Tier Sets on Dracthyr Evokers - Is this possible?

[Kumorii]

A permissible compromise for me would be to simply show only Evoker gear on Evokers. No need to dive into the entire back catalogue of Shaman and Hunter gear.

#metoo m8, #metoo

[Mutineer]

A permissible compromise for me would be to simply show only Evoker gear on Evokers. No need to dive into the entire back catalogue of Shaman and Hunter gear.

I'd also be fine with this, but fitting the 3D components of the newer models in general shouldn't be too difficult for them to do either, right?

[Berkilak]

I'd also be fine with this, but fitting the 3D components of the newer models in general shouldn't be too difficult for them to do either, right?

If every piece needs to be hand-fitted, I'm fine with them just giving us the Evoker stuff.

[Mutineer]

Yeah, that'd be fair!

[Cradix]

Yeah, that's how I would do it as well. I think I mentioned it in later posts... fairly sure I touched upon this.
Even in your example though you can see that the textures are just messed up. Correct places, but messed up.

With the heads, yea, as they they're one of the areas that isn't shared among models, since head armor is 3d and doesn't need to concern itself with the texture mapping for different races.

It could also be that these named NPC's are made with exceptions in the implementation. Which can work for a model that work with 1 set of looks and design purposes. But when adding it to a model that's supposed to work with everything else in the past and also in the future making exceptions can cause troubles.

No, it's actually the opposite: using a model with a uv map that's not designed to use pre-existing textures causes more trouble, as you now have to create uv textures that are used exclusively by that model. Sharing UV map spaces actually gives you significantly quicker workflow because about 99% of your gearing issues are already solved when they can simply share the exact same textures.

1 texture can easily be made to fit 13 different races when they all share the same uv map is also a lot more economical in terms of game size, since a texture that's 512 W x 512 H takes up only 437 KB, while having to make 13 textures that are used by only one model can easily take up 5.681 MB of memory.

See my prior comment about heads. As they all don't share a similar UV map, even something like a basic chainmail texture that most games would use is instead a 3d helm model that uses a chainmail texture. It's also how they got a lot of mileage out of vanilla gear, as a basic helm or shoulder could be retextured multiple times and still be used for different armor classes(aforementioned chainmail mail helm using the cloth hood model).

It's very hard to comment on this without seeing their workflow.

As someone who's been working on his own 3d models, it's actually pretty easy to know the workflow. Model workflow is :
Concept > Blocking > Sculpting > Retopo > UV Mapping.

Sure, I don't work at Blizzard, but it's pretty much the basic workflow of 3d modelling.

The only logical conclusion I CAN draw however is that it's not as simple as people assume. Because if it was it would be easy work. Maybe the wings already have their own textures but the body proportions compared to other races is enough to make the textures look as bad as on the night elf on the left.

IF it was as simple as placing the UV mapping according to older textures there's really no work in matching that compared to doing any other UV work. I have a hard time believing the lazy argument because frankly if it could work, it would be the lazy option.

The one on the right is Lanathel, the one on the left is the Human female. However, as to the stretching, allow me to show you with a better range of females to show you how the UV mapping works, with all using Lanathel's texture still, since she is, as I mentioned, a regular blood elf model given wings:


For disclosure, I did have to widen the textures of the models shown, but that's because current race textures use 1024 W x 512 H, and Lanathel's uses the older 512 W x 512 H size that the old player models used.

As for Pandaren, they have a unique UV map for their feet, which is why the texture is so different. But the other races share similar mapping space, so they do show Lanathel's feet accurately.

The legs are just because showing the robe geoset to show it correctly as a robe would prevent vision of how the legs share the same UV mapping.

Lets say you have 2 humanoids... 1 being a regular wow Human and one being the charger from L2D

Oh, this one's easy actually easier to explain here.


This is Blizzard's file structure for WoW as seen in WoW Model Viewer. Player models are under the Character file structure, and NPC's using non-player models fall under the Creature file structure.

