A Thank You CA Thread

**Confucius** · July 06, 2012, 03:39 PM

As some of you already know, Creative Assembly has reintroduce the Gloss effect back with new patch release. This thread is dedicated to CA and all my friends here at TWC who had fought long and hard to have CA put the gloss back.

First and foremost, Thank you Craig, for listening to our plea regarding this issue. Also, of course, I thank all the staff at CA for working long hours on the Shaders effect inorder to have the gloss reintroduced. You guys really deserve a praise for this. I am very grateful for what you guys have done. It is my honour to have this, really.

My friends, How can I forget you guys? I still remember how we continue on and on pleaing to CA about the gloss removal here at TWC. A BIG Thank You to you guys; you guys know who you are. Ofcourse, there are still problems plagueing the game, such as Draw distance, blood effects etc., but I am sure this, so far, is a good start. Time after time, you guys have continued to support me, and I am grateful for that.

Finally, to the guys here who were against the gloss, well, I really hope from my heart that Superghostboy will create a Gloss removal mod for you guys soon. That way, we can all be happy.

**Humble Warrior** · July 06, 2012, 07:42 PM

Well, I wasn`t bothered about the graphics myself (I felt they were good enough), but at least they had not totally given up on Patching STW2 and that`s what I`m glad about. They uturned for the debug and for the gloss...

If only Ca would do turnabouts as easily for a Steam-Free option...

**Sir Winston Churchill** · July 06, 2012, 10:20 PM

Just give us an option. I don't know why CA hates this whole "options" idea, but giving us the choice to choose between gloss and no gloss may have solved everything for everybody.

Just my two cents.

**Drtad** · July 06, 2012, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy

Just give us an option. I don't know why CA hates this whole "options" idea, but giving us the choice to choose between gloss and no gloss may have solved everything for everybody.

Just my two cents.

They've mentioned that creating such an option is more difficult than it seems. I suppose it would have been in their interest to avoid the controversy about the effects if they could have created an option..

The gloss made little difference to me but it's good that they listened to peoples' grievances.

**Sir Winston Churchill** · July 06, 2012, 10:29 PM

I don't know. I honestly enjoyed the lack of gloss. I just say give options, regardless of the difficulty of doing so, because of the "terror of the majority" aspect. Everyone wanted Spain in Empire to have white uniforms. Sure, they were historical to do so, but for some reason I actually liked their piss yellow ones. I just feel like options is what makes everyone happy, something CA should be focused on doing.

I'm sure it's hard and complicated to do so, but since when was making people happy easy?

**A Barbarian** · July 07, 2012, 03:57 AM

Before we start argue about gloss again, could people please look at the new graphics first. Vanilla gloss isn't back at all!
CA essentially added back shiny metal and wet effect which is a good thing. Just look at the comparison:

**♘Top Hat Zebra** · July 07, 2012, 04:16 AM

^Exactly. CA didn't add gloss back in, however, what they did do was improve the graphics even further, without making everyone look like they were made of plastic.

So, yeah. Good job, CA. Now, maybe you guys could work on some of the more pressing issues...

**InferiorBeing** · July 07, 2012, 04:31 AM

A 4th July update? Funny, I don't remember STEAM having downloaded any patches for my copy of Shogun 2, recently.

**BullGod** · July 07, 2012, 07:03 AM

It's good that gloss now isn't as ugly as it was on the S2TW release day. So yeah, thank you.

**SonOfCrusader76** · July 07, 2012, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by ♘Top Hat Zebra

^Exactly. CA didn't add gloss back in, however, what they did do was improve the graphics even further, without making everyone look like they were made of plastic.

So, yeah. Good job, CA. Now, maybe you guys could work on some of the more pressing issues...

Ahem....Multi core optimisation...

**Humble Warrior** · July 07, 2012, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Drtad

They've mentioned that creating such an option is more difficult than it seems. I suppose it would have been in their interest to avoid the controversy about the effects if they could have created an option..

The gloss made little difference to me but it's good that they listened to peoples' grievances.

I`m with Kennedy here. I suspect the difficulty of options excuse and I`ve seen many a company (including CA) who say things like `it`s too difficult`, but change fast enough when enough people press enough of their buttons, no matter how hard it seems.

