Borderlands Interviews
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First up is PCGamesHardware, where the technology driving the game is discussed:
PCGH: Why did you decide to change the Unreal Engine 3 look of Borderlands to the Concept Art Style? What are the technical and optical differences between Concept Art Style and for example Cell-Shading? Do you had to modify the Renderer of Epics Technology for the new look?
Randy Pitchford: The unique Concept Art Style look of Borderlands combines a number of technologies and techniques. From a technique point of view, there is artistry involved - the materials are all hand painted, for example, and there are other authoring techniques that are specific to the art direction. But there is also sophisticated software underneath to render the content and that software significantly impacts the image that we're all seeing. I think a huge component of what makes the Borderlands art direction look so unique is the graphics technology and the blending of hand painted content with realistic rendering models. Starting with Unreal Engine 3 is a great place to begin as the software is very capable of a lot of flexibility with materials and shaders. Gearbox engineers added custom technologies to bring advanced realistic lighting and shading software to render with the hand painted surfaces.
Then we have OXM, who sent over a list of community-submitted questions:
I want to know specifically how the skill trees will work in the game.
Gøran Tande, via Facebook
Pitchford: The soldier can deploy a shield turret and has a number of different specs that he can choose to either evenly balance or focus on one spec. He can build up a medic skill tree where he becomes really effective at healing himself and the party, or you can focus more on an infantry spec for delivering more damage. There's also a support spec where you can build different types of turret, and each of the players around you get advantages - whether that's combat bonuses, experience bonuses or protective bonuses.
The last one, the new character we added is like a tank or berserker character. He's huge - we call him Brick, but you can call him whatever you want. He's a tough dude man. He has huge fists and can go into a berserker rage. He becomes like the Incredible Hulk and you can run up to guys and punch them and gib them just by punching them in the face. It feels great. He's got a couple of interesting specs too, like a tank spec which is about mitigating damage and being the guy that takes the hits. He's got a brawler spec for doing greater damage with his fists.
Each of the characters has three specs that you can balance or go down deep into any of them.