As Creature models don't need to wear player gear, their UV mapping doesn't have to conform to player UV mapping. A such, instead of sharing UV space alongside all the other player races, creature models can have their textures as islands completely disconnected from one another. I could take a creature model like, say, Sethrak, and they would be unable to have player gear added to them due to how they are uv mapped.

If you were to match the arm textures on the charger to a regular humans textures, due to proportions the big arm on the charger would be having stretched textures and most likely some blurry look to it due to the resolution of it. In contrast the other arm would be opposite. It would probably look alright length wise, but around the arm the texture would be squished and, if we assume it's smaller than the humans arm, it would look more sharp because of the higher resolution space on it.'

All the UV map does is tell the model how to project the texture. For example, you can increase the resolution of the player textures from 1024 W x 512 Hto 4096 W x 2048 H and change nothing of the UV mapping, and you'd still get sharper quality for the 4096x2048 size. More polygons, though, would get you even sharper quality, but you don't have to alter the UV map for that.

To match the arm with the Human arm, I'd have to restructure the UV map to match that of the charger's arm, as they don't share the same UV mapping at all.

There's lots of issues reusing textures between models based on proportions alone. We already see this with pandarens stomache, but that's a compromise they went with. I would assume more parts would look bad on the Dracthyr since it's not done on them. As well as matching their mapping to old textures could lead to bad resolutions for their own body parts which could use higher resolution in the texture space.

I believe my picture above showing Lanathel's texture applied to the races I chose is applicable here as well as to how texturing them as player characters would work.

[doodle90]

Not allowing them to wear armor is just lazy, tauren have horns can wear helmets, worgen have claws and paws can wear boots and gloves, The only thing I can see limited is cloaks and back armor due tot he wings but they also could map it between the wings or make them tiny like vulpera. They are just being lazy. Not a good way to start an expansion. Mechagnomes are already dead in the water due to not being able to tmog 90% of items. FF14 has massive complaints abouyt their 2 races not able to wear helmets. Its a very bad design choice. Especially when collecting Tmogs is one of the few things to do that isn't GO GO GO MOAR GEAR

[Kumorii]

With the heads, yea, as they they're one of the areas that isn't shared among models, since head armor is 3d and doesn't need to concern itself with the texture mapping for different races.

And the hands, and the legs and chest piece... none of the parts fit properly. Awful stretching all around the places. It's not just the head.

No, it's actually the opposite: using a model with a uv map that's not designed to use pre-existing textures causes more trouble, as you now have to create uv textures that are used exclusively by that model. Sharing UV map spaces actually gives you significantly quicker workflow because about 99% of your gearing issues are already solved when they can simply share the exact same textures.

1 texture can easily be made to fit 13 different races when they all share the same uv map is also a lot more economical in terms of game size, since a texture that's 512 W x 512 H takes up only 437 KB, while having to make 13 textures that are used by only one model can easily take up 5.681 MB of memory.

See my prior comment about heads. As they all don't share a similar UV map, even something like a basic chainmail texture that most games would use is instead a 3d helm model that uses a chainmail texture. It's also how they got a lot of mileage out of vanilla gear, as a basic helm or shoulder could be retextured multiple times and still be used for different armor classes(aforementioned chainmail mail helm using the cloth hood model).

yes, you are correct, which I believe I mentioned in my posts.
being able to reuse textures by using the same kind of uv mapping is indeed a better workflow.
I did however talk about the different problems that could arise with it based on the new models proportions and the amount of parts it has.
It's not just taking a new model and make the uv mapping fit according to textures if that doesn't align with the proportions and relative mapping resolution required for different parts. As per my charger example.

Also, i'd like to clarify that I wasn't exactly talking about the resolution of the textures itself. Since that's depending on the texture image being applied.
So when I talk about resolution in UV mapping space that's the relative resolution allocation of any texture being piped into it. Should've clarified that part, but to me when talking about resolution and UV mapping you talk about the relative resolution allocation within the UV space.

If you have a model and give 80% of the space to the face for example, 80% of the resolution of any of the textures applied will go to the face. 20% of the resolution will go to the rest of the model. Which will make for an awful look because you most likely need more than 20% of the resolution for the rest of the parts.
This is why I mentioned sharpness and bluriness. No matter the size of a texture you slap on, the difference will still be there, although at some point you probably won't see it.

