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Vanishing of Ethan Carter

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polycounter lvl 9

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  • Visum
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    Visum polycounter lvl 7
    That second image is pretty damn amazing
  • skylebones
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    skylebones polycounter lvl 10
    I'm very excited for this! love the mystery horror aspects of it.
  • glottis8
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    glottis8 polycounter lvl 9
    Visum wrote: »
    That second image is pretty damn amazing

    Look at some of their props on the link where they talk about it. its very impressive stuff.
  • ErichWK
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    ErichWK polycounter lvl 12
    super cool and impressive, but as an artist I would hate to work on this. I love zbrushing my textures. :3
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    ErichWK wrote: »
    super cool and impressive, but as an artist I would hate to work on this. I love zbrushing my textures. :3

    I'm sure there are people who would enjoy doing that - I enjoy painting textures too much to replace it with zbrush bakes!
  • Marshkin
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    Marshkin polycounter lvl 9
    That looks stunning! I want it. I actually thought it was a photograph at first glance.
  • skylebones
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    skylebones polycounter lvl 10
    Ha! I was just thinking about that. On one hand I really love painting stylized texture maps, but on the other I really enjoy mystery/horror/exploration games. Two things that really don't go together. My career love is torn!

    I always did want to make stylized horror games. Something aimed at 12-13 year olds. Like those old goosebump books, but games.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    saw this a while ago, really impressive, looks like it would be amazing/horrifying with the oculus haha
  • McGreed
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    McGreed polycounter lvl 15
    Yeah, love the second picture, looks awesome!
  • Rurouni Strife
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    Rurouni Strife polycounter lvl 10
    I've been pretty stoked since it was announced. I loved Bulletstorm and while this is a 180 from that-the PCF guys who are working on this title clearly know what they're doing. It's premise is too unique for me to ignore.

    Plus it's PRETTY....
  • Higuy
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    Higuy polycounter lvl 9
    Saw this a while back, some really insane stuff art wise.
  • Makkon
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    Makkon polycounter
    Yeah, this looks pretty amazing. I hope they plan on releasing more info on their tech.
  • deohboeh
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    deohboeh polycounter lvl 5
    WOW! That second picture! The only reason I felt that it's a screenshot was because of the tree. But still I reeling from a mind blow! :O

    Edit: Turns out some assets are purposefully unrealistic for the mood. More mind blow.
  • Noren
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    Noren polycounter lvl 19
    I wonder if they could use stronger lighting if they wanted to. (The diffuse atmosphere works great for this game, though.)
    I played with Photoscan a bit a while ago but would need to buy a better camera to really make use of it. Mine is cheap and too noisy and low resolution, so the algorithm has a hard time finding matching patterns. Even so it's impressive and very handy.
    So far I've seen it more as tool for getting 3d references.

    Ideally you have a covered sky so there is no direct lighting on the object. Shiny objects don't really work, since the specular reflection depends on the position of the camera and throws off the pattern recognition. Maybe with polarisation filters. Even then you had to work on the textures considerably if you wanted to have a fully shaded 3d object in the end. My guess is they went only half the way here, in order to save time.
    I remember seeing a camera which can get more or less all necessary surface and material information, but I don't know right now if Photoscan would allow to replace the photos used, so you could get different texture channels out of the same projection.
  • LRoy
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    LRoy polycounter lvl 10
    First I've heard of it. Seems pretty interesting. Digging the lovecraft vibe.
  • Norron
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    Norron polycounter lvl 13
    Super excited for this. Their devblog has lots of great art and stuff on it too.

    ethan_carter_ghost_draisine.gif
  • Deathstick
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    Deathstick polycounter lvl 7
    sounds like a technical artist's wet dream to me :D

    Pretty cool tech
  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 6
    I have experimented with photographic generation before, never thought much of it as practical use, but this is rather interesting what they have achieved here.

    Edit: Wouldn't there be potential for trouble photo genning a church and gravestones for games? I remember some game falling into trouble for merely recreating a church before.
  • frmdbl
  • JasonLavoie
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    JasonLavoie polycounter lvl 18
    Finaallly get to see some gameplay, I am 100% sold on this game, can't wait!
  • Lucas Annunziata
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    Lucas Annunziata polycounter lvl 13
    Oh maaaan! I'm so excited that it's the detective's last case.
  • Joost
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    Joost polycount sponsor
    Beautiful game. Not sure what to think about the gameplay though.
  • ExcessiveZero
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    ExcessiveZero polycounter lvl 6
    Kinda disappointing seeing the gameplay I saw a lot of wood repetition in the first part of game play, unique U Vs come at the cost of the need to reuse props it seems, which leads to repetition just the same :/.