The best games I have played have almost everytime included a raft of options and choice for the Player. It`s often a good sign of a good game. It also shows a certain respect of the Player, indicating that Devs don`t view Users as imbeciles.

**Drtad** · July 07, 2012, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Humble Warrior

I`m with Kennedy here.

So was LBJ, until he decided to ride in the second car.

I suspect the difficulty of options excuse and I`ve seen many a company (including CA) who say things like `it`s too difficult`, but change fast enough when enough people press enough of their buttons, no matter how hard it seems.

The best games I have played have almost everytime included a raft of options and choice for the Player. It`s often a good sign of a good game. It also shows a certain respect of the Player, indicating that Devs don`t view Users as imbeciles.

Of course more options is better. Perhaps if Sega had allocated a little more budget (like they're doing with Rome 2) it would have happened, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

**Humble Warrior** · July 07, 2012, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Drtad

So was LBJ, until he decided to ride in the second car.

haha. Funny. Still with him though... Dodging the bullets.

**~~AgentGB~~** · July 07, 2012, 01:35 PM

Thanks CA, for all the recent great efforts on all fronts, the patch, and putting "Rome 2" into the making.

**Jedi** · July 07, 2012, 02:29 PM

Originally Posted by A Barbarian

Before we start argue about gloss again, could people please look at the new graphics first. Vanilla gloss isn't back at all!
CA essentially added back shiny metal and wet effect which is a good thing. Just look at the comparison:

If you look closely the difference is that the old gloss had a reflection of the gold sun on the chest armor.This is gone now but still retains the lacquer look and shine of the armor.If you look at the FOTS picture you see that the ashigaru hat is way too black.There no definition in it without the shiny coating.It looks like the black level has been rammed down into negative values crushing shadow detail.

Im very pleased i think it looks great from the pictures.Cant wait to test myself soon.Thanks CA

**Kurisu Paifuaa** · July 07, 2012, 04:26 PM

The lighting variables for materials (i.e. gloss) are, in fact, tweak-able by the user. However, it doesn't work as a separate, user made patch. You must edit the existing lighting_materials.xml file, the most recent copy being in patch15.pack.

The variables themselves take some experimentation to understand. Reading up on standard lighting formulas in 3d environments is helpful. You have ks (specular coefficient) exps(specular exponent) kf (fresnel coefficient) expf (fresnel exponent) and kmetal (metalness ?

). Specularity is the "head on" reflective quality while the fresnel component is the effect of backlighting spilling out over the material. The coefficients are the strength of each effect while the exponents are used to narrow them (make them tighter). The metal component makes things look... metallic

. You can also turn off faction color blending per material type.

There is a notable difference in how materials are tagged between S2 and FotS which makes balancing variables across both games difficult. That is, with FotS, almost everything is controlled by the default variable settings, whereas with S2, materials are more distinguished and make use of variations for materials such as cloth, silk, painted metal etc. Play around with it and you'll see what I mean.

I think I'll start a thread in the workshop for those interested in discussion and experimentation. In general, they've done a really nice job at balancing the lighting effects this time around. All changes are in hlsl shader code (which can also be edited btw with a little elbow grease). There are still some errors with rigid surfaces (buildings etc) that need attention. I'll post some screens later.

**Greve Af Göteborg** · July 08, 2012, 09:38 AM

I like the newest version more than the vanilla one, vanilla always looked a bit plastic to me.

**InferiorBeing** · July 08, 2012, 02:03 PM

While I can understand the people who didn't like the old gloss, (although I don't personally agree with them.), I have zero understanding whatsoever for the people who thought the middle picture was a better alternative. They were two opposite extremes, nothing more. In fact, I frankly think it comes off as looking more graphically primitive than the two others, in places.

**tlatoani** · July 09, 2012, 06:10 PM

I have never liked the "bloom" effects. It makes total war battles look like you're in narnia or some other fantasy world. Or in a dream.

**Jedi** · July 09, 2012, 07:22 PM

Originally Posted by tlatoani

I have never liked the "bloom" effects. It makes total war battles look like you're in narnia or some other fantasy world. Or in a dream.

You wont be happy about Rome II then as from what i have seen it has a horrible golden bloom effect shader on everything.The closest thing i can compare it too is the horrible same bloom you got in the Unreal 3 engine etc.

City walls are even slightly orange as well.I really hope they adjust that soon and give accurate colors.