As someone who's been working on his own 3d models, it's actually pretty easy to know the workflow. Model workflow is :
Concept > Blocking > Sculpting > Retopo > UV Mapping.

Sure, I don't work at Blizzard, but it's pretty much the basic workflow of 3d modelling.

I'm talking about the entire workflow of game development. It doesn't end with the above. It is true that's the modelling workflow though.
When I was talking about exceptions I was talking about how the engine handles stuff. It wouldn't surprise me if handles NPC's that don't have multi textures based on armor appearances different to player models. Hence why it's hard to comment on how implementation of textures and armor transmogs will work and what's feasible.

The one on the right is Lanathel, the one on the left is the Human female. However, as to the stretching, allow me to show you with a better range of females to show you how the UV mapping works, with all using Lanathel's texture still, since she is, as I mentioned, a regular blood elf model given wings:


For disclosure, I did have to widen the textures of the models shown, but that's because current race textures use 1024 W x 512 H, and Lanathel's uses the older 512 W x 512 H size that the old player models used.

As for Pandaren, they have a unique UV map for their feet, which is why the texture is so different. But the other races share similar mapping space, so they do show Lanathel's feet accurately.

The legs are just because showing the robe geoset to show it correctly as a robe would prevent vision of how the legs share the same UV mapping.

Mentioned this previous but yeah, the models have clear issues especially with the hands and chest piece. So they obviously have different UV mapping.
The other races do share mapping space indeed. Which I never contested... In fact, I think my arguments all supports that idea. I've been talking about that transmogs and texture armor pieces work JUST BECAUSE they share the same UV mapping layout.

You see the exact same problem across all races. So we agree on this. Now, my argument is that because of Dracthyrs vastly different model and proportions they can't share the same UV space because there will be problems with stretching and squeezing and various errors with the pre-existing textures.

Oh, this one's easy actually easier to explain here.


This is Blizzard's file structure for WoW as seen in WoW Model Viewer. Player models are under the Character file structure, and NPC's using non-player models fall under the Creature file structure.

As Creature models don't need to wear player gear, their UV mapping doesn't have to conform to player UV mapping. A such, instead of sharing UV space alongside all the other player races, creature models can have their textures as islands completely disconnected from one another. I could take a creature model like, say, Sethrak, and they would be unable to have player gear added to them due to how they are uv mapped.

I don't understand what you are trying to argue here... I wasn't arguing the charger or creatures in the game are sharing textures with player models.
It was an example to illustrate the proportions of models(Dracthyr being vastly different in proportions) will cause issues with pre-existing textures. Simply because you have try to squeeze in 2 arms that require different relative resolution into the same texture space of models that have uniformed arm sizes.

All the UV map does is tell the model how to project the texture. For example, you can increase the resolution of the player textures from 1024 W x 512 Hto 4096 W x 2048 H and change nothing of the UV mapping, and you'd still get sharper quality for the 4096x2048 size. More polygons, though, would get you even sharper quality, but you don't have to alter the UV map for that.

To match the arm with the Human arm, I'd have to restructure the UV map to match that of the charger's arm, as they don't share the same UV mapping at all.

Same as I mentioned earlier... not talking about texture resolutions per-se but rather the relative UV mapping resolution. Charger example would require maybe 30% of the UV mapping space be allocated to his right arm while maybe just 5-10% on the left arm. That's to give the same relative resolution in proportion to their size on model.

There's a reason why you often just checkers as a texture when you do UV mapping to make sure that you have a uniform allocation of the UV space. of course there are exceptions made based on what the model is gonna be used for. heads in general gets a bit more UV space because it's more details for it etc etc. If you do hand close ups you might want to give more resolution to the hands and so on.

I believe my picture above showing Lanathel's texture applied to the races I chose is applicable here as well as to how texturing them as player characters would work.

Yeah and to me they wouldn't work. And I hardly believe players would be happy to get such a bad quality texturing work.

