Update 39 - A Video, Playable Demo, E3 & Galleon Minerva

First post! Huge castlevania fan here =]

Though I have to say while I think the game is shaping up nicely, there were some things that felt off to me.
Especially in the new demo video.

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I made a paintover of one of the screenshots.

Basically to me right now everything feels really flat. I think it is mainly because of the lack of contrast.
The lights in the scene also feel like they are not affecting the object that are in the scenes either.



Anyway a quick list of things I changed in my paintover:
- Increased contrast.
- Darkened cross sections.
- Edge highlight on platforms and walls, to clearly show what the player can interact with.
- More intense lighting, making them affect more of the world they are in.
- Atmospheric lighting/dust particles to avoid a 'vacuum' feel.



Also if anyone knows, how will we get access to the demo?
I 'backed' this project using fangamer yesterday. Is just entering on which platform you want the game (steam in my case) enough?
I am asking as I havent received any emails or confirmations in regards to 'completing' the survey.
tia!

I don't mean to be contrary, but I like the original better. I don't think everything that makes sense in say, a painting, necessarily makes sense in a video game. I like that it's flat, but I think there are 3D elements that really help distinguish things like platforms. I don't find it hard at all to determine what is able to be interacted with.

Your edit is beautiful, but I don't think it's what I want to see in a video game.

I see what you guys mean.

The edit I made wasn't necessarily to show what the player can interact with.

To me, in the original, it looks like the assets are not interacting with each other if that makes sense.
Much like pixel based 2d games, the sprites are lit in a certain way, however they 'ignore' the lighting conditions of things around them.
What I tried to do is make the thing feel more like a scene instead of a collection of assets, I guess.
Also in the edit I made I feel like things blend into the background less if that makes sense. For example the barrels, the stairs behind Mirian, they pop out a bit more because they've got this rim light on them.
Than again this is all based on design really. If the background starts to demand more focus from the player than the enemies or other intractable bits, than that's not good either. =P


Also when it comes to the bloom, sure it might have been overdone at some point. But I think it is only fair to look at effects objectively.
While I wasn't trying to create a 'bloom' effect per se I can see how it looks like that.
My intention with the light was to create an atmospheric effect. As in light rays hitting tiny particles in the air (like dust), much like god rays.

Always interesting to see the different opinions on a subject! =]
With all of that in mind... I am definitely not saying I know better than the developers, just my 2 cents. ^^

If that's the case, I think the initial problem lies within the fact that it deals a lot with the shader. To make a lot of these changes you'd like you'd have to change the shader, rather than spice up an image. If you changed the shader then you're going to have to see what is viable in terms of performance and what impacts it has to other areas of the game.

I should have posted the image here instead in the shoubox, damn

Now that you mentioned it....
Damn.....

The screen seems much more dynamic comparing to youtube video...

Can't wait to try the demo out for myself!

Made a wild guess in the shoutbox and I may just ask here. Is that laptop that connected to the monitor based on CLEVO P650 series model which has a GTX980M/970M graphic card?