This is something I've heard (read) people say more than once, and it's just baffles me. When I saw the Oblivion character creation screen for the very time, I was thrilled to see that this wasn't a game that gave me Conan-like men and women wearing only a string of clothing and having more make-up on than a Hollywood model. To me, the Oblivion characters don't look ugly, they look real. Even the Mer-races looked realistic. I think it's a bit sad if anything short of Conan and fake model-looks is classified as "ugly". Neither do I agree that it's nearly impossible to create a really good-looking character if you want to - I created a young Nord woman that I think looks quite nice. Only mod-thing is the hair, but she would look just as good with a vanilla hair style: http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn74/Tabris93/?action=view¤t=Anne.jpg

I guess it probably just comes down to preference. I've never been that interested in the too fantastical fantasy, where men have more muscles than a body builder and women wear heavy make-up and they all got at least one boob job done. To me it's easier to become immersed in a world that feels and looks real, including the NPCs.

Yeah, it's kinda weird that everyone, even old men like Jauffre are built like Mr. Universe, but I agree. This isn't one of those dress-up games where you make your character all pretty. They made is realistic. Which I think is awesome.

I agree. A cursory glance at at some of the entries in Renee Gade's "Am I hot? Or NOT?" thread will prove that some very wonderful, unmodded faces can be made.

As to body proportions and 'strings of clothing' I think Bethesda's aesthetics are tasteful and appealing. They manage to create clothes and armor that are appealing and reasonably realistic (or in the case of fantasy armors like Daedric, probable) without resorting to chainmail bikinis.

I have been playing an online game called 'Vanguard: Saga of Heroes' off and on for the past three years. It's a wonderful game, possibly the game that most reminds me of Morrowind in many ways. But two years ago the devs decided to go for what they called a 'sixy' look. Male bodies become grotesquely steroidal, female bodies became anorexic. It broke my heart. The models were so lovely before: nicely and fairly realistically proportioned, very pleasing overall. Now, it's just sad. My significant other made a plate-wearing character and her arms - I swear this is true - made Olive Oyl look muscular. She couldn't continue. It just looked awful.

Bethesda is pretty good at avoiding that kind of thinking. I hope they always do.

The only thing I think is particularly ugly is the face colouring. People's faces aren't purple, ever!

They are if you're choking someone.

Well, tone can be adjusted, so that's not really much of an issue. There are some NPC's with strange skin though. Dion in Skingrad is an absolute Orange.

My personal opinion is that yes, facial features, etc looked much more real than any other game I've played. However, they seriously need work in paying attention to detail and that's what mods do for me. It's not about the bodies or make up. It's about skin that isn't green if you want to play a darker toned character. Or one who doesn't have a 5'oclock shadow if you're female. Eyelashes, etc. You could make some nice looking, real characters without mods for sure. But with them it's easier to get rid of those small annoyances. At least that's why I use them *shrugs*. Can't speak for others.

The problem isn't really that the characters are ugly, though yes, I agree that they are, for the most part, and it's not just by the standards the media would give us which are unrealistic for most people, even for an average person, I would not say someone who looked like http://images.uesp.net//e/ec/OB-npc-Jensine.jpg is pretty. But more than that, the faces DON'T feel realistic to me. It seems like they TRY to be realitic, but just end up looking off instead. I think it's partially due to the weird skin tones that can come about with some characters (No human should have purple skin, if you see someone who does, SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THAT PERSON) Also the lack of detail in the skin textures doesn't help, everyone looks like their skin is perfectly smooth and doesn't have any detail to it, but that's fixed by texture replacers. More than that, though, I think it's just that the characters don't seem to have realistic variety to their appearances, Sure, every character's appearance is somewhat different, but for the most part, no one has any really striking features. All the faces are just kind of... forgetable, sure, it's more realistic than everyone looking like a model, but the trade-off isn't that none of the characters really look memorable. I think the problem is primarily that this is Bethesda's first time using Facegen, while it brought a level of customization to player characters that was simply not possible in past Elder Scrolls games without using new face models, and helped to avoid the repeated use of the same face that plagued Morrowind, it also meant that none of the faces really stand out. Not that I'm saying Bethesda shouldn't use Facegen in future games, just that when using this kind of technology for the first time, the results might be ideal. But I think that with Fallout 3, they've already done better than in Oblivion, admitably, they did improve the quality of the facial textures somewhat, as well as adding actual beards to the game, but I like to think that having more experience working with Facegen also contributed to the improvement, and maybe there will be further improvements in future Bethesda games.

Though to be quite honest, if I can't have a realistic level of variety in the appearance of characters in my game, I'd rather have everyone look pretty than everyone look ugly. Either way is unrealistic, but at least if everyone is pretty, the characters are more pleasant to look at.

The bodies are kind of a problem too, but that's mostly because every character is stuck with the same body. So all characters, be they nobleman who never get any physical activity and have everything they need provided to them, powerful and skilled warriors, or beggers, all have the same generic, somewhat athletic but not extreme body, its even stranger when you have older characters as their faces might look like people in their sixties or seventies, but below the neck they look like people in their twenties. Unfortunately, as long as they game has only two body models, male and female, there isn't much that can be done to avoid that.




