As promised we wanted to bring you a screenshot of the first playable sector with final assets :) 

We hope you all love the way it looks so far and we look forward to bringing you so much more.

Marry Christmas from the JAF Team! 

Hehe, bugged latests post on the fix list

That looks awsome!

Thank you, and Marry Christmas to you too!

This graphic is amazing. Of course it's not enough to say something more but the drawing style that used a graphic looks great ;)

Good job ;)

This is what I expected and at the same time you are giving us exactly that, what you were talking about while ago.  

First matter is clarity of whole sector. In one of previous video about characters, you were comparing JA Back in Action and JA Online with the plans, that you are going to do in Flashback. You used there many times word "noisy" to describe a maps and situations in these games and that you are not going to make the same mistake in JAF. I can say only, that you did a perfect job, in matter of minute we can easily "swallow" whole sector and make him our friend. It's absolutely not "noisy".

Second case is lack of details. You did as you mentioned and as we can see it brings only benefits for everything. It's not disturbing us, we can focus on the most important things which will be fight and mercenaries for sure and other similar stuff but at the same time we are aware, what we can use in sector for our advantages.

Third thing is colours. They are absolutely not "noisy" also, they are very friendly. I can watch a lot of time all of stuff at this sector and my eyes still will be not tired. In addition, thanks to proper background and play of colours, even with max zoom, the mercs and their clothes and weapons are pretty visible and recognizable. Great Job.

The last contents will be obstacle and cover system. There are  full of things like walls, barrels, sandbags, cars, trees etc. If you implement the cover system from last update, we will easily know, what is full, half and low height and we will have possibility to take aware decision, what to do or where to hide our merc in current turn. Perspicuity and clarity of all obstacles in your map are easly to understand, what they can give us in the battle.

One more. There are some places with grass and shadows from trees (btw. shadows are really good too). Will this "items" be a movable or static only?

And of course Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All of You. Keep it up :)

Nice touch on the hats.

And is the merc in the bottom left using the hello kitty M16? :P

Looking good. Can't wait to get my hands on an alpha build to play with. ^^

All i got to say is this:

HEY THAT IS MY PINK GUN!

nice work! and merry xmas!

Actually I lied, I do have something to say about it. I like the gas station and the cars. They fit the JA theme just fine. The thing that's less ok is the "radioactive green" grass, that burns the eye. Tone that down a bit, remember a lot of people still come from the brown world of Arulco.

Also there's a noticeable difference in detail between the gas station and car models and the nature stuff like boulders. I not saying to go overboard but we are going to see more boulders and grass than cars and gas station so it's an important design element. To me they look too much like cartoon granite, not weathered at all. 

Notice the detail on the boulders (you see a lot of that in a wet climate) and the grass in the above picture. There're no bright colors, despite the fact that this is real Carribean island. That green is only reserved for fake images on postcards. Now check the colors against yours:

I love this style, it is detailed at the right level and you can see everything clearly. Great work!

Happy Holidays!

@Shanga

Good point, small improvements in this direction could make it even better.

This is a good style. I hope the simple approach gives more flexibility and accessbility to great gameplay features. Will there be bug or wild cats side quests? Maybe some local bear population. It would be interesting to see variations on these, as I enjoyed the bug quest in the JA2.

I hope the areas/towns and micromanagement are take to another level of immersion. So far so good. Looking forward to it.

Liking the look of it, i agree on the green being abit to bright could tone it down abit, also the mercs in the picture are they how there going to look or is that just placeholder?, i hope they will not all look the same..maybe have some with different hair, fatter physique etc.

@Shanga yes you have a point, but "photograph" colour is notoriously easy to massage (this guy makes a living out of it) and your sample looks a bit underexposed.  But right now the over-bright pastelly greens should be toned down a little, I agree (and I've lived in tropical countries most of my life!).

The mercs in the screenshot are the first ones made thus far. Later on there will be more variations made for them. The idea is that you will see mercs with different combinations of clothing, like helmets, berets, masks, jackets, pants, armor, etc.

Hello!

I just registred to this forum after I read the amazing news! I think you can make a real good new Jagged Alliance! Go for it!! I'm really excited!

I have to agree to the others. I think its too bright and colorful. It has to be dirtier in my opinion. The design really fits to Jagged Alliance. There are sandbags, ruined buildings, cars, fences, gas stations. But the objects don't look weathered and realistic enough. I like how did that with the gas station. You can see the dirt running down the wall. You should do those detailed work also with the other objects I dont know if it would take much time to fix that. But if possible, think again about that and try to do it!

Here is a picture of the scene how I think the colors fit:

hello hello!
good work and thanks for sharing. the models are looking good!
now judging colors on your screens is quite difficult since most of us don’t use calibrated monitors. and since i have a bit of experience in color correction myself, i decided to put my touch on it:

i mostly changed three things:
1. i reduced the cyan tones in the grass, and added magentas and yellows to make the grass a little more brown overall, which makes it look less poisonous.
2. i added a touch of yellow to the highlights (making it appear like very warm – to my eyes tropical – light)
3. i made the shadows even darkerand added a bit of cyan to the shadows only, to improve on the color dynamics.

i’d say this slightly shifted color palette fits the game a bit better. maybe the streets could do with even more dirt/brown, like in this tropico 3 screenshot: http://www.cinemablend.com/images/gallery/s18070/tropico_3_12446479707099.jpg

keep up the good work guys!

