Wow Armor development. The only standard is human?

[Trassk]

This is something thats been bugging me for a while now in terms of blizzards development team and how they create armor sets.

While the degree of how they design the armor ingame is exceptional, I have an enormous issue with how they seem to set a standard for all armor creations, that being of the male human model.

We see it all the time, here on mmo champ, when a new armor set comes out, it is always displayed on a human male model to show of there great new work they are giving the players. And for obvious reason, because the human male model is so straight backed, plain and unassuming, nothing can look bad when using such a generic model.

And thats where the problems come from, when using armor pieces on other racial models (more male I'd say, since all females in wow are straight backed and petite), clipping issues come into it, ultimately ruining the way armor prices look on other characters.



this is a generic look at the last tier set for cataclysm on a human male. looks great doesn't it?

That is until you have that peice shown on a worgen male:



Now suddenly not so great. Makes the warlock head look like a worgen with a bad chin infection.

Likewise on a tauren:



But its not just helms, Given the straight backed generic model humans have, remember all the fuss they made about the new belts they introduced into mists of pandaria, how it used a new form of visual technology that was above anything they tried before:



Fantastic, on a human or a pandaren.. Until you try leveling a troll or another hunched character, and you get this:


(Given, worgen can't be monks so can't get this belt, but its still there to see)

I honestly could go on posting loads of images of examples where armor peices are obviously designed using the generic human male, and left by chance for the other races to look good, despite looking awful. But theres to many to count right now.

I just wonder if the developers even consider so much of this when designing the sets, given I can appreciate its a pain staking job to get new armor pieces turned out. But its so rare to find armor that can look good and actually works for all characters across the spectrum and doesn't involve clipping, being to large, or look like shoulderpads floating over the characters shoulders (like most draenei or orcs).

Sometimes the small details make for the better choice, and here I would like to see that taken notice of by the developers.

[Rivin]

That's all subjective. I always thought the priest T13 helm looked awesome on worgen and tauren. I really don't see what the issue with the belt on the troll/worgen is either, although that might be the camera angle. Is it clipping into their stomachs or something?

EDIT: Never mind, I see the tassels are clipping into their legs.

[Zethras]

Ill agree it really looks shit on your hero up close, but the way wow plays you dont really notice the fine detail in your character unless its on your mind.

However I dont think its viable for the animators to actually sit there and remodel every piece of gear for the different races and keep them in line with the race specific animations. Since bipedal humans are the neutral model that all other races are based around its a safe bet to prioritize modelling the gear for humans, then briefly touching it up for other races.

Helms should be at least for tauren and worgen, everything else works because all the races are bipedal and only 3 (tauren worgen and draenei) have 2 joint legs, which doesn't really matter.

[Trassk]

That's all subjective. I always thought the priest T13 helm looked awesome on worgen and tauren. I really don't see what the issue with the belt on the troll/worgen is either, although that might be the camera angle. Is it clipping into their stomachs or something?

EDIT: Never mind, I see the tassels are clipping into their legs.

No the cord is actually phasing into there legs, just from standing around idol.

Its only subjective is it works well with the model in question and someone can see that, you might be someone who doesn't mind a worgens snout poking though a helm that wasn't deigned for that. But having armor pieces clipping into the character isn't subjective, its just bad design.

[docterfreeze]

A lot of sets look good on Orcs too, especially if the main focus on the set is the shoulders.

[Shampro]

A lot of sets look good on Orcs too, especially if the main focus on the set is the shoulders.

Orcs imo looks awesome in almost any set, reason why I play mostly Orcs aside from the Lore,etc. Now if only they could not be hunched, it would be EVEN better. (Oh Character models, ill see you soon)

[Rivin]

Its only subjective is it works well with the model in question and someone can see that, you might be someone who doesn't mind a worgens snout poking though a helm that wasn't deigned for that. But having armor pieces clipping into the character isn't subjective, its just bad design.

Well the priest helm was modified specifically to fit around worgen and tauren muzzles, and it looks good. If the muzzles were actually clipping through the faceguard that might be another story.

The warlock helm looks silly, but again they're not clipping through it, so at least some thought was put into making them work.

[Netherspark]

Helm items are individually reshaped for every race and gender.

But what do you expect them to do? They have to base the gear on something and can't account for every race's body shapes all the time. They can't exactly make special gear for every race.

The only other choice would be to just make all gear bland and simple, or to make every race look the same.

[Sam the Wiser]

The warlock helm on Worgen and Tauren made for a good laugh. Still I see your point. I thought that they modeled armor on orcs too tho.

[Raediance]

Yet you don't bring up how night elves always have their eyebrows going through their helms? Its not a big deal. Go be a human if its such a big deal what your temporary gear looks like when you have transmog available. : / I still understand your frustration, but there are ways around it to make your character still look good!

[Vulpei]

Roll a human then. I get sick of all this 'I want my orc to stand straight' bullshit. You chose your race, you can choose another easy enough.

[Xeraxis]

So you would rather them cut the snouts off of Tauren and Worgen so that their helms look the same as human ones?

[Hexotic]

U should see the tier looking belt on an undead warlock lol. The coin looking thing eats into the body and the pattern thats under the coin ends up on top making it look very goofy.

[Yig]

They avoid as many clipping issues as they can without going in to tweak every single item by hand, and they still end up tweaking many of them that are too blatant. But species like like Worgen and Tauren were not made to really wear helms and head armor in the first place. We're lucky they even get the customization given to them that they do. They are better off with muzzles and head dresses, it's hard to design something in the first place for a race like that to wear on it's head that should be shared with every race in the game.

---------- Post added 2013-02-10 at 12:09 AM ----------

Roll a human then. I get sick of all this 'I want my orc to stand straight' bullshit. You chose your race, you can choose another easy enough.

Trolls and Tauren are supposed to have that hunch. Orcs were given an extremely exaggerated hunch back in WOW that makes their established look look like shit and people are right to wonder why. Orcs are supposed to have necks that slant, not shoulders that make them look like Forest Gump the Neanderthal.

Which is why Thrall's new model, as well as Garrosh and Nazgrim in the Jade Forest intro, have had their back posture changed to look like it should look in the concept art.