Character Creator & Character Customization (Official Thread)

I mean, I think it's doable if they use part of the code from DA:I. The question is will that bit of spliced in code play nice with the rest of the game.

Same engine, but looks like it's been used very differently to build ME:A.

There is no "fixing" the CC. They are not going to do that. There is no way to "patch something in". 

The way they approached the whole thing is simply wrong, and actually very cost ineffective. Not to mention limited in many ways. To answer your question as simple as I can, it's not possible to simply add "more" customization. Especially after the fact the game has being released. Heck, they couldn't even bother with fixing far more simple things in the past. But anyway, I will give some of my more complex thoughts on the matter:

From what I've seen, it would appear that they had the majority of the heads in this game scanned. And from that, I guess the topologies are different for each head, and non-morphable. (although, if you are a passionate freak like me, you could probably get around that if you new how to use the conform tools in 3DS max for example, and actually sculpt some additional features).

Which means, the rigs/skinning/weighting is also different for each of the heads. That might have cost them more than they thought, because different faces/rigs would require individual tweaking of the animations. The reason why facial animations are some times good, and sometimes atrocious. And the amount of work you need to put into making sure all these different heads animate properly is enormous. And you simply DON'T do it like that in a game such as this. You need flexibility, and uniformity when it comes to setting up your animation tools/workflows. Which is ideally made with one main generic head topology/shape, and from there you can create a TON of different morph targets for customization, or conform to different scanned heads, if you got the chutzpah. Making excuses like "it's because the heads were scanned", basically comes down to "too much work, not worth it from money perspective".

I could delve more deep into this, but this post is going to become too big and tedious to read. To summarize - Bad decisions, caused by laziness, that came to bite them in the ass (and their animators), and left us "consumers" disappointed.

- - -

Also, to me personally, the character creator killed the last remaining thing in the game for me, after almost everything else (such as the combat, the dialogue, the writing, the quest design and so on) was already out the airlock... Sorry for the slight negativity there, but that's the reality. If you get involved and start vocally criticizing the things you don't like, maybe some of it will reach EAware, and they might give you what you want in the NEXT game. Because, as Ian Frazier‏ have said, "that ship has sailed" for Andromeda.

I did the best I could with the CC and I actually really like how my Ryder turned out. But I still hope for some DLC that totally revamps the CC. Like seriously, how do you go from one of the greatest CC in gaming with Dragon Age Inquisition to this bosh'tet?

My best bet is they'll add extra presets, extra hair colours, maybe try and fix hair textures, add in makeup styles.

1. Personally, I don't think the cc is a result of laziness. If they were truly being lazy, they could have just ported in DAI's and called it a day. I think the goal with the face scans was to give customizeable options that would be more on par with the default Ryders.

2. That being said, they could have included more sliders in general, and I'm hopeful that if they do patch the cc, that's something the include. The presets prevent them from making the features interchangeable, but it seems fairly reasonable that fine tuning existing features (like eye angle or settings for the bridge of the nose) would be completely feasible.

As I've said, extra presets means more face scans + a ton of work, and the 100% risk of breaking the facial animation system further. Which means not happening. And from the publisher's perspective, definitely NOT after people have spend their money. The only thing that could possibly make the addition to more faces possible, is if they already had them ready. (for example they could add Foster "my face is tired"Addison's face as a preset, which has to be the most beautiful face I've seen in the whole game IMHO). But the fact that these faces were not included in the CC in the first place, speaks for itself. Also, that would require to integrate more options for Alec and... you know what? The further I go, the more you people should realize, that sadly what was done is done, and it's simply unrealistic to expect something to be added. 

To the question "What are they even investigating, then?", I will answer like this: They are investigating how to get out of the ****ed situation they are in in regards to the CC (because nobody from Edmonton told them the fans actually take character customization very seriously in their games), with lesser damage and and as few lost sales as possible. To the people who have preordered the game, all I can say is, I feel for you. You should've listened to us and waited for the reviews. And apparently even that wasn't going to help much, because almost no one from the press/reviews mentioned this. 

Even some of our favorite community members, like Lady Insanity were misleading (not purposefully) the people. They did raise the concerns about the limited CC on the EA events a few months ago I believe, and they were told that the CC was incomplete, and they will add more customization in the final game. Didn't happen, just like people like me expected. These things are usually build/finalized early in game development, and you don't add/change stuff a few months before release, possibly breaking all kinds of things. 

- - -

As to what to expect from their "investigations", I would say they will try to do something with the skin tone,and they will maybe add some more makeup masks(options), perhaps unlocking some hair restrictions. No more than that. They will give us something small like that, just to basically shut us up. (no matter how you feel about ME3's ending, we got the same situation as with the extended cut).

Sort of an update from Ian Frazier:

Asian Ryder preset 1 needs a little fixing but looks good

Bioware has a thing for big scary swollen eyeballs. It was one thing I remember noticing first, in Origins.

i dont like him much iether but for me is the lesser evil

i hope the modders from nexus start to take note and  maybe  we can start to see some nice fixes for the CC  ,   im certain bioware wont do a thing with cc anymore .

  they could add better face textures for those presets and hairstyles,  add better eyes etc ,  is going to prove a real challenge  for even the most experienced modders .

only thing i regret the most is having preordered the game .   oh well, another 50 euros wasted .