Torchlight II - The Pets

For this week's Torchlight II update, check out the various pets on offer. There's the ferret, cat, bulldog, hawk, panther, wolf and this critter:

The Chakawary

Like a creation from the Island of Dr. Moreau, the Chakawary is a mysterious hybrid straight from the world of Torchlight. The Chakawary is best described as a Velociraptor crossed with a Cassowary. Native to the foothills around the Estherian Enclave, the Chakawary is especially suited for tearing apart some jellies, spiders, and dwarves.

More information.

Hmm if this hadn't been posted 2 days ago I'd call April Fool

I think they look great

The animations are looking good, and you can still transform them by feeding them like in #1.

Woo-hoo, I'm picking the ferret. :-)

Glad to see more variety. I'd be gladder to see no pets at all, but at least if they have to be there I can pick a fun one. I like pet classes, but don't like that all the classes have the one pet.

Alas, no clockwork spider pet. And when the hell is this thing coming out?! November '11, huh…

Originally Posted by Sin
The animations are looking good, and you can still transform them by feeding them like in #1.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I think they look great

I concur. This low-poly graphics look real nice and the animation help bring it to life. Even though I didn't like the gameplay of the previous game, I have no issue with this kind of graphics design. Was is Warcraft this style of 3d graphics originated from?

Originally Posted by hishadow
I concur. This low-poly graphics look real nice and the animation help bring it to life. Even though I didn't like the gameplay of the previous game, I have no issue with this kind of graphics design. Was is Warcraft this style of 3d graphics originated from?

Earliest cel-shaded game listed on wikipedia came out in 2000. WOW came out in 2004. Oddly WOW is not in this list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…ed_video_games

Nice animations Hated Torchlight 1 though, very uninspring game imo..

Originally Posted by Kirk
Earliest cel-shaded game listed on wikipedia came out in 2000. WOW came out in 2004. Oddly WOW is not in this list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of…ed_video_games

WoW isnt celshaded. As the name suggests it's a shader effect that makes the graphics look cartoonish. You can easily spot it since it creates black outlines around characters and objects. WoW doesnt have that effect and neither does this game.

Nice - the pets are looking great - with very good animations. I always enjoyed the pet aspect of Fate and Torchlight. Sending the pet to town to sell off junk is really handy too!

Originally Posted by vurt
WoW isnt celshaded. As the name suggests it's a shader effect that makes the graphics look cartoonish. You can easily spot it since it creates black outlines around characters and objects. WoW doesnt have that effect and neither does this game.

I see now that Torchlight 1 is not in the wiki list. One of those cases where I could send you 100s of links that proclaim that Torchlight 1 is cel-shaded. Google just isn't right 100% of the time.

Cel-shading is a process applied to regular models to make them look hand-drawn (as Vurt mentioned).

As far as I can tell, Torchlight and WoW don't use this process. The hand-drawn look is put into the textures themselves (which are actually hand-drawn / painted), and the engine rendering / lighting is tweaked to emphasize the hand drawn textures.

I remember reading some interviews with Runic where they mentioned no special shaders were employed in Torchlight. They create that painted look purely through texture work and simple lighting.