It is impossible for our graphics artists to know exactly how their building assets will look in the game engine. Simply because we add a lot of post processing effects that sits "on top" of the pixel art. Things like bloom, dust specs, shadows, weather effects, etc.
Because of this our technical artist Patrik has developed a tool where you can toggle things like team colour, wind, day/night and other settings that effect the look of the buildings.
If you look closely, this video also contains a sneak preview of some Rana and Barya buildings!
Visualizing the AI movement path helps us analyze and optimize the AI behaviour. You can see me toggle of the Fog of War in the video and then pan over to watch the AI Wielder movement. The red lines drawn behind the enemy Wielder is the path visualisation, which I for some reason forgot to mention in the video!
Ok, just to be very clear: This feature is not planned for release, it is merely an example of what can happen when the developers (in this case Patrik) want to do something that is not in the backlog, and need a break from regular development. All of a sudden a magic axe appears in the game! Things like this has happened in the past and I'm sure it will happen again! A lot of people have asked us to release a mod containing the axe and while we think it is probably not a good idea, because it truly breaks the balance in weird ways, a mod might still happen if enough people request it :)
Anyhow, hope you liked this summary! Is there any specific part of the game or development process you want to see more videos about? Please let us know in the comments!
(And here is a bonus GIF of an Arleon Milita troop knocking the living daylights out of a Barya Sassanid)
/Team Lavapotion / Magnus