New Character Models Discussion - Update! Fem Gnome Faces

[TygerDarkstorm]

I may not always be happy with the decisions Blizzard makes for their games, but I have to seriously applaud them for going through the great lengths they are to not only update all of our player models, but still keep them reminiscent of the characters we've played for years. These updates are looking like seriously good advancements in the right direction. Frankly, I really like the new tauren model. Yes it's a little cartoony, but most of WoW is; that cartoony style is part of what has made the game so timeless (and able to avoid the weird uncanny valley area other more "realistic" games get stuck). I think the male tauren arms and wrists are still a little too thick, but after seeing that post with the animations and stuff, I think the final result is still pretty awesome. I look forward to seeing all these changes be implemented into the game, even if I won't be playing.

[peanutbuttercup]

Well I'm in the "too cartoony" camp on the male Tauren, but I guess it's not so much that they're too cartoony but that the new beasts look so savage/fierce and the Tauren now look... more cutesy in comparison?

Personally I want it flipped. I haven't liked any of the new beast models thus far because they aren't as "cute" as the old, low res beasts (the Pandaria cats vs old cats, the new Talbuk vs the existing Talbuks). But I sort of expect player toons to have more of a war worn look I suppose? Not sure how to word it exactly. I want the toons to look more real and the animals to be cuter? LOL

[Danielfboone]

New Tauren = failure. I actually like the old one better. That's the only one so far I think fails. I really don't see much difference at all in the animations and the new one actually looks less detailed than the old one.

[Lupen202]

New Tauren = failure. I actually like the old one better. That's the only one so far I think fails. I really don't see much difference at all in the animations and the new one actually looks less detailed than the old one.

Is that sarcasm...? I can't tell. Not liking the new one is perfectly fine but to not be able to see the differences in animation and detail.. O.o

[Lisaara]

There's a huge difference in the old and new one. Heck, just look at the hooves. Instead of going heel toe, it's just bam bam bam. The heel of the hoof can be seen rather than a weird leg, like the draenei have the heel.

[Danielfboone]

New Tauren = failure. I actually like the old one better. That's the only one so far I think fails. I really don't see much difference at all in the animations and the new one actually looks less detailed than the old one.

Is that sarcasm...? I can't tell. Not liking the new one is perfectly fine but to not be able to see the differences in animation and detail.. O.o

No sarcasm intended or implied. The only animations that look better are the facial expressions which I really don't care about. For detail, just look at the hair. The new hair just looks flat and blurred compared to the old. The decorations on the braids and horns are also better on the old model. The new Tauren just look softer and less intimidating than the old.

[Snowy]

No sarcasm intended or implied. The only animations that look better are the facial expressions which I really don't care about. For detail, just look at the hair. The new hair just looks flat and blurred compared to the old. The decorations on the braids and horns are also better on the old model. The new Tauren just look softer and less intimidating than the old.

I'm not seeing a single problem with the hair and you certainly can't say it looks 'flat and blurred' by comparison... Have you even seen the old model? You know, the one where the hair is just textured flat to the shoulders and the hair along the hooves is so blurred that he could be mistaken for having poop on his hooves? The old model looks nothing but terrible next to the new one.

Each to their own and all, everyone's allowed opinions, and I can indeed see where people are coming from when they say he looks 'tame' but to say the animation is worse is just insulting.

[cowmuflage]

I really like how the hair looks on the new model. The way the short arm hair (hair or fur? Do cows even have fur? or is it hair ) looks is really neat.

[Shade]

New tauren model looks wonderful to me. The comparison side by side animations just pointed out how horrid the old model actually looked. Yeah, the new one looks cartoony-but it is a bipedal cow man with a giant Quasimodo-like bump between his shoulders. I don't think it is possible for them to make him anywhere near realistic.

Very bitterly sad that they didn't go ahead and put the female draenei out. I had hoped that they would release that art right after the April's Fool joke. So far they've released artwork for all the species that I have zero interest in, so each new update is a big sigh of disappointment that they have not yet shown what is going to happen to my personal favorite characters.

[Rhyela]

The male tauren's newly defined fingernails look so bizarre to me. The old ones look more hoof-like, but those human looking fingers are creeping me out.

They look like gorilla hands to me. Weird, meaty, flesh-colored gorilla hands.

I was excited about the changes when I first heard about them, but I'm becoming concerned that these different faces they're showcasing is the extent of the variety. It's more or less one face with a wrinkle here instead of there, or eyebrows slightly more arched on this one.

I mean, compare the current to the new:





Maybe I'm just overly picky, but even with the lower-quality models we have now, there's so much more variety in the faces themselves. I don't care about the structure underneath and blah blah blah, if I pick face A and my friend picks face B, they're going to look totally different. There's an obviously old one, an obviously angry one, a neutral one, and even one that oddly reminds me of Jennifer Tilly. These new ones are kinda-sorta different if you look close enough. But they all have the same grin, same nose, same eye size.....Bleh. Maybe it's just me, and maybe they'll come out with more and surprise me, but I was hopeful about the inbred chihuahuas too and look how that turned out.

