Character models... seriously : V - Skyrim

» Sat May 28, 2011 2:06 am

That is a whole other point than saying Oblivion NPCs are ugly, which is the complaint in this thread (and what I've read in other threads too).

Actually is is the same point: how do the character creation usually go? Make character -> charter does not look the way I want it to look -> try to re do -> fail to get the look = conclude that the character is ugly and the char creator is ugly and everything done in it is ugly, and general upset about the looks of everyone around

In a proper character creator you should be able to make anything form an old harpy to a Hollywood supermodel. If all the faces you make end up looking generic than the character creator needs serious attitude adjustment

» Fri May 27, 2011 7:08 pm

I think that those people who found the Oblivion faces ugly are too brainwashed by Hollywood. I was thrilled first time I saw the character creation in Oblivion and saw that the characters won't look like Conan or a boob-girl with fanservice and way too much make-up. The NPCs don't look ugly, they look realistic. If you find that ugly, the world is going in a very sad direction indeed.

Lolwut?

I'm sorry, but I really don't see the faces as being all that realistic. Granted, I don't really want me faces to look realistic in a...well...game, but I still want them to look pleasing to look at. Sorry if I don't enjoy looking at "Uriel the Chernobyl Survivor's" face the entire game.

» Sat May 28, 2011 10:32 am

I really really hope that they hired some of the modding community to design their character models in Skyrim. On every Elder Scroll game the character models are sooo ugly. It is amazing to me that such a power house developer can't come up with better character models than some guy in his basemant in Iowa....

If we are going to have more anorexic females, then I hope not. Unless you care about specific boobage, the vanilla fallout body looked better.

I don't want this to turn into a discussion on body mods, but I'll use a couple examples to make a point: Better Bodies from morrowind is the best body mod ever, because the bodies scaled really well with weight changes. There was tons of variety in a single body. Want your character skinny with less booty? Change the weight. Want more booty? Change the weight. I don't remember so much changeability with Oblivion and its mods, though I haven't tried Robert's female to see if it changes well with weight.

» Fri May 27, 2011 9:46 pm

Oblivion's facegen was so complex and had so many options, yet somehow everyone looked like there were only three progenitors in Cyrodil. That and the fact that everyone had the same bodytype kind of ruined the whole thing. I would prefer to have many preset faces instead of being able to widen my nostril nares. Gta had characters who gained weight, and wore different clothes etc etc. If R* can do it, so can Beth, although they probably won't.

» Fri May 27, 2011 10:00 pm

I think that those people who found the Oblivion faces ugly are too brainwashed by Hollywood. I was thrilled first time I saw the character creation in Oblivion and saw that the characters won't look like Conan or a boob-girl with fanservice and way too much make-up. The NPCs don't look ugly, they look realistic. If you find that ugly, the world is going in a very sad direction indeed.

In think those people who found the oblivion faces ugly don't realize that, at it's launch, it was pretty much top end. the facegen system is actually damn fine kit imo.

While I completely understand the need to optimize the system, and sadly there is a great need. ie only 1 head for both male and females, and 1 skele and animation set for all races, I will have to admit that i find it severely impacting the final product. And there are several choices that were made that could have enhanced the system without any impact at all. Many of these things were actually done for F3. For which i am grateful and have given me optimism for the future :disguise:

A bit harsh but I fully understand where you're coming from and you could have been addressing this directly me. I was as guilty as any other noob modeller. Luckily for us all I stopped though.

What, stopped modding? or just wised up to the game? cos if it is the former I don't think anyone is lucky. I knew from day one you had 'it'. One of my handful of artists I would want to collab with. :icecream:

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:01 pm

What would also be cool is that if you're old you'll walk slower and are a bit weaker, but have a higher intelligence/willpower. Ofcourse it wouldn't really matter because after a couple of level ups you can easily have higher strength that intelligence. Unless they handle the leveling different thant Oblivion. (Oh god, I hope so.)

» Sat May 28, 2011 10:20 am

Ugh! Your right! Just look at Jensine at Jenisne's Good-as-New Merchandise! :sick:

» Fri May 27, 2011 8:24 pm

I would say children like in Fallout but to be honest I could care less if there's kids running around the world. I guess it would add something to the atmosphere but with Oblivion I was ok with not having then around.
I just don't want every single man and woman that you come across to be freaking ugly as heck. If you look at the PC mods out there for different races some of them are outstanding. I don't really want some scantly clad angelic being around every corner but just make them at least pleasing to look at.

I dont think they should be pleasing to look at, they should just look like real people

» Sat May 28, 2011 10:02 am

The problem with Oblivion char creation was not so much ugliness as lack of control, you could easily make a passably pretty generic face, abut if you had something specific in mind there was no way you could get it. Go try making, for example, an Asian looking face in Oblivion, and you'll see what all the complains are about. And if you wanted you char to look like someone specific (my Morrowind characters in my case) it was a lost case.

Well lets be honest. Why would you try and force an Altmer to look like an Asian person? If Beth didnt truly intend to have Asian looking characters in their game then you shouldn't expect to make a fantastic looking one.

» Sat May 28, 2011 12:43 am

Yeah exactly.. Heck I don't even need that level of customization. I just want them to not be ugly...

I'm sure the character models will be similar to Fallout.

