[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH There is ambitions and there is "designed for mass appeal". I'd say Demon Slayer is ambitious, its original manga is solid, and the art is good, fighting scenes are well done, which is particularly important for a fighting anime like this, but you can almost see that it was almost meticulasely engineered to be mass appealing and have a franchise-creation marketing strategy in-built from the start. So using popular singers is to be expected as part of the process.

That is not to say that it is a bad thing, not necessarily, it's more that these two examples give a good perspective of the starting point: it is either "lets create a niche artistic masterpiece with religious symbolism full of philosophical undertones" and "lets make something spectacular that millions of people will enjoy". Once the initial purpose is set, the artistic process is built on that.

Here is something that may tempt you: Baccano! was written by Ryohgo Narita, the author of Durarara. So stamp of quality and all that.

Thank you for checking! Leave it with me, I'll see what can be done!

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch Agreed 100%. I call Demon Slayer the McDonald's of anime, carefully crafted in a lab for maximum mass appeal.

Ooooh I wasn't aware of that! Now I really wanna watch it 😤

Please don't worry about this 😄 It’s just a little something I hastily put together. I doubt people here will like the old school forum flair that used to be the norm back in the days 😆

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Hmm, I want to say, maybe not McDonald's, that is a bit too mass and easily digestible. Naruto or One Piece is like that. Demon Slayer is maybe more like Starbucks: slightly posher, slightly narrower clientele, slightly different outreach. But that's just me being pedantic, the overall analogy is astute 😉

If I am not mistaken, she wrote Baccano! before Durarara. And while Durarara grew into a long story with several volumes, Baccano! is a finished short story, which for me is a plus. In addition to the fact that a big portion of the action is happening on a moving train, I enjoy "closed room" stories like that.

Oh, I would not say that. If anywhere people would like the old school forum flair, that'd be here, I want to say 😉

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by ZaidH

91 Days (great anime if you're planning to play Mafia: The Old Country)

Speaking of Mafia: The Old Country, they recently released an insight into the visuals of the games and what they are using to make them:

They are making full use of instruments like Metahuman, Nanite and Lumen. So while anime is all good and well, the game is shaping up to be an impressive visual spectacle in its own right 😉

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch LMAO that's so accurate 😂 Those Demon Slayer movies are like the special menu items that Starbucks puts out sometimes, that people go absolutely hyper for.

In addition to the fact that a big portion of the action is happening on a moving train, I enjoy "closed room" stories like that.

Now I'm suddenly getting Murder on the Orient Express vibes from Baccano!, but with a supernatural twist 😄

In that case, I'll try working with different formats and sizes to get the signature working 😁

I haven't seen the entire video you linked yet, but holy moly we are finally reaching the fidelity shown in that initial Unreal Engine 5 showcase. Actually, some of the hills in this game look quite similar to the ones shown for showcasing Nanite in the UE5 demo. People are against game devs using UE5 for their games because it makes them look samey (I used to be in this camp too), but I think this approach is way more sustainable when compared to other companies investing gajillions in their proprietary engines.

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by ZaidH

@DoctorEldritch LMAO that's so accurate 😂 Those Demon Slayer movies are like the special menu items that Starbucks puts out sometimes, that people go absolutely hyper for.

Demon Slayer latte only this month. On a related note, while there is no official collaboration between Starbucks and Demon Slayer, many fans seem to be thinking along those line, even desiging parody stuff like this:



I'd say it has more action than Orient Express, this train has more than one murder 😉

I'll see what I can do about the signature from our side and will let you know what format it may work better in 😊

I am not sure if looking samey is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, Mafia is a realistic game, it has no fantasy locations or magic and so on. Of course, some locations may be fictional, but not "unrealistic". In this way, if you think about it, the real world is similarly limited in variations. Of course, there are almost infinite vistas and a great variety, from glaciers to jungles, but no matter how far you look, you will not find floating cities, or towers to space, or any other fantasy elements. So for games that are so rooted in reality, I'd say being samey brings them closer to the real world and its limitations and is not something particularly off-putting.

But when fantasy games that should be steeped in imagination and unique locations start to look the same too, that's where you get a glimpse at creative bankruptcy or technological limitations, and that is not very inspiring. More so as you can make a captivating world even using pixels when you know what you're doing.

True about investing gajillions in proprietary engines, though to be fair, I am not too versed in the rationale behind it. Maybe it is easier to make adjustments using a home engine that you know and fully control, so it could come down to how ambitious a project you have. Like what they mentioned in this Mafia video: they have a system that allows them to adjust details easily and have great control over the game environment when designing it. In this case, it is justified, they are creating a cinemograph-like immersive experience. In some games, that level of control is unnecessary. Could be more a case-by-case basis. Then again, the majority of studios do not have the resources to develop their own engines, either...

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH Here is one more insight into Maria: The Old Country:

The last video was about the environment and vistas, and this one reveals a bit about motion capturing and characters.

[DoctorEldritch]

@ZaidH And here is one about sounds and music:

[ZaidH]

@DoctorEldritch Oh dang I missed your earlier comments 😭 I got 50+ random thumbs ups on both recent and older comments. Dunno what's up.

I 100% agree with what you said above about the sameyness. Though what I've read yesterday has me a little worried. So apparently during all these Xbox/MS layoffs, I came across this -

The contingency plan for projects that are making it out the other end of this is to supplement the loss of manpower & experience by training management of all levels on proper applications of CoPilot/ChatGPT. Videos on how to prompt LLMs for assets and new potential workflows are being produced as we speak.

In layman's terms: the expectation is the surviving projects will come out on time tables, now at lower budget levels, and at quality levels that were established before the cuts.

Also - this is not the last round of layoffs for XGS by a long shot.

If this is true, then we're in for some really generic slop in the future, at least until AGI is achieved or there's some other major AI breakthrough.

Do these Mafia videos contain any spoilers?

- - - Updated - - -

Signature Test#1 - It worked! Just gotta change the background color of the image now 😁

Signature Test#2 - Wahooooo we back in business!!! Btw, the PNG format works perfectly for the signature. What was happening earlier was that the [SIGPIC] tag wasn’t being correctly assigned to the signature box.

Signature Test#3 - You can even center the signature! Apparently one can use BBCode tags to unlock even more modification potential.

[tntiseverywere]

@DoctorEldritch Enjoy your holidays !