New Character Models Discussion - Update! Fem Gnome Faces

[Lisaara]

Probably. It would have to be. Kinda like the sliders we got now.

[Wain]

Probably. It would have to be. Kinda like the sliders we got now.

Like this:
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/429.html

[Lisaara]

Probably. It would have to be. Kinda like the sliders we got now.

Like this:
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/429.html

LOL! Yes!

[GormanGhaste]

Kayb, I believe that is just the current build, not the way they plan to have it at launch.

[cowmuflage]

I dunno it kind of makes sense to me. I think it would be done mainly for performance issues on older pcs

Then again a button would be just as easy to use. I don't know about making it work in game tho. I don't know anything about game making!

[Xella]

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.

On a lighter note I'm glad to see that we will all be sporting those glorious hipster toe shoes on our trek through draenor's past

we won't be that's just a modeling error that's bound to be fixed soon since all but one of the current boot/shoe "models" are skintight from the ankle down.

[Equeon]

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. [/size]

Yeah, she's kind of got this "I've seen some shit... " look going on. A few steps above "battle-hardened warrior", more like "permanent psychological trauma". Hopefully they fix this before release, maybe add a few slightly "happier" expressions. As of now, many of the new Dwarves' faces look like this to me:

[Wain]

Must remember to never tease dwarves with cupcakes!

[cowmuflage]

There is not much of a difference between those skin colours imo. I think lighting could change it too.

[Xella]

Yeah it'd be a LOT easier to compare if the live version of Wowhead's profiler wasn't using the new models where "appropriate" since in theory then you'd be comparing apples to apples; I've sent in a bug report about it but I get the feeling that that's actually intended behaviour so I doubt it'll change (or it's something in their backend that makes it difficult TO change, and which will be moot once 6.0 goes live anyway). The other options are seeing them both in-game which will require beta (and a LOT of luck to actually get into it :\) or finding a way to pull out the texture files for that particular skin and compare without being applied to a model or in any lighting at all. In theory that's something that could be done now but that's an awful lot of work to go through with what is still an in-progress model.

(Or at least I hope it's still in progress because that hairstyle is also not very good in the new model :\ Gonna be really sad if that doesn't get re-done at some point, considering how much I've always loved that style, both ingame and irl for myself lol)

[Rhyela]

Personally, I don't know why they can't just make several new heads for each race that reflects its old, original counterpart. Yes, time and resources and blah blah, but come on, it's Blizzard. If anyone has the money and resources, they do. I wouldn't even care if it took more time and we had to wait a little longer. Heck, folks have played the game this long with old models. Something this major and exciting shouldn't be rushed (not saying they ARE rushing it, it just feels that way to me).

I'll use WildStar as my example. You get one body skeleton, and several different heads - faces - to choose from. They all look, and ARE, different and unique. Sure, WildStar gives you sliders on top of that, but with WoW I don't think even that much is necessary. People just want their characters to look different from other people's. Like in Veph's blood elf example, I can pick Ariela's face out from a mile away, and I haven't even played WoW in years (her face is number three, by the way).

Maybe I'm over-simplifying it, but I just don't see why it can't be done. It just seems.....lazy, or perhaps even cheap, trying to use only one head with the technology and money they now possess. I get that it worked before because the models weren't as finely detailed and we could slap some different textures on top, but it doesn't seem to be working too well now. Yes, some of the new models look fantastic, but in my eyes that accomplishment is vastly diminished by the fact that everyone's characters are going to look pretty darned similar. Frankly, I think they're taking a great idea and falling short. (And personally, I think the new female dwarves look awful. Like others have said, they look old, traumatized and hollow-eyed. Yikes. They used to look sassy and...awesome. Not crazy about the perpetual derpy smirk of the gnome females, either. I liked my neutral gnome face.)

Again, just my opinion. Also, keep in mind that I'm not a current player, so my viewpoint may perhaps be a bit skewed by my general bitterness. So take my rantings with a grain of salt.

