The “ribbon” VFX hiccuped when they overlapped the water, but it was utterly unnoticeable in the heat of combat. The sorting issues were only noticeable when I channeled from the shoreline into the water.
I scaled-up one of our props that used transparent textures and used it as a mock-waterline to see how bad sorting would look-and the result wasn’t bad at all. Not good, right? And sorting issues were a messy video card problem, and since all video cards worked differently, it was a major pain in the ass to correct. If spell effects (which used transparent textures) were cast in front of transparent water, they would appear to be underneath the water’s surface. I’d asked repeatedly for transparent water tests, but the programming staff said they were swamped with higher priorities and didn’t have time to fix “sorting issues”-which were graphical glitches when multiple transparent objects appeared in front of one another. Our opaque water wasn’t popular with the art team, and it prevented me from seeing my submerged temples in Blackfathom Deeps. It’s a balancing act of robbing Peter to pay Paul.įor instance, I once butted heads with the programmers over transparent water. Sometimes our hacks create more work for other departments, who help us pull off our tricks. When we discover something cool, concessions often must be made. In serving our varied masters, we sometimes forget our limitations. It’s our job to make locations render smoothly while telling a story while making the world beautiful and immersive while providing areas suitable for gameplay. We’re the center of development’s Venn diagram. But let me take this opportunity to offer a bit of defense for my fellow level designers: We listen, but we also have other considerations. Veteran programmer Collin Murray described Jeremy Wood, whom we hired straight out of college, as “a guy who is scary-perceptive for someone who’s never worked before.” It’s a universal perception that level designers don’t listen-that we build however we please, regardless of limitations set by the programmers. I can push around the producers, but the level designers won’t listen to me."
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