WORST character models ever...

[Dark_Raven]

I liked Morrowind's models. I would give worst character models ever more towards the Bioware Neverwinter Nights. Leather armor that looks more like a pimp's bathing suit?

You win. Even though Morrowind's models looked like ****, NWN1 was far worse.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Your kidding? Tell me your kidding.

[Dark_Raven]

Of course not, they both sucked. One reason why I held off playing 3D games is because of sucky character graphics.

[ouiouiwewe]

Plus the worst character models ever aware really should go to morrowind.

Well.. on the other hand, Morrowind has much better gameplay, storyline, and voice acting. It is also a couple of years younger than NWN2 and has much lower PC requirements.

[ouiouiwewe]

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?

I think they don't have time to polish a lot of things up actually (kind of reminds me of Dungeon Lords, though not nearly as bad). It all comes down to planning and time management.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Plus the worst character models ever aware really should go to morrowind.

Well.. on the other hand, Morrowind has much better gameplay, storyline, and voice acting. It is also a couple of years younger than NWN2 and has much lower PC requirements.

 

That's moot tho' due to the fact the models are still awful, even for the time.

[Oerwinde]

Plus the worst character models ever aware really should go to morrowind.

Well.. on the other hand, Morrowind has much better gameplay, storyline, and voice acting. It is also a couple of years younger than NWN2 and has much lower PC requirements.

 

Morrowind had a storyline? The lack of a story and the crap gameplay kept me from getting further than a half hour into the game, which kept me from hearing most of the voice acting. Though 90% of the voice acting in NWN2 was ass so I'll accept that part as true.

[Slowtrain]

Just the fact that any games character models would be compared to MW's is damning enough.

 

MW was butt-ugly from a human being perspective. I'd probably give the nod to NWN2 there, but only because the MW faces were SO awful.

 

Really, the low standards that crpgs seem to have for their character models and body art is kinda depressing.

[Maria Caliban]

My only real problem with the character models is that the head and neck of every female suggests advanced osteoporosis. It appears no woman in the Forgotten Realms has ever learned to stand up straight.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Just the fact that any games character models would be compared to MW's is damning enough.

 

MW was butt-ugly from a human being perspective. I'd probably give the nod to NWN2 there, but only because the MW faces were SO awful.

 

Really, the low standards that crpgs seem to have for their character models and body art is kinda depressing.

 

It's due to the fact RPG's are so damn asset heavy.

[Slowtrain]

Just the fact that any games character models would be compared to MW's is damning enough.

 

MW was butt-ugly from a human being perspective. I'd probably give the nod to NWN2 there, but only because the MW faces were SO awful.

 

Really, the low standards that crpgs seem to have for their character models and body art is kinda depressing.

 

It's due to the fact RPG's are so damn asset heavy.

 

 

Do you mean in terms of development time? You can only spend so much time devleoping each asset since there are so many?

 

I'm not sure I can buy that fully. All the great hair and faces mods that came out later were done by "amateurs" who lack access to the kind of resources that a large studio like Bethsoft can provide, plus for the most part all the mods made better use of the resources, lower poly counts etc.

 

And Bethsoft has shown that it can get better if it wants with Oblivion. Not that Oblivion is great, but it is an improvement.

 

Obiviously, a dev team has to priortize, but I think in a crpg making human and humanoid forms that look good (and by good, I mean lifelike, not "pretty") would seem pretty important.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Do you mean in terms of development time? You can only spend so much time devleoping each asset since there are so many?

 

Yes, and polygon limitations for intended systems.

 

X amount of time is dedicated to developing each model, and when you have an asset list like that in an RPG there are more models required than for an FPS, so less time to actually make them, and texture them.

 

There is also the fact that RPG's generally run on lower end systems to FPS's, this means there has to be less polygons dedicated to the result.

 

I'm not sure I can buy that fully. All the great hair and faces mods that came out later were done by "amateurs" who lack access to the kind of resources that a large studio like Bethsoft can provide, plus for the most part all the mods made better use of the resources, lower poly counts etc.

 

In the respect of morrowind, this is true. They did a crap job on the models, and the mods released improve the game 10 fold. They did a poor job, and don't really have an excuse so to speak.

 

And Bethsoft has shown that it can get better if it wants with Oblivion. Not that Oblivion is great, but it is an improvement.

 

Sure, but they only needed to develop the template assets for the PC races because it's very much a code driven modification process to the templates that we see in game. So it's a different approach, the artwork is better though.

 

Obiviously, a dev team has to priortize, but I think in a crpg making human and humanoid forms that look good (and by good, I mean lifelike, not "pretty") would seem pretty important.

 

It's always important, but RPG's aren't and have never been graphic driven, it was one of the last genres to go from 2D to 3D.

 

RPG's also tend to have more characters on screen than FPS's, less polygons, less time to perfect.

 

RPG's are not really a genre that push the bounderies of technology, NWN's 2 is an example of a game that's really