New Character Models Discussion - Update! Fem Gnome Faces

[Nachtwulf]

You know... the more I think about it, the more this 'same face' thing seems like the only rational solution. Why?

Well, the new faces are highly mobile. Before, the expressions were painted onto a really very static canvas. No matter what your character did, there wasn't much distortion of the face or its expression. But now? Now it's a bunch of polygons that are moving all over the place. How weird would it look to have a frowny expression painted on something that's trying to smile, or /beg, or...

So much of the expression will now be transmitted by distortions of the model... so ALL of the faces have to look pretty neutral or they'll be really strange once the character is animated. You can't make the eyes smaller because they aren't just painted into hollows anymore, they're actual spheres in sockets, and those are standardized to the model.

What they should do is have the expression defaults set differently for the different faces, so that the angrier faces default to having their brows furrowed, or the happy ones with the brows and corners of the mouth tilted slightly up. That may be more work than they're going to go to, though, since that's tiny fiddly stuff and it's honestly more important to most people that the zones actually be finished and populated with quests and junk.

I just don't think that it'll be as bad in practice since they're given so much personality by motion and mostly what we're looking at right now is utterly static.

[Slickrock]

You know... the more I think about it, the more this 'same face' thing seems like the only rational solution. Why?

Well, the new faces are highly mobile. Before, the expressions were painted onto a really very static canvas. No matter what your character did, there wasn't much distortion of the face or its expression. But now? Now it's a bunch of polygons that are moving all over the place. How weird would it look to have a frowny expression painted on something that's trying to smile, or /beg, or...

So much of the expression will now be transmitted by distortions of the model... so ALL of the faces have to look pretty neutral or they'll be really strange once the character is animated. You can't make the eyes smaller because they aren't just painted into hollows anymore, they're actual spheres in sockets, and those are standardized to the model.

What they should do is have the expression defaults set differently for the different faces, so that the angrier faces default to having their brows furrowed, or the happy ones with the brows and corners of the mouth tilted slightly up. That may be more work than they're going to go to, though, since that's tiny fiddly stuff and it's honestly more important to most people that the zones actually be finished and populated with quests and junk.

I just don't think that it'll be as bad in practice since they're given so much personality by motion and mostly what we're looking at right now is utterly static.

So much this.

As I said earlier...

Old: 8-10 "faces" for each race/gender, with one expression each.

New: One "face" for each race/gender, with 12+ expressions for each, and more likely to come.

More model choices would be great, but people seriously underestimate the time that takes.

[Slickrock]

Yeah that's what I'm thinking... I'm no animator either so I honestly have no clue. But I'm sure they could set the faces default expression/animation to say, angry. Or neutral. Or happy. That would give us plenty of facial variation .. And I really hope it happens.

It's a lot more than animation, makes those models as flawless as possible is an immense amount of work.

Also remember that this is a 12 year old game engine. Wildstar is built on much newer tech

[cowmuflage]

No one has seen them animated yet and I think that's where all the stuffs going to happen. As said by people before these are not like the old faces that where really just static paintings for the most part.

[Ickabob]

Side by side comparison of my dwarf paladin, live and wowhead profiler versions. I'm scared; that's the darkest you can make dwarf skin and she's got this sort of... Hollow eyed mortification thing going on. Maybe dwarves aren't as immune to The Plague as we thought D: the usual caveats apply; prealpha unfinished work in progress being displayed through a third party website etc etc but I'm nervous. Re ally nervous. We'll see.

I too did a similar comparison. I'll admit that I'm liking the direction they're taking with her overall body shape, but I'm still not sure about her face. I'd say the biggest giveaway is in her eyes, especially in her eyebrows. I like the mouth, hair, nose, and overall shape of the face, but it's just the eyes. They're too different.

I want to say she looks tired or even older.

[Slickrock]

Another note here.. The look that the Wowhesd viewer gives is not the look we'll see in game. Really need to wait and see for when we get a beta build where this can be tested.

[Slickrock]

As a side note, I'm just glad that the female draenei will have actual hands and not squid fingers.

