#DRAGON LORE – 3D Studio?
4 messages in this thread
You are right, Mindscape used 3D Studio for Dragon Lore. I think that they ran
out of time and had to get the game out too fast. If you want to see better 3D
Studio animated characters see "Cyberia" by Interplay and "bioforge" by Origin.
Thanks I will take a loot at them. As I said the scenery is not bad – it is the
character animation and rendering that is so awful! The way they walk is
horrendous! They don't even look like they are walking on the ground 🙁
Judy
Hi Judy,
I just wanted to agree with David M's comments, it's the artist/animator who
makes things look good more than the tools that he/she uses.
Cryo (a 3rd party developer for Mindscape, formerly The Software Toolworks) has
done some amazing stuff (check out Megarace). I would venture to guess that
they fell victim to the classic production schedule craziness on Dragon's Lore.
In my experience, production schedules for these types of titles are generated
by the marketing departments, who generally have no grasp on reality
whatsoever. Major quality/time comprimises are frequently made with no regard
to their effect on the product's integrity.
My guess is that they took their time creating the backgrounds and worlds, then
got heavily crunched to deliver the product so they had to rush the animation.
Or it's possible that the animation was done by someone completely different.
Just my thoughts,
-Heinz.
It was just that the characters – looked so stiff and angular – you could see
the polygons. The hair – was just solid colored polygons and it seemed to me
that they opted for this as a "style" as opposed to aiming for reality as they
did in their backgrounds/sets etc. Also when the character is walking – you
don't get the feeling that they are walking on the ground!
I realize that the finally look is not the fault of 3DS – I was just curious
what packaged produced it since I thought the backgrounds looked great.
Personally I think 2D animation for the characters would have been better than
what they did. Also someone needs to have a long talk with them about user
interface – which is the truly worst part of the game!
Judy