Diablo 3 Colour vs. Desaturated Movie

In another chapter to the ever-simmering hot potatoe that is Diablo 3's art direction Sozou has altered the WWI gameplay video to compare it to a desaturated version. Up to now disgruntled fans have tinkered with screengrabs of the video which Blizzard claimed do not illustrate how the game would look in motion if the colour palette was toned down. This altered movie much better illustrates the effect a murkier colour palette would have on a playable version.

[Leord]

Oh, for god's sake, can't they drop it already?!

[kalos]

I agree, this art direction thing is just banged on about too much. blizzard haven't exactly done badly with their previous attempts to be original, so let them at least get the product out. If it flunks, you can point and say "We told you so" then, but somehow I doubt that will happen. Maybe they're include three graphical settings: High, Low, and Whiner; to satify the three apparent groups that will be playing the game.

[Wuushu]

I'd go with a in-between of those two.

[thetamer]

This is going to be a mash up! I love Diablo, it's the root of all evil.

[Maticus]

I think it looks fine, some people just want to get that chip of their shoulder.

[kalos]

I prefer my chips served in newspaper, with a dash of salt actually. If they've ended up on your shoulder, you've just missed your mouth :D

[dexterwang]

Say what you guys want, but the desaturated one just looks much creepier and atmospheric... your character's light contrast vs the darkness of his surroundings really convey his presense there is unwelcomed. The dried out colors also makes the colorful skills much more dramatic.

That being said, its a bit too monotonic... a mix between the orginal and the edited one would be perfect.

Also notice how he introduced the "light radius" back into the game, which looks fantastic and very diablo. Its funny how during the developer interview they said they tried it and it lookd terrible... maybe they simply need to take some programming lessons? If you want to do horror right, you need darkness- colors you can argue, but darkness... you need.

[StrawHatKid]

Two things horror games require. It needs good music and it has to be hard to beat.

[Elly]

The dungeons in D2 were so dark it was needed but applied to D3 and its 3d engine it doesn't look good. Jay Wilson has said that light radius may be added in some parts of the game, if it's needed. It hasn't been needed in what we've seen so far because there is ample atomospheric lighting.

[MK_Red]

It's easy. Blizzard should add a theme option to graphics settings. Not just some saturation bar but 2 or 3 options with different visual feel / color pallete so anyone can play it the way they want. I think that will solve most problems.

[Raf1k1]

u might be right. it might solve problems.

but how easy is it to implement?

edit: im assuming that character and item models are using skins in which case woouldnt they then have to create a skin for each look for pretty much everything thats displayed?

plus, tbh, i think the whiners will be buying the game anyway since its diablo 3. would be nice if blizz cud show us a vid of what it did actually look like when they tried the light aura thing

[The Lazy One]

Is add a post-rendering filter.

tbh though, I think people need to stop whining. You've only seen 2 environments and you don't know how the mood of all of them is supposed to fit into the rest of the game. It's very possible by the end of the game, the worlds will look just like the altered video, except you won't lose the detail on the non-environment parts of the picture.

[Charlie2688]

Technically the easiest and fastest way to add the optional darker colors would be simply to add an optional filters(s) in the Video Section of the game...no need to remake or change anything and it will everyone happy

And like I said before at this point I guarantee that Blizzard will or has started making some changes in one way or another cuz they are a company that is sustained by a massive and VERY dedicated fanbase and after finding out just how big the whole "color discontent" was it will be silly and potentially bad to completely ignore it

[MK_Red]

I don't think it will be hard or require anything. As suggested, a few color changes or Post-processing effect.

As for Bliz and their fans, I think they know that a lot of fans also like the colorful version (Mostly WoW and non-Diablo fans) so the color pallete / theme option would be the best solution for everyone.

[Xi]

However I thought he desaturated the blue, green and purple colours a bit too much.

[Gun_Senshi]

Diablo is dark and gothic.

keep very ugly wow art direction away from Diablo

[Sprudling]

Blizzard decides what Diablo is and isn't.

If you want it dark with no saturation you just have to tweak your display driver settings.

[xav0971]

Oh. sorry wrong thread. Go Diablo III!!!! with color. WhooHoooo!!