Updated Tameable Beast Image Comparisons

[Zoruaronan]

I think they are trying to create models that will still look good several xpacs down the road instead of just lasting an xpac or two before they start looking dated.

But they don't look good now is what I'm saying.


The crab current has detailed texture making it look like it's under water, the new crab is a mat grey. Other differences like how the current crab's stone and eye seem to glow, new crab again is a flat red.


Most of the new stuff looks like this, no or missing detail the old textures have. New meshes are great but the textures need a touch up, we are likely going to be looking at these for a very long time, I agree, that why they should not look like the Fill tool was used exclusively. Also I'm not sure if it's because I'm colorblind (Tritanomaly/Tritanopia) but the vast differences between old and new textures make me think they weren't even trying to get close to the old colors.

In my opinion i like karkin's new model and the other jem crabs are awesome too
my favorite is the green one

[Valnaaros]

I also prefer the new model. Maybe some more work on the gem, but I like the rock texture.

[Silivren]

God the Grand Crab Truesilver looks AWFUL to me, where's his color now? He's just one big saturated blue blob.

[Rikaku]

I think they are trying to create models that will still look good several xpacs down the road instead of just lasting an xpac or two before they start looking dated.

But they don't look good now is what I'm saying.


The crab current has detailed texture making it look like it's under water, the new crab is a mat grey. Other differences like how the current crab's stone and eye seem to glow, new crab again is a flat red.

I'm in agreement. While the model itself is an upgrade, and the texture or skin looks nice, when it's compared to what it's replacing... these two crabs look nothing alike. If I hadn't tamed Karkin and been familiar with the old model, I would've never guessed that the new one is supposed to be the 'replacement'. They don't look similar at all. And I'm someone who usually is okay with model updates for the most part.

Karkin clearly has some very bright light portions to his body, which makes him look like he's made of some shiny material. That new model looks like a flat slate stone crab. They aren't even in the same color ranges in my book. Karkins gem actually looks like its glowing, this new one... The new one is a great model if you want a crab embedded with rubies. It really is a nice work, don't get me wrong. But that new one is not anywhere near Karkin.

Same thing with the Truesilver Crab. But Karkin is 1000x more noticable.

And I'm dying for a new Hyena model, but the red and purple ones disappoint me. Part of the cool thing for Hyenas was the skin had some buit-in gradients. Especially the purple. Without that almost neon blue, it just looks very flat.

But yeah. I mean yes, these models will look great for years to come. They just aren't good *replacements* in some of these cases. There's really no reason that Karkin's model update has to be a completely different crab

[Wain]

I've seen that asserted a few times now - that by being drawn in this style that they'll look great for years to come, but I'm unsure what is meant by it. Do people mean that by lowering the fine detail and keeping it very basic, mean that there's less to become dated? I don't mean that facetiously, I'm genuinely unsure how that would work.

Despite the images being much lower resolution, I would say that, to me, the original thunder lizard / stegodon skin (for example) remains far superior art quality and far more appealing. I tamed a couple of the old ones because I found them so beautiful, despite the model already being low-poly. I honestly wouldn't own any of the new ones and I'll likely abandon the ones I have. The model is lovely, but I see no beauty in the flat-toned skins.

[Valnaaros]

Bellular can explain it all better than I can:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mSI6upU_V0

[Rawr]

That video only explains why a black or even close to black is missing and they have grays, he doesn't say anything as to why huge swatches of color and little detail are a good replacement for what we have.

[Qraljar]

I think people have kind of misinterpreted what it means. At a basic level, WoW now has a fairly recognizable art style. It's pretty cartoony.

Whereas older models, Classic ones, were more - hindered by technical limitations than they were necessarily a part of the style. You can see it: as much detail pumped into a 512x512 texturespace as possible. As years passed and as they could fit in more polygons, more texel density into a model, they of course grew into their own. This is what is being suggested, that instead of making top of the line models with as much detail crammed in there as possible because the technology allows them to now, to instead make models that are carried by the charm of the art style - timeless. Instead of becoming outdated once the hardware increases again and they can make even more detailed models.

However, this does not mean that's the reason for Karkin's new color scheme. I see no reason why that mentality would lead to something like that.

Nor would it lead to less saturated colors per se. I think that has more to do with the fact that their lighting has increased significantly.

As with everything, it's nuanced, though. Karkin's skin is likely not similar because the artist in charge of it just didn't bother to take it into account, not because of some new set of rules for WoW's art, and the Stegodon colors not matching is probably like that for the same reason.

[Wain]

FYI, with Quiv's permission I'm going to be putting up something like his post here on the main site, tweet and advertise it and link back to here for discussion. Hopefully we can get input from more people on what they love and hate most about the changes to their pets, and thus ask for some changes to the ones that grate the most.

[Valnaaros]

I think people have kind of misinterpreted what it means. At a basic level, WoW now has a fairly recognizable art style. It's pretty cartoony.

Whereas older models, Classic ones, were more - hindered by technical limitations than they were necessarily a part of the style. You can see it: as much detail pumped into a 512x512 texturespace as possible. As years passed and as they could fit in more polygons, more texel density into a model, they of course grew into their own. This is what is being suggested, that instead of making top of the line models with as much detail crammed in there as possible because the technology allows them to now, to instead make models that are carried by the charm of the art style - timeless. Instead of becoming outdated once the hardware increases again and they can make even more detailed models.

However, this does not mean that's the reason for Karkin's new color scheme. I see no reason why that mentality would lead to something like that.