Edit: I also realize that this is alpha and subject to change. But based on past experiences (female worgen, pandaren), I somehow very much doubt things are likely to change at this point. At least not enough to really make an impact. They seem intent on trying to do as much as they can with as little work as possible, and it's disappointing. (Again, not saying they aren't working hard on these - they clearly are - but I feel they can and should do more.)

Edit 2: I think my hormones are making me very rawr tonight, so please accept my apologies if I raise anyone's hackles. Just expressing my opinion and it's not coming out as diplomatically as it usually does.

[cowmuflage]

It's not as simple as slapping a new head on, they have to make it fit all the animations too. Having one head that they can modify is easier to work with then making a whole bunch of new "heads'

Also we have not seen them animated yet and that will change the faces too.

[Wain]

Yeah that makes me wonder... can they use the same musculature that drives the animations to give different "at rest" faces as well? Ones with, say, higher eyebrows or a different mouth shape? If so that may be when we start to see different looks.

[Lupen202]

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.

[Xella]

Honestly, a lot of it depends on how they lay the models out. If they do for faces what they do for hair and facial hair (in that every character has every option, but the inactive ones are hidden—which is why you sometimes don't load appropriately and you get that solid white version of your character with a gigantic bulk of Stuff) they could do with facial structure what they do with that stuff. They'd have to go through and make sure every face model works appropriately with the animations but since it's all based on bones and points of rigging as long as they modeled around the rigging they've already set up for the "default" face, it should be doable-ish.

It is a LOT of extra work, though (not every artist is alike but at least for me, creating new texture maps are ridiculously faster than doing new models) so I'm not sure that's the route we'll see. Then again, before they officially announced any sort of actual plans about new character models (beyond "it's something we'd like to do") I figured it would end up being like the old classic 100% speed mounts—if you had them you could keep them OR trade them in for the new armored ones, but you couldn't go back on the deal and you couldn't buy the old palomino even if you were only 50g short of buying it when they removed it S O B models, so that if you HAD an old model you could keep it but you'd see them around less and less as time went on because most people would upgrade and those who didn't would end up switching mains or quitting the game or what have you... so I'm obviously not the be-all end-all authority on how Blizzard does or is going to do things, haha.

[Nachtwulf]

To be honest... while I can see the complaints about the female dwarves looking tired/run down... their boobs don't flop like sacks of half-set jello anymore. That's seriously the whole reason I've never gotten one past 20. Gotta look at the bright side.

[cowmuflage]

Honestly, a lot of it depends on how they lay the models out. If they do for faces what they do for hair and facial hair (in that every character has every option, but the inactive ones are hidden—which is why you sometimes don't load appropriately and you get that solid white version of your character with a gigantic bulk of Stuff) they could do with facial structure what they do with that stuff. They'd have to go through and make sure every face model works appropriately with the animations but since it's all based on bones and points of rigging as long as they modeled around the rigging they've already set up for the "default" face, it should be doable-ish.

It is a LOT of extra work, though (not every artist is alike but at least for me, creating new texture maps are ridiculously faster than doing new models) so I'm not sure that's the route we'll see. Then again, before they officially announced any sort of actual plans about new character models (beyond "it's something we'd like to do") I figured it would end up being like the old classic 100% speed mounts—if you had them you could keep them OR trade them in for the new armored ones, but you couldn't go back on the deal and you couldn't buy the old palomino even if you were only 50g short of buying it when they removed it S O B models, so that if you HAD an old model you could keep it but you'd see them around less and less as time went on because most people would upgrade and those who didn't would end up switching mains or quitting the game or what have you... so I'm obviously not the be-all end-all authority on how Blizzard does or is going to do things, haha.

You'd know more then I would, It's that dang 3rd dimension that gets me texture maps are what I was thinking too.

[Ickabob]

Stupid question, but how the heck do I take screenshots from the Wowhead model viewer?

[Boven]

Stupid question, but how the heck do I take screenshots from the Wowhead model viewer?

There's probably a better way, but I just ctrl-print scrn and then paste it into Paint or some other graphics program, then save it from there.

[Ickabob]

Thanks.