Character models: This disturbs me

[Xargoth6634]

If the biggest problem you have is World of Warcraft character models not being perfect, man...talk about first world problems.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

I'm getting a little tired of seeing people using 'beta' as an excuse to stifle any and all criticism and constructive feedback. This is the precisely the best time to offer feedback as the next expansion is still being developed. Waiting until the expansion launches will simple cause even more issues as it'll be a little too late to make any major changes very easily by that point in time.

I echo what a lot of other people within this thread have pointed out in that the difference in facial features is incredibly minor. For all the flaws the older models have they at least look a lot more distinct than what has been revealed to be the case in the beta.

It is valid. It's not beta, it's going to be it certainly isn't. Also Death Knight faces are hard to tell.

[Toppy]

There are 11 other race/sex combos to make. Pandaren, which blizz uses as a comparison to what they are trying at now, also suffer major same face.

This is not a place holder. This is what we are getting. The face is the hardest part of the whole process as far as making these models go. With the largest amount of animations involved. There ISNT TIME to make more faces. Everyone will have the same faces, only differences will be facial hair and wrinkles.

[Graeham]

They've also specifically requested feedback on a number of occasions. Could a lot of that feedback be more constructive and better worded? Definitely, but a lot of the concerns raised are actually pretty relevant.

[Deleted]

1) To all who say, those faces are not the freaking same: They are.

2) THey are going to be released, although every 3rd class mmo offers more individuality.

[Buu]

I'll keep reposting this comparison image for as long as it's relevant:



There are defined differences in the wrinkles, but most of what individualized the old faces was how much their lips were open to reveal teeth, which you can't do through texture work. They need to rig the lips to be able to open varying amounts for each face if they want to preserve that aspect of the old faces.

My guess is that the lips customizations are GONE. But taking what they did to GOBLINS customization, I would bet that Ears, Chin and Nose will be able to change eventually.

[BatteredRose]

How this is even a thread, and made it this far is beyond me.

Speculating that they're going to release the game with the male orcs all having the same face, especially this early into production of the expansion, is fucking silly as shit.

[Grunhither]

Any time I see a post written by Trassk, I usually just assume it'll be filled with nonsense.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

They've also specifically requested feedback on a number of occasions. Could a lot of that feedback be more constructive and better worded? Definitely, but a lot of the concerns raised are actually pretty relevant.

No duh they request feedback. But most feedback on this forum isn't really actual constructive feedback.

[Graeham]

No duh they request feedback. But most feedback on this forum isn't really actual constructive feedback.

Most meaning 'not all', thus it's tiring when people sweep all of it under the rug and tarnish everyone offering constructive criticism with the same brush.

[Leih]

I grant that the new faces are currently a bit too subtle in their differences (there are differences, but hard to notice, especially in orcs). But comparing the new faces to the old faces and saying how "omg the old faces were SO much different" is not a very good comparison...

If you actually look at the old model orc faces, most of them are only different because they have their faces locked into one particular expression - they look angry or sad or happy all the time because their face is locked that way. If you were to change the faces to remove the emotion, they would all look the same except for the odd wrinkle or slightly higher nose bridge etc.

Now moving on to the new faces... these models are animated and show different emotions based on their emotes and animations. Again, the old models don't. Because of that you CAN'T lock the old faces into a particular emotional state like the old faces were, because that is variable. Strip the emotion and yep, the only difference is some wrinkles. This is obviously what's happened.

So that's why it's no good pointing at the old faces and saying "I want them different like this" because it's simply not possible while benefiting from the new models having emotions. Instead Blizzard will need to find some other way to differentiate faces. It's fair enough to push for them to do that, and come up with ideas for how it could be done, but pointing at the old models and saying "WHY DOES IT NOT LOOK LIKE THIS!" is just silly. It's obvious why it doesn't look like that, because these faces are animated and not locked in set expressions, that's why.

Ignoring the expressions, the new faces aren't any more samey as the old faces were, it's just that they SEEM that way because the emotional expressions aren't a difference any longer. So that's why it's not so simple.

[Toppy]

How this is even a thread, and made it this far is beyond me.

Speculating that they're going to release the game with the male orcs all having the same face, especially this early into production of the expansion, is fucking silly as shit.

"Speculating that they're going to release the game with the male/female Pandaren all having the same face, especcially this early into production of the expansion, is fucking silly as shit"

- - - Updated - - -

Just compare the new Orc to the other three newer models: Goblin, Worgen, Pandaren.

Worgen and Pandaren have massive same face. Males less than females becasue facial hair. But the females all generally look the same.

Goblins have a variety of faces, but they also have very very large noses and ears, which is where pretty much -all- their customization comes from: and not something blizz can add to Orcs without making the new models completely different from the old ones, which had greater mouth variety; something that can't be translated to these new models because of animations.

Races that already had a large amount of "other" customization will still have differences. That is to say, mostly the dudes. Even Orcs will have lots of variety due to facial hair. Undead will have their face stuff. Human males will have beards etc...

Female models though will have almost no variety. Calling it now. Aside from night elf face paint and undead face... stuff, the females have the least facial customization, and will remain so. So that same face that worgen and pandaren females have? All the other ladies are going to have it too. Congratulations.

[Amozabael]

I did tweet the freak out in this thread to Chris Robinson to showcase that those faces aren't enough and asked if he had a solution. Hopefully he'll say something.

[MrSerious]

No they're not. If you look at the cheek bones and the forehead wrinkles, they're pretty different. Targetted one and the one below it have very defined obvious cheekbones, whereas the other one at the bottom, barely shows cheekbones at all.

lol! this is sarcasm right?

[GennGreymane]

Sadly if they tried to make new faces we will lose an entire raid tier.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Sadly if they tried to make new faces we will lose an entire raid tier.

Well you certainly took that out of context.

[Amozabael]

Well you certainly took that out of context.

I wouldn't look to much into it. That's just become the go-to joke in WoW forums these days. I admit, despite how over played it is, it still gets a chuckle out of me for some unknown reason.

[Seyna Starstrider]

Scars, blemishes, extra or less shadow on the eyes, bags under eyes or lack thereof, cracked lips, smooth lips, war paint, different tusks...

While there ARE differences in the new orc faces, things like the above can add to the variety.

As some said before, the older faces had expressions painted on the textures. The faces of the new models are in a more neutral expression, and each texture is applied to the very same 3D head model, which gives the illusion of same-ness.

Hopefully, when beta is out, I'll be able to play with the new model textures and reapply them to the models, and see them animated, just like I did with the female pandaren a while back.



I'm very much against "one face", but I do think we're jumping the gun a bit this time. We still haven't seen the eyes and, maybe, there will be more facial options than the upgraded original seven. Blizz also wants to preserve the feel of the old models, so I wouldn't expect the upgraded versions of the original faces to be too radically different.

[Immitis]

i dont know why anyone is complaining. not like orcs need more than one face :P just use this one

[TheRealDavidTwo]

Oh gee, I wonder why they do..

Or maybe the other faces aren't animated(or whatever process they use) yet?

WoD isn't in Beta yet. But this still applies.

A young TotalBiscuit (when he still played WoW during the Cataclysm Beta) once said... "Beta is beta."