, itemization, boss events, stash and stuff that helps move items from alt-character to alt-character smoothly than mere art direction.
Art direction takes a helluva time -- which translates in game development going beyond 2011. No thanks. Shove the petition.
Sol_Invictus
Retired Staff Member
#62 Sol_Invictus
Quote from "shelledfade" »
What a shame that jay wont be directing anything other than hello kitty islands expansion pack now. Booya.
You need to stop. You're not doing yourself any favors with these posts. You and the few other people like seem to think you're the core people who want the style changed just because you make the most noise.
Guess what? We're all fans, like it or not. Give it a rest.
Location: red deer
#63 Forty
Quote from "Medievaldragon" »
Worded perfectly, thanks!
Doffy
#64 Doffy
I don't believe they would completely change the art direction at this point. We only saw a bit of the game.... and I liked it. They made a great point recently that it is a progression... it gets darker and darker as you go along in the game. The later levels have more of an impact this way. That makes a lot of sense to me and I hope they stick to it.
Oakwarrior
#65 Oakwarrior
Quote from name="Sol Invictus" »
I'm glad you're dousing the flames, but get your facts straight:P
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10294
"You and the few other people"
*cough*
Dvirus55
#67 Dvirus55
I'm not sure how linking to a poll that was closed is fact for anything heh
Quote from "Dvirus55" »
It was made on the peak of the discussion. And it's the official one. There's an open one as well if you want a link to that:D
Sorry, but I'm just tired of people misinforming others. There is no proof that those who want the style to stay the same are the majority, vocal or otherwise.
ExGhoul
#72 ExGhoul
jay: lead designer =/= art director
stoaster
#74 stoaster
I doubt it will result in previous work being scrapped/redone. The art director is still only one piece of the team working on the game's presentation.
SteelVelocity
#75 SteelVelocity
Does this mean that they are going to be changing their art direction *Hint Hint*
Arcanox
#77 Arcanox
That's not entirely true. Most of what people are asking for are very simple changes that wouldn't have much bearing on the release date. I can actually see them using these methods to please 80% of the people calling for some amount of change:
1- Adjust the lighting style to use less saturated hues and use an analogous color scheme that uses only a few hues to establish mood. Adjust the lighting radius/falloff and remove certain lights entirely to reduce the diffused lighting style. It's also likely that most of the maps they have currently will have the lighting tweaked anyway. All it really takes is selecting map elements and typing in different numbers, it's not that time consuming.
2- Despite what the 'Art Director' says, a large portion of the photoshop edits can be reproduced easily by using a fullscreen post processing filter, much like what you would see in Gears of War. You can even link the processing settings depending on which environment you're in the further enhance the look and feel of the game. It's not a difficult feature and any graphics programmer worth their salt can probably introduce this feature without too much fuss.
3- Low texture detail can be solved by using a shader effect called 'detail textures'. Blizzard has it's own shader programmers and it's a simple blend effect that needs to be added to their materials and it would allow their map editors to overlay a variety of noise, stone, sand and grass like details over existing textures without much of a performance hit. (ex: http://www.radioactive-software.com/gangwar/DetailTextureCompare.jpg )
4- Some people have complained about the look of some of the armors, and all it really takes it some minor vertex edits and scaling of their existing assets to please their fans. The rigging and textures of these objects would not need to be redone, in fact it would likely take about 10 minutes per asset to put in some minor aesthetic tweaks.
Grimhound
#78 Grimhound
http://kotaku.com/5034395/diablo-iii-art-director-quits-game-remains-the-same
Hierophant
#80 Archie
Quote from "Sandman53" »
George Bush doesn't have an opinion... he is a soul-less robot.
Now as for a new art director... who gives a flying crap. No one has any idea how Blizzard works internally. For each company a position means a different thing. For all we know he could be the guy that watches over people and says good job while someone is in the back making all the decisions. What do you think would happen if a movie director completely deviated from the script? The director usually only orchestrates, he doesn't change the original idea.
Well, if the Director is completely deviating from the script, and the Producer doesn't like it, the Director can get fired. At that point, he will either get replaced and the film will go back on track, or the film will sit in limbo for years, dying a long, slow death.
Hopefully we are looking at getting back on track. But not to say that it was really that far off track to begin with.
fatalend
Location: Baton Rouge
#82 fatalend
After people played through Diablo II for the billionth time did they honestly care how "dark" the game was? No
Gameplay, trading, and all those other things you mentioned >>>>>> Graphics
Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup company "outside the game industry", which is why we posted about the open position. That change won't impact the game...we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring aboard will work with other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.
The_wind
#84 The_wind
the art direction isnt made or decided by one person, though who know's mabey a little influence from a diffrent person mabey good, or it could turn out bad.