https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZoCLcjYQA

(though ideally real world locations should probably look like this game’s art style at least to some extent if the assets are well-made, since the game pulls from real-world architecture– so it’s not entirely surprising or anything. :P )

Not impatient, just hopeful. Personally, I hope they launch this with Oculus/Vive/Morpheus so I can get the total immersive experience the first time around. That said, whatever is cool, was actually just thinking a little video of a cloud floating by a tree shimmering in the breeze would be nice to see daily for the next couple months. This warehouse image is not quite as inviting anymore, lol…

This is like, my second or third time today checking the site… *sigh*. Anyway, go team! We know you’re all hard at work!

Not that I’m saying that an update or a screenshot would be a lot of work, but the team also opted to stay out of E3 in favor of working on the game. I know they’re making progress, so I’m pretty alright with any lack of visible updates.

If they had anything substantial to report/write about, I’m sure they would.

I get the impatience, though. None of us are rocks or anything. I’m personally guilty of coming to this site multiple times a day. haha.

12h12 hours ago

Mike Megally ‏@cmsimike

@Jonathan_Blow re-watched indie game: the movie last night. it mentioned 2012 as the witness’ release. can’t believe it has been that long!

Jonathan Blow– ‏@Jonathan_Blow

@cmsimike Fortunately it won’t be TOO much longer.

9:08 AM – 30 Jun 2015

So impossible to judge how long this might be! But very enticing.

Which drawing program are you using? I wonder if it is also used for the design of real life structures.

At this point it’s really not that interesting, just tons of bugfixes and barely any creative work.

Jon tweeted about this.
_____
Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow Jun 15
@benrwolfram No, we are skipping E3 this year and just finishing the game.

Jonathan Blow ‏@Jonathan_Blow Jun 15
@Animator @PlayStation We don’t have anything new to say until the game is out! E3 is the time to say new stuff.

I’d rather like cookies and belly rubs all day…

He is eating cookies and getting belly rubs all day as usual, so he is great, thanks for asking!

my moneys on october, little competition and no ps4 exclusives are coming out anytime soon, it just seems like this game would thrive, as long as it drops long before or long after fallout 4. if theyre aiming for the holidays they should honestly delay until spring 2016

Deanna, the architect, reviews the structures on her own, area by area, then drops by the office for our weekly art meeting with a big stack of printed out screenshots she sketched over, and goes over it with us. Then we make the changes, usually in a couple of days.

Oh gosh, is that why he was named Tim?

I’m assuming they have pretty solid object placement by now, so when a mesh gets updated with cosmetic changes, it’s hopefully a (relatively) small change.

I’m also guessing they have the architects swing by and review as much as they can, all at once then come back with feedback. Jon probably schedules the occasional meeting with some people who were willing to or interested in working on this kind of thing.

I don’t think these guys read too many books any more. SIGGRAPH papers, yeah.

I don’t believe you need to apologize for unintended results of your enthusiasm. The great bulk of us are quite excited. If Blow didn’t think people would be emotionally invested in the game… this level of attention to detail might seem ill-founded. In a world consumed by frivolous attachment to popular culture, I for one am glad that some are reinvesting their time in something that truly appears worthwhile. Hats off to Blow for envisioning his masterpiece, the whole team for making it come to fruition, and everyone on here participating in constructive dialogue.

… so, should we looking for some Witness magic appearing on E3?

That’d be, “Your feelings”, and “What I’m interested in here”

Cause you know, in before troll appears to correct it for me and disappears, again not discussing the game.

Funny. Hadn’t realized that I was uncalm. I apologize if I offended with my enthusiasm, sarcasm, comedy, thoughtfulness, praise, criticism, or any other of the range of emotiions I have posted using over the last five or so years on this fine website.

But then again it would be hard to discern what exactly it is you are referring to and or commenting on as in your travels here the only thing you could think of to say was an unguided critisism on one of the posters that has literally nothing to do with the game at all.

Actaully, no, not sorry at all. Perhaps it is you that should calm down? Although I would never be that much of an assumptive ass actually. So you go ahead and feel whatever you feel, because hour feelings exist outside of the realm of what Imam interested in here.

Your’s truly, Calm. But confused.

: )

I’ve worked on a variety of Australian rooves, maybe it’s a thing elsewhere but it feels really weird having that sort of stair on a pitched roof, plus if you went straight you’d only need four steps. I’d expect a ladder or a stair as steep, like this link. http://www.fsindustries.com/more_info/lapeyre_stairs/images/yellow_stairs_drawing.jpg

I know time updating this blog is time not working on finishing the game, but this really helps the waiting. I want to play this game so bad!

I recommend a book called Real-Time Rendering by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines & Naty Hoffman – that should give you a lot of the fundamentals at least. After that I’m less sure, maybe academic papers, gdc presentations and blog posts? (I don’t work in graphics so that’s my best guess)

There is a fair bit of tensile strength in those hangers. If you ever get the chance to pop your head up into a partitioned ceiling, the grid kind you see in offices; they are usually held up with threaded rod or steel straps only a few mm thick.
I do like the open feel this particular partition gives. It is quite modern in its aesthetic.

Shouldn’t Tim be spelt with an e.