To summarize. Based on the proportions of the Dracthyr model you'd have to stretch and squeeze it's UV mapping to fit onto previous races textures for armors. Thus it will lead to stretched and squished textures on the model. Which often happens to most races. Though they are similar in proportions but even in your example you can see that things stretches differently and also some textures are more sharp and blurry depending on the race. This is something that is present in current races as well.


As you can see with the gnome compared to the Draenei.

On the gnome they are awfully squished. You can see that especially on the legs of the gnome but also chestpiece is oddly different. The belt is squished etc etc. You can also see that the sharpness on the gnomes texture is better than on the draenei. Because the head takes up so much of the model the rest of the parts get more resolution compared to their relative size. Leading to sharper image because of more resolution. It would probably need 60% to the head and 40% to the body But fitting it to other races textures that have other proportions that require maybe 60% body and 40% head (numbers made up for demonstrative purposes) it has more resolution than needed for his body.
So these problems ALREADY exist. This just confirms what I'm talking about, hopefully I made myself more clear. Why this is ok for the gnome though is because it's such a small model and you rarely see them zoomed in. On a distance it looks alright.

The 3d pieces, like shoulders, gloves and feet you can see the resolution (sharpness) is similar, because they are separate pieces with their own model.. another problem is that they had to squeeze the wrist and ankle part of the models to fit with the gnome. Which causes a squeezed look.

Now, since both you and I agree on that mapping the Dracthyr to the same UV layout as previous races is LESS WORK since you can just reuse all the old textures and any future textures have to only be done once. And Blizzard being lazy...they should've just gone for it, right? So why didn't they? It's lazy and "easy" option.
Only conclusion I can draw from that since they didn't went with the easy option is that the textures would look horrendous due to the Dracthyrs vastly different model both in parts, form and proportions.

[Vaedan]

Considering Evoker is, as of now, a one-race class and a one-class race, it should be more than possible for Evoker tier armor to be fitted to both forms. It should be less work than other tier sets (bar DH) that require the armor to be fitted to several races at once.

Since MoP, tier set appearances are not strictly limited to the class, so you can unlock shaman tier set appearance on hunter. In that way, they need to design Evoker sets for all races too, because each race in game has option to be hunters.

I get that Dragon form has it's limitation, especially for back and head, but we already have tauren, worgen and vulpera who all have their own issues with head t-mogs. I just dislike the limitation to shoulder, tabard and belt only, which does not make sense.

[FossilFree]

If old armor is proving challenging, then they should just make it so all new mail armor is designed to work for dracthyr from here on out. Then go back when there is time and gradually work on the old stuff until everything is eventually updated.

But if it comes down to only their tier sets and/or only the 3D parts of armor, that is a compromise I'm willing to make. But just shoulders and belts isn't enough when dracthyr look THAT badass in full armor. This is one time they really need to listen to player feedback, and they said they were now so let's see it happen.

[Auburst]

If old armor is proving challenging, then they should just make it so all new mail armor is designed to work for dracthyr from here on out. Then go back when there is time and gradually work on the old stuff until everything is eventually updated.

Preach! Armors for those fucks!

[Berkilak]

If old armor is proving challenging, then they should just make it so all new mail armor is designed to work for dracthyr from here on out. Then go back when there is time and gradually work on the old stuff until everything is eventually updated.

But if it comes down to only their tier sets and/or only the 3D parts of armor, that is a compromise I'm willing to make. But just shoulders and belts isn't enough when dracthyr look THAT badass in full armor. This is one time they really need to listen to player feedback, and they said they were now so let's see it happen.

Honestly, I wouldn't even expect them to go back.

Just make Evoker armour show up on Evokers and I'll be chill.

[Gigantique]

Yeah, stretching for sure already exist... the drawback of having shared textures across multitude of races with different shapes. They are however manageable.

If the solution is to not model the race that it becomes an issue... how would you make this race?
How would you make a dragon race without it's wings for example? You would have a model looking more like a lizard. Fairly sure people would want to have wings on the model....
Thus it will share texture space, thus it will have a different UV mapping, thus it will not work with current textures.

I guess the real answer would be to not make a dragon race with wings. I doubt that would be met with praise though, only complaints about why the wings aren't there.

