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Post by biscuitsntea on Mar 17, 2017 4:43:03 GMT
With all the new MEA gameplay videos coming up I saw one problem pop up all the time: Terrible NPC designs. I get it, you can't put too much effort and time into an NPC's look, but some are downright uncanny and plastic looking that it made me cringe. I realized the "plastic look" pretty much boils down to 3 things: a) Unnatural, bright eyecolors Oversaturated, colorful makeup c) Unnuanced, mono-colored hair, getting worse the lighter it becomes. So, playing around in Photoshop I tried to come up with something better, more natural looking. I have not changed any facial features, just tweaked the three things I listed above for both examples. And really, something like that should not be that hard to accomplish. Just subdue the color-craze in makeup, hair and eyes and you've got some much better looking NPCs. It's especially jarring with Suvi, since she's supposed to be a love interest, but she looks incredibly uncanny and clownish. Please Bioware, if someone of your design team sees this, maybe remember it for a future patch or a future title. I am so sick and tired of seeing those plastic looking NPCs with clown makeup. Especially side by side with your carefully modeled main characters (like your squadmates)
ADDITION:
I also tried my hand at the hair and did what I mentioned before: Made the colors less saturated and added in a few lighter and darker strandsEspecially with that example of the NPC the hair just looks really plastic and mono-colored and the color is very oversaturated.
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Post by ATR16 on Mar 17, 2017 4:50:00 GMT
When I came across that first girl I immediately thought of Homer's makeup shotgun.
I've seen some people say "They only look bad because NVidia hasn't release their game specific drivers" or whatever, but that doesn't explain console.
And honestly, so much of it is the eyes. They're too white, and the lines inside of them are too rigid. Its why they look like dolls.
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Post by malakizedek on Mar 17, 2017 4:50:55 GMT
Bioware needs to hire a hair and makeup artist to come in as a consultant--even just for one day--if the studio is lucky enough to develop another game; someone needs to show those nerds that BLUSH US NOT APPLIED AS A RECTANGLE THAT EXTENDS FROM YOUR CHEEKBONE TO YOUR LIPS or that eye shadow isn't applied all the way up to the eyebrow. The makeup in this game was so obviously designed by a guy. Seriously, do they not have ANY women working for them? It looks ghastly.
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Post by Petroshenko on Mar 17, 2017 4:53:34 GMT
The light, bright, neon hair colors are absolutely the worst in Andromeda. It just looks ridiculous.
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Post by ATR16 on Mar 17, 2017 4:53:40 GMT
Bioware needs to hire a hair and makeup artist to come in as a consultant--even just for one day--if the studio is lucky enough to develop another game; someone needs to show those nerds that BLUSH US NOT APPLIED AS A RECTANGLE THAT EXTENDS FROM YOUR CHEEKBONE TO YOUR LIPS or that eye shadow isn't applied all the way up to the eyebrow. The makeup in this game was so obviously designed by a guy. Seriously, do they not have ANY women working for them? It looks ghastly. I saw on reddit someone claim to be a game artist, and they basically said it looks like they used some kind of a program to create the NPCs and animations during dialogue, but never bothered to go back over and smooth things out. I believe it because the faces, eyes and other animations aren't the only things lacking polish. I almost feel like this is an early access Steam game in beta, rather than the final product. Like in 6 months we'd get the final game with all the polish.
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Post by rahavan on Mar 17, 2017 4:53:59 GMT
Bioware needs to hire a hair and makeup artist to come in as a consultant--even just for one day--if the studio is lucky enough to develop another game; someone needs to show those nerds that BLUSH US NOT APPLIED AS A RECTANGLE THAT EXTENDS FROM YOUR CHEEKBONE TO YOUR LIPS or that eye shadow isn't applied all the way up to the eyebrow. The makeup in this game was so obviously designed by a guy. Seriously, do they not have ANY women working for them? It looks ghastly. Look just copy black desert online! they do everything right minus having scars but it is a KMMO what do you expect lol
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Post by missywho on Mar 17, 2017 4:59:52 GMT
I can look past the wonky animations to a certain extent but oh man...the eyes. If they would just fix the eye shader it would be so much better. DAI and even ME3 had proper eyes that didn't look dead. Why did they regress?
