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Post by biscuitsntea on Mar 26, 2017 13:01:19 GMT
A while ago I made a thread where I talked about the strange design choices that Bioware made with human NPCS, specifically regarding uncanny, bright eyes, monocolored hair and intense, clown-like makeup. I also retouched a few screenshots to show how it could be done. You can find it here. But another thing has really been bothering me, and that is the alien NPC designs that Bioware has put into Andromeda. Specifically the turian and asari, where I feel there was not a lot of polishing with their designs. For example, take these three turians here:Their faces are just one solid color, and with the two male turians on the right it's even more jarring because these are two NPCs you met back to back, you talk with one, and the other one is pretty much the next NPC you talk to. It feels like they were created with an automated algorithm, and nobody bothered to touch them up to give them a little bit of variation in color in their faces Compare that to Joram Talid, a turian in ME2 that you only meet for a very short time in Thane's loyality mission. He has a very plain face as well, but there are still color variations within the face itself, and there's even a bit of uniqueness to it since the mandibles are a lot darker than the face itself. And he is a pretty insignificant NPC as well. Secondly, the asari in MEA share one single facemodel, as people have already noticed. Only markings / makeup change, but the structure of the face remains exactly the same. It's just lazy design to recycle one single face when in the trilogy there were at least three or four asari faces that had definite differences in structure and design. Yes, those facemodels were reused as well, but there was definitely a lot more variety, especially in addition to all the different markings / tattoos etc. that were also used. This wouldn't be too bad, if the one facemodel they used wasn't so... off. This is not about beauty or ugliness, it's about it looking not realistic in a game that seems to strive for at least semi-realism. The things that stick out most to me are: a) The eyes are just a little too big and "open", it would definitely help if they were sized down a little. The upper lip is very small, and often seems to vanish when talking. If it was increased in size just a bit, it would not look so off. c) The cheeks are too round and make the face look a little puffed up and oddly shaped, if they were toned down a little it would work so much better. I illustrated this in a retouch that I did of the lower left face: And just for fun, I retouched the rest of the faces as well. Lexi (the first) I gave a face that more closely resembles Natalie Dormers proportions. I know it's not perfect by any means, but I also do not have the facial scanning and capture - technology available that Bioware has. The others are just edits from the base face, just trying to slightly change the nose, lips and eyes to create a few different variations of the original face. These issues I talk about might not be a big dealbreaker for some people, but I personally feel the people that inhabit a game world are extremely important and should be given a great deal of care to make sure they look right. Especially in a game that relies so heavily on character interaction and dialogue as the ME series does, as Bioware games generally do. If your characters look odd, bad or even lazily designed, then people will notice. And they have noticed. I hope the Montreal team will take note of how people reacted to their design-choices with both humans and aliens, and even if they most likely won't fix it in this game, might remember it going forward. In a game where talking with characters is a very integral part of gameplay, you have to make sure that those characters look good. Not as in beautiful, but in realistic, believable and varied. And I just think Bioware really didn't deliever in that department. EDIT: Here is also a video that really shows the problem, they are all just clones, and with their wide, big eyes they look really creepy:
EDIT 2:
Some of you have mentioned the problems with salarians as well, and you are absolutely right! Here is Director Tann and Professor Herik, the exact same face. Not even a different color, it is the same face.
Compare that to 3 NPC salariens from the original trilogy:
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Post by zipzap2000 on Mar 26, 2017 13:15:23 GMT
Its immersion destroying.
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Post by themightypanda on Mar 26, 2017 13:16:14 GMT
Yeah I feel the same, I highly doubt that the models will change at this point so we'll have to wait for mods(if its even possible). But this BW team gimped out on alot of the "small" things. On a side note, they could have at least made the Asari voiced by Nat Dorne hotter Also I love the work you did on the Asari on the top left.
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Post by vanillah on Mar 26, 2017 13:17:08 GMT
60$ AAA - Alien NPC faces are all the same. Embarrassing , Bioware, embarrassing. ME:A setting new bar on how BAD and SLOPPY 60$ AAA can be.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2017 13:19:22 GMT
Don't forget the salarians. Most look just like Jarun Tann.