And he NPCs are the biggest problem, really, I can make my own characters look the way I want with enough effort. But NPCs look like they have some sort of disfiguring disease, the only thing I can do about that is download mods.

I have to say I view it differently. I do agree that the faces aren't ideal, and there are certainly room for improvement. But to use the example NPC you used, I think she looks realistic. Actually, I think she looks quite nice, and not ugly at all. And by looking nice, I'm not talking about the crazy media standard, but from a human point of view set in a world where (luckily) make-up, waxing and boob jobs were a non-issue.

I agree with OP. That the NPCs one encounters throughout Cyrodiil aren't all invariably young hunks and/or fashion-models is a solid plus. There ARE a number of physically "beautiful" NPCs in Cyrodiil, as in real-life, but by-and-large the realm consists of a healthy mixture of old and young, drab and enticing. I'd go so far as to say that this mixture makes those occasional "hotties" stand out from the crowd all the more.

I certainly appreciated being able to generate an oldish, somewhat homely face for my avatar. Being an older player (a few months shy of 60) I find that I can't easily relate to youthful appearance anymore. http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn303/Decrepit_Waste/ESIV%20Oblivion/2ndPlaythroughCover1.jpg.

And yes, I too wish that the game would allow less muscularly chiseled physiques. Something a little "dumpier". I suppose that would have required addition resource eating armor clothing sets.

-Decrepit-

I agree that vanilla characters can look fine. I do wish the vanilla aspects could do a little better with blotchiness and neckseams and matching body skin tones to faces. Much can be done with vanilla, but it is very hard.

Here is a pure vanilla http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv43/Acadian6/Buffy%20I/ScreenShot88.jpg. Buffy thinks Sigrid is the one who had the boob job. :lmao:

I agree with what a lot of people said. One of the beautiful things about games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 is that the characters don't all look like supermodels, they look just like ordinary people you see every day (except of course for the fact that there are no obese people in these worlds).

I don't really have a problem with games making all the characters look sixy, but it's nice to have a game where the NPCs look like ordinary people.

its easy enough to make a very nice looking character without mods, and blotchy face can be fixed by tilting the forehead all the way forward then changing the skin tone and moving the forehead back again, Doing this causes the skin on the face to snap back nice and tight and completely removes any blotches.

If that actually works. Thanks so much. :foodndrink:

You truly learn something new about Bethesda games, everytime.

It does to a point. But doesn't address greenish skin tones on dark toned characters or 5'oclock shadows or neckseams or or or .... LOL

True.. but it makes a massive difference to the face

When I first played Oblivion it was on a older pc that could not be updated anymore..
So I had a ton of lag and few details at all and the end movie made me weep with frustration, but I still saw the beauty of it even though it took me longer than it does now.

Now I see the difference in peoles faces and I like it.. whether its older, weathered, younger smooth.
Or that point somewhere in between where the features you worked on getting right, just all come together and you have your characters looks perfected.

That said I reaaaaly like looking at hot characters in games, my diffenition of hot is not standard as I like flaws on faces that makes someone attractive but unique...
That said though anything that would just define a person in real life is a good thing to have in a game.

The character models aren't the best but as you can see in fallout, they have improved. By the time ES V comes out, I bet the character models will look just fine.

I am happy that oblivion does not have those pretty faces, like males are not overly muscular they can actually move with out all the muscle getting in the way like other games, and females actually wear clothes in this game unlike other games.
But yea besides the neck seams and the whole if you grow a beard your body gets darker thing I like this game

I've always thought Jensine looked very nice. I'd go further and say she is pretty.

But to each his, or her, own.

My problem is that you can really only make one "type." No matter what you do to the faces they all look at least a little bit similar. I think this is a result of the inability to alter any of the facial features beyond a certain degree. Take the jaw width feature. Changing it doesn't make the jaw less prevailant (manly IMO) it just makes the face look thinner. The Facegen system needs tweeking. If it were possiblee to make a larger variety of faces without the assistance of mods or the construction set it wouldn't be such a commonly brought up topic. It doesn't help that there is only one body. It's impossoble to change the character's body type without mods. On that topic I actualy find it difficult to find any body replacers that arent nvde. It would probably be more realist if all the mens' abbs weren't so freakin' ripped too.

One thing thinking about face gens, that oblivion and other games should use.
Is to implement the variable tweaks found in the faces - chin / brow... etc, into hair as well.
For example widows peak / side burns / crowning / partings, fringes... etc, imo this would make a face and look more believable to set up.

If it's really that important, just play Sims. In the end, you're gonna be looking at the character's back most of the time anyway. Sure, it's good to have a nice looking character, but it's not the point.

Most Oblivion characters are ugly, and making your chracter look nice is very hard in most cases, and it takes way too much time to get it right (or close to right). :nope:

NPCs does not necessarily have to look beautiful, but they need more unique facial features.
More face meshes to choose from and different body shapes and sizes could also do TES some good, both for variety and for character creation. Creating a good looking character should be easy instead of hard. Fine, the NPCs can look ugly if Bethesda wants to, but I want my character to be good looking if I'm not roleplaying someone who is supposed to be ugly.

I think we have a very different view on what it means to be "ugly".

Agreed, I don't really think its all that difficult to create a decent face.

I always use the random generator until i find one thats reasonable and then tweak it to my liking.