Character Creator & Character Customization (Official Thread)

It occurred to me that maybe there should be a middleware company that just does character creation tools. Like SpeedTree just makes trees and they sell their tech to any game that needs diverse foliage. If one company specialized in CC, then all these companies that need it for their games would all have excellent tech, every time. No more negative comparisons about what's missing. The CC tech company could spend all its time improving and expanding character models and UI. They would always be ready for the new graphics engine release because it would be all they do.

2000 hair types? No problem. Lots of presets, lots of sliders, all tested out the arse. Individual game companies could customize so that only options they wanted to use would appear. Want to allow height and weight sliders for really distinctive characters with human proportions? Awesome. Or would that totally mess up your animations and collision detection? Just turn those off in your game build. Want silly looking hair, tattoos, etc? Go for it? Need something more realistic? Or locked to a specific historical era? Just filter it out.

From a developer perspective this should be a win. Its not differentiating anymore to have the best character creation tools. Its just a possible downside if you screw it up. So just outsource it to experts. Every game would have standardized output from the CC and no dev and debugging time to spend on it. From a player perspective we get the best possible CC in every game. You could potentially even create near-identical characters to track across from game-to-game even from different developers (by using same sliders, etc.)

Any programmers and artists out there want to join me in launching this venture?

So I've seen about an hour of the game and really, CC is absolutely the WORST part of it.


I literally love everything else, story, characters.


But wow,...HOW just how do they miss the CC.

I am listening to Rag'n'Bone Man's Human, the Andromeda launch trailer music, as I parse through this thread.

Seeing that most people are very disappointed with it, now I kinda feel like they chose that song in purpose. "Don't put the blame on me! I am only Human!" - Bioware in response to all the criticisms, lol.

I tried to make a male.

It did not go well.

Looks like I'm sticking with females. That's a first.

they say it'll be partly resolved by the day one patch and future updates

personally I don't think BioWare has a good history of post-launch support so don't get your hopes up

Doesn't that mean they did not think to put a paler default in the game though? I mean they chose the heads to scan,bit of an oversight.

I don't think this is the case. I think reviewers that do this simply want to show the scretches of CC and/or they don't know how to use CC to make actually good looking character, lot of people play after only with defaults or presets after all. People that have shared their characters here have at least tried to make good-looking characters and succeeded, but the downside is that many of these characters look pretty much same.

Maybe this is bit stereotype, but usually male reviewers that are maybe into shooters in general and not really in RPGs tend to just do whatever with CC when showing it cause it's not just feature they are into. I have seen this bit with Bioware as well, those showing off CC of DAI for example didn't come up with that good character, it's more like they just wanted to show options quickly. I wonder if that could be reason why CC isn't that good though, devs simply not being passionate about it and making effort to make good CC especially when there is default faces.

Is the time in this CC actually going to make difference? There isn't many options you have from look of it so it's not like DAI's CC where you can endlessly tweak. 

Actually, Ian said he wasn't sure now.

Because apperantly there was this thing with colouring casual clothes that was resolved with the Day 1 patch, but apperantly its not in the Early Access trial.

There is also the case of explosive mouths in the trial, and they said they fixed that with the Day 1 patch.

This was the best that I could do. I'm satisfied, but more options is always better 

I'm still wondering what straight guy lied to them that this CC was a good idea...

They need a team of gays as consultants on CC and style.

First, let me say thank you for all the hard work that the BioWare team has put into this game. I really appreciate the fresh perspective. With that being said, I have a few constructive criticisms to share. I hope that this gets read and taken into consideration.

For me, many things can be brushed aside, from certain questionable facial animations to other, humorous, game-play bugs. These things can be overlooked and don’t generally ruin much for me, as a player. The one thing I cannot let slide is the character creation system. The face of a game protagonist, especially those that can be customized, is the very heart and soul of connecting a player to said character, and by extension, the game itself.

For a game company that promotes heavy customization and player choice for several aspects of this particular game, I cannot fathom why it was decided to make the facial creation system so elementary. If it was known that using facial scans was going to severely hamper the options and diversity of facial creation, it should have been abandoned.

Don’t get me wrong, the entirety of the creator is not quite an abomination. There are a couple features that are adequate. The hair looks much better than previous games, although styles are still somewhat finite. Adding non-natural color hues was a nice touch, for those that want them. The mechanic that allows for the iris to be two-toned is also lovely. The addition of tattoos is most welcomed.

Herein lies the problem: One can choose from a number of preset faces. This is fine. What is not fine, is the simple fact that we were not given the option to choose the shape of facial features for the preset faces. We are unable to choose the shape of eyebrows, eyes, nose, nor mouth. Choosing specific shapes and then tweaking them further is the very core of creating a face that we connect to. Having sliders to only adjust placement of height, width, and depth of certain features is mind boggling. What will result are innumerable Ryders that may vary to some degree, but at the end of the day will remain quite similar in appearance. Cookie cutter characters are not what we signed up for.

This needs addressed and it needs addressed in a timely fashion. It needs to be introduced in a way that does not make one completely start the game from the beginning when it is introduced. For example, if a player has 90 hours in the game, they will not want to start over to create a face that they really wanted from the beginning. That is unacceptable and unfair to ask of any player.

I have a suggestion [hopefully it is within the realm of possibilities]. Revamp the character creator and introduce it in a way that the player can access it in game and not lose progress, only change appearance. Something akin to Fallout 4’s plastic surgeon or Inquisition’s “The Black Emporium” via a Nexus or hub area shop, Tempest upgrade, hell, even by way of an unsavory character performing experimental procedures in a dimly lit cave, off a beaten path— get this feature in, and get it in as soon as possible. It will please the masses immeasurably and remove the bitter taste from their mouths.

Improvements needed:

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Option to choose eyebrow, eye, nose and mouth shape, and then be able to tweak it further via more sliders.
Previously mentioned sliders include:

Brow thickness, tilt, & color
Eye size, depth, tilt
Nose bridge height & tip adjustment
Mouth fullness, corner tilt, width, over/underbite


Skin complexion
Range of ages, more varied skin tones, more believable scars, less shiny- it looks lubed up with petroleum jelly lol.

Makeup [more natural options]
“traditional” eyeliner, lipstick, & blush options, not more abstract options like digital camouflage lipsticks, Clockwork Orange eyeliners, or Imperator Furiosa eyeshadow et cetera

Tattoos [love that this was added, but the options are underwhelming]
Take notes from Dragon Age or Skyrim. Make them more interesting and robust. The pixalated stuff around the eyes and face midline is strange and out of place, even if set in the future. Give option to be on both sides, as well as only left or right side.

Hair [Hair is looks/moves nicely, but need more styles.]
Allow both genders access to all hairstyles
Mohawks & fauxhawks would be nice
Really cool braided styles [think Lagertha or Ragnar, from Vikings]
Half shaved or sides buzzed with longer top
A few highlights, lowlights, or more depth in general [ie not so flat]

If only one section of the above list can be improved upon, please choose to introduce facial feature shape choice.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to playing the game in its entirety, hopefully with a Ryder that is as aesthetically pleasing to me as possible.