I do agree and think they should perhaps change their approach of how they deal with these sort of things. But it's easy to say without knowing how the entire engine and foundation is built up. You can't exactly rework the entire model and texturing process of such a long standing game and have everything work, it would probably lead to redoing lots of shit.
Like, my answer to this problem would be have the wings as a separate model and thus not share the same UV space. I'm not sure how that would work with their rigging and animation and maybe even material stuff in their engine though, so It's easy to say, but could be hell in practice.

Main point of my post is mostly to give a little bit of insight. I also want them to wear armors. As much of it as possible. Though my main would be the shoulder pads and belts, because they are often 3d models themselves and they stand out the most. I wish they would go away from the texture only when it comes to chest pieces and legs myself...

I have no exp in this so my question might be impossible on a technical level, but could you just make the wings a "separate" model when it comes to textures? So the wings are on a technical level a different model that follows the main model and thus not part of this UV texture "budget" armour has to cover?

[Kumorii]

I have no exp in this so my question might be impossible on a technical level, but could you just make the wings a "separate" model when it comes to textures? So the wings are on a technical level a different model that follows the main model and thus not part of this UV texture "budget" armour has to cover?

You can in the 3D programs at least, that's where my uncertainty on why they don't. Depends on their model import workflow and how the engine handles models and textures as well as materials. Maybe they don't support material/texture per polygon. And not only that, as someone else showed they already done so with an NPC. So i must assume it works differently for player models, which often is the case. NPCs can be made with exceptions because they have a niche usecase.

But even if it was possible by separating the wings. I think the actual model itself is drastically different to previous humanoids in proportions. So I also suspect that just matching the models mapping to old textures would still look odd and some parts that require more resolution might get less etc etc.

Read my post about the l4d2 charger vs wow human that goes more in depth of it.

But remember this is just speculation.

[FossilFree]

Honestly, I wouldn't even expect them to go back.

Just make Evoker armour show up on Evokers and I'll be chill.

Yea, I wouldn't mind if they didn't go back if that meant we could have armor on them going forward. Maybe even generic Dragonflight mail leveling gear and dungeon drops could work with dracthyr. But at any rate, I really want the tier sets to show at least. That's too cool to pass up!

[draugril]

Yea, I wouldn't mind if they didn't go back if that meant we could have armor on them going forward. Maybe even generic Dragonflight mail leveling gear and dungeon drops could work with dracthyr. But at any rate, I really want the tier sets to show at least. That's too cool to pass up!

That’s really my bare minimum of expectation. It’s inexcusable that a new race isn’t as “fully featured” as even diaper gnomes.

[FossilFree]

That’s really my bare minimum of expectation. It’s inexcusable that a new race isn’t as “fully featured” as even diaper gnomes.

Agreed. I was hoping they wouldn't repeat the limited transmog mistake they made with them, it was poorly received.

[Kathranis]

Since tier sets are bespoke for each class, and the only race that can be Evokers is Dracthyr, I would expect the tier sets to be almost more like Heritage Armor. Gives them the freedom of not having to make sure it conforms to any of the other races, so they can go all out on tailoring it specifically to the Dracthyr.

[FossilFree]

Since tier sets are bespoke for each class, and the only race that can be Evokers is Dracthyr, I would expect the tier sets to be almost more like Heritage Armor. Gives them the freedom of not having to make sure it conforms to any of the other races, so they can go all out on tailoring it specifically to the Dracthyr.

It's going to be really lame if their tier sets only show on their male blood elf/human female form.

[Berkilak]

It's going to be really lame if their tier sets only show on their male blood elf/human female form.

It would be so incredibly deflating for my enthusiasm for the class if this is the case.

[VinceVega]

Honestly if they don't let drakthyr wear transmogs. Evrything! it is a dead race for. Always half nude wide-hipped furry dragons is NOT something i need to see constantly while playing games...
And yeah you could still hide half the transmog but that is not something many people do on the existing races allready.

And idgaf about their reskinned elf form. I don't play a dragon just to turn into an elf/human again... so unneccesary