14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Obsidian announces that it is getting ready to show off a new scene taken from their upcoming Pillars of Eternity during the upcoming E3 2014 trade show, offering fans of the title a look at the core mechanics of the game and some of the lore created for it.
Once the show is done, the company plans to return to web-based updates and will offer details on the front line combatant classes, which means both the fighter and the barbarian.
Obsidian is also willing to offer more information about the rendering tech that it is using and the way the studio employs it in order to deliver a solid game experience that uses some of the core elements of the classic role-playing game that fans love.
Adam Brennecke, the lead programmer and executive producer, states in an official forum update that, “As we mentioned previously, our beautiful backgrounds are rendered out of Maya as a 2D image. They are very large images, sometimes over several gigabytes of raw data, and before the images get into the game we run a program that compresses the data. Maya renders out the backgrounds in four layers or ‘passes’: final, depth, normal, and albedo.”
The developer then goes in depth and explains how the various elements of the game are being created and then put together using the Unity engine.
The characters of Pillars of Eternity are made up of dynamic 3D skinned meshes, to which shaders and materials are then applied.
Fans who love the technical side of game making are also able to learn more about how lights are added and how effects make spells come to life.
Adam Brennecke adds, “The important thing is that we hope you like the end result. We are satisfied with where we are at, but we always have a few ideas on how to improve the look and quality of the graphics. Improving the look of the game will be an ongoing process until we ship... and beyond. If you have any questions, please ask in our forums! Thanks for reading.”
Pillars of Eternity will be launched before the end of the year and is designed to be played on the PC, offering a classic party-based role-playing experience, complete with turn-based battles, set in a game world built from scratch.
Marketing and distribution duties for the title are being handled by Paradox Interactive.