I guess this is what happens when Edmonton isn't in charge of ME.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2017 5:02:37 GMT
I can look past the wonky animations to a certain extent but oh man...the eyes. If they would just fix the eye shader it would be so much better. DAI and even ME3 had proper eyes that didn't look dead. Why did they regress? I guess this is what happens when Edmonton isn't in charge of ME. A bit weird handing a project of this scale to Montreal. I mean they made ME3MP and The Omega DLC? And then they get big blockbuster like this handed to them? Auch. This should've been delayed 6 months. Don't get me wrong, i am having fun with the game, but it lacks polish in certain areas.
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Post by biscuitsntea on Mar 17, 2017 12:12:07 GMT
Bioware needs to hire a hair and makeup artist to come in as a consultant--even just for one day--if the studio is lucky enough to develop another game; someone needs to show those nerds that BLUSH US NOT APPLIED AS A RECTANGLE THAT EXTENDS FROM YOUR CHEEKBONE TO YOUR LIPS or that eye shadow isn't applied all the way up to the eyebrow. The makeup in this game was so obviously designed by a guy. Seriously, do they not have ANY women working for them? It looks ghastly. They wouldn't even need to hire a consultant and instead just take a look at how modders improved upon and changed the weird makeup choices in DA:I. ---> Just one exampleHeck, just reducing the make-up and making the colors more muted would be a whole lot better looking. And restricting eyeshadow to just the lid and a little bit over the lid. But I feel like the designteam just slapped a blob of colour in the general area and hoped it would work. It... doesn't.
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Post by Ahriman on Mar 17, 2017 12:32:16 GMT
And really, something like that should not be that hard to accomplish. Just subdue the color-craze in makeup, hair and eyes and you've got some much better looking NPCs. It's especially jarring with Suvi, since she's supposed to be a love interest, but she looks incredibly uncanny and clownish. I just gave up on my misogynist habits in MEA long time ago. Every time I say something - it's "Beauty is subjective, they are gorgeous", prepare for these in this thread as well. Nice work regardless.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2017 14:13:59 GMT
I like how you toned down the faces. One thing that puzzles me is the unilateral use of pink shiny lip gloss on everyone by default it seems. They suit very few imo, and it would be nice to get more natural looks.
I sort of understand the appeal of those lighter eyecolors, because it is easier to see when faces are small, but as noted in the close ups they are a touch off putting.
Cheers, and I hope eventually BioWare finds softer, gentler color schemes for the background NPCs when they random generate them. They can't always put them in masks, lol.
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Post by biscuitsntea on Mar 17, 2017 19:04:29 GMT
And really, something like that should not be that hard to accomplish. Just subdue the color-craze in makeup, hair and eyes and you've got some much better looking NPCs. It's especially jarring with Suvi, since she's supposed to be a love interest, but she looks incredibly uncanny and clownish. I just gave up on my misogynist habits in MEA long time ago. Every time I say something - it's "Beauty is subjective, they are gorgeous", prepare for these in this thread as well. Nice work regardless. I'm not sure what you mean. I don't see how those edits are misogynistic in any way. I'm a woman myself and I'm not implying that the models per se are bad or ugly, just some of the textures (eyes, makeup, hair) are really flat or oversaturated. And I think it would really help improve the feel of realism that they are obviously going for if they went back and tweaked those things a little for their NPCs. Otherwise it's just really jarring, especially compared to the super detailed, lovingly modeled and textured squadmates who don't suffer from any of these problems. I like how you toned down the faces. One thing that puzzles me is the unilateral use of pink shiny lip gloss on everyone by default it seems. They suit very few imo, and it would be nice to get more natural looks. I sort of understand the appeal of those lighter eyecolors, because it is easier to see when faces are small, but as noted in the close ups they are a touch off putting. Cheers, and I hope eventually BioWare finds softer, gentler color schemes for the background NPCs when they random generate them. They can't always put them in masks, lol. Thank you! Yeah, and I absolutely agree! It's really just the intensity of the makeup that's offputting for me. It really looks like a lot of the NPCs have just been automatically generated and nobody looked over them to make sure they look okay.