[Castile]

As long as Cow can be a drunk bogan I'm all good :3

I lol'd at this cow ^.^ My cow hunter is abit dopey and too kind for her own good - which is why she stuck with her silly tallstrider when everyone else had fearsome cats

My shaman on the other hand likes to wack crap with her giant mace's so she needs a sterner face!

can't see the pics cause im at work but I always liked the tauren so hopefully they are still the lovable race I giggled at in vanilla "what do you mean i can be a giant cow?"

[Lisaara]

New tauren model looks wonderful to me. The comparison side by side animations just pointed out how horrid the old model actually looked. Yeah, the new one looks cartoony-but it is a bipedal cow man with a giant Quasimodo-like bump between his shoulders. I don't think it is possible for them to make him anywhere near realistic.

Very bitterly sad that they didn't go ahead and put the female draenei out. I had hoped that they would release that art right after the April's Fool joke. So far they've released artwork for all the species that I have zero interest in, so each new update is a big sigh of disappointment that they have not yet shown what is going to happen to my personal favorite characters.

As the tweet said, the fem draenei are next. :3

[Slickrock]

The male tauren's newly defined fingernails look so bizarre to me. The old ones look more hoof-like, but those human looking fingers are creeping me out.

They look like gorilla hands to me. Weird, meaty, flesh-colored gorilla hands.

I was excited about the changes when I first heard about them, but I'm becoming concerned that these different faces they're showcasing is the extent of the variety. It's more or less one face with a wrinkle here instead of there, or eyebrows slightly more arched on this one.

I mean, compare the current to the new:





Maybe I'm just overly picky, but even with the lower-quality models we have now, there's so much more variety in the faces themselves. I don't care about the structure underneath and blah blah blah, if I pick face A and my friend picks face B, they're going to look totally different. There's an obviously old one, an obviously angry one, a neutral one, and even one that oddly reminds me of Jennifer Tilly. These new ones are kinda-sorta different if you look close enough. But they all have the same grin, same nose, same eye size.....Bleh. Maybe it's just me, and maybe they'll come out with more and surprise me, but I was hopeful about the inbred chihuahuas too and look how that turned out.

We might actually see less variety due to the complexity of the models. Those low-rez models are likely easier to throw some paint on to make them look different. Might be harder now.

[Castile]

I must admit I don't like the cartoon-esq faces of the new gnomes...I mean I'm not a massive gnome fan anyway but they just look horrid now! Might be just me tho

Got to see the new Tauren and they look ok. The hands are abit weird but the faces seem really nice

[GormanGhaste]

Yeah, looks like the gnomes have overly huge eyes, which is what I was afraid of. Maybe we can hold out hope that they will give different faces different idle expressions to make up for the homogeneity?

[Lupen202]

Female gnomes definitely are the one that I'm least thrilled about. The 1st and 4th faces aren't bad, I do like them... but I don't like that all faces are only slightly different from those two. I mean, this is alpha so I'm hoping there'll be some tweaks still, but aside from the two I mentioned they're sort of creepy... And even those I DO like still have overly huge eyes.

In the least I hope they release a gnome face that has a neutral expression, not a creepy stalker or overly excited one.

Aside from fem gnomes though, in general I really am happy with the other models. Just want more facial variation of course

[Vephriel]

I'm very worried about Same Face Syndrome as well...

I think the problem with the new models is they have such complicated anatomy I'm concerned they won't want to spend time creating alternate facial shapes. On the Vanilla models it was easy to "fake" it because it was a flat texture more or less, and they could do things like different eye shapes, different shading to give the appearance of different noses and mouths (even though the base shapes were all identical), but that might be harder to pull off now that we have very defined and detailed musculature.

And so far the newer models seem to be, well....

[Castile]

I get what you mean Veph but if we aren't careful we'll end up with too many choices!! GW2 and ESO have a stupid amount of customization that I end up skipping half of it cause it just seems the amount of choice is abit overwhelming. It might be just me but I'm kinda fine with a similuar canvas and basic customization else you spend like an hour making a character ><

[Vephriel]

Oh yeah I wouldn't need that level of customization with like...brow depth and chin width sliders or any of that, but I like the Vanilla models for the amount of options we had with face appearance and mood. Even just separating some options like eyes and noses would be nice, something like the Goblins have.

[Lupis]

Honestly, at this point, I'd be happy with just three or four different eye shapes. With races like gnomes especially, the eyes are a huge defining feature and when they're all the same shape... Eyes don't do that. Eyes are all sorts of shapes. Making them the same basically assures all faces will look basically the same.