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:36 am

I dont think they should be pleasing to look at, they should just look like real people

Well if you go to a grocery store or a mall or any place where there's a lot of people you'll look around and can pretty easily pick out some pretty pleasing people to look at. I don't think that real people are unpleasing to look at most places you go.

» Sat May 28, 2011 2:50 am

Interesting....

My gut reaction is "who cares" as long as they resemble what they're supposed to. It's about the story and the game, not about beauty pagents. BUT that's probably my PnP background coming out. :shrug:

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:53 am

I liked how old men even if they were feeble had a just ripped out six pack in Oblivion. And then those lines around their necks where their head attached. XD

» Fri May 27, 2011 10:34 pm

I loved Morrowind's Models. I didn't have a problem with most of Oblivion's other than the beast races being too human. The only thing I found really ugly were the obvious seams at the neck and wrists.

» Sat May 28, 2011 8:21 am

I dont think they should be pleasing to look at, they should just look like real people

I do. It's a game.

» Sat May 28, 2011 12:25 am

I actually hope that they'd dump that silly head-molding thing. I prefer just picking from a wide variety of different looking faces and hairstyles, at least those look decent. It's so hard to make a character look good in Oblivion.

Thank you! It was sooooo hard to make a good looking character in Oblivion that I just gave up and never bothered with it. Morrowind had it best because you could just pick heads that were already made. Then again, it is nice to adjust some features to a head. But Oblivion's was just so hard to work with.

» Fri May 27, 2011 11:12 pm

Have a decent number of presets for the hopeless and those that can't be bothered and leave the rest of FaceGen alone for those of us who like to tinker. As far as NPCs go, they were getting better in Shivering Isles and better still in FO3. I'm sure Beth will improve on them more for Skyrim.

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:13 am

Eh, I dig the original models. Even Morrowind's, they just have a certain charm. At least they fit in the world, unlike those ridiculous "eyecandy" mods that make females look so unrealistic.

Not sure I even know what to say to that. :unsure: The default models in OB were terrible, lets not even talk about MW anymore. I don't think I could play OB if it wasn't for the mod bodies. I just hope the skeletons being used for Skyrim are more akin to OB than FO, cause the FO characters looked worse even with mods.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:36 am

Have different hights and builds, not just 1 for each race. Not every imperial will have the same body with a different head shoved on.

» Sat May 28, 2011 5:49 am

I could really care less how Beth makes the models.
If they are good, then Ill be fine. If the svck, like the previous games, I will just download a body replacer mod. They are always the first out.\
One thing I am hoping for is diverse body types. I want fat people, tall people, short people, all kinds!

» Sat May 28, 2011 9:41 am

I want varried bodies.

Needs more fat people and old people with crooked backs. It would also be nice if body-size was not exclusive to the races you pick.

It would be cool if you could edit the body that way as well.

» Sat May 28, 2011 1:01 am

People who want "realistic" seem to miss the point that this is a virtual world, not reality, and even in reality, there are (and have been throughout history) many very aesthetically attractive people. Today, you can look around the WWW as well as around yourself in real life and see any number of aesthetically attractive people, particularly people who are in decent shape (which people in Tamriel woulld certainly be, for the most part).

The complaints about Bethesda's characters is that there is no real variety, no choice of having an aesthetically attractive character. In addition, just because a character appears dainty or slender doesn't mean they are not extremely dangerous. Ask Legolas or other elven fantasy characters about this fact.

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:18 am

The NPC's could look much better. Potato heads gotta go. Concerning the character creation, that's entirely in the hands of the player. Maybe it's just me, but I have never found Oblivion's character creator to be "difficult" or "hard". e.g., modeled my main character http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/4731/archmagenorrin.png in like 10 mins. I find the key to good character models is experimentation and making efficient use of all the sliders. Move your character around, study it from every possible angle. I think too many players expect to change a few settings here or there and come out with a decent character.

» Sat May 28, 2011 2:21 am

I hope they choose well from those modders.... 99% of character modelsand outfits modded for oblivion:
have boated poly counts beyond all neccessity
have no idea how to bake normal maps from a high poly model
have texture resolutions so high that 50mb of texture sheets per model isn't all that uncommon.*
have no idea how to correctly optimise anything for games. ever
Have probably spent waaaay too long on this over budget asset, and couldn't keep up with the demands of the bosses
Most don't fit into the games art direction...saying that neither do a lot of Ob vanilla assets. F3 for me was so far superior in the assets consistency and style.

* I saw a very simple gun for fallout that have 75mb of textures, but completely wasted 30mb, yes completely wasted, on blank alpha channels...doubling the file sizes of the diffuse maps. the thing is one of the top rated files for NV, that is the most noob error you can possibly do. And mod users have no idea that it is basically [censored]. and over rate it. Hopefully all that miss placed praise doesn't go to their heads and they think they are actually good.

tbh I would like to see what they can do with real poly texture sheet budgets< I bet 99% will be owned hands down.

the other 1%... :icecream: :trophy: :bowdown:

Yeah most of the bethesda modding community is quite ameture, good thing there are still a tone of great mods out there though. Even if it takes forever to trudge through the over-rated crap by the weeabos on Nexus

» Sat May 28, 2011 2:58 am

Have you guys seen what EVE online is working on?

Check it out: http://kotaku.com/5692084/this-isnt-character-creation-its-more-amazing-than-that

I would appreciate something along these lines.