WORST character models ever...

[Sand]

Well, aren't we a bunch of opinionated jackholes.

[Wistrik]

I could accept the D&D 3.5 ugly/so-so model argument if there wasn't such a gulf in beauty/handsomeness between what the player can select for faces and what most of the NPCs come with. The player character faces tend to look more hideous than plain, based on what I can see at the local supermarket. I look terrible when waking up with a migraine, but that's nothing compared to what I see in NWN's character generation screen.

 

I won't be playing NWN2 for a long while, but I won't get rid of it either, because there is one human female face and one human male face I like, so I can still play the game. I just pretend my character is traveling back in time to try to improve on how he/she did things the previous time.

 

I'm hoping DA's player character faces are much better. Ugliness looks better on monsters.

[Tale]

Well, aren't we a bunch of opinionated jackholes.

When will Sand quit with the irony?

[karka]

I think, one of the better parts of the game is character models. If you're looking for WoW style elves, sure they are not there.

[Sand]

Well, aren't we a bunch of opinionated jackholes.

When will Sand quit with the irony?

Why? Its so much fun!

[Joseph Bulock]

I'm just going to point out that, as others have said, Obsidian's artists made the elves look as close as possible to the elves found in various 3.5 artwork. Forgotten Realms elves are a different ilk than the elves of Middle Earth or other fantasy settings, and as we were making a licensed D&D title, the artists had a lot of guidelines to adhere to, and whether or not you like the WotC art style, I think the Obsidian artists did a great job keeping our models faithful to the source.

[Sand]

I'm just going to point out that, as others have said, Obsidian's artists made the elves look as close as possible to the elves found in various 3.5 artwork. Forgotten Realms elves are a different ilk than the elves of Middle Earth or other fantasy settings, and as we were making a licensed D&D title, the artists had a lot of guidelines to adhere to, and whether or not you like the WotC art style, I think the Obsidian artists did a great job keeping our models faithful to the source.

 

I agree. To those who don't like it complain to WotC, not Obsidian. Also if it is such a bother don't play the game. Dungeons and Dragons is Dungeons and Dragons, and since NWN2 is an oficial Dungeons and Dragons game it must adhere to the PnP version as much as possible. Don't like it, tough. Its not going to change.

[Volourn]

Obsidian mad ethe game. the complaints should be amde to them. Afterall, not eveyrthing in NWN2 is exactly as it is D&D pnp so that kind of argument doens't hold as muych water as otherwise.

 

Anyways, actually on topic, I don't have time comparing things directly and it's been awhile since I've played pnp and a month or more since touching NWN2 sadly (lack of quality player made modules/PWs); but last I checked, D&D elves are supposed to be HOT (with exceptions, of course). That's the way it should be in games based off of it.

 

But, all that said, this is the way it is: "Don't like it, tough. Its not going to change."

 

The game is made. Time to move on.

[Wistrik]

Agreed, the NPC elves, dwarves, and so on, look great. And one or two of the player character faces look good too.

[Wistrik]

Agreed (what JB pointed out), the NPC elves, dwarves, and so on, look great. And one or two of the player character faces look good too.

 

Edit: meant to edit but quoted myself instead.

Edited March 15, 2007 by Wistrik

[Sand]

Volourn, it is time to get into 3.5e. DnD elves aren't "hot" to human standards. Most probably to elven standards, but not human.

[Joseph Bulock]

Obsidian mad ethe game. the complaints should be amde to them. Afterall, not eveyrthing in NWN2 is exactly as it is D&D pnp so that kind of argument doens't hold as muych water as otherwise.

 

Anyways, actually on topic, I don't have time comparing things directly and it's been awhile since I've played pnp and a month or more since touching NWN2 sadly (lack of quality player made modules/PWs); but last I checked, D&D elves are supposed to be HOT (with exceptions, of course). That's the way it should be in games based off of it.

 

But, all that said, this is the way it is: "Don't like it, tough. Its not going to change."

 

The game is made. Time to move on.

 

 

Yes we made the game, but we did in fact, make a game with a license. This means that every piece of art we made had to be approved by WotC, and had to match up reasonably close to their source stuff. If you compare our elves to the Forgotten Realms guides, you'll see that the art stayed very accurate.

[Volourn]

I know that Mr. Bulock. My point is that Atari/WOTC allowed many changes to D&D stuff in the game so it makes the argument that the models are as they ar ebecause of thatw eaker sine Atari/WOTC didn't seem to mind many other chnages. This goes for both NWN games (in fact, any D&D game). Besdies, I doubt every single character model is exactly like its pnp counterpart. But, yeah, everything needs their approval.

 

 

"had to match up reasonably close to their source stuff. If you compare our elves to the Forgotten Realms guides, you'll see that the art stayed very accurate."

 

This, of course, is true. Reasonably close of course can be interpreted differently by different people. Anyways, for me, it's no biggie one way or the other. NWN2 character models are fine the way they are.