    But the interior scene was rather fantastic.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    So so so so so so so excited.
    This is the kind of game I'd love to work on; moving the medium forward, and trying new things. And Weird fiction is involved.
    I'm so excited that I'll love it even if it sucks. And I'm ok with that.
  • shotgun
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    shotgun polycounter lvl 19
    The gameplay is like a complete opposite of what a "mystery novel" usually does: provide you with the visual clues and lets you figure it out. From the gameplay vid, this seems like the scripted-events version of the genre. Explore? sure, but we'll tell you what to look for, what you can do with it and what to think of it.
  • Two Listen
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    Two Listen polycount sponsor
    Hmm, game looks really nice, but I'm not sure about that gameplay video. Kind of agree with shotgun.

    I really don't need the game to tell me that the massively obvious trail of blood is a blood trail and I certainly don't need the words to swirl around the screen for several seconds. Also not a fan of the whole, posing questions to you (again, by having them swirl around the screen) rather than you just asking them yourself.

    That being said I could still see it being a nice story and interesting to play, I'm just not expecting it to be so much a mystery/puzzle exploration game as I am expecting it to be a slightly interactive walkthrough of a movie.
  • skylebones
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    skylebones polycounter lvl 10
    yeah, I kind of agree with you guys. not a big fan of the swirly word crime scene re-creation stuffs.
  • Deathstick
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    Deathstick polycounter lvl 7
    the environment looks beautiful. Not too sure about the floaty game mechanics/text popping up everywhere, but who knows maybe it'll be fun when you actually play it.

    Missing the days of Myst and even Morrowind's find locations by reading horrible directions in a journal.
  • CordellC
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    CordellC polycounter lvl 11
    Looks super on rails and kind of bad. The art fidelity is good.
  • Two Listen
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    Two Listen polycount sponsor
    I thought the best parts of the gameplay trailer were actually towards the end, the "weird places" stuff they showed with the one interior & teleporty doorways and what have you.

    I can see myself playing this game and really enjoying it, but constantly saying to myself "Shut up Ethan I'm trying to figure out this weird shit over here."
  • Avvi
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    Avvi polycounter lvl 3
    Two Listen wrote: »
    Hmm, game looks really nice, but I'm not sure about that gameplay video. Kind of agree with shotgun.
    [...] I certainly don't need the words to swirl around the screen for several seconds.

    Remember, though, that this is the a playthrough by the developer.

    If you were playing the game and were shown just the surroundings of the metal piece (through this swirling vision), I doubt you'll instantly know where to find it. Chmielarz knows, because his team played it thousand times.
    Plus, he definitely wanted to progress through the game quickly, fluently, because he's got only this many minutes to show the game :)
    Joopson wrote: »
    So so so so so so so excited.
    This is the kind of game I'd love to work on; moving the medium forward, and trying new things.

    I absolutely agree. For me, that's the whole point of going indie. Of taking the risk. In the long term, I see it also as a basic goal of entering any creative field as well.
  • Higuy
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    Higuy polycounter lvl 9
    It looks beautiful, but unfortunately I'm not so sure about the gameplay. Like others mentioned, it seems pretty linear in the way the clues and story evolves, even if its open world. I will most likely still play it, but not so sure about that gameplay until I can actually get my hands on it.
  • shotgun
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    shotgun polycounter lvl 19
    Avvi wrote: »
    Remember, though, that this is the a playthrough by the developer.

    If you were playing the game and were shown just the surroundings of the metal piece (through this swirling vision), I doubt you'll instantly know where to find it. Chmielarz knows, because his team played it thousand times.
    Plus, he definitely wanted to progress through the game quickly, fluently, because he's got only this many minutes to show the game :)

    True, but these points have nothing to do with the words-thinking gameplay mechanics. You may choose to pursue 'alternate' clues and explore 'side quests', but the game will still direct your experience by relating to its own agenda. More specifically, the way it relates seems so trivial at some points that it makes me feel the game is catered towards the 'click X to solve this puzzle' genre that is becoming widespread. It's like those assassin games that give you invisiblity/x-ray/super jump powers by activating 'sneak mode'. There! sneaking accomplished.
  • TAN
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    TAN polycounter lvl 12
    Only thing that I can tell about game play is... looking solid.

    This is probably the only indie game I know that uses CryEngne and is not a FPS. As technically this itself is a technical success :D I wish he made tutorials :D
  • frmdbl
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    frmdbl polycounter
    TAN wrote: »
    Only thing that I can tell about game play is... looking solid.

    This is probably the only indie game I know that uses CryEngne and is not a FPS.

    Where did you come up with that? It uses UE3.
  • Two Listen
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    Two Listen polycount sponsor
    Avvi wrote: »
    Remember, though, that this is the a playthrough by the developer.

    If you were playing the game and were shown just the surroundings of the metal piece (through this swirling vision), I doubt you'll instantly know where to find it. Chmielarz knows, because his team played it thousand times.

