The pioneers’ flamethrowers are missing textures

I've played on max settings on 2k just so I can see every detail.

- The art looks better than in pre-alpha, but it is still unfinished. 

- The weathering is nice, the bullets show on the vehicles, the boxes fall of the vehicle when hit on the respective spot, the sand falls of the threads while the tanks is moving or being hit, those are some nice additions, BUT there are still some problems, for example, the bullet marks don't always show and it feels like they are randomized (I've seen bullet marks on the top of the tank, not on front or on the sides).

- The animations are very laggy and incomplete and here I have multiple examples:

-> when leaving the tank, the crew gets threw the tank

-> when hoping on the tank (tank raiding), some of the models just teleport on the tank, others move threw it and so on

-> the flak gun when getting into position to be carried by the truck is just teleporting (idk, there is no animation when changing directions)

-> when restoring a tank, the tank goes into the ground and then teleports on the ground like some kind of black magic while the truck is using some energy on idk what, air 

For sure there are more examples, but that's what came into my mind while writing this. I think the mission shows improvements over the last CoH3 iterations, but I doubt it will be finished for 17th November 2022. 

light tanks still feel too small :(

i was looking forward to the Italian Tank but was a little disapointed by how small it actually was. 

The Infantry Call-ins however were looking pretty Cool with their Beretta Model 38 if i am not mistaken.

TomDRV wrote:

- Please drastically increase projectile speed and allow us to tone down tracers. It looks like I'm shooting nerf guns XD

- I think some smoke 'drift's too fast? Not in explosions, but when a tanks driving along, after a cannon has fired etc. . .

this!! everything feels slow and clumsy. take coh2 as a reference! it is war!

the LMG34 is very quiet and the gunner constantly points at the enemy and shots a burst into air repeatedly 

The flames and explosions look great but they distract a lot from the gameplay and hide units behind the explosion.
maybe tone down the Flame volume a bit, een though the flames look great.

ShrikeGFX wrote:

Hey,

I put some comparison images below.

The contrast values in the game are still completely out of line and have not improved.

The brightness goes from one extreme to another constantly at pure random. No gameplay hierarchy nor classical (background <50% gray rules) are respected

There is zero hierarchy here in the visual elements:

This screenshot is about as extremely contrasted as it can be. Your mind is completely overloaded. Nothing has a gameplay relation, and nearly everything

is highlight color in positive or negative, constantly competing with UI elements (the highest in visual hierachy). Even pure 255 white in the HUD can barely fight against the insane block of pure overpowering brightness that is the background.

The Art direction needs to slap some wrists and really enforce consistent brightness values, right now its extremely visually busy and dragging down the visuals of the game. 

Here is a screenshot of League of legends:

Here is Warcraft 3 

Here is COH2

Notice the near perfect enforcement and consistency of brightness values on the background environments.

Warcraft 3 reforged did not pay as much attention to this and looks much more visually busy as a cause than Classic WC3, despite having way more advanced graphical elements, making many people prefer the original graphics. (Also they notably used quite extreme saturation at random)

Here is Overwatch Junktown (A desert Map)

Notice how even the desert map in a juicy cartoon stilized game such as overwatch has much less contrast and dramatically darker values. 

This is about the maximum you can ever go for a background element. Even if you need to go brighter than usual (which is not needed for desert as the examples show, arguably for Ice but not to the current extreme) you still have to keep a very low contrast. Right now the brightness and contrast are at the absolute extremes. 

Here is a COH2 Mod - Note how the colors are crunched and overblown on the bright spot:

But even this one is dramatically less contrasted and toned better than the current COH3 desert

Here is a more appropriate desert brightness which is still bright:

Here is Dota2

Looks quite colorful and flashy right?

But in reality, its very low contrast.

The entire ground here is extremely even. Notice how the green grass and the yellow path are almost perfectly the same brightness even though it dosn't appear like that in color.

Also highly importantly, all the trees are darker. They form a clear visual hierarchy between the playable area, the ground, and the blocked area, the trees.

Even if for some reason you can justify a very high contrast in values with very dark areas, and very bright areas, such as for a horror game with flashlight or whatnot, you want to keep a very clear visual hierarchy. So it would still be clear what is playable area, what is a wall, what is an enemy. Bright spots would be in one cluster, dark spots would be another. But in COH3 this is completely at random right now, almost like a random noise pattern.

