To go along with char models. non painted-on gear

[Deleted]

"OH MY FUCKING GOD BLIZZARD, Y dont u start doing exactly what you've been doing for a couple tiers now but that i chose to ignore? FFS GREEDY"

Also, going back and redoing every bit of armor ever put in the game seems nothing more than a huge ass waste of time and effort, I'd rather have them focus on making all the new stuff have quality.

Kind of over the top don't you think? Could you point us to a 3d looking chest piece from a previous tier? not sure I can find one.

[Count Zero]

If anything, there's only one thing I want them to do for armor.

Complete revamps of Tier 1 and 2 sets for all classes. I don't mind if everything else looks like arse, Tier 1 and 2 is all I want to see remade in their current style.

-edit-

Oh, that and all heirloom gear. Heirlooms deserve to look better, possibly a revamp if you upgrade them the next tier up, 85->90.

Have you seen the character preview gear when you roll a new character ? Those are (more or less) updates of old gears. They look amazing.

[Kathranis]

There's no reason they have to redo all the old stuff. After all, old boots are still 'painted on,' but boots from current tiers tend to have actual geometry.

Not true. Boots -- all boots, from classic to present, have "geometry," as do gloves. Because the player models have geosets for various glove and boot shapes.

There's no way Blizzard is going to go back and create actual unique models for all of the chest pieces, but they could conceivably design new geosets for chest armor that will make it appear as if the character's armor has some more bulk to it. The textures would still be painted on, but it wouldn't look like it's painted on to their bare skin.

[Deleted]

Definitely not worth the investment IMO. Only chest/bracers are "painted-on" in recent gear. Also don't forget tabards, how would they look over weird geometry?

[Archangel Tyrael]

>10 years into WoW
>my orc's teeth still cut through his helmet

lol...

[Griffter]

It would be nice, but would drastically increase the system requirements unless they leave an option to turn it off in the graphics settings. They can do it for NPCs because that's just one model, but a whole city full of people in more complex clothing models could cause problems for a lot of people who aren't playing WoW on high-end gaming machines.

[Advent]

It would be nice, but would drastically increase the system requirements unless they leave an option to turn it off in the graphics settings. They can do it for NPCs because that's just one model, but a whole city full of people in more complex clothing models could cause problems for a lot of people who aren't playing WoW on high-end gaming machines.

What he said, basically. Is this really what people want, to alienate players with passable computers?

[Chirri]

I dunno. I might like to see them put in pants that work like paint on. Every race's males will have a unique package to conform to, that will jump and bounce with each footstep. Maybe give Tauren males a special "bounce" idle animation, as though to reposition.

Yes, armor that's not painted on to the female chest would be snazzy. Not limited to plate wearers, either - CLOTH DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT. At least plate and hardened leather almost make sense, as both of those can be actually shaped to conform, but fabric and flexible leather do not. It'd be fewer polys, not more, I imagine.

[mjolnir1122]

I was curious what other people thought about this... one of the things that have irked be over the years, in addition to dated character models... is the way gear looks on players. And I think with new tech they can improve on the "Painted" look.

We've seen some improvement in the belt department. so as it stands, shoulders, helm, some gloves, some boots, and some belts. Give the 3D look to armor. Even a few pants kinda look 3d.

But what about chest plate armor? I think with new models they might be able to make gear look like it does on the major NPC characters, like tyrande's armor, or Sylvanas' armor. Or even cloth that doesn't look completely skin tight. Especially on the ladies, cloth doesn't wear like that. It would take some odd kind of stitching.

Just a thought of mine, and wondered what you lovely people on the forums thought about it. I personally think it would make plate armor, and other armors look much cooler if they were 3D on the model

It is coming, it came up during MoP beta when they unveiled the belts. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was said that this would roll out with character models, since they said it would coincide alot better than if they did it now.

However, I highly doubt that they're going to revamp all the old gear, as that would take a massive amount of time. Also, it may or may not work for the old gear, as some of it would probably look weird since it wasn't designed that way.

Either way, we will be seeing it in the near future, I'm pretty certain of that.

[Mormolyce]

Maybe. Though with the belts, helms and shoulders it might end up looking cluttered, particularly on races with smaller chest areas.

Personally I'm hoping they make cloaks and capes better.

---------- Post added 2013-06-17 at 04:59 AM ----------

Definitely not worth the investment IMO. Only chest/bracers are "painted-on" in recent gear. Also don't forget tabards, how would they look over weird geometry?

Pretty sure pants are too unless you consider the "skirt" types which are painted onto a generic invisible skirt framework instead.

Ah poor old bracers. Why do they even have graphics? If ever there was an equipment slot you could safely remove...

[Deleted]

Again, if they do make that change I hope it can be turned off. Not for me, I like it (unless my PC goes crazy then I'd have to ) but, for instance, I have this raider that I've had to bench because his computer drops to such low FPS that his DPS suffers quite a lot and he's only in for farm fights until he gets his new PC and would just suck to see more people drop for that kind of crap.

