Character model rework 25% complete (Tom Chilton & Cory Stockton interview)

[Anjerith]

And once they arrive there will be a tidal wave of people yelling how they don't recognize their favorite characters anymore.
Bah, should've just quadrupled the poly-count and be done with it.

Higher polygon count does not equal better looking models. It *does* equal substantially longer loadtimes though.

[Rumred]

They could get it done if they put time into it but i think they have the mindset its something they can work on in their spare time thus why its taking so long. Oh well it would be nice but its not a major issue for me.

[sylvira]

Actually, for me, that won't be an issue. My current characters look nothing like how I imagine them to look, or how I want them to look anyway. As long as they don't look super-derp, I can only benefit from the model updates. (selfish, I know.) Currently, my characters look as much like how I imagine them as they can, but that isn't saying much. Still, I understand the issue there. Didn't GC say that they would allow for the option to choose between the new and old model, though?

I know what you mean, I play on RP realms and imagine my characters to look slightly or then quite a bit different from the toon that I control, and that comes through from drawings aswell that I do of them.

Myes, Ghostcrawler mentioned that in a Twitter I believe back when they revealed their intentions of making the models, so we can't be for certain if they're still interested on making that true. o :

[Kathranis]

Higher polygon count does not equal better looking models. It *does* equal substantially longer loadtimes though.

Increasing the polygon count would also still requires modeling work to be done by hand. It's not like there's a slider or something.

[Deleted]

Most of the cosmetic shop items were in-game already. They added spell effects onto them. Please stop with these moronic accusations that are only substantiated through the insubstantial.

There is a HUGE difference between taking three existing basic model shapes, recoloring them (slightly) and putting an invisible polygon around them then putting an animated texture on that.

You say my argument lacks evidence but where's the facts to back up yours you are doing the EXACT same thing as me. How do you know these cosmetic mounts and items that are released from the shop take little development time?

You state it takes such little time to change the in game items to shop items yet that is exactly what they are doing to the race models. You are contradicting yourself.

[Yarathir]

I know what you mean, I play on RP realms and imagine my characters to look slightly or then quite a bit different from the toon that I control, and that comes through from drawings aswell that I do of them.

Myes, Ghostcrawler mentioned that in a Twitter I believe back when they revealed their intentions of making the models, so we can't be for certain if they're still interested on making that true. o :

Well, it's a relatively small task for a big gain. I can imagine that there will always be people who will dislike the new models. Giving them the option to stick with the old models is only fair.



And high-five for fellow RPer! /^5.



Yes, most of my characters look nothing like the current models. Maybe even all? 8 of the 11 characters, I think? Maybe even more.


In fact, my draenei paladin is supposed to look more like: than the actual player model.

[ringpriest]

And once they arrive there will be a tidal wave of people yelling how they don't recognize their favorite characters anymore.
Bah, should've just quadrupled the poly-count and be done with it.

It sounds like (and I could be wrong) that they're not going to give people a "keep the old model" option, which is incredibly stupid imo.

[Deleted]

I understand that - and I partly suffer from it as well having plenty of "vanilla" races among my character roster (especially humans look quite dated). But still, the "FU Blizz, u suxx" type of blind rage is rather annoying, since they've specifically gone out and stated that it's only a side project for now and they might release them one by one when they're ready. For me, that 25% was quite good news - if the scope is vanilla races, then 2/8 are done, that's not bad progress in my books.

People have been asking for character updates since Wrath of the Lich king, asuming 25% = 2 models, it took them 3 years to do 2/8 -> 12 years to get the last models done = "not bad progress"?

[Yunru]

IF they updated the models this patch the sub would increase by 3 milion instant. But they slack.....

[shadowmouse]

Thanks for deliberately taking it out of context in attempt to find a way to attack me though.

Nice passive aggressive there. Nothing was taken out of context, you've simply failed to notice the extremely egotistical phrasing you used.

[Trassk]

Its funny really. With wow losing a lot of subs now, and lets be honest, whatever the next expansion will be won't bring us anything that fresh or new to make it something innovative enough to bring people running back, this should have been the time they REALLY focus on updating character models.
how poor is it, that someone whos given up on the game for several years, comes back and sees the same old vanilla pixelated character there on the loading screen, well pandaren and whatever new race coming into it will look far more superior.

Blizzard has one chance to get this right, and it really seems like they are slacking in a department they really need to focus on now.

[Deleted]

Its funny really. With wow losing a lot of subs now, and lets be honest, whatever the next expansion will be won't bring us anything that fresh or new to make it something innovative enough to bring people running back, this should have been the time they REALLY focus on updating character models.
how poor is it, that someone whos given up on the game for several years, comes back and sees the same old vanilla pixelated character there on the loading screen, well pandaren and whatever new race coming into it will look far more superior.

Blizzard has one chance to get this right, and it really seems like they are slacking in a department they really need to focus on now.

The only explanation I can think of is that they are more developed (I think 25% is BS) and they are waiitng until WoW subs are in dire need of help and then they will be deployed.

No need to release them now when very soon the next expac will be announced which will cause a surge of subs. /tinfoilhat.

[zito]

Nope, they are working on it when they aren't trying to make an extra greedy buck making cosmetic shop items.

I don't think the art and animations department has any contribution to the cash shop besides the art icons...

But haven't they been working on new models for a little over 2 years now? These better be great....

[Yarathir]

Nice passive aggressive there. Nothing was taken out of context, you've simply failed to notice the extremely egotistical phrasing you used.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.



