Diablofans.com picked up some recent
information using their
Diablo
Development Tracker about lingering graphics in Diablo 3. It starts out with
Bashiok answering a few of the questions, and as the conversation intensifies he
brings in Lead Artist Julian Love to help answer the questions about blood and
bodies and just how long they'll stick around!
Here's what the
Diablo Dev
Tracker picked up:
A user from Battle.net recently inquired about whether or not blood from
battles could be kept on the ground indefinitely in Diablo 3. Bashiok was quick
to respond with an initial
explanation:
Quote:
"Even decals, which are
textures, impact performance. So there has to be some limit on how many of
them are allowed to linger and for how long. We have to try to strike a
balance somewhere. Also, a ground literally covered with corpses or blood
becomes less and less interesting, more and more confusing, and can
actually create some frustration.
Regarding visible markers, we put a lot of effort into building rooms and
areas to ensure that the randomly generated dungeons are indeed random,
but also not confusing and maze-like. We don't want everything to look the
same. So in that respect a visual marker of a blood spot or corpse really
shouldn't be necessary." |
After some Battle.net users pushed for more details, Bashiok brought in
Lead Tech Artist, Julian Love, to give a more detailed answer to their
questions:
Quote:
"Every independent thing that
we show in the game has to be put into a special package that we call a
"draw call," which is then delivered to the 3D card to be rendered on
screen. It's not too different from preparing xmas gifts in that
everything you want your relatives to receive must be packaged up in some
way and then driven across the country in order to arrive there on time.
Your CPU does this packaging and delivery and it takes a lot of bandwidth,
so it ends up being one of the most crucial expenses to manage. Now, the
truly horrible thing is that from a draw call cost perspective, each
individual splattering of blood on the floor is every bit as expensive as
a character or a dead body: they both cost one draw call. Beyond that, the
differences tend to be somewhat trivial.
So, that's a lot of words just to say that blood splats can be every bit
as expensive as, and in some ways, more expensive than dead bodies. It's
counter intuitive, but this is the way it actually works." |
Hopefully that clears things up a bit in regards to the issue of having
graphics lingering on the screen indefinitely.