[SpiritBinder]

Side by side comparison of my dwarf paladin, live and wowhead profiler versions. I'm scared; that's the darkest you can make dwarf skin and she's got this sort of... Hollow eyed mortification thing going on. Maybe dwarves aren't as immune to The Plague as we thought D: the usual caveats apply; prealpha unfinished work in progress being displayed through a third party website etc etc but I'm nervous. Re ally nervous. We'll see.

I too did a similar comparison. I'll admit that I'm liking the direction they're taking with her overall body shape, but I'm still not sure about her face. I'd say the biggest giveaway is in her eyes, especially in her eyebrows. I like the mouth, hair, nose, and overall shape of the face, but it's just the eyes. They're too different.

I want to say she looks tired or even older.

Main differences I found after trying to match the new face compared to yours chosen was the eyes on the new model, they are too close together, which in turn makes her eyebrows to close together and nose bridge too small, The eyes are also angled the wrong way and are missing the dark eye liner and the eyebrows are also sit at a bit of a different angle. Lastly the lips are also not as quite as wide or thin.



Now I'm sure some of these can be fixed via permanent animation tweets to the model linked to the face (like the eyebrow angle and lips.) but others like the eye location I'm not sure. The eyeliner should be a pretty easy and Obvious fix, as from memory the female orcs had some pretty dark lashes/eyeliner.

[cowmuflage]

Do we know if what the wowhead profiler shows is infact what they will be like? Or are these just giant guesses?

[SpiritBinder]

I'm pretty sure you if you view your current toon in the HD version, it is currently showing what you will look like as planned for WOD.

[zedxrgal]

I still swear that all the female models have received breast reductions.

[Nachtwulf]

And they should have. @_@ Especially dwarves.

Trust me, no one wants basketballs on their chest. Nevermind that if you're doing a lot of exercise, as I'd say all adventurers do, you lose weight, and yes, the fat comes off of those, too.

If you ever see a female pro athlete with huge gazongas, I assure you, she's had artificial help. Being muscular = flat.

[Seilahyn]

Not sure if they really did get breast reductions or if it's the way they redid the armor over the chesticles. Look at the old armor over the chest compared to the new. The old is stretched out and gives the impression it's being pulled by rather large objects under it. The new armor is redone to lay nicely over the lady lumps.

Are the WoWhead model previews only for Dwarf/Orc? I can't seem to get my Draenei to load in the new model. I've cleared my internet cache and everything. I'd like to see what she looks like with the new model. I like her as is, so I'm hoping it's not too much of a change that it doesn't feel like "me" anymore.

[Qraljar]

Not sure if they really did get breast reductions or if it's the way they redid the armor over the chesticles. Look at the old armor over the chest compared to the new. The old is stretched out and gives the impression it's being pulled by rather large objects under it. The new armor is redone to lay nicely over the lady lumps.

Are the WoWhead model previews only for Dwarf/Orc? I can't seem to get my Draenei to load in the new model. I've cleared my internet cache and everything. I'd like to see what she looks like with the new model. I like her as is, so I'm hoping it's not too much of a change that it doesn't feel like "me" anymore.

The Draenei were only shown off as a WIP model by the WoW team. One without animations. For that reason, it isn't in the files yet. The undead females and males aren't either, and neither is the human female. Orcs, Gnomes and Dwarf females are there, as well as male Tauren.

[Divixon]

looking forward to the female tauren,troll models. cant wait

[Myrrmi]

I still swear that all the female models have received breast reductions.

I don't know if it was reduced or is it just more polys, but it better be made less bumpy. My own chest was starting to hurt upon seeing my dwarfettes run. Even when wearing plate armor. Ouch...

[Boven]

I still swear that all the female models have received breast reductions.

I don't know if it was reduced or is it just more polys, but it better be made less bumpy. My own chest was starting to hurt upon seeing my dwarfettes run. Even when wearing plate armor. Ouch...

I rolled a female dwarf rogue years ago, in an attempt at leveling an Alliance character. Even as a man, I winced upon seeing her run.

[Nachtwulf]

Yeah... thus my comment about 'sacks of half-set jello'. No other race has that particular...er... 'motion dynamic', it's painful to watch. Also I understand it originally was WORSE back in vanilla beta and that's the 'toned down' version. If you can believe that. Ugh argh ow.

[Vephriel]

Night elf females!
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/140963 ... -5-13-2014

[Bonita]

I am loving them. Though the hands look manly haha