With the eyes I think somebody else described it really well over at reddit: Over here It's just that they look too flat and bright imo, and lack shadows / a bit of wetness to make them look more realistic.
And with the hair I think they could really go over that as well and make sure that especially the lighter colors look more natural, and have a bit of color-variation in them. It's not about the models or anything, it's really just that they look like one single color and it just doesn't work.
Those are not things that should be that hard to achieve, right?
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Post by jivedj on Mar 17, 2017 22:19:18 GMT
I remember the dev team talking about gobal illumination during one of their recent MEA gameplay demos, and how the art asset team was having a hard time accounting for how their textures would look under different lighting conditions. DAI makes sense now. It all makes sense...
I remember a dev on DAI talking about how each cinemtic convo in their games had to be custom lit so it would look right, and that was one of the main reasons they didn't have as much cinematic dialogue in DAI. Basically, it was too much of a time sink for the dev team. I don't think that's a prticularly valid excuse, but whatever.
Fastforward to 2014, and BW Montreal notices the deluge of criticism due to lack of cinematic dialogue in DAI. So they endeavor to have more cinematic dialogue, but don't allocate proper resources to lighting each convo, and well, the rest is history. Couple that with poor animation, and you have an uncanny valley effect so jarring it gets memed to all hell.
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Mar 17, 2017 22:21:43 GMT
After ME3 and DA:I I've given up. So many just look fucking bad and it's almost always the eyes and how bright they look, and how cartoony it makes it look... like, I cannot for the life of me find out how someone at BioWare assigned to making NPCs in their character creator comes up with those designs and goes "hey that looks really good for a prominent character". I'm looking at you Mother Giselle and Chancellor Roderick and of course Addison.
There's also something wrong with the way Addison talks. I don't know what happened there. Is her dialogue placeholder? What is wrong with her?
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Post by stealthfox94 on Mar 17, 2017 22:24:12 GMT
I think you should have a job at Bioware.
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Post by axegaijin on Mar 17, 2017 22:24:31 GMT
Honestly, with some of the make-up options in CC and some of the make-up on NPCs I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if Bioware hired Ronald McDonald as their new lead designer.
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Post by Wynne on Mar 17, 2017 22:52:32 GMT
Suvi's design was gorgeous, but you made her look ridiculously beautiful.
Bioware does some things amazingly well, and others... just, such MINOR changes, really, can redeem awful choices like the hideous pink 80s lipstick that looks like a person puked bubblegum on their own face.
They really needed somebody added to the team who has a critical eye for human character design, seriously. Both for NPCs and for the Ryder family.
Gah, really gonna mod Suvi at the earliest opportunity. I hope someone makes her look JUST like that, she's stunning with a proper color scheme. She will get one of my chick-Ryders, I just know it.
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Post by cyberwaste13 on Mar 17, 2017 23:44:44 GMT
I had the same thoughts. The make up on Addison and Suvi is really bad. But mods make it an easy fix, so it's whatever. Modders shouldn't have to correct poor design in Bioware or Bethesda games, but it is what it is.
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Post by biscuitsntea on Mar 18, 2017 0:10:07 GMT
I think you should have a job at Bioware. Hah! I wouldn't be much help though. I have no idea about 3d modeling / texturemapping etc. But hey, I'm a fast learner and if they ever need some poor shmock to go over every little NPC design and make it look nice, I'd be their woman lol I had the same thoughts. The make up on Addison and Suvi is really bad. But mods make it an easy fix, so it's whatever. Modders shouldn't have to correct poor design in Bioware or Bethesda games, but it is what it is. Yeah, it's just too bad that mods aren't an option on XboxOne and PS4. I'll probably get MEA for PS4, so I'm gonna have to live with those designs. I get that ultimately it's not a huge deal, but for me it's always a bit immersion breaking and cringeworthy when encountering "clown-characters" like that and it always takes me out of the game. But I doubt anybody at Bioware would go ahead and fix something like this, because it's probably not even on their radar when they have to deal with bugs, performance issues, storycontent etc.
