Character modelling is rubbish!

[SuperSaiyan4]

I play on the Xbox 360 and have to say Oblivion's character modelling is pretty good however having played PREY demo on the PC and am aware its made based on a heavily tuned DOOM 3 Engine the character modelling is awful.

I mean look at them, the hands are STILL SQUARE!! I thought this was next gen?! The arms are like sooo awful I cannot describe it.

Why cant the developers get it right? The scenery is pretty good as are the textures and lighting effects and the weapons are visually perfect!

Can the devs explain the lazyness in why the character modelling is soo poor?

[schuubars]

Easier to create the uvmap for baking(connected fingers), to rig, to animate...just speculating...But comparing Prey to Oblivion is just the wrong...imo if you talk about Jen, hmm well she could look better..some fine tuning.

[SuperSaiyan4]

Originally Posted by schuubars

Easier to create the uvmap for baking(connected fingers), to rig, to animate...just speculating...But comparing Prey to Oblivion is just the wrong...imo if you talk about Jen, hmm well she could look better..some fine tuning.

Yeah JEN looks awful, she looks like an ELF! and her arms are like sticks!

[Orochi Avlis]

You can always make models yourself seeing as your such the expert.

[SuperSaiyan4]

Originally Posted by Orochi Avlis

You can always make models yourself seeing as your such the expert.

Thats why we pay for games, otherwise if they were free I wouldnt be complaining.

[Orochi Avlis]

That's makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the argument.

[KaiserSoze]

Can't please em' all.

[SyntaxN]

It´s the Doom 3 engine...you get stencil shadows but you can´t use as many polys for the characters as you could with another engines without stencil shadows. Of course you could create ingame models with 8000 polys but the performance would suck for most people.

[SuperSaiyan4]

I am sure the body parts in Doom 3 were a bit more solid...apart from everyone looking 'Square' with point heads.

[schuubars]

mhh SyntaxN is right, in Doom3 the monsters had connected fingers too(i guess the human npcs mostly too).

But i have to say for the main characaters some polys here and there can't be bad, sure for monsters it not essentially because you kill them mostly if possible fast. *g*

But hold on had the npcs not lod meshs for the stencils too?(im not sure anymore)

[SuperSaiyan4]

But why do that in games? I am confused, the scenery looks fantastic, the weapons look fantastic but the characters look awful - it doesnt make sense. Ok in all fairness you dont get to see the characters all the time however considering especially 360 games are paying a lot of money for the console version surely developers who now have such a powerful console to develop on can use better tools for developing games.

I guess all this stuck together square hand rubbish will be gone once the Unreal 3 engine comes out? Then anything with a Doom 3 engine will not be accepted by anyone.

[ADM]

Originally Posted by SuperSaiyan4

Then anything with a Doom 3 engine will not be accepted by anyone.

Not everyone judges a game based on how a models fingers look like.

[schuubars]

Hmm i don't know but youi will see the effect much more on a PC than a Console.


Unreal 3 mhh..no i don't think so, and try not to compare a Enginge that was released soon 2 jears ago with one that is not yet released and after all a engine does not represent a Game in the end.

Originally Posted by SuperSaiyan4

But why do that in games? I am confused, the scenery looks fantastic, the weapons look fantastic but the characters look awful - it doesnt make sense. Ok in all fairness you dont get to see the characters all the time however considering especially 360 games are paying a lot of money for the console version surely developers who now have such a powerful console to develop on can use better tools for developing games.

I guess all this stuck together square hand rubbish will be gone once the Unreal 3 engine comes out? Then anything with a Doom 3 engine will not be accepted by anyone.

[ZuljinRaynor]

Fingers are done through bump maps in Doom 3. Turn off bump maps and they looks bad... are you sure your computer is running it right?

[schuubars]

The shading of the normals(nm) do that.
Btw that are normal maps not bump maps, bump maps are a bit different, but you can convert bump maps to normal maps.

The engine uses Tangent Normal Maps, another one is Object Space, but they are not as flexible as tangent.(shading in animation)

[ZuljinRaynor]

I was going to say normal maps, but in the game it says bump maps...

[schuubars]

Yeah i know that, but not why they called it so as command, but you can combine the two together.

[DavoX]

I don't care what the game uses, the models still look bad, i mean come on...jen's arms look like a flatable woman's.

[SuperSaiyan4]

Character modelling i.e. hands, fingers and arms are dreadful nothing to do with my setting - the polygon count is very low.