    Actually, no, using your example of the metal piece (crank, I assume) - my understanding of the mechanic based on the video was that the words literally swirl around - and as you move your camera around they converge when you're looking at the exact location/direction of the object in question. This is what "unlocks" the vision of it being on the shore. So not only do you know it's on a shore with all of those clues obtained through the vision itself, but when the vision is over you're staring in the exact direction you need to head towards to find it.

    Though, that wasn't my main hesitation with the gameplay video (though it was slightly disappointing, as I think the vision of the shore itself would have been enough of a clue) - as shotgun said it was the game labeling everything with text and telling you what you should be wondering by throwing the questions up on the screen as you examine something. It seemed basically like those games where the main character is constantly talking out loud while you play (also kind of annoying), except with text instead of a voiceover and the text telling you what to do to solve everything.

    It's possible that the example in the video is extreme, especially if it does actually occur very soon after the beginning of the game, but the commentary seemed like they were pretty happy with those mechanics.
  • TAN
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    TAN polycounter lvl 12
    frmdbl wrote: »
    Where did you come up with that? It uses UE3.


    I am EXTREMELY SORRY. Please forgive me. I am not myself these days.

    apology-japan-countries-gif-1154155.gif

    But boy, these environment... hell.
  • FelixL
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    FelixL polycounter lvl 4
    You can look at some of the scanned assets in 3D on their blog. I think it's a cool approach and works well for this game, but I don't think it's very practical for a big production.

    First, you have the problem with lighting. Even when it's overcast, you still have lots of soft contact shadows, AO and all in the scan (well visible with the statue). With wildly differing real-time lighting in a game, it's bound to look bad at some point. You'd have to take the photographs at night with a soft diffuse flash to avoid it.

    Then, it takes quite some time to take the photos, calculate the point cloud, do all the texture baking, etc. Is sculpting and texturing a gravestone really that much work? Somebody who's really good at sculpting and texturing can probably crank out smaller assets like this faster than even the baking process takes.

    As somebody else mentioned, the scanning won't work for shiny materials, marble, glass, metal etc. So you're already quite limited in your choice of assets and environments.
  • Noren
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    Noren polycounter lvl 19
    FelixL wrote: »
    Somebody who's really good at sculpting and texturing can probably crank out smaller assets like this faster than even the baking process takes.
    I think the problem that many smaller indies have, especially those which haven't an artist among their founders, is they simply have no such people or just very few of them. Even if you do "just" realistic items, a lot of design knowledge is required, as we can see on site like this every day.
    Until recently, newcomers who liked to do realistic stuff were also mainly drawn to AAA, because realistic realtime graphics were simply not viable (nor interesting) for smaller indies, though I think this is slowly changing.

    This technique pretty much gets rid of the design aspect, as far as the individual asset is concerned. (Of course not completely, but cleaning up and preparing and optimizing the assets for the engine is pretty much a technical task.)
    If you manage to come up with a game that fits around this technique and maybe a landscape which is near your home, you're pretty much set with one or two central artists, who assemble the scenes and maybe pick the assets and adjust them later for the scene. You could send anyone who can hold a camera and is able to follow a few guidelines to capture the objects.(Though mainly this will be just one or two persons doing it all. And as a bonus you get to be out in the fresh air and exploring if your game matches that topic.)
    No need for concepts, no need for iterations, and you could do the optimization in house, too, if you wanted to.

    Bigger studios had to do it more cleanly and organized like they do with scanning in likenesses. But I agree that it probably makes not much sense for them to scan in most of the objects needed for a whole level.
  • FelixL
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    FelixL polycounter lvl 4
    That's true. The game seems to have only one geographic location which is modeled after an area close to where the devs live. In this case it makes sense to do all the scanning work, if the alternative is hiring some top artists or freelancers to achieve similar quality. The lighting is probably not an issue if the game lighting matches the conditions the scans were taking in.
  • weee
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    weee polycounter lvl 3
    got the game, what a great achievement, both technically and artistically, big congrats to the team, awesome job all round! this game is worth every penny by even just roaming and looking around, can't believe its done in unreal 3 compare to some of the jokers who demand 6g vram :D it runs like a charm on a mid-range PC, visually its mind bogglingly good!!!
  • SuperFranky
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    SuperFranky polycounter lvl 10
    Played it an hour this morning. It looks great, but what the point if the world is as interactive as a screen saver? Sounds like a pointless waste of everybody's time. I'm not a fan of all these "interactive experience" lately. In all these games you are playing as a loser who came to the party that's already ended a week ago and you walk around and tip your fingers into stale condiments to try and get a taste of the fun.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    Sounds like a pointless waste of everybody's time.

    oh no, you turned into an old man right before our eyes!
  • beefaroni
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    beefaroni sublime tool
    I'm not a fan of all these "interactive experience" lately. In all these games you are playing as a loser who came to the party that's already ended a week ago and you walk around and tip your fingers into stale condiments to try and get a taste of the fun.

