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

[Banzubie]

I think we have a problem here of everyone making assumptions without having any proof of what has been done or how much is being done to the models. People got it in their heads and had these high expectations when nothing was ever solid on these things other than they are being worked on. :/

[Deleted]

They never put a team on it, it was always a side project.

Well that's pretty fucking stupid of them.

[Deleted]

Oh this thread's gonna be great.

I guess they've been treating the character models as a background project with new expansion/ patch stuff taking priority so their development is kind of unfocused or sporadic.
That's quite a lot less complete than I'd have thought though. The Pandaren models are pretty incredible, so maybe any work they'd done before Mists (Dwarves?) just didn't match up, and they thought it'd be better to redo it rather than release models of uneven quality.

This kind of makes a new races seem more likely as one of the 6.0's hooks.

It does look like it. Most likely the art team is working on the new mobs of the next expansion and will only focus on the player models after it.

[Shinrael]

Alright, so I'm not that cunning when it comes to this but surley creating a few new models wont actually be that hard/time consuming, right?

Race models are different. They aren't just models. Every single model has a ton of new animations and bones to be worked on. Every new model should be made compatible with every weapon/armor model in the game.

No vandar does it in like a week or w/e his name is and IT'S ONLY ONE GUY makes better models then blizzard lol he has his own youtube I forgot his account name here

Vaanel* does warcraft models which CAN be used in WoW but they are far less complex than race models because those include the things I've listed above. Not to mention that all of his models use Blizzard's models as base. So he has all these bones and animations and armor compatibility ready. All he does is add ornaments, more details and new textures/colours. I always thought he is amazing. He isn't that great though.

[Doylez]

I can wait but the models better be amazing when they're finally done.

[Lyrax]

Think about it though, 25% with probably a very small team working on it, and a majority working on the rest of the next expansion/5.4. When 5.4 is completed, the team working on it will move onto the expansion team probably, meaning more people working on the character models and faster progress. They could still complete it easily for next expansion, given that the next expansion is anything from 6 - 12 months away from Blizzcon (given that its announced then).

[Deleted]

What the actual fuck?! Are they building them atom by atom or what? Jeez, so slow...

[DeltrusDisc]

I feel like they're misleading sort of.

And/or completely trolling the interviewer/WoW fanbase. ;P

[Terahertz]

But they did say they'll be launching the ones that are already finished when they can, which will most likely be next expansion. Then, throughout the expansion they'll be releasing the others aswell. They'll be getting a lot of money from that aswell because of people "fotm race changing" xD

[FearlessForsaken]

I feel like with a new expansion coming up it might shift up the priority scale and get worked on a bit more.

Although it is dissapointed Im still kind of excited. Maybe now they're working on the models with newer tech and can make them look better than the pandaren!

[Soisoisoi]

But here come the apologists, so whooptee doo. Be prepared to be called an idiot for expecting them to actually do their work and try to appease those who've been waiting for the updates for a long time.

I'm not trying to make up for Blizzard's slack or anything, but we really have no idea what they have been doing. Like I said above, that could be 25% of ALL the races, including those which aren't playable. It could (should) be all of the old races, including Draenei/B.elf/Goblin/Worgen, as they don't have anywhere near the detail of Pandaren and the new Garrosh - Or, like you said, it could be just 2 of the 8 Vanilla playable races. We don't even know if they have a team working on them properly or it's just a side-project until they put it into full-swing.

tl;dr - Wtb more info. :<

[Lucetia]

There is only one thing I can say: You gotta be ***** kidding me. Serious?

Well, there goes any chance for the updates next expansion. All of us overestimated the advancements in the process, so yeah. Great.

Only the people who wanted them "NOW!" overestimated. We already knew they were a backburner project and current content took priority over models. Not to mention the amount of work that even goes into 1 race, 1 sex alone. You have not just the model standing there, but you also have to redo every single in game animation there possibly is which includes from emotes, to walking, riding, attacking, casting, etc. It's not an easy feat rebuilding an entire race from what we have now to something new.

No vandar does it in like a week or w/e his name is and IT'S ONLY ONE GUY makes better models then blizzard lol he has his own youtube I forgot his account name here

Didn't know he created an entire new model, skeleton, made it work with every single animation properly and incorporated it into a MMO while also giving the option of using old models. If you can't tell, that's sarcasm. Just because you make a model in a week that looks like means absolutely nothing. In the scale of the MMO that's just like drawing it out and say "Look! New model is ready"

[Immitis]

they're not updating the textures they're redoing the models. every single vanilla race being redone means all the armor has to be fixed for that race.

if it takes 6 months to make one new race model, then yeah it would take 2-3 years to fix up vanilla ones. if they wanted to update textures on the race models it would take less than a week of a texture artist's time to bring them to a reasonable standard, but that is not the case.



you honestly wouldn't play simply because of race models? what the shit?

races take a whole lot longer than remodels.

new races need tons of concept art, they have to decide how they want the new race to look, they have to decide what their emotes will be what their lore will be what their starting zone will be.

remodels will be recreations with more fluid animations.

the difference between how long it took them to make the pandaren and garroshs new model.

or in video game terms how long it took square enix to make kh 1.5 compared to how long kh3 is taking

[Adoxe]

Yea...that is quite disappointing.

[Deleted]

Well that's pretty fucking stupid of them.

No, the problem is the same as always, people assume and expect too much from single quotes.

[Gamevizier]

the only way to justify 25% progression is that they are working on all models at once and only 25% percent of them are fully done and the rest are like 70-80% done.

[McFrotton]

They still have what, a year to work on them? Its not like the next xpac is coming out before next summer.

It is going to come out Q2 2014. Seriously mark my word, last raid comes out almost a year after release. Next xpac will hit approx 6 month after that. they will probably launch D3 xpac in february (they will announce the launch date at blizzcon) to boost Q1 earnings,then wow xpac in april to boost Q2 earnings. The other option is that it will come out in march before the end of Q1 and D3 xpac will come out in april may. Since D3 is already announced We can safely say wow xpac 5 will come out in spring during so april launch seems likely.

[Confucius]

so, in 5 years?

[Valnoressa]

I think there's no real need to be angry about it.

Let's look at this a different way:

- Blizzard tends to work on an expansion while working on current content. I imagine that while they're certainly invested in creating the next expansion and laying the framework, they're now only finishing up or coming towards the end of their MAIN focused content cycle for Pandaria. With the rumoured 5.5 patch also something they're likely working on currently.

- These character models will be an expansion seller, there's no doubt about it. We'll probably see some concept art or simply the announcement of them being in the next expansion at Blizzcon in the announcement trailer.

- Lets not forget, we're not even in 5.4 yet and if the rumours of a 5.5 are true then they have more than enough time to invest into making the models. Heck we're WAY off seeing the beta for expansions 6 as well. Don't underestimate the work power of Blizzard devs. They've told us they're working on them yet they haven't stated how actively.

- When this expansion and all it's patches are done, I'm absolutely certain that 25% will go up much faster.

[Sills]

Well I would much rather them take their time and get it right. As long as they look good right? I have to admit though, 25% is quite disappointing at this point though mainly because i was so looking forward to having them for the next expansion.