Schlagwort: paper beast

  • Paper Beast Enhanced Edition: Details zu dynamischen Texturen, atmosphärischer Beleuchtung und zur erweiterten Sandbox

    Paper Beast Enhanced Edition: Details zu dynamischen Texturen, atmosphärischer Beleuchtung und zur erweiterten Sandbox

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Hallo zusammen! Mein Name ist Eric Chahi, und ich bin Creative Director bei Pixel Reef. Die Veröffentlichung unseres Spiels Paper Beast Enhanced Edition auf PS5 und PS VR2 steht unmittelbar bevor. Deshalb möchte ich euch heute erzählen, wie sich das Spiel seit der Originalversion für PS4 aus dem Jahr 2020 weiterentwickelt hat.

    Paper Beast ist eines dieser einzigartigen Spiele, die im Gedächtnis der Spieler unvergessliche Spuren hinterlassen – in unserem Fall vor allem, weil sie beim Spielen eine tiefe Bindung zu den Tieren aufgebaut haben. Zusammenarbeit ist extrem wichtig, um sich den Gefahren der rauen und oft surrealen Spielumgebung zu stellen, aber auch Terraforming und die Manipulation der Welt spielen eine große Rolle. Wer sich in dieser unberührten und einzigartigen Wildnis auf Entdeckungsreise begibt, erlebt eine faszinierende und geheimnisvolle Aura, die noch verstärkt wird, weil es weder Benutzeroberfläche noch Dialoge gibt. Nach der Veröffentlichung der PS VR2 – und mit der Leistung der PS5 im Hinterkopf – wollten wir unsere Chance, Paper Beast neu aufzulegen, nicht verpassen. Die neue VR-Plattform bringt frische neue Features mit sich, aber auch ein unvergleichliches Rendering, das wir unbedingt ausnutzen wollten. Und das Beste: Diese Version von Paper Beast kann auch ohne VR gespielt werden.

    Reden wir zuerst über die grafischen Verbesserungen.

    Dynamische Texturen für Wasser und Sand

    Paper Beast erstrahlt jetzt in 4K, was für ausgezeichnete Bildschärfe sorgt. Außerdem haben wir die Auflösung von Texturen und Schatten erhöht. Spieler können jetzt die schimmernden Details auf dem Papier oder am Panzer der Tiere sehen. Am beeindruckendsten ist jedoch die überaus präzise Körnung des Sandes, deren animierte Textur den einzigartigen Simulationen folgt. Ihr könnt jedes Körnchen erkennen, wenn der Sand rieselt, was besonders in VR wunderschön anzusehen ist. Dasselbe gilt fürs Wasser: Die Strömung ist jetzt deutlich sichtbar.

    Atmosphärische Beleuchtung

    Die Atmosphäre wird jetzt von hellen Lichtern beleuchtet, ein Feature, von dem François Sahy, unser Rendering-Programmierer, besonders begeistert war. Nur dank der Leistung der PS5 und François’ Beharrlichkeit bei der Code-Optimierung konnten wir es integrieren. So könnt ihr jetzt richtige Lichtstrahlen sehen, die besonders der VR-Version ein beeindruckendes Volumen verleihen und die Spielatmosphäre beinahe greifbar machen. Darüber hinaus wurden die Bilder auf die HDR-Technologie der PS VR2 angepasst. Im Wesentlichen heißt das: Die Farben sind sowohl lebendiger als auch weicher. Jedes Level wurde buchstäblich mit der PS VR2 vor Augen feinabgestimmt.

    Aber nicht nur die Grafik hat sich verbessert. Das Gameplay wurde ebenso weiterentwickelt!

    Flüssige Bewegungen für erweiterte Immersion

    Diese Verbesserung ist uns besonders wichtig. Neben der Teleportation ist die Bewegung nun ruckelfrei und flüssig, also sehr viel immersiver. Da ihr euch den Lebewesen im Spiel jetzt präziser nähern könnt, stärkt sich automatisch eure emotionale Bindung zu ihnen, was einer der zentralen Aspekte des gesamten Spielabenteuers ist. Auf diese Weise könnt ihr euch übrigens auch anderen Wesen sehr viel präziser nähern.

