Diablo IV: June 2021 Quarterly Update

on him official siteBlizzard shared new information about Diablo IV. Its development is in full swing, but we still don’t know when it will be released.

The quarterly report focuses on the graphic design of characters: heroes, allies and monsters.

“(…) the graphic design of the characters is just as important: in fact, it concerns two basic elements of Diablo, namely classes and monsters. The look and feel of the first shows has always been one of the secret components of the saga, each of which is recognizable at first glance due to the strong and unique character of the its kind. Diablo IV It gives players more customization options than any other game in the franchise, making this task even more challenging. But our goal is worth it. Your barbarian will be different from the others, without losing any of his class identity. For monsters, we had to create new enemies while updating the myriad of atrocities already in the previous opus, using all the capabilities of new operations and technologies at our disposal,” wrote Luis Barriga, director of Diablo IV.

“When it comes to character graphic design, I can tell you that the development has gotten even more epic, so come take a look! First of all I would like to salute our great teams: character graphic design, but also engineering, animation, lighting and technology, because without them, it wouldn’t be Any of this is possible!” said John Mueller, Technical Director of Diablo IV.

“When I think back to the early days of development, our ultimate goal was to make the characters in Diablo IV look as artistic and literal as possible, while using the latest tools and technology available. Over time, our ambitions for what seemed possible to us evolved into what you can see today. We wanted to stay on the cutting edge of technology. , without having a “realistic” view that doesn’t correspond to the literal aspect that seems to us inseparable from Blizzard games. We didn’t want the characters to look generic or procedurally created because of these tools. The realism that mattered to us was more about the material and appearance of the characters. We took as the viewer model Beautiful pre-made Diablo III. We liked them very much and they seemed to us to be a solid base for the characters, a goal that can no longer be achieved within a cinematic setting, but in a game environment created in real time “

“It certainly seemed ambitious to us, but it was achievable. Of course, here I am simplifying the thousands of exchanges it took us to reach the current result, but no one wanted to put limits, or say we shouldn’t do this or that, that was impossible, other than Achievable. Everyone has always been prepared for that, even when it means taking everything back or getting rid of things. Everyone really did what they could. I think that’s one of the unique things about Blizzard… We all say “Yeah, and… Instead of “No, because…”, that’s the great thing about our work.

It is this single goal and it is this desire for quality that has led us down a particularly long, winding and difficult road, to the point where we are today. We had to overcome many challenges that forced us to rebuild our rendering engine and production tools. It was necessary to assemble an elite team of characters made up of graphic designers, engineers, skeletal specialists as well as experts in surfaces and lighting. It was a comprehensive cabinet reshuffle.”

“One advantage of all our efforts with the character graphics system is that most scripted scenes are computed using the in-game engine and models from it. Diablo Previously, all these scenes were pre-calculated. Now, while Blizzard Animation always gives us these great moments, we also have real-time videos that show off your character. We’ve worked closely with the legendary Blizzard Animation team to make our business as successful as possible. The Thief Promotion is precisely the fruit of this wonderful collaboration that has allowed us to push the boundaries of our technology and tools.”