Nor would it lead to less saturated colors per se. I think that has more to do with the fact that their lighting has increased significantly.

As with everything, it's nuanced, though. Karkin's skin is likely not similar because the artist in charge of it just didn't bother to take it into account, not because of some new set of rules for WoW's art, and the Stegodon colors not matching is probably like that for the same reason.

Agreed. I like Karkin's new look, but I do think it could use some work. Honestly, I would be satisfied if Blizz fixed the colors to better match the originals. From what I've seen, the majority of the complaints have been in regards to the colors and how they aren't suitable replacements for the originals.

[Qraljar]

I think people have kind of misinterpreted what it means. At a basic level, WoW now has a fairly recognizable art style. It's pretty cartoony.

Whereas older models, Classic ones, were more - hindered by technical limitations than they were necessarily a part of the style. You can see it: as much detail pumped into a 512x512 texturespace as possible. As years passed and as they could fit in more polygons, more texel density into a model, they of course grew into their own. This is what is being suggested, that instead of making top of the line models with as much detail crammed in there as possible because the technology allows them to now, to instead make models that are carried by the charm of the art style - timeless. Instead of becoming outdated once the hardware increases again and they can make even more detailed models.

However, this does not mean that's the reason for Karkin's new color scheme. I see no reason why that mentality would lead to something like that.

Nor would it lead to less saturated colors per se. I think that has more to do with the fact that their lighting has increased significantly.

As with everything, it's nuanced, though. Karkin's skin is likely not similar because the artist in charge of it just didn't bother to take it into account, not because of some new set of rules for WoW's art, and the Stegodon colors not matching is probably like that for the same reason.

Agreed. I like Karkin's new look, but I do think it could use some work. Honestly, I would be satisfied if Blizz fixed the colors to better match the originals. From what I've seen, the majority of the complaints have been in regards to the colors and how they aren't suitable replacements for the originals.

Agreed. They just need to take a look at it and adjust it. Same goes for vulture colors, dragonhawk colors, some of the mine spider colors and the stegodon colors.

The new blue stegodon probably couldn't be as saturated as the old, but having it be nearly grey the way it is pretty ridiculous.

[Qraljar]

Shoddy edit coming through.


It's far from great, but this is the least that can be done. And Blizzard has actual artists on board, that could probably do far better.

[Wain]

Wow, thanks Qral! That was really clear and helped me understand. But it sounds like a significant part of what we're unhappy with is just because of artists doing their own thing with the colours of individual models, rather than the overall artistic direction. For some of them I wonder if the artist even intended it to be a replacement or whether it was a designer decision to fit square pegs in round holes, like the beige windserpent being swapped in for the white. And several of the thunder lizards not only don't match the original colour range, their skin names are completely unrelated to the originals and don't sound like the artists necessarily intended them to be replacements.

Bellular's video was good too, thanks Val.

[Wain]

I've made a spectral version of the new blue vulture skin and subbed it in to Quiv's post. Of course I don't know precisely how that one looks yet (if staff of smaller fansites like us are now getting invites to alpha I'm not privy to it!), but I believe I can aproximate, since it should have similar transparency to the original.

.

[Valnaaros]

You bet, Wain!

As far as I'm aware, only a handful of Alpha invites have been sent out since the start of the Alpha, and I haven't seen any Alpha/Beta key giveaways yet, but I don't expect that to happen for a couple months or so.

[Quiv]

Something I was considering doing was a separate thread to poll the Petopia community. I know individuals are certainly free to offer direct feedback if they want, but if we wanted to distill the major issues into concentrated "Petopia feedback", maybe a poll could help?

Since we have over 60 updates (so far), my idea was to make a poll thread. Petopia folks could comment on the top 3 updated models they want to offer feedback, with a few brief comments to allow context on what they don't like. It doesn't have to be the official thread poll option since having 60+ entries would be excessive. I don't know if the online free polls allow that many options AND limiting selection to 3 AND allow brief comments (would be nice though!)

If we could get enough participation and keep things orderly (that is to say, keep the poll thread from getting cluttered by debate), I think that could help focus our feedback. Thoughts?

[Wain]

Maybe we could balance positive with negative and have two polls: one to vote for your favourites and one to vote for the ones you think need further tweaks.

[Valnaaros]

Maybe we could balance positive with negative and have two polls: one to vote for your favourites and one to vote for the ones you think need further tweaks.

That would work well, I think. Can get a concensus through the negative data and make strong pushes for those pets to be tweaked.

[Sarynotsorry]

While in some cases I’m disappointed with the lack of the original brighter colors (Naraxis - red mine spider model comes to mind, as well as Karkin), I understand what they’re going for. Those bright colors don’t fit as well into the game world anymore. As the game has progressed, the artwork has obviously improved and the environments have more realistic color schemes, which make older pets stand out like sore thumbs. I think what they’re going for is better continuity so that you don’t have this mismatch of a vanilla tiger set against the rich natural tones of, say, Stormheim. I’m sad that they’ve taken the monochromatic approach to so many pets though. I love the legion wolf model but hate that there is zero contrast on them and no variation in color. The only one that has it is the dark blue hati.

[Sarynotsorry]

Additionally, I wholeheartedly agree with Slickrock that models > colors. I’ll certainly miss the idea of some of the colors being replaced, but when it comes down to it, it’s a positive change to me - the character models have overall looked so good for several years now, and the new armor models are fantastic. I can’t put an old hyena or windserpent next to my toon and think “oh yeah that’s the stuff.” The beautiful character models and environments deserve hunter pets that aren’t an eyesore in comparison.