This visual hierarchy is completely absent in COH3 right now. What is hero model, what is blocked background and what is playable area is completely arbitiary.

A explosion decal might be black as a hole but fully passable. 

A wreck is medium gray but has is no cover nor blocking anything: 

A rock and full heavy cover (sandbads) has the same value as passable ground:

This here is the absolute essence of the complete lack of visual hierarchy:

- The Enemy tank is a 60% gray

- My Tank is Almost as white as the ground

- The infantry is pure black

- The destroyed wreck is almost as dark as my infantry

- The ground alternates between as bright as the UI indiactors, to as dark as the UI backgrounds 

The tank here is almost radioactively glowing per example.

 

I don't want to be insulting just helping, but the point did not come across on the last beta even with many visual aids so I have to really hone this in again.

This Unit and playable non playable hiearchy is about as random as it gets and actions need to be taken here.

Not only for gameplay but the visuals are really hurting from this as well. Yes it may sound counter intuitive but not using crazy values and contrast actually makes for a much more pleasing image and composition. 

Art direction really needs to step in here. The Art team needs to do a pass on the brightness values but they also need to understand.

The easiest way is to make a gradient remap in photoshop and overlay it to the game images, and color any values brighter than 40-50% gray in warning color

Ideally make a LUT and import it in the engine if it supports LUTs.

Also its absolutely key for any artist to use the windows "Color Filters" Option, you can enable grayscale with a button any time then and its insanely helpful.

Best - S

Ah this is what it is! Yeah it felt overloaded when I was playing it, it was hard to pick things out not because they were hard to see . . . but because there was too much going on. Like a 'Where's Wally' book.

Felt a bit cross eyed and this was why! Didn't know what it was.

Am I the only one that thinks the game looks way too plasticy and has way too much overanimation in destructability in the environment?

Animation and sound wise, the game just lacks impact and doesn't look appealing/believable.

I actually couldn't bring myself playing more than 30 minutes through the Alpha mission, because everything looks so out of place and... just bad.

Ppl in my community and around me also always give the same feedback:
It looks bad and like a huge step back in case of clarity and impactfulness in visual and audio representation.

the 3d models of the tanks look like they are from 2006 because they never do the 3d model of the tiger well !!!!!! they have been recycling the same model for decades 

The proportions etc. are also wrong, it is the same base from the coh1 and I do not understand the reason

Hi great work but theres a few things that feel old

-Projectile speed for tanks and etc are too slow , they feel like rubber bullets 

-Light tanks can get obliterated by a single infantry squadron

-Animations feel laggy and slow 

Thats all keep it up lads.

ShrikeGFX wrote:

Hey,

I put some comparison images below.

The contrast values in the game are still completely out of line and have not improved.

The brightness goes from one extreme to another constantly at pure random. No gameplay hierarchy nor classical (background <50% gray rules) are respected

There is zero hierarchy here in the visual elements:

This screenshot is about as extremely contrasted as a game can be. 

Your mind is completely overloaded. Nothing has a gameplay relation, and nearly everything

is highlight color in positive or negative, constantly competing with UI elements (the highest in visual hierachy). Even pure 255 white in the HUD can barely fight against the insane block of pure overpowering brightness that is the background.

The Art direction needs to slap some wrists and really enforce consistent brightness values, right now its extremely visually busy and dragging down the visuals of the game. 

Here is a screenshot of League of legends:

Here is Warcraft 3 

Here is COH2

Notice the near perfect enforcement and consistency of brightness values on the background environments.

Warcraft 3 reforged did not pay as much attention to this and looks much more visually busy as a cause than Classic WC3, despite having way more advanced graphical elements, making many people prefer the original graphics. (Also they notably used quite extreme saturation at random)

Here is Overwatch Junktown (A desert Map)

Notice how even the desert map in a juicy cartoon stilized game such as overwatch has much less contrast and dramatically darker values. 

This is about the maximum you can ever go for a background element. Even if you need to go brighter than usual (which is not needed for desert as the examples show, arguably for Ice but not to the current extreme) you still have to keep a very low contrast. Right now the brightness and contrast are at the absolute extremes. 

Here is a COH2 Mod - Note how the colors are crunched and overblown on the bright spot:

But even this one is dramatically less contrasted and toned better than the current COH3 desert

Here is a more appropriate desert brightness which is still bright:

Here is Dota2

Looks quite colorful and flashy right?

But in reality, its very low contrast.