[JoeShmo]

Yeah man, damn lazy bastards not willing to redo thousands and thousands of models they made over 9 years.

No, it was lazy of blizzard to slack on the armor pieces for 9 years to begin with. They can make true 3D models of every armor piece if they so wish, even back in 2004, they have just been cutting corners for years.

But the point was, that they could "now" start making the armors look appropriate, along with the changes to the characters models.

On a personal note, I agree that it would be nice to actually have plate armor that looks like plate, instead of pajamas with depth perception 2d drawings on them. It was kinda "cutesy" back in the day, but they seriously let that trick run its course well past its due date. Its definitely not something they can be proud of, when you have every other company out there making a much better effort to make use of 3D modeling for characters, rather than depending on a very old system from a decade ago.


On a side note, I find it perplexing and depressing when I do see blizzard artists try to make some really nice 3D models for cloth and leather wearers...that look exactly like plate and mail armor. Its like, "Good attempt guys...but you missed the proper class on that one."

[ReleaseDay]

Speaking of paint... I really hope they do for WoW what they did with D3 and armor paint colors

agreed, that was a good ide. I know blizz have talked about the idea of possible dye xmog in the future aswell

[Kaleredar]

There's no reason they have to redo all the old stuff. After all, old boots are still 'painted on,' but boots from current tiers tend to have actual geometry.

Boots have models associated with them. Off the top of my head, I can think of six boot style models... and only one of them is "glued to the character's feet." All the others, which are indeed included in Vanilla boot models, are 3D.

Redoing old armor to incorporate 3D geometry would be a tremendous amount of work no matter how you go about it.

Pretty sure pants are too unless you consider the "skirt" types which are painted onto a generic invisible skirt framework instead.

There are some (I believe only plate) pants that have flared projections on the thighs (Warrior tier 10, for example)

No, it was lazy of blizzard to slack on the armor pieces for 9 years to begin with. They can make true 3D models of every armor piece if they so wish, even back in 2004, they have just been cutting corners for years.

But the point was, that they could "now" start making the armors look appropriate, along with the changes to the characters models.

What proof do you have as to their "slacking?"

[Deleted]

agree 3D armor would look fantastic, hate when cloth, leather, mail and plate all look the same in WoW

[Viradiance]

Yes, more geosets please.

[Soulwind]

Boots, gloves, skirts and capes don't have actual models. They are painted on an extension of our body mesh.

What does that mean? They could add a few new common shapes for variety sake. There is no need to go as far as to model them like they do with shoulders, helmets and now belts. Afterall, they did add a new mesh for legs a while ago.



That, however, limits how imaginative they can be with the texture itself, as it has to match the shape.

They should definitely add more skirt sizes, open robes and coats.

[Yarathir]

I at least brought it up before, in a thread and yesterday in a discussion.

Yes, more geosets please.

Yes please. And some more unique models like the shoulders for tier or PvP gear.

Boots, gloves, skirts and capes don't have actual models. They are painted on an extension of our body mesh.

What does that mean? They could add a few new common shapes for variety sake. There is no need to go as far as to model them like they do with shoulders, helmets and now belts. Afterall, they did add a new mesh for legs a while ago.



That, however, limits how imaginative they can be with the texture itself, as it has to match the shape.

They should definitely add more skirt sizes, open robes and coats.

What they did here with the geoset was nice. Basically, if they make a few more geosets, they could just paste old textures onto them to make even older gear seem a bit new. The new gear, they can give actual models. Like say.. an actual robe with coattails, or a chestpiece with actual demon wings as a part of it instead of as spell effects, or gloves with claws and spikes on it.

[Soulwind]

What they did here with the geoset was nice. Basically, if they make a few more geosets, they could just paste old textures onto them to make even older gear seem a bit new. The new gear, they can give actual models. Like say.. an actual robe with coattails, or a chestpiece with actual demon wings as a part of it instead of as spell effects, or gloves with claws and spikes on it.

But those take a huge amount of time to make, compared to adjusting the textures to one of the existing geosets. They will either do nothing or add a few geosets, I can't imagine Blizzard dedicating more people and resources to create new models for every new piece of armor. Belts were a huge step forward and those don't require as much time as chest pieces.

Although clawed and spiked gloves could be easily made with geosets.

[Yarathir]

But those take a huge amount of time to make, compared to adjusting the textures to one of the existing geosets. They will either do nothing or add a few geosets, I can't imagine Blizzard dedicating more people and resources to create new models for every new piece of armor. Belts were a huge step forward and those don't require as much time as chest pieces.

Although clawed and spiked gloves could be easily made with geosets.

I think you're overreacting. They could eventually do it. They could even start by just making a few geosets, using those, and pasting extra stuff on those. (chest-wise)


Say there is a geoset for a scaled armor piece, and the armor textures indicate that the chestpiece has the shape of a golden lion in the middle. Model that and paste it on the existing geoset. Something like that.