    Eine erweiterte Sandbox

    Auch die Sandbox von Paper Beast hat sich weiterentwickelt. Das Terrain ist umfänglicher, wodurch sich die Gesamtanzahl aller Wesen deutlich erhöht. Außerdem gibt es mehr Wesen, die das Terrain beeinflussen, was mehr Kombinationsmöglichkeiten eröffnet. Neu ist auch, dass Bäume und Pflanzen mit der Zeit schöner werden; die Vegetation passt sich an das jeweilige Ökosystem an. Wenn sich zum Beispiel Raubtiere rund um einen Baum vermehren, übernimmt die Vegetation deren visuelle Signatur.

    Wir hoffen, ihr freut euch darauf, Paper Beast zu spielen und das mysteriöse Universum zu erkunden, ob nun mit oder ohne VR.

    Website: LINK

  • Editors’ Choice: Paper Beast Delivers A Thought-Provoking, Immersive World

    Editors’ Choice: Paper Beast Delivers A Thought-Provoking, Immersive World

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    My first glimpse of Paper Beast came during last December’s jam-packed State of Play presentation. Nestled between the mind-bending puzzles of Superliminal and the Kingdom Hearts III expansion was a captivating trailer showcasing a first-person journey through dreamlike terrain. The video featured interesting topography and trippy visuals, but what did it all mean? What do you actually do? Despite not really “getting” what was going on, I was nonetheless captivated and made a mental note to play Paper Beast (whatever it was!) when it came to PS VR. 

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8zQrxNVog?feature=oembed&w=720&h=405]

    Now that I’m on the other side of this unforgettable trek through digital space made real, I can’t recommend it enough. What begins as a curious jaunt through a virtual desert transforms into an eyebrow-raising adventure filled with origami creatures, surreal objects floating through the air, and hallucinatory events that defy description. Sure, I can describe a hovering piece of obsidian slicing a hole in the sky that causes alphabet letters to fall out while turtles spew mud from their bellies, but did that arrangement of words help at all?

    Thankfully, these bizarre moments exist to challenge your perceptions, not just confuse you for the sake of “whoa isn’t this WEIRD?” The concept is that information-based life has formed within a digital space, and you’re a visitor caught up in a turbulent period of creation. However, this virtual genesis needs a helping hand, and this is where actual gameplay takes shape. Using a DualShock 4 or dual-wielding PS Move Controllers, you manipulate these papercraft beings — as well as plants, fabrics, and other materials — to ensure life, uh, finds a way.

    Solving these environmental puzzles means pausing to soak up the scenery. What are the animals doing? Do they look stressed? Dehydrated? These moments are where Paper Beast really shines, as you’re forced to just stare and deliberately consider what is happening in the world. I frequently found myself gazing at the alien horizon and admiring not just the set piece in front of me, but how this whole data-driven ecosystem was put together. It’s easy to get lost in the world and simply… exist. I spent many moments watching paper predators stalk their prey and diamond-shaped bugs go about their business. It’s all thoughtfully, artfully structured and a treat to experience.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR_9PUqgLWM?feature=oembed&w=720&h=405]

    Navigation follows a bit of the same dream logic that shapes the world itself. You don’t directly control your movement, but rather use a pointer to warp from spot to spot. Some may prefer more traditional 1-to-1 movement, but to me, this slightly detached experience helped cement the outsider-looking-in perspective. In dreams, it’s often hard to move precisely how and where you’d like… but then at the same time, you can magically “be” somewhere else without really processing the transition. So you’re both stuck and free at the same time, as you are in Paper Beast – dreamlike through and through.

    As you play, various creatures cross your path and seemingly try to help you. One ominous, crystalline being turns out to be a life saver, and another shaggy dog (made out of shredded documents?) tries its best to dig out helpful paths. By the time the final scene played out, new friends in tow, I felt a genuine swell of emotion. We did it! But uh, what was “it?” And where are we now while the credits roll? I have my theories, but that’s the beauty of the narrative here — there isn’t one concrete answer.

