What if WoW received a complete graphics overhaul? What would it look like? Well, both Mythology and Jabraltr of the U.S. WoW General forums had an idea.
Mythology started the thread by linking a few of his YouTube videos of WoW characters with sharper graphics (which you can find below) - also later, Jabraltr tried his hand at this graphics manipulation (shown left). Mythology told us that the models are exported from WoW model viewer and all the original textures. He "used [the] same textures as masks under different map types" and "the textures were simply copied from ambient color map, into bump and specular light map, to create the illusion of lighting and shading details on character".
Okay, so I'm gunna be honest, I wouldn't even know where to begin in doing this. All I know is that if a fan of the game who had some extra time was able to do this, then why can't Blizzard?
I guess it all goes back to the fact that Blizzard wants everyone to be able to run their game and have an enjoyable gaming experience. Although, you know, Blizzard, computers have made progress in the past three years.
However, there are more problems with this. While this may seem so awesome and we all want it right now, I have a feeling that if Blizzard ever drastically changed WoW's graphics, we'd all miss the old style. ...But, then again, Blizzard could always make it optional with the click of a button.
Blizzard has stated that there will be some improved graphics in WotLK - hey, we even saw it in the fire in 2.4! - but let's face it, it's not gunna be anything close to a complete overhaul.
So, I'd imagine that you can probably guess what I want to see with the third expansion.
-Matt Graham
The Way WoW Could Look - 2.28.2008
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4 comments:
Hey bro, this is /the/ Jabraltr! Cool post you've got there. While I agree that it would be awesome for WoW to have graphics like this, I'm not sure that it would be a good idea.
While it's simple to accomplish a task like this in specialized software, it can be very difficult to implement it in a game. Personally, I'd prefer blizzard to be spending their time making new content rather than making eye candy.
Peace :D
Looks nice. The Murlock suit was amazing though.
However, that fire... is it really that much of a graphical improvement? Perhaps in "motion" it is more impressive, but from your still it looks like the same thing used for tree leaves with a fire photo/"Eyecandy's Flame Plugin" for the texture.
it would also probably raise the montly fee
It would be cool, but what arena rating would we need to enable the new graphics?
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