Because skeletal animations require much less memory, we were able to quadruple the amount of animation data. More important from a user's perspective is that the animation of the 3D objects is very smooth. In contrast to other 3D games with character animation, we are not forced to modify the data for each vertex in an animation cycle. We only need to take the data for the skeleton, then morph the skin accordingly. As we can interpolate movement any way we like, we achieve much greater flexibility.
All characters have extremely detailed textures, so they look great from a distance or up close.
In this scheme all characters cast one or more shadows, depending on the light sources. For example, a character will have a short black shadow cast by a nearby lamp, and a long, almost transparent shadow cast by a lamp farther away. Like everything else in Gorky 17, the shadows are quite realistic, indeed, almost pixel-perfect. They even bend on different surfaces. Since characters are illuminated by light sources, they become nearly invisible in darkened areas.