My game feels "unpolished"
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/My game feels "unpolished"
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| I'm not sure why, but my game feels "unpolished". I think it has to do with the "speed" of the game. My game runs fast, which is good, but it looks "unprofessional". I have played a few games on project64 (an Nintendo 64 emulator) and the game run fast, but they just have a "polished" feel to it. I know it's confusing and hard to understand, but has anyone else had the same problem? PS sorry about the insane amount of posts lately, i've just been real curious. Last edited 2010 Last edited 2010 Last edited 2010 |
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| Probably the artwork? Hard to tell without a picture at least or a demo? Apologies if you have posted one. Bare in mind nintendo 64 games were made by a large team of professional game designers/coders etc. Last edited 2010 |
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| I agree with Ross, it's diofficult to tell/help without something to go by. The level of constructive criticism here is pretty good, so I'm sure if you could post some screenshots or maybe a Youtube video link or even a demo etc. then it would really help us give you feedback. In my opinion, 'polish' on games is something you don't see enough of these days, even with supposerdlky AAA titles. It's the finer details that ought to be addressed once "everything" else is finished (perhaps why many devs don't have the time to work on polish due to impatient publishers etc). If you feel yourself that it's not 'polished', then that's a good sign in itself that you are aware of something lacking. I really recommend that if you aren't totally satisfied yourself, then you should work a little more on the details. Some tips that I can think of, based on my own interpretations of what can make a difference (Very dependant on the type of game, whether 3D or 2D and the 'pace' of gameplay etc): * Overall Quality - Are your menu screens clear, are fonts readable and 'fitting' for the game style? Are images, meshes and textures accurate? Does anything seem missing? Any non-critical bugs or issues that have been 'skipped over'? * Colour - Make full use of bright or contrasting colours. In 3D, Lighting can really highlight important objects and alternative glow-effects can enhance this without complicating the 3D lighting * Music - Music can be evocative, atmospheric, enticing and much more. Them,es should match the pace and style of game, but beware of too much noise, poorly matched musical themes to the gameplay or too much silence. * Sound - Most games use a phenomenal amount of tiny sound effects that through general use, we don't necessarily realise, but you'd soon notice if they're not there. Even mouseover clicks or footstep sound effects really add a lot to the experience * Speed - You mentioned the speed yourself. Code optimisation is always at the forefront of many development projects. Not only does this allow for mmore to be crammed in if necessary, but also, ensures a more fluid gameplay experience and greater compatibility. Look for potential bottlenecks and any code that can be optimised by workarounds, 'cheats' such as Level-Of-Detail changes or eeven a more efficient coding structure. * Misc - Depending on the style of game, humour or little touches such as incidental effects, messages and other details can make a world of difference. Consider the varius scenarios that may benefit from these types of effect. Small things, such as idle animations or patterns/images on otherwise blank areas can also be invaluable. When dealing with menu screens, or icons, consider rounded edges or a pattern/style instead of a plain rectangular border. Instead of a blank background, maybe use a pre-rendered image. * 3D camera work - Subtle effects such as zooming in or out, smoother transitions for camera views and such can also be really advantageous. Avoid snapping where possible. |
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| professional artists and testers I guess. |
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| I usually find that getting the controls to feel natural is most important in terms of how you well immerse the player in the game. Graphics aren't necessarily as important as you think, just make sure they are consistent. Cheers Charlie |
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| Change every texture in your game to a cubemap, make all entities with a shininess of 1, and create as many lights as you can. When you render all of those reflections, which should only take a couple of days per frame, it will give your game a very "polished" look. hehe, I love being a smart-ass. On a more serious note, though, the biggest advise I have would be to pay attention to all of the details in your game. If your game has moments that seem glitchy, for example, if the way your character moves throughout your world seems unnatural, take time to re-work, possibly even re-write the code dealing with it. Programmers who pay attention to the fine details of their game can present a game that looks polished. It shows that if you care enough about the details, you care a great deal about the game, and it reflects back to the player when they play the game. |
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| Programmers who pay attention to the fine details of their game can present a game that looks polished. It shows that if you care enough about the details, you care a great deal about the game, and it reflects back to the player when they play the game. IO agree. I can;t speak for them, or claim to know anything of their coding practices, but Frozenbyte (or whoever actually codsed the engine they used) really seem to have paid attention to the deetails in "Trine", check out any screenshots or preferably, video footage of this game to see the results! |
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| You can only reach what you aim for. Keep playing N64 games with a critical view - you can find out many tricks, techniques and uncover some myths from those gems. You don't need to polish your games, you need to polish your view and perception. The quality you gain from that is consequence. I love to play N64 games through an emulator as well because you have a "pixel" level view of things - you can even turn on wireframe and look at how the meshes were done, and change a few render settings. Since an emulator isn't an ideal environment, sometimes you have glitches in the games that reveal certain aspects (such as a texture effect not working properly, and you can see what's underneath the hood); things you wouldn't realize if you were playing in a console on TV where everything magically worked as the developers wanted. You can find some "desmystification" in this thread. |
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| Take a picture of any room and compare it to a similar room in an old 3d game, and there's your answer. You can't just say, here's a perfect floor, and here are some perfect walls, and here's a perfect ceiling, and expect it to all look good together. That's most of the reason old 3d games didn't look very realistic. Copy how actual pictures look overall, and then your levels will look polished. Last edited 2010 |
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| It depends on the kind of game, are we talking about 3D anyway? If so, I'd say most important is to use professionally designed Content. Fox is right, older games were simpler, but not only because of new Effects, but especially due to speed limits back then. The polycount had to be very low. More triangle also means more work - it's just not the way that lowpoly design is much harder than "uneconomical" design - while designers can use much more Tris for eg. an NPC today, there is still a long dispute about every single Triangle, at least in professional Artwork. Therefor it's more work, at least from my point of view. If you want to achieve a quality like one of todays big 3D game releases then you should know that most of them took several years for a team of ten or more highly skilled specialists. Don't expect too much from yourself, you cannot compare yourself to the big ones in Business. And maybe it's good or bad that there is no Tom Clancy, standing right behind you and shouting "faster! more! perfection!" 24 hours a day. You would not try to be more polished than Steven Spielberg with your Mobile Cell camera, would you? In fact the costs for the production of top Game titles recently reached the level of average Hollywood Productions. Read "some hundred million dollars". But you can use some cheap royalty-free 3D content, this is going to look rather good, although not exclusive to other coders. |
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