I'm colorblind so i can't say much about the truth of the colors, but i like the version of LOEweNz@Hn, the level of brightness at the vegetation is very good for my eyes.

But i would agree with both, do we have cloudy days and sunny days? ^^

Could be a nice way for variety in the optics.

@gdalf - true, also i think the photo was taken somewhere in the evening, but the point was about the short, clumpy grass and the weathering on the top boulders.

@LOEweNz@Hn - nice retouch, i think you're very close to the real "earthy" colors they should use. 

@JAF team - The edges of the grass shoul bleed into brown dirt, not into atomic green. Here's another pic for inspiration:

Another point I should make is about shadows under objects that are in shadow already, like the blue car shadowed by the tree. The under car shadow in this situation should be darker. See below:

http://m4.i.pbase.com/v3/97/563697/1/50488274.imagesDSC_1598.JPG

Considering that it's a tropical island and not new Mexico, I'd prefer cliff's version. Too much brown just gets depressing and drab. Far Cry2 had a really good feel to it, and it was still very colourfull.

Uh Far Cry 2 had horrible colors. :/

Great colors, LOEweNz@Hn, very JA2.

Like shanga said, the nuclear green is a no go in my eyes, just color it up more like this:

Gas Station should be red, and the car should be still cyan, but the overall tone goes to brown (Sunny Island) and lower saturated grass!

Here is the org:

High saturation is an overdose in combination with the cartoonish look. It just looks way to "childish" not serious enough for a serious/hardcore tactic game. And i also agree with shanga, that sandbags and tree trunks need more details.

Other than that, great work (i love the gas station) and merry christmas!

i like the top one peal, looks good, not to bright and over colorful but not too bland looking.either.

Here is my attempt at the non-atomic version. I've selectively removed and desaturated all the bright green, added a bit of dark spots here and there and tweaked some levels. 

I will join in the editing thing. I took shanga's edited pic and applied a it as an multiply layer on top of the original picture (with some brightness change). The effect is something I liked, the colors are a bit more saturated more natural, while shadows are deeper. Shanga's edits added that "touch" the scene needed. The little details, random dirt and stuff. This is the "noise" the artwork needs.

(right-click and select "show image for full version)

http://i.imgur.com/OGftCIE.jpg

Overall I join the voice that the original was too cartoonish. (Bias ahead) My version looks more natural, less neon, but it still has a that clear look.

You guys should take a look at the old Commandos games. They had great attention to little details.

BTW: I just noticed the little Santa hats on soldiers, lol.

Nice one taro. You should've posted the link to full version, it should be admired from close up.

http://i.imgur.com/OGftCIE.jpg

I knew I had to saturate the colors a bit, but I CBA honestly, the point was about that damn nuclear grass which was burning my eyes. With your edits now the entire thing looks great. 

BTW... the noise in my pic is there in the original screenshot too. But due to overexposure it's blended in and lost. Once you tweak the levels a bit the fine details show up and the whole thing stops looking like a Mountain Dew bottle.

Taro's edit looks great and realistic! LOEweNz@Hn's version would be my second favorite.

I think we need a color slidebar in the game. ^^

taro's is my favorite so far :)

I'm happy about the style you choose. Glad to have backed you guys.

Hello,

it looks nice, keep up the good work guys.

I do think it needs a lot more details and possibly things your characters can interact with. What I loved about JA2 was the sheer amount of stuff you would find, often seemingly useless at first glance but most of it would prove useful after all if you knew how to use it or what other items to combine it with. That made roaming the sectors much more exciting because you'd never know what stuff you might find.

Personally I always thought the 2D graphics of the original JA2 allowed for far more details than any of the predeccessors which were 3D. They all looked kinda generic, boring and bland.

I'm still not really sold on your (for my taste a bit too comicy) style. Tuning the grass down a bit would fit my taste better.
Taro8's version is my favourite. I'm actually really loving that version. That looks like a place I'd like to spend a couple of hundred hours in (well, maybe not just in that sector :D).

Well it's the first glimpse with some final assets, and I think the team already turned down the brightness and saturation a bit. I didn't anticipate we'd get it in the first shot, we also need to see the result on different screens, the screen setup does a lot. 

Thanks for the feedback guys! Really cool to see the enthusiausm over one pre-alpha screenshot :)

Imagine the riot if you guys posted a slideshow... or... gasp... a rolling demo. We'd be over there drinking your beer in no time.

Very nice work on the picture edits, guys. Very nicely done.

Looking forward to what the team puts out next for us to all drool over. In the mean time I will just think about the beers Shanga spoke of. mmmm beer.

Taro8's is the best so far.

I too believe in you guys. BiA is just a random game with JA on the title. The online JA, its not good and also not what I want. So its up to you, to make a worthy JA.

I know this is prealpha but as most say, the colors are too bright/strong. Some of the suggestions here are very good. Remember JA2 had a very "pale" color set. Also I note some "cartoony" details. Its your game but I must advise against cartoony graphs here. This is not tf2 or battlefield heroes and will never be... careful with too vivid colors and cartoony graphs.

Your other images, are more realistic, like the "interrogation room" thats the colors we need.

yeah, too much color isn't good imo. Keep it dirty, realstic like ja2. lot's of brownish, dark-green.

I think it's a big too "comic"-art. Doesn't have to be photorealstic, but i always prefered the ja2 gfx over all the other JAs