Fable 2 Milestone: A History (Wednesday, 17th January 2007)

In the beginning there was nothing.

Apart from maybe a tiny little particle that created Albion’s universe.

The giant yellow square below is actually that very same particle; the first 3D object that was rendered in Albion’s universe, using the brand new Fable 2 engine. This however, is now history.

It wasn’t long before the cube was replaced with the mesh of a human, giving birth to the short-lived but much-loved crotch cam.

As explained in a previous milestone update, the height fields also appeared in our much beloved Fable 2 engine. During this time our meshes had become textured and our camera was no longer nestled inside someone’s crotch. The tiny little dots in the images above are actually visual representations of life forms in Albion, spending their days playing a game of tag amongst each other. It wasn’t very long before these dots were replaced by the original Hero from Fable, but just as placeholder artwork.

Let there be light!

Before long we had our first proper lighting, making the place look so much more realistic. And it looked especially shiny!

Months passed by and the brand new Fable 2 engine progressed on a day by day basis, with added functionality, slicker visuals and most importantly a lot of new features. This was an exciting time for the project and while we won’t be showing any visuals of this period (there are just too many spoilers), you’ll just have to take my word for it that progress was steady and the world of Albion is looking beautiful. Many of our assets used in game where either made with the known “white-boxes” or were made with pink textures. This might have caused some severe eye damage with the design team but there’s nothing better then some decent programming art on a Monday morning. Some team members eat that stuff for breakfast…

Then, after some time, water got added. And the boss saw it was good. But what would this water be good for if you can’t do anything with it? Exactly! So give this some thought please; I won’t be elaborating on this in this month’s update but expect some juicy bits during, after or around GDC 2007 where Peter will be giving a speech about Fable 2. That’s not to say he’ll be talking about watery bits of course…

Every week the team sends around an email with details on what they’ve been working on regarding the next milestone. Some of these emails are tedious but most of them are rather funny or even artistic in your typical British manner. Take this poem by a team member for example:

As we do hone the Bowers Stone, to make a pretty sight
of docks and homes and cobble-stones, we only need the light!

Our characters, both his and hers, do also need this boon
for normal maps to shiny baps, when will it happen, soon?

The creatures sleep but soon will creep about the Brightwood soil
so don’t be miffed as teams will shift, once Damo's had his toil...

Front end and Hud, stuck in the mud, but help is on the way…
while pretty sights and rare delights, will come on Sibbick's day.

So don’t be scared of how we've fared, One day when we are stable
we'll dazzle eyes and cause surprise, and you will know its Fable.

So there you have it, it’s not a massive milestone report this month but as I said in my last update we are actually working very hard behind the scenes. Keep your eyes out for more updates around, during or after GDC 2007 when I’ll be back with a hopefully bigger and more detailed community milestone update.

- Sam - (with thanks to lhwiki Fable2: Frivolity by Jonathan Shaw and the artist's homepage blog)

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