When Star Trek Online is patch with the Mirror of Discovery content expansion, they will also find a number of significant updates to character art in the game. A new developer interview has been published on the game's site with FX Artist Robert Quinn where he speaks of the changes players can expect, including updated hairstyles to provide a more uniform look across all platforms and that yield better performance.
Quinn goes through the process of how the new hairstyles were altered and offers readers a number of "new / old" comparison screenshots.
What’s the process like of improving the graphics of a game like STO?
The process is very different when you are making improvements on a game that has been live for several years rather than building something from the ground up. I did not want to break all the old hair in the game so I ended up having to preserve all the old inputs and textures of the old hair shader. I had to figure out how I could work around what was already in the game and add in the new functions I needed without breaking anything. This tends to be much harder than building it from the ground up. We are still looking into more ways we can improve the visual quality of the game and this just one step on our journey.
Read the full interview on the Star Trek Online site.