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Post by biscuitsntea on Mar 18, 2017 0:20:18 GMT
Suvi's design was gorgeous, but you made her look ridiculously beautiful. Bioware does some things amazingly well, and others... just, such MINOR changes, really, can redeem awful choices like the hideous pink 80s lipstick that looks like a person puked bubblegum on their own face. They really needed somebody added to the team who has a critical eye for human character design, seriously. Both for NPCs and for the Ryder family. Gah, really gonna mod Suvi at the earliest opportunity. I hope someone makes her look JUST like that, she's stunning with a proper color scheme. She will get one of my chick-Ryders, I just know it. Thank you very much! The sad thing is, it didn't even take me half an hour. It really was just incredibly minor things like darkening the eyecolor, darkening / toning down lipcolor, slightly toning down blush and slightly darkening hair. I don't know what technical issues and details would be involved in changing the makeup / eye / hair textures, but I doubt it is impossible to correct, since those are usually the first things modders tackle even with engines that don't have actual modding tools. With the hair all we really need is more toned down colors and a bit more variation in the color (a few darker and lighter "strands" in the texture) so it doesn't look like one monocolored blob on the head. The eyes just need a more realistic touch, and I've read in another thread on reddit that a more detailed, darker texture map could be a rather easy solution without having to deal too much with lighting and occlusion etc. issues that could interfere with performance. And the makeup really just needs to be toned down a few notches and a bit de-saturated so it doesn't look like it's clown-makeup. Sadly, for anybody who doesn't play on the PC, I also doubt this will ever be addressed by the devs themselves. It's just not too big of an issue to allocate time and resources to fix it, and so people on PS4 and XboxOne will be stuck with it. Merken
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Post by boyaki on Mar 18, 2017 0:23:53 GMT
Complaining about make up is absurd.
Of course it is bad, nobody bring a freaking mirror in Andromeda !
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Post by cyberwaste13 on Mar 18, 2017 0:26:37 GMT
Complaining about make up is absurd. Of course it is bad, nobody bring a freaking mirror in Andromeda ! That's just like, you're opinion, man. I'm an artist. I cannot not notice crappy aesthetics.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by azarhal on Mar 18, 2017 0:30:04 GMT
Back in 2014, people were wondering why every characters had dark eyeliner in DAI.
The answer is obvious now, it's the easy fix to the pale eye making the character look like androids.
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Post by cyberwaste13 on Mar 18, 2017 0:31:57 GMT
I had the same thoughts. The make up on Addison and Suvi is really bad. But mods make it an easy fix, so it's whatever. Modders shouldn't have to correct poor design in Bioware or Bethesda games, but it is what it is. Yeah, it's just too bad that mods aren't an option on XboxOne and PS4. I'll probably get MEA for PS4, so I'm gonna have to live with those designs. I get that ultimately it's not a huge deal, but for me it's always a bit immersion breaking and cringeworthy when encountering "clown-characters" like that and it always takes me out of the game. But I doubt anybody at Bioware would go ahead and fix something like this, because it's probably not even on their radar when they have to deal with bugs, performance issues, storycontent etc.
Yeah, that's a bummer. Playing games on a console can be a real drag, sometimes. I play some games on the ps4, and it does bother me when I can't mod it.
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Post by boyaki on Mar 18, 2017 0:39:35 GMT
Complaining about make up is absurd. Of course it is bad, nobody bring a freaking mirror in Andromeda ! That's just like, you're opinion, man. I'm an artist. I cannot not notice crappy aesthetics. Well it was a joke. I know some crappy RP explication do not explain why they have crappy make up. And know I am wondering why they still have make up on the nexus...it seems to be a limited ressource that would have run out without enough things and people to produce it. Maybe they consider makeup production a high priority and feel the need to put too much make up to compensate. S.A.M. geth me.
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