You took it out of context.

[George Costanza]

In fact, my draenei paladin is supposed to look more like: than the actual player model.

That's a priest :P. Though I agree that the draenei should definetly look like that, too many pick the race and gender because ":3:3:3:3:3:3:3:3 meow meow cute alien race :3 <insert more weird emoticons>" or Goldshire business.

[Barnabas]

Tom Chilton makes it sound like they are making progress but ultimately this is something that gets little to no priority. They could at least show what they have since it's just a project when they have free time and maybe people will like the direction they are going on. Maybe that will create a reaction to move this off the back burner?

[Worgoblin]

*shrug*

It'll be done eventually. In the meantime, put this song on loop.

[Lavannah]

Disappointed to hear it, but I'll agree with others: The more time they take on them, the better they should turn out. Emphasis on SHOULD. Will they when all things or said and done? Well...if they don't...it wouldn't be the first time they've disappointed the fanbase...

[Deleted]

Can I just point out it'd be unlikely that Blizzard would devote an entire team and resources to a, let's be honest, less-than-important feature? I'm sure most people care more about getting new raids and zones than new race models, so I highly suspect these race models are pretty much only worked on during the free time of the modellers and animators, which as a games developer they'll have VERY little time to work on whatever they want.

In addition, let me just nip something I posted from the EU forum;

Ima go through these one at a time!

On the issue of difficulty of making models; you have to bare/bear/whatever in mind that WoW's engine is EIGHT YEARS OLD, which means they have to make sure each model is constructed in a way that still functions in the engine. You have to also take note that anyone who's seen the rigging and skeletons of all of WoW's models, even the new ones, would be able to say they're an absolute mess BECAUSE of engine limitations. Games like Skyrim get new models and animations easily because the engine supports simple skeleton repositioning, whereas WoW's engine at this age no doubt runs from the animations being done directly by hand.

On sliders and other features; sorry to say but this would require a gigantic overhaul of the character engine. You can't just slap in a feature, you have to ensure it won't **** something else up in the code and that it won't break any other parts of the game. If we had sliders added, what would happen to all the NPCs? Would they remain at default across the board? Would they glitch out? Would Blizzard have to go through EVERY NPC and change the sliders around?! The engine just doesn't support it so unless we got a WoW2 or something I don't see it happening.

24/08/2013 18:37Posted by Elenthas
people have made entire games in the time it's taking them to update these models.


As I mentioned; it's very unlikely they'll dedicate an entire team 24/7 to these models as the model team has other, more important (in gameplay/content) things to be working on. And they'll have little free time in which to devote themselves to these models besides maybe making a few tweaks on their lunchbreak.

What I don't get, if they are so scared of people are disliking the new models, why they don't keep us more updated, show their WIP stuff, so we can give them feedback. It might happen eventually, but it only seems logically to me, if they are that afraid for negative reactions?

I've wondered this as well, but I reckon it's just they don't have enough to really be worth showing or appear meaningful to players, showing off a non-coloured texture or a wireframe wouldn't mean anything to most of us. So I suspect they'll show us the results when they're actually easier for most people to say yay or nay instead of "bwuh?"

As for any other reasons why the models are taking so long, consider this; We have 8 or so classic/tbc races in the game, right? But each one has two genders. So that's essentially 16 models. But that includes each of the individual face models (Bar female draenei and blood elves who annoyingly share the same face models) too, and each of these faces will need about five to eight skin textures for various colours and skin tones. Assuming five faces a race with five textures a face, that makes it 25 textures for one race. So that's nearly 200 textures in total! Double that for each gender and you now have 400! And that's just the -textures-. Not taking into account the models, rigging, wireframes, animations and so on which probably take significantly longer, each face needs to be animated to the same standard as the pandaren (Which I will admit is VERY detailed) as does the hair, limbs, fingers, feet and so on.

It's quite easy to make models these days with a little practice... and even animations. Just look at what the modding community of Skyrim and Oblivion has done. All the armour mods and even the... !@#$%^ mods. The WoW MPQ files are quite easy to handle as well, anybody who has ever tried dabbling with custom textures or even some minor model edits knows this.

Again, that's just modding. Key word; modding. A simple modification of currently existing files. Skyrim custom animations run off the already present and functional in-game skeletons, some use a modified skeleton but again the base skeleton is still there. Not to mention Skyrim is MADE with modding in mind and as a result is VERY flexible with the actual files and programs used to make the models and textures for various mods. As for WoW's files, you said it yourself, it's just dabbling with custom textures and MINOR model editing. Again; merely adjusting currently existing files. These guys are making entirely NEW files in their free time, whenever possible, and as someone looking into games development I can tell you now these guys have significantly less free time than someone making a mod who can pick and choose what to dedicate themselves to. Sorry, but that's how games development works, most people would prefer they spent a patch making a new raid or zone than just updating old races. As for the programs and file types used; WoW is significantly more restrictive, you can't cook up something in Blender or PoseIt and expect it to work in a game with a very strict engine with no modding in mind whatsoever outside the UI.

[Yarathir]

That's a priest :P. Though I agree that the draenei should definetly look like that, too many pick the race and gender because ":3:3:3:3:3:3:3:3 meow meow cute alien race :3 <insert more weird emoticons>" or Goldshire business.

I was referring to the physical appearance. xP


Hehe. One face/horn style like that would do the job. Think the long tails should be baseline now they could convincingly animate such at ail.