By this point all of the recent comparison videos for asset graphical upgrades from the demo to now have at the very least gone up on our Twitter, so now would probably be a great time to post them all in one place!
Unfortunately due to the limitations of this blog system it turns out putting square videos in a blog post isn't a good idea...
Here's a few highlights anyway though, in crusty blog form.
First we have the original Turret and Player models getting their graphical upgrades.
And also a bright/dark comparison to really show off how nice the new emission textures are being put to use. Yes there is a setting in-game to turn off the lights and play in the dark.
And of course the main arena's graphical upgrade. I'm really proud of how this came out, it might not seem like that much compared to some of the other graphics, but if you were to go back and play the original demo and then come back to the current version it'd be incredibly clear just how much better the atmosphere is now. Also of course the UI is way better too.
One other comparison that's interesting to make is the upgrade to the player model. This is such a nice showcase of skill improvement because while it looks so much more detailed with more properly modeled geometry and details like the gems actually poking out instead of being textures... it's actually slightly lower polygon count! The original wasted an insane amount of polygons on the arm spheres, so optimizing the topology of those in the new model lowered it from 2,662 polygons to 2,592. Never underestimate how wasteful poorly optimized spheres can be. Also bonus fact: the new model's face can change expression, which is neat.
For now this is all the comparisons we've made to the older assets, if in the future we post more screenshots or videos, the dedicated page will be updated to include them.