[JeremyGritton]

Hey man, as a character modeler all I can say is don't blame the the character modelers at Human Head... You're normally given a poly budget to work with and you just do the best you can. If those guys had had the budget available to model individual fingers, they would have.

[Noam sane?]

If the models look the way they do to get the super performance that they have achieved then I am happy with it. I would not want to sacrifice performance for any increased measure of flexibility in the models limbs.

[InAction]

There's about 48 polygons extra per hand. Let's say about 100-150 extra for both hands.

Also there's a thing as extra bones and such when animating.

Extra job for the animators. :P

[George Broussard]

The characters were done early, a year before release. They are a small team and there really was no time to go back and update things.

Good thing they don't affect gameplay

[InAction]

Well I don't blame them. I think they made a great effort.

[Denz]

You will seriously let a stupid hand stop you from buying this game?

[ratiman]

If doom 3 had square hands why would you expect the game to have something not capiable of the engine? Like you know there is a polygon count for the engine, and if doom 3 was only capable of square hands, why the hell would you think prey would have a higher poly hand.

[InAction]

Because HHS had the whole sourcecode and thus being able to add more, better and updated features. That includes the rendering and polycount aspect.

[schuubars]

After Release you can create a "nicest Jen" modification. :P

I really hate that, i do not own maya, and for LW or XSI is no good md5 exporter out there. :/ (or is outdated)

Just make static models is boring after some time.

btw the visual style is really good work from HHS.

[InAction]

Aren't you able to use exporters for Maya Personal Learning Edition?

[schuubars]

Hmm i am not sure anymore, but i believe not.

[hiob]

The hands didn´t annoy me, i mean it looks good as it is, but Jen really looks awful (in an esthatical kind of way). She has strange proportians and ears like Mister Spok. Even Tommys grandfather looks more appealing then her, but that´s real love i guess. Inner beauty counts guys.

[ZuljinRaynor]

Originally Posted by George Broussard

The characters were done early, a year before release. They are a small team and there really was no time to go back and update things.

Good thing they don't affect gameplay

You're telling me there might be a patch that will up them models?

[InAction]

Well, they will be quite busy and focused on Prey after release so I personally don't think it's impossible.

[m4dmax]

think of it this way....

Are square meshed hands going to hinder your gameplay? Are they going to make you not play the game?

[SuperSaiyan4]

There is no excuse for 'not enough time to go back' if all the developers had that kind of attitude then forget it your not getting my money.

I will be getting Prey the game from the demo played very well, the environments and weapons looked amazing however I am just amazed that still to this very day developers still are unable to create better character models!

5yrs+ in the making? Surely you could spend a bit more time redoing the models I mean the game hasnt officially gone gold now has it...

Cant believe that there are graphics cards out there like the 7950 and a games console like the Xbox 360 and we get lumbered with games that dont even use the power that these products offer.

[SuperSaiyan4]

Originally Posted by m4dmax

think of it this way....

Are square meshed hands going to hinder your gameplay? Are they going to make you not play the game?

Its the principal of the matter, old square hands is last gen I thought the Xbox 360 experience and the new array of graphics cards is moving on?

If devs want to be lazy and say they cant be bothered to go back and just touch up the game then why should we prices based on lazy devs? They should earn their money by showing gamers that they are there to give us something amazing!

[avatar_58]

One of the most entertaining games of the year and you can't get over the models? Who the hell cares? They aren't the greatest, no but I can tell you during that bar scene I wasn't preoccupied with staring at jen's hands.....

[BoorishId]

I really didn't think to highly of the modeling myself, like someone else said the porpotions just seem weird. On the other hand i was having way to much fun to give a shit about finger being connected. I will sacrafice some visuals for a game with good gameplay.

[George Broussard]

Originally Posted by SuperSaiyan4

They should earn their money by showing gamers that they are there to give us something amazing!

I guess Portals, Gravity Flipping, Wall Walk, Death Walk and Spirit Walk weren't enough? I'm sorry to hear that

[SuperSaiyan4]

Originally Posted by avatar_58

One of the most entertaining games of the year and you can't get over the models? Who the hell cares? They aren't the greatest, no but I can tell you during that bar scene I wasn't preoccupied with staring at jen's hands.....

No it was her arms and pointy ears that got me cringing.

But to turn this topic around look guys I realised that whilst playing the demo you hardly ever saw the characters so I guess its perhaps the reason why more time wasnt spent on them as you are mostly walking around with a weapon and oh boy do they look fantastic! and you dont see the character at all.

I want to say sorry in a way for coming on too strong about the character models looking rubbish, they are ok however I suppose no point in making something look amazing if you are hardly ever going to see it.