Here's a sneak peek at some of the many graphics updates we're preparing for the September build of Fantasy Strike.
(Click the image to enlarge)
The most striking thing about Grave's change is the skin shading. It now has much more nuance and more value between the extreme lights and darks. Also, the outline on top of his hair went from very thick in some areas and non-existent in others to a consistent, but thin outline. Another small detail is that there's a bit of a shadow across the hairline between his forehead and his hair.
Lots of harsh blacks were removed from Jaina's clothes. Her waist armor now has a bit of a shine to it. Her skin is a bit more "skin colored" and the shadows on the skin are warmer. Also, her white hair tie went from covered in black gunk to a new clean white.
Lots of black was removed all over from Valerie, especially on her hair. Her outlines are no longer pure black either. Her character model is now capable of having facial animation and her dress's physics have been improved.
Geiger's skin shading completely changed. Like Grave's new skin shading, Geiger's also has much more nuance and more value between the extreme lights and darks. His black outlines are toned down. A texture error of a small white line between his hair and face was removed. There are now realistic shadows between the hair and face. The suit's lapel is much thinner now. The suit's pinstripes are handled differently now, and able to be different colors for each costume version of Geiger, and they're also thinner than before. Geiger's suit and vest are now made of a cloth material rather than the old smooth version.
The tavern stage has completely different lighting now. It's overall more monochromatic look and lower amount of contrast allows the characters to pop off the background more. Also, areas in the distance are a bit more hazy now, rather than being super crisp like before.
This comparison also shows how much the character shading has changed. Lots of blacks on both characters were removed and the shadowy areas on characters is generally more refined. Valerie's dress isn't a mess anymore and the inside of Jaina's skirt is now correctly more shadowed than the outside.
Here's a close up of the huge difference in how Valerie's dress behaves when she jumps. It used to be a complete mess, clipping through itself, clipping through her legs, and deforming into sharp, jagged shapes.
We've also updated the physics for DeGrey's ghost's dress. It used to have ugly gray regions all over the place because the back surface of the dress was clipping through the front the front surface. This image also shows the more refined shading on DeGrey himself. And finally, notice that the background environment is brighter, with more intense sunlight. The sunlight actually affects DeGrey a little bit here, giving him a subtle glow.
These graphical changes will be available to our patrons on Patreon in a few days, as well as to the general public once we launch on Steam Early Access later this month.