    The sense of alien wonder and ambiguous expression echo Another World / Out of this World, a notable adventure game from Paper Beast designer Eric Chahi. Both games have minimal to no HUD, dialog, or overt storytelling, and place the player in a strange realm. Finding your way through with so little to go on is exhilarating, and with PS VR that experience is all the more engrossing.

    Paper Beast is unlike anything I’ve played in years, and well worth a look if you’re eager for a strange and unique trip through a burgeoning digital world.

    Website: LINK

  • Inside the Surrealistic World of Paper Beast, Out Tomorrow for PS VR

    Inside the Surrealistic World of Paper Beast, Out Tomorrow for PS VR

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Dreamlike odyssey Paper Beast launches for PlayStation VR tomorrow. We had a talk with Eric Chahi, Creative Director & Game Designer about the four years he and the team at Pixel Reef spent developing the game. Read on to learn about the technology they developed specifically for this game and the challenges they encountered as they worked to make this universe feel so alive.

    Where did Pixel Reef find inspiration when creating Paper Beast?

    The living world, of course! The way animals move, their curiosity, the way they look at things… There is a strong bond between the land and the living. Animals have an impact and influence on their environment. Look at ants, beavers, or even simple earthworms and how they change the terrain. That’s part of the gameplay.

    Another inspiration is traveling and wild areas like Sahara or Tassilia, with their majestic dunes and rocky outcrops.

    Virtual reality allows you to feel that. Paper Beast plays with these spaces; you go from closed environments to open spaces. This is often shifted and surrealist by the intrusion of elements related to data, another of the game’s themes. It’s a surprising hybrid world that draws on reality to sublimate it.

    How long did development take?

    Four years.

    Four years is a long time! What kinds of challenges did you encounter along the way?

    The main challenge was to create a home-made physics engine that suits our needs. We wanted creatures to have fully simulated locomotion. We started by working on the sandbox for two years, which gave us the foundation of the engine.

    Then, we worked on level design. We were looking for large environments with lots of landscape elements. As we progressed, we zeroed in on a balance between design and technology.

    The most challenging part was to work on the game’s performance, ensuring that it could run at 60 FPS in VR. It has been a tremendous effort. We made sure there was no compromise on the quality of the game.

    An important aspect of Paper Beast is the use of physics, especially to animate its creatures. Is there a particular reason you decided to go that route?

    In a video game, you usually have nice predefined animations, but you can’t really manipulate a character; their posture doesn’t adapt in real-time. In Paper Beast, animals have virtual skeletons driven by physics and animated by an adaptive algorithm. With this technology, these virtual animals can move smoothly in any situation, making them feel truly “alive.”

    Physics seem to go beyond gameplay, becoming part of the game’s universe. It’s quite unusual. Why this choice?

    Creatures are actually calculated by the physics engine and parts of the landscape, such as sand, water, wind… even moving paper. It’s part of the narrative.

    For example, we used physics to create data and paper storms: powerful aerial phenomenons. It creates a flow and coherence throughout the game, from the gameplay to the environment. Like looking at a raging sea in the real world — beauty comes from physics!

    There is no dialogue in the game, yet the player lives a story. Is this a form of narration that you had already explored in Another World / Out of This World?

    Absolutely, but the story is told differently, by creatures’ behavior and big changes happening in this world. Paper Beast is set up in a kind of crazy world. It gives the freedom of imagination to the player; in hindsight, I realize it’s a deep breath in a world overwhelmed by the stream of information. During the creative process, I had strong surrealistic visions that I could hardly describe with words. The team was very in phase with this vision. We were in sync with Pascal Lefort, our Artistic Director and 3D artist. The incredible skies in Paper Beast — it’s him. Floriane and Roly had total freedom on the audio and musical ambiance. The result is very emotional, and even though I played the game hundreds of times, I still happen to have tears in my eyes… but nobody knows, because I’m wearing a VR headset.

    What advice would you give to Paper Beast players?