Pretty sure I saw an oddly placed panel in the release trailer. Might not have been intended for physical interaction though.
I get the impression none of the paths we will walk in the Witness could be described as walked by the masses. I expect the concepts taught in the panels might been repeated in the environment.

Sorry :)

I appreciate the art style does not require minute detail. I appreciate many people will fill in the gaps. My real concern was not a lack of detail, it was that causality is maintained. Causality being the difference between the real and un-real.
If the environment is to be used as a medium for any given method of communication, there are certain criteria that should be met.

I mean, if you assume you can walk on that roof, why not building 3 steps to the opposite direction and reach the lower part of the pitched roof, for instance.

But man, this is clearly perfectionism. The first thing I thought when seeing your first screenshots of architecture was that I couldnt believe some of the structures you were pulling off. I cant imagine how much you are learning to be able to draw these things and how challenging it can get at times.

What I know for sure is that Im gonna enjoy every single bit of construction that you do right in this game. Thank you for the effort, it will most certainly be appreciated!

May I also suggest an improvement for a structure you showed in one of the previous blog posts? It’s this one: https://the-witness.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/shot_2014.09.24__time_17_35_n04.png

I think the small metal bars which connect the big metal bars to the wall are a little bit to thin? Maybe you can discuss this with your architect?

Looking forward to the game!

kind regards,

Sven

where?

It took me forever and I almost didn’t see it!

I don’t think they can quite go into this level of detail, but I love that you thought of this stuff none-the-less!

The concept of the staircase being added later bothered me as well about having pre thought the length of the beam to accomodate it — that didnt make sense.

They sure are going through a lot of details for a place that I don’t think will actually end up existing as far as the story goes, but I imagine that they are only trying gto balance the ideas as much as possible before the game is done.

It is a game after all, so some inaccuracy would be alright! But it is very cool, the level of deatil and thought that is going into it!

I had a professor who would say, “90% of the work takes the first 90% of your time. The last 10% takes the other 90% of your time.”

Access stairs. Usually the flat and the angle will be constructed of separate components and bolted together. Railing will be bolted to the side of the stair string. Reduces cost of manufacture and transport. Just noticed the original model for the stairs had some of the features.

Flat hex bolts on roof panels? Nails or screws, occasionally bolts “with washers”.
You have a loose panel with no fixing, and no sign that it was ever fixed. It is missing a hole for the fixing which should have been there at some point, or a breakout of material on the corner when it was dislodged.

You have extended the roof ridge beam to carry the stairs, which would imply that the stairs were intended to be where they are from the inception of the building. Why else would a ridge beam extend past the roof structure.
If you intend for these stairs to give the impression they are an addition to an existing structure, perhaps consider changing the method of fixing.

No overhang of the roof structure, a roof would normally reach past the edge of a buildings fabric to divert, and protect from rainwater.

I posted these observation as an initial impression. I hope they are constructive to the ends you hope to achieve.
Props for a gorgeous looking environment, I look forward to savouring the experience.

Fetishisation over detail does not mean the developers are not profit driven. It’s just a belief that profit can be better derived from chasing detail. It’s essentially the Apple model, and that philosophy is seen increasingly in mobile games, such as Hundreds and Threes and other numbers.

Producing a carefully designed singular experience, as opposed to the Facebook/Early Access style “move fast and break stuff” format of capitalism.

While there are some structural changes that take a significant amount of time because of the complexity of the mesh, etc., the staircase change looks like it took Luis maybe twenty minutes. A lot of these things are mostly just about going from file to file, making a bunch of little tweaks…and catching and fixing tons of other stuff you find along the way.

For your team, I’m sure you have: the architect’s time, a (quick) design meeting, time to rework the model, then testing. My guess is that something simple like this could take half a day or more. Or maybe less, given your talent/skills?

I’m putting my money on Christmas release…. although maybe business wise it makes more sense to release at a quieter time with less competition noise.

Agreed. The rendering and the way light is handled is gorgeous.

I built my first opengl based engine in order to create a really simple 3d parkour platformer. Hopefully once im in college after highschool I will be making engines of this caliber.

May I ask what books/documents you read to learn this stuff?

I doubt it’ll be on sale this year, haha!

Maybe next year’s summer sale though!

1st attempt:
So, is “The Witness” going to hit the Steam Summer Sale or the Holiday Sale?
:D

Seriously, thing is a work of art in itself. And I bet it purrs under the hood!

So beautiful.

He’s a definite boss. Can’t wait until this game kills everyone’s expectations… I just hope it sells well.

I’m a little worried about that. It deserves to be played but… puzzle game isn’t inside of everyone’s gamer repertoire.

It should be.

I’d relocate to test this. Logistics be damned! I’ll sleep on the couch, or even the floor with Oswin!

It matters little!

YOU GUYS ARE ROCKING THIS!

I totally understand all of those changes and you are completely right — it’s grounding everything!

Thank you so much for taking the time to post these insights!

They literally make my day!

And I have a feeling seeing these little details will help satiate the issue with people wondering why the game isn’t out yet.

BECAUSE THEY ARE ROCKING THE WORLD. MAKIN’ IT ALL GROUNDED N’ STUFF!

Thank you!

: )

I hope the Tester position has gotten filled and that’s working out. I had thought about applying but I figured it probably wasn’t that wise since I would have to relocate.