    That is the best description I've read in awhile :thumbup:
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Guess you guys aren't the target market. ;)
  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 15
    I played through it in two sittings and loved every second of the damn thing.

    SURPRISE! People have different tastes.

    Frankly, I like that "interactive experiences" have become a thing. This, Dear Esther, the Stanley Parable, and others recently have all barely fit into the traditional idea of what a game is, and I find them wonderful. I don't have a ton of time to play games anymore because I'm a goddamn grownup and I have actual responsibilities and things that I want to do outside of the house. I want more games that will let me play through them in a short amount of time and get a nice succinct experience that isn't bogged down by ZOMG ACHIEVEMENTS MULTIPLAYER DOUBLE PRESTIGE GOLD AK-47 CASTLE OF THE BOOB QUEEN DLC!!!!!!11!

    Anyway, enough of being a grouch.

    Fucking loved this game. Initially I was a bit leery of using scan data in a non-photoreal context, but I got over that real quick. The lighting is soft and gorgeous, the use of scan data makes everything look like an extremely atmospheric realist painting, and the overall composition and layout of most areas (aside from the caves) makes basically every second look beautiful. I also enjoyed the overall creepy Lovecraftian feeling of the story and setting.

    Gameplay-wise, I thought a lot of things it did were really clever, though I think some aspects of solving the murders and other scenes could have been fleshed out a little better. I would've liked a lot more small puzzles to solve as well, but that's a minor complaint.
  • SuperFranky
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    SuperFranky polycounter lvl 10
    Swizzle wrote: »
    I played through it in two sittings and loved every second of the damn thing.

    SURPRISE! People have different tastes.

    Frankly, I like that "interactive experiences" have become a thing. This, Dear Esther, the Stanley Parable, and others recently have all barely fit into the traditional idea of what a game is, and I find them wonderful. I don't have a ton of time to play games anymore because I'm a goddamn grownup and I have actual responsibilities and things that I want to do outside of the house. I want more games that will let me play through them in a short amount of time and get a nice succinct experience that isn't bogged down by ZOMG ACHIEVEMENTS MULTIPLAYER DOUBLE PRESTIGE GOLD AK-47 CASTLE OF THE BOOB QUEEN DLC!!!!!!11!

    It's fine that a game is short and focuses on the story. I can understand that. What is not fine is making it so that you can't change anything or do anything worthwhile. In those games there's no puzzle to solve, no people to talk to, there's no substance outside of a linear story. In Ethan Carter you can't even interact with anything if it's not a story element. It's like playing Final Fantasy XIII without the gameplay at all. That doesn't seem like fun game at all.
    When your game has less interactivity than graphic novels, there's something wrong with your game.

    Ethan Carter says specifically, that it's a game that doesn't hold your hand. But after an hour I found it to be a half-truth. You can only go where you want in non-linear fashion, but it means nothing. You can't solve murders differently or fail them at all.
  • Zocky
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    Zocky greentooth
    It looks great, but what the point if the world is as interactive as a screen saver? Sounds like a pointless waste of everybody's time.

    Well look, i do sort of have same opinion with TWD game,i don't like it for that reason as well.

    But, you do have visual novels and people seems to be rather crazy about it. This goes a a step farther, so i don't see it really being a wrong thing.

    I personally don't like it, but obviously there are poeple who do. And if visual novels are rather popular and interesting, why shouldn't such games too?

    It's not for you and me, but there are people who likes such types of storycentric games.

    I'd personally prefer if games explored other options that didn't hurt gameplay. Tale of two sons had some really awesome ideas near the end, how they medge the core gampleay and player input device as story-telling mechanics, that was just brilliant.
  • SuperFranky
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    SuperFranky polycounter lvl 10
    Zocky wrote: »

    I personally don't like it, but obviously there are poeple who do. And if visual novels are rather popular and interesting, why shouldn't such games too?

    There's nothing wrong with the genre (walking simulator), but it should be more than just placing a player into a role of an onlooker. It should be more. There needs to be something to do, not just walk around.
    Maybe I'm an old fart already at 24, but I'd rather go for a walk than play this game. There's nothing worth playing here for me. If I want a story, I'll read a book or watch a movie. At least when I watch a movie I don't have to walk around while doing so.

    Interesting question: if I go for a walk outside with an mp3 player with an audiobook on it, am I inside a video game?
  • Zocky
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    Zocky greentooth
    Well, if it tries to tell really interesting story, and you are the type of person who loves good story, regardless of gameplay.....well, i can see how that can work for many people out there....

    also:
    If there's zombie outbreak, i'd guess it is a game. :P
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