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Post by themightypanda on Mar 26, 2017 13:21:19 GMT
The answer is probably no but does BW even read these forums?
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Post by Clockworkspectre on Mar 26, 2017 13:30:42 GMT
Yeah, the asari really have been bothering me. They all look goofy, and I don't get why they can't be as varied as the human characters. They have human like faces, if the human NPCs can be varied why can't the asari.
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Post by rheia on Mar 26, 2017 13:48:26 GMT
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Post by themightypanda on Mar 26, 2017 13:52:40 GMT
is it bad that I can only name 2 or 3?
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Post by Shinobu on Mar 26, 2017 13:54:14 GMT
The Turian faces have been bothering me because they look like unglazed white clay with a bit of makeup thrown on. They seem like there is no texture or shading. It's especially unflattering on the Nexus where the lights are cranked up. Also, I believe the males are all using Garrus' head morph. At least Tiran Kandros should have gotten a finished face with different mandibles. I have a hard time looking at him because he reminds me of a clown or mime.
Asari have always had huge eyes, so that part doesn't bother me as much, though I think it would be better if the colored irises were a little larger to cover up the white. Totally agree about the cheeks and upper lip, though. Those are very distinctive features and the cheeks throw the head proportions off. If the reused Asari head shape had been more generic it wouldn't have stuck out so much.
People throw out the term "lazy" a lot, which implies some moral failing on the part of the devs. I'd prefer we said they "cut corners," because it could be due to other factors (running out of time or money) rather than bad intent. They obviously cut corners on this game, no question, but at least then it doesn't sound like we're accusing them of being bad people.
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Post by themightypanda on Mar 26, 2017 13:55:22 GMT
The Turian faces have been bothering me because they look like unglazed white clay with a bit of makeup thrown on. They seem like there is no texture or shading. Maybe they lost their colour after 634 years of Cryo sleep.
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Post by Shinobu on Mar 26, 2017 13:56:44 GMT
The Turian faces have been bothering me because they look like unglazed white clay with a bit of makeup thrown on. They seem like there is no texture or shading. Maybe they lost their colour after 634 years of Cryo sleep. At first I thought, "oh, maybe they're barefaced," but they have face markings. It's especially jarring because their necks have texture and shading.
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The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
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Post by aoibhealfae on Mar 26, 2017 14:13:23 GMT
what is mass effect without texture mods....
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Post by Eshaye on Mar 26, 2017 14:16:58 GMT
Please hire someone JUST for NPC and cc head design. And if you have one dedicated to that... They are not doing a great job.
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Post by commandercryptarch on Mar 26, 2017 14:34:55 GMT
Agree with everything.
+Let me add female and male salarians being practically the same. +Without giving specific spoilers,I met a female Turian somewher (female name and voice) but the model was male :S
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Post by therevanchist25 on Mar 26, 2017 14:59:24 GMT
To be fair, all those resources were generated in the Unity 3 Engine. I am not familiar with Engines and resources, but I suspect that's very hard, if at all possible. Not to say I excuse this, at all. The alien NPCs in this game are horrendous.
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Post by guanxi on Mar 26, 2017 16:27:53 GMT
Kallo the Pilot had the best facial animations in the entire game for me.
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Post by mikeymoonshine on Mar 26, 2017 16:34:59 GMT
I agree with the Turians but I can live with it, same with the Salarians but the Asari, oh my god the Asari! Sure in previous games they weren't that diverse looking but they didn't all just look like the same person with different face paint. I think the new engine/ better graphics makes it look more obvious too.
Lexi should have had a unique face and there should have been at least a few Asari faces. IDK why that's so hard to be honest.
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Post by cooldude on Mar 26, 2017 16:49:12 GMT
The Bioware studio that made the originals should of made Andromeda.
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Post by jnericsonx on Mar 26, 2017 17:39:28 GMT
Krogan too, Kesh's face is....off?
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Post by clips7 on Mar 26, 2017 17:43:59 GMT
The Bioware studio that made the originals should of made Andromeda. I agree....I think that team is working on their new IP. Looking back at the Frostbite engine, they probably should have stuck with the unreal engine and just refined it, but I guess they spent so much money on Frostbite, there was no way they was going to abandon it, and if it isn't the engine then it goes back to the talent of the artists which seems to be lacking in terms of animation, texture art design. The overall game looks great, but it looks like there has been some downgrades when it came to character design.