    • Use a good audio headset and make sure the volume is high enough to be totally immersed in the universe of Paper Beast.
    • This adventure is an odyssey about emotion and discovery vertigo. You are about to discover a brand new world with strange but logical rules. Pay close attention to the environments and emergent behaviors.
    • The sandbox is a place for experimentation. Enjoy it from the “god mode” view where you will feel like a giant. You can terraform the terrain and observe creatures’ behavior.
    • Don’t forget the linkers! You can bond creatures to each other and create some funny situations.

    Website: LINK

  • Create Your Own Universe with Paper Beast’s Sandbox Mode

    Create Your Own Universe with Paper Beast’s Sandbox Mode

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    An adventure and a sandbox — Paper Beast has two ways to interact with its budding digital world. In the previous trailer, we shared how the gameplay would work in adventure mode, a 4-5 hour experience. It’s time to share our trailer for sandbox mode, a place for experimentation and playground of infinite replayability in the Paper Beast Universe.

    Set your imagination free, shape and develop the universe as you wish.

    Fauna and Flora Ecosystem

    Create an interactive and living ecosystem. We wanted the player to feel totally immersed. Special attention has been given to creating an immersive VR world as we carefully crafted our environments. In this imaginary world, physics are realistic.

    Players can interact with creatures and experiment with different actions to elicit new responses and reactions. Our dev team has been working on this mode for a long time and they still discover funny behaviors, so we’re looking forward to seeing what quirky and exciting new phenomenon players encounter.

    There are 11 different hybrid animal species for players to discover in Paper Beast. You can add to their world by growing plants or altering geological elements and land areas. Play with weather events or insert new objects which will disrupt physics. Try, experiment, and observe.

    Terrain Model

    Shape the terrain as you like! Add sand, rocks, water, and observe the erosion. Simulation in Paper Beast’s digital world follows the natural course of reactions to the elements and always strives to rebalance and adapt to player actions.

    Whatever actions you choose, nothing is destroyed. The wild nature is adjusting in real-time.

    The shape of the terrain will have an impact on every part of the simulation. For instance, players will impact:

    • Entity behavior. Combine elements to play with creatures’ behavior. Each animal has a distinct motivation it will pursue. If you disturb the creature, it will react and adapt to any changes introduced into the environment. What will happen if I fasten a predator to a cable? How will a Bridger react if I add water?
    • Weather. Control the weather in a variety of ways: set a global rainstorm into motion, create churning sandstorms or implement changes on a smaller scale through different types of mini storms. Paper Beast’s creatures will adapt and react to any change or disruption.
    • Imprints Terrain shapes and shifts as interactions between the animals and their environment leave imprints. The landscape in Paper Beast evolves with creature activities.

    Manipulate Objects

    Pick-up an object and play with physics. Choose from a number of objects that shape and disturb the world. Add an anti-gravity capsule and watch creatures levitate. What if you add a mini storm or a water tree? Fasten entities to each other or attach them to a parachute. Possibilities are infinite!

    Bonus: What is that strange object at the beginning of the video?

    It’s a mathematical object that gives the impression there is an inside and an outside when there is only one surface. It’s symbolic of the two modes of the game and the transition from one to the other. The object will have a role to play in Paper Beast.

    Website: LINK

  • Paper Beast: Explore a Dreamlike Ecosystem in PS VR

    Paper Beast: Explore a Dreamlike Ecosystem in PS VR

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    In Paper Beast, I want the player to feel like they are the first explorer of a virgin land. This is how we created the game: as a journey through a unique wilderness where no human being has ever set foot.

    The game leads you to discover fauna and flora made from origami paper, folded metal, coral… Some elements seem familiar, such as water and sand, while others are more surreal, such as the creatures.

    As you go through the game, you solve puzzles and obstacles, discovering a lot of surprises. The creatures help the player progress through their journey intuitively, without a word, since the game’s narrative is non-verbal.

    You share a common goal with these animals: to progress and evolve in this world. You’ll create a strong bond as you interact and travel together.

    This is also how we designed levels: as a journey, a migration.