The entire ground here is extremely even. Notice how the green grass and the yellow path are almost perfectly the same brightness even though it dosn't appear like that in color.

Also highly importantly, all the trees are darker. They form a clear visual hierarchy between the playable area, the ground, and the blocked area, the trees.

Even if for some reason you can justify a very high contrast in values with very dark areas, and very bright areas, such as for a horror game with flashlight or whatnot, you want to keep a very clear visual hierarchy. So it would still be clear what is playable area, what is a wall, what is an enemy. Bright spots would be in one cluster, dark spots would be another. But in COH3 this is completely at random right now, almost like a random noise pattern.

This visual hierarchy is completely absent in COH3 right now. What is hero model, what is blocked background and what is playable area is completely arbitiary.

A explosion decal might be black as a hole but fully passable. 

A wreck is medium gray but has is no cover nor blocking anything: 

A rock and full heavy cover (sandbads) has the same value as passable ground:

This here is the absolute essence of the complete lack of visual hierarchy:

- The Enemy tank is a 60% gray

- My Tank is Almost as white as the ground

- The infantry is pure black

- The destroyed wreck is almost as dark as my infantry

- The ground alternates between as bright as the UI indiactors, to as dark as the UI backgrounds 

The tank here is almost radioactively glowing per example.

 

Not only for gameplay but the visuals are really hurting from this as well. Yes it may sound counter intuitive but not using high brightness and darkness values and contrast actually makes for a much more pleasing image and composition.

I don't want to be insulting just helping, but the point did not come across on the last beta even with many visual aids so I feel I really need to bring this point across.

Try Locate the units on this image:

If we try spotting the units here without the UI elements its extremely hard

Here is the resolution:

Art direction really needs to step in here. The Art team needs to do a pass on the brightness values but they also need to have strict guides and rules. Colors and values are hard to master and it takes years of learning the art but its quite easy to make visual aids once you understand the core principle, set goals and then just follow through. 

The easiest way is to make a gradient remap in photoshop and overlay it to the game images, and color any values brighter than 40-50% gray in warning color

Ideally make a LUT and import it in the engine if it supports LUTs. With a LUT you can keep all colors the same as default on the LUT but make bright colors above a certain threshold pink, so any artist will instantly see it on his screen, but Art on the correct spectrum will look normal. This will only help with the overly bright spots however and constrast has to consistently be checked with the grayscale views for good aesthetics and readability.

Its absolutely key and my highest recommendation for any artist to use the windows "Color Filters" Option, you can enable grayscale with a button any time then and its insanely helpful.

Best - S

Wow, you've written down in words what I couldn't put my finger on. Very impressive write-up.

yes the units visibility is still poor

and now with a closer cinematic camera of SP, it gives motion sickenss. as our eyes keep shifting focus on tanks and trying to identify the infantry units...

is it because relic is still figuring out how to use HDR lut? the first pre alpha has a non-working hdr

ShirkeGFS nails it. Listen to what he says

ShirkeGFS is spot on, put in to words what I could not. At this point, CoH2 and even CoH1 are better to look at.

I noticed the voice acting is much louder than that of the actual gunfire and explosions. Almost gives a feel that the action is downplayed. This in general is an immersion killer. The voices heard in COH2 were over radio transmissions but would be deafened by the actual combat, giving me the feeling of the intensity of combat.  I'd rather have my eardrums blown away by raw combat rather than voice lines.

Also, I HATE the icon appearance of a side and rear hit on tanks. This to me is destroying the visual work your team put into the tanks, and overall immersion. I'm well aware when my boys are being hit in different directions and don't need the visual cartoon reminder. If this option can be turned off, I'd be forever in your debt! 

All in all I LOVE your games and franchise. Please take this as constructive criticism from a long time fan with a grain of salt. XOXOX

Tank riders currently float and do not move with the tanks vibrations so it just looks jarringly unnatural.

Not sure if the voice acting is a placeholder or not but its not very good at the moment.

Sounds way too much like an English person trying to put a slight German accent on. The accents either need to be much stronger or the units should just speak their native language.

ShrikeGFX wrote:

Hey,

I put some comparison images below.

The contrast values in the game are still completely out of line and have not improved.

The brightness goes from one extreme to another constantly at pure random. No gameplay hierarchy nor classical (background <50% gray rules) are respected

There is zero hierarchy here in the visual elements:

This screenshot is about as extremely contrasted as a game can be. 

