Andrew James, Lead Artist at Irrational Games Canberra, writes in the latest installment of IGN's Tribes: Vengeance Developer Diary. T:V is nearing alpha and Andrew explains where the art team is at, currently polishing up the single player and multiplayer levels. There's mention of the fun to be had with the Havok's physics engine, and also the compromise on normal mapping with per pixel lighting.
"Since we didn't have time scheduled to create every asset as a high-res model and process them to create normal maps, we decided to go half way, which meant creating some normal maps in Photoshop. This approach admittedly doesn't give as good a result as making the hires models and processing them, but it allowed us to use normal mapping to good effect in the game, while staying on schedule.We did, however, create hi-res models of the characters faces, some of the weapons, vehicles and our main character Julia."
The guys are having a good time testing the game, and reveals that a demo will be coming out soon!
Gamers Depost have an interview with Ed Orman ? Lead Designer, Michael Johnston ? Senior Designer, Rowan Wyborn ? Lead Programmer and Tony Oakden - Producer on T:V. Click here to read it, or click the link following to read the diary with Andrew James.