Just before Christmas, James Vale - art director on Fable Anniversary - posted up a blog on the Fable forums detailing some of the visual changes that have been made to the game to bring it up to today's HD standards.
"Obviously, it's 10 years ago since the original box version was released," Vale began, "and technology has moved on an awful lot in those years, so you'll see many improvements. We have used Unreal 3 for the rendering side which has much improved Lighting, Materials and Effects than the original Fable engine, some of which I will go into when looking at the images below."
Vale then posted up two side-by-side comparison shots, accompanied by bullet points explaining some of the changes that have been made thanks to advancements in technology since the original Fable's release.
"We upped the polygon count quite significantly for all the in-game models, which means the model edges and silhouettes look much smoother," he revealed.
"The way materials work and look in games has been significantly improved since 2004. By including Specular Maps (for determining how shiny a material appears), and setting specific values within a material we can now visually distinguish much better between material types."
Vale went on to explain that extra light sources were added for interiors, "to create a better lit and more visually appealing environment." On top of that, dynamic shadow casting was added to several key light sources, including interior fireplaces.
Moving on to exterior locations, Vale wrote that many more polygons and much larger texture detail were added to trees, "especially the Oak trees, to give them a much more lush, fuller feel/look." He added that when close up, bark details on trees are much more detailed than in the original.
"We have a longer draw distance on assets in Anniversary," Vale continued. "The draw distance is the distance at which objects will appear in a scene. The reason for having draw distance is that if everything in a scene were visible ALL the time, the frame rate would be terrible.
"You can see that the bridge on the left in the distance [in the shot from Greatwood Lake] is not visible in the original and there are also trees not visible on the horizon. All these assets are visible in Anniversary at this distance. Shadows have a longer draw distance too."
The whole article is definitely worth a peruse, to see how far we've come in the space of just a few short years. I had a quick hands-on with Fable Anniversary at Gamescom - read my first impressions through the link. Incidentally, searching for that link dredged up this picture of a grumpy me playing the game over on the Fable forums, so as you can see, I'm definitely not lying about having played it.
http://www.oxm.co.uk/68907/fable-anniversary-details-lionhead-discusses-the-graphical-improvements/