    The challenge was to create a credible wilderness. Thanks to our physical simulation of locomotion, the animals move as if they had muscles and bones.

    This technology is the core of the gameplay: the engine calculates the creatures’ movement in real time to allow them to react to all the player’s actions. Creatures will also adapt their movements to the terrain and the obstacles on their path.

    In this trailer we present how the player can manipulate the terrain to solve certain puzzles, like the creature you attract to help build a dam out of sand over the water. The ground and the various elements adapt automatically to the player’s actions. Everything is calculated in real time by the game’s engine. One of the things you can see in the video is that when you move a ball of sand, it leaves a trail on the ground.

    The video focuses on a part of the game where the player helps metal creatures climb a slippery slope. The player enlists the help of the sand and nearby plants to move them. They manipulate their environment to help them progress. Once they reach their destination, the creatures use the fruit from the tree to fly away, tipping the player off as to how to continue the adventure.

    The adventure you’re about to live is unique, full of surprising and unexpected events. That’s why Paper Beast is a true VR odyssey.

    State of Play December 2019: All the Announcements
    Website: LINK

  • Paper Beast, From the Creator of Another World, Out This Year for PS VR

    Paper Beast, From the Creator of Another World, Out This Year for PS VR

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Hi! I am Eric Chahi, maker of Another World (Out of this World in US). I’m thrilled to introduce you to our new game, Paper Beast, set for a release later in 2019 for PlayStation VR. Somewhere deep down in the vast memory of a data server, an ecosystem has emerged. Decades of lost code and algorithms have accumulated in the eddies and flows of the Internet. A small bubble of life has blossomed. Paper Beast is born.

    A few years ago, I was playing with physics in the Unity Engine with several cool new gameplay elements in mind. Notions of Big Data were swimming in my head. As you know, I’ve always enjoyed exploring new concepts and creative territories. That was my motivation when I created Another World (Out of this World) back in 1991 on the Amiga.

    To be independent and free to share my passion for exploring new experiences and technology, I created my new studio: Pixel Reef. The studio is like our atoll, our happy place — a space for creative exploration.

    Experimentation and Discovery

    With Paper Beast, we wanted to create a complete ecosystem with unique wildlife. We wanted to reproduce the excitement you might feel as an explorer discovering a virgin land, a place where no human has been before. When you watch animals in nature, you feel something special about how they move and react. They exhibit an intense sense of vitality that makes exploring all the more enriching. You will interact with the creatures and will start to form delicate bonds with them.

    So how did we incorporate this into Paper Beast?

    Every bit of gameplay is built atop a simulation covering every conceivable detail, from terrain simulation to animal locomotion. You can precisely interact with the environment as an immersive, playful universe. Creatures will adapt their behavior to how you, as a player, interact with the world. Paper Beast is not a god game, but we did put some key ingredients in it.

    Live an Adventure

    More than anything, Paper Beast is a virtual journey leading quirky animals through a colorful universe that sprouts from the remnants of the internet.

    We will tell you a story, but the narration is unspoken. Through the events of the world, their pacing, the story unfolds. Much like Another World, there is no text or dialogue. There is only the environment, and you will feel immediately connected to it. Our physics system enriches the experience through simple interaction and manipulation of the environment.

    We also wanted the environment to be meaningful and touching. The creatures you’ll meet, all made of paper, are the symbolic bridge between the world of men and the world of information technology.

    A Passion for Technologies

    3D immersion has always enthralled me: you can feel the environment around you in its entirety. With VR, your gestures are spatialized, so you can fall into a fully interactive, simulated living world.

    One of the VR lessons I learned during development is just how critical sound is for immersion. In movies they say that sound is 50% of a picture. Everything becomes so more tangible with authentic sounds. That is even more true in VR. Sound is 50% of space! At Pixel Reef, we have three people working full-time to deliver an outstanding binaural experience.

    We have been tirelessly working on Paper Beast for three years, and we think you’ll find our unique DNA in it. We can’t wait to share the world of Paper Beast with you, and we look forward to hearing about your own experience in the virtual world.

    We will keep you updated until the launch!

    Website: LINK