Edited March 15, 2007 by Volourn

[Sand]

Of course if the artwork didn't mesh WotC would give a no go. The only interpretation that matters is WotC's since they own Dungeons and Dragons and the Forgotten Realms.

Edited March 15, 2007 by Sand

[samm]

What's strange however is that some of the NPC elves do look better (by human standards) than the ones selectable at character creations. Take Elanee's model, Deagun, Moire (I know she's not an elf, but she looks like one)... But in my opinion, the real tragedy are the poor half-elves if only the talented artists (talented judging by how other models look) adhered to the sketches and pictures in the PHB that looked visually appealing...

Well, no game-stopper at all, of course. I like NWN2 very much, and I'd even play it as a half-elf (just probably with cha 8 or a skin colour that masks much, like most darker colours )

[Zoma]

Only issue I have in general regarding of the models is the elves. The only elf model I enjoy oggling at is only Elanee. The others, I had to mentally gouge my eyes out.

 

I would personally suggest Obsidian use Elanee as a reference as how female elves should look like if more head models are to be added/refined in the xp

Edited March 15, 2007 by Zoma

[ramza]

Volourn, it is time to get into 3.5e. DnD elves aren't "hot" to human standards. Most probably to elven standards, but not human.

 

Could you please tell me whats the difference between 3E and 3.5E elves?

[Sand]

I simply use 3.5e since that is the most recent version of the game, Ramza, and nothing more. Sheesh, be a nitpicker why don't you.

[Oerwinde]

I didn't mind the models so much, except half-elves. Now those were hideous. And the crazy circus beards for dwarves.

[Rhomal]

Everything in NWN2 looks like they do in the D&D Monster Manual. Sure, the elves do look like Frick from the Merlin miniseries but theyre supposed to

 

And to add to this WotC don't give a lot of leeway. For exmaple, the Owlbear got scrapped because Obsidian was under the impression it normally stood/walked on hind legs. WotC said otherwise. So Mr. Owlbear got snipped from the game as they didnt have the zots to re-do it. The license owner has all the power and ultimately has the veto stamp it can use at any time.

 

Thus the concept art says elves look like this, then thats what the artists at OEI have to make them look like. If you do not like the art direction of NWN2 then it would be much more productive to go yell at the owners of the license how 'ugly' they imaged the elves (or what not) as.

[Joseph Bulock]

I didn't mind the models so much, except half-elves. Now those were hideous. And the crazy circus beards for dwarves.

 

I love those beards. This is just personal preference, but every dwarf I made (50+) made me smile, mainly due to the awesome beards. The multi-braid was my favorite.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Sounds like you may have been responsible for the NPC avatars in Baldur's Gate 2 with their braided hair and beards.

[samm]

Heresy! Please don't compare ugly BG2-Avatars (except when wearing chainmail) to the cool NWN2 dwarves. I really liked those beards, this was a close second to my character generation highlight: half-orc faces. They were just incredibly detailed and so half-orcish I just wish there were one 'serious' looking dwarven beard for an NPC dwarf in the toolset, but for characters, the beards rock imo.

[Dark_Raven]

The female elves sucked. They looked too manly to me.

 

If you guys copied ideas from D&D elves, I think WotC better get some better artist to draw their races.

[Schazzwozzer]

I've no love for WotC and have in fact had a commercial project on which I was working canned due to stylistic incongruencies with their approval department, but I don't think that this adherence-to-the-sourcebooks argument holds much water. Look at D&D Online, which is, in an awful lot of ways, a comparable game.

 

Honestly, the fact is that it's just really effing difficult to do faces well. If you get one little detail off, the whole thing can end up looking wrong (you've all heard of the whole Uncanny Valley thing, right?). I think this is largely what happened with a lot of NWN2's faces -- certain details and features are off. With the elves specifically, I think it's the eyes, and with a lot of the faces more broadly, it's the skeletal structure, like the cheekbones and such (much of this has to do with the normal mapping, which is often too detailed).

 

The head models are also really quite complex. They've got to do a lot of things, like lip-synch, move their eyes, and express some rough approximation of emotion. This is a fairly new thing in games, a development that's only started to really pick up in the past few years, and not every game is going to be able to pull it off like Halflife 2.

 

Finally, I'd bet they just didn't have time to go back and polish things up. There's a lot of art in NWN2 and there's only so much time and effort to go around. At this time, it's an immutable rule of game development that you're always going to want to put more in than you can actually achieve. What can ya do?

 

IN CONCLUSION, I think trying to pass the buck off onto WotC or saying that it's inconsequential cheapens the work that Obsidian's artists did put into this game. It's entirely fair game to criticize their work. At the same time, I think you've got to cut them some slack, and keep things in perspective. This game was made, after all, by mere human beings, a species widely known for their fallibility.