Borderlands -- that shooter from Gearbox that went from 0 to 100 on the hype scale in the span of a day -- has had its dramatic art style explained in detail for those who still liken it to cel-shading. Gearbox is keen to point out that this is a new graphical technique, and considering how beautiful the character models now look, they have every right to differentiate.
"The new technique uses hand-drawn textures," explains Gearbox, "scanned in and colored in Photoshop, combined with software that draws graphic novel-style outlines around characters and objects, sharpens shadows to look more like something an artist might create, and even draws lines on hills and inclines.
"Finally the character models were all revamped with more exaggerated proportions, creating the appearance of a detailed comic book in motion."
Now you know the secret, and can copy it at home. Remember to ask permission from a parent or guardian before using scissors and other cutting implements.
I was into Borderlands before this new art style emerged, which obviously makes me cooler than the rest of you plebs. Also, any of you who are pretending to be unimpressed by the graphics is deliberately being an idiot and is almost evil for blatantly lying about how awesome it looks. You're no better than a Holocaust denier in my eyes, and in some ways you're even worse.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
12:00 PM on 04.16.2009
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Seriously, just release a video of the game detailing the art, and then you can stop getting harrassed by people calling it cell shading.
Also, why the denial? In fact, why the sudden harsh stance against being called cell shading? I didn't know "cell shading" was a slur.
The art style just kicked it up a notch on my WANT HARD meter, though.
And really... if you want to get down to it... Crackdown did this quite a while ago. That was cell shading with textured models. And even before that, people modded Doom3 to cell shade over the already taxing graphics (for the time).
I have nothing against cel-shading, and if Gearbox is just being pretentious, then boo to them. However, gamers have such a limited vocabulary and perhaps it's better to not instantly refer to anything that looks hand-drawn as cel-shaded if it was achieved (and certainly looks) differently.
DUAL WIELDED FISH GUNS
that being said, this looks very nice, like crackdown's graphics, but more detailed and revamped, it doesn't look as muddled, and is actually very clear, the screen on the site is very nice looking.
Though it's hard to tell if there's any lighting on that picture at all, given the amount of detail, it wouldn't work well if they were using it anyways. And as for the black outlines on objects, that is something totally unrelated to cel-shading, though it is generally associated with it, as they're always used in conjunction.
I'm QUITE sure that feature is for Zeno Clash.