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Post by derrame on Mar 26, 2017 17:47:18 GMT
yes, the turians, they don't look fierce, scary nor interesting anymore, they look dull and repetitive, poor turians the devs should really fix this and the asari clones too, it's way too important
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Post by argentus on Mar 26, 2017 17:58:53 GMT
A while ago I made a thread where I talked about the strange design choices that Bioware made with human NPCS, specifically regarding uncanny, bright eyes, monocolored hair and intense, clown-like makeup. I also retouched a few screenshots to show how it could be done. You can find it here. But another thing has really been bothering me, and that is the alien NPC designs that Bioware has put into Andromeda. Specifically the turian and asari, where I feel there was not a lot of polishing with their designs. For example, take these three turians here:Their faces are just one solid color, and with the two male turians on the right it's even more jarring because these are two NPCs you met back to back, you talk with one, and the other one is pretty much the next NPC you talk to. It feels like they were created with an automated algorithm, and nobody bothered to touch them up to give them a little bit of variation in color in their faces Compare that to Joram Talid, a turian in ME2 that you only meet for a very short time in Thane's loyality mission. He has a very plain face as well, but there are still color variations within the face itself, and there's even a bit of uniqueness to it since the mandibles are a lot darker than the face itself. And he is a pretty insignificant NPC as well. Secondly, the asari in MEA share one single facemodel, as people have already noticed. Only markings / makeup change, but the structure of the face remains exactly the same. It's just lazy design to recycle one single face when in the trilogy there were at least three or four asari faces that had definite differences in structure and design. Yes, those facemodels were reused as well, but there was definitely a lot more variety, especially in addition to all the different markings / tattoos etc. that were also used. This wouldn't be too bad, if the one facemodel they used wasn't so... off. This is not about beauty or ugliness, it's about it looking not realistic in a game that seems to strive for at least semi-realism. The things that stick out most to me are: a) The eyes are just a little too big and "open", it would definitely help if they were sized down a little. The upper lip is very small, and often seems to vanish when talking. If it was increased in size just a bit, it would not look so off. c) The cheeks are too round and make the face look a little puffed up and oddly shaped, if they were toned down a little it would work so much better. I illustrated this in a retouch that I did of the lower left face: And just for fun, I retouched the rest of the faces as well. Lexi (the first) I gave a face that more closely resembles Natalie Dormers proportions. I know it's not perfect by any means, but I also do not have the facial scanning and capture - technology available that Bioware has. The others are just edits from the base face, just trying to slightly change the nose, lips and eyes to create a few different variations of the original face. These issues I talk about might not be a big dealbreaker for some people, but I personally feel the people that inhabit a game world are extremely important and should be given a great deal of care to make sure they look right. Especially in a game that relies so heavily on character interaction and dialogue as the ME series does, as Bioware games generally do. If your characters look odd, bad or even lazily designed, then people will notice. And they have noticed. I hope the Montreal team will take note of how people reacted to their design-choices with both humans and aliens, and even if they most likely won't fix it in this game, might remember it going forward. In a game where talking with characters is a very integral part of gameplay, you have to make sure that those characters look good. Not as in beautiful, but in realistic, believable and varied. And I just think Bioware really didn't deliever in that department. Merkennot to insult your work, but all you really did was make them all look very tired. or come across as semi-stoned, like ME1 Liara. it is jarring to see Turians without facepaint though since no facepaint usually signifies an exile or otherwise clanless turian.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion
Origin: DFMelancholine
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PSN: DFMelancholine
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Post by commandercryptarch on Mar 26, 2017 18:01:46 GMT
Yeah ,the Asari weren't that diverse in the OT but if someone showed me a picture chart with all Asari NPCs I could tell Rana from Shiala and Shiala from Tela Vasir and Tela from Aethyta etc etc. Now. ,I seriously I just see Lexi with different coloring and markings.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2017 18:07:03 GMT
None of those turians is trustworthy. Like Saren, they don't have face markings.
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