Your mind is completely overloaded. Nothing has a gameplay relation, and nearly everything

is highlight color in positive or negative, constantly competing with UI elements (the highest in visual hierachy). Even pure 255 white in the HUD can barely fight against the insane block of pure overpowering brightness that is the background.

The Art direction needs to slap some wrists and really enforce consistent brightness values, right now its extremely visually busy and dragging down the visuals of the game. 

Here is a screenshot of League of legends:

Here is Warcraft 3 

Here is COH2

Notice the near perfect enforcement and consistency of brightness values on the background environments.

Warcraft 3 reforged did not pay as much attention to this and looks much more visually busy as a cause than Classic WC3, despite having way more advanced graphical elements, making many people prefer the original graphics. (Also they notably used quite extreme saturation at random)

Here is Overwatch Junktown (A desert Map)

Notice how even the desert map in a juicy cartoon stilized game such as overwatch has much less contrast and dramatically darker values. 

This is about the maximum you can ever go for a background element. Even if you need to go brighter than usual (which is not needed for desert as the examples show, arguably for Ice but not to the current extreme) you still have to keep a very low contrast. Right now the brightness and contrast are at the absolute extremes. 

Here is a COH2 Mod - Note how the colors are crunched and overblown on the bright spot:

But even this one is dramatically less contrasted and toned better than the current COH3 desert

Here is a more appropriate desert brightness which is still bright:

Here is Dota2

Looks quite colorful and flashy right?

But in reality, its very low contrast.

The entire ground here is extremely even. Notice how the green grass and the yellow path are almost perfectly the same brightness even though it dosn't appear like that in color.

Also highly importantly, all the trees are darker. They form a clear visual hierarchy between the playable area, the ground, and the blocked area, the trees.

Even if for some reason you can justify a very high contrast in values with very dark areas, and very bright areas, such as for a horror game with flashlight or whatnot, you want to keep a very clear visual hierarchy. So it would still be clear what is playable area, what is a wall, what is an enemy. Bright spots would be in one cluster, dark spots would be another. But in COH3 this is completely at random right now, almost like a random noise pattern.

This visual hierarchy is completely absent in COH3 right now. What is hero model, what is blocked background and what is playable area is completely arbitiary.

A explosion decal might be black as a hole but fully passable. 

A wreck is medium gray but has is no cover nor blocking anything: 

A rock and full heavy cover (sandbads) has the same value as passable ground:

This here is the absolute essence of the complete lack of visual hierarchy:

- The Enemy tank is a 60% gray

- My Tank is Almost as white as the ground

- The infantry is pure black

- The destroyed wreck is almost as dark as my infantry

- The ground alternates between as bright as the UI indiactors, to as dark as the UI backgrounds 

The tank here is almost radioactively glowing per example.

 

Not only for gameplay but the visuals are really hurting from this as well. Yes it may sound counter intuitive but not using high brightness and darkness values and contrast actually makes for a much more pleasing image and composition.

I don't want to be insulting just helping, but the point did not come across on the last beta even with many visual aids so I feel I really need to bring this point across.

Try Locate the units on this image:

If we try spotting the units here without the UI elements its extremely hard

Here is the resolution:

Art direction really needs to step in here. The Art team needs to do a pass on the brightness values but they also need to have strict guides and rules. Colors and values are hard to master and it takes years of learning the art but its quite easy to make visual aids once you understand the core principle, set goals and then just follow through. 

The easiest way is to make a gradient remap in photoshop and overlay it to the game images, and color any values brighter than 40-50% gray in warning color

Ideally make a LUT and import it in the engine if it supports LUTs. With a LUT you can keep all colors the same as default on the LUT but make bright colors above a certain threshold pink, so any artist will instantly see it on his screen, but Art on the correct spectrum will look normal. This will only help with the overly bright spots however and constrast has to consistently be checked with the grayscale views for good aesthetics and readability.

Its absolutely key and my highest recommendation for any artist to use the windows "Color Filters" Option, you can enable grayscale with a button any time then and its insanely helpful.

Best - S

This is it, this right there. I played through the mission and remembered the Multiplayer Alpha back then, I always felt like something was off. The graphics aren't that much better compared to Coh2 (but hey, we're still in Alpha) and it just looks weird but I couldn't put my finger on it. Thanks, ShrikeGFX, for your valuable post, this is the solution right there. I just really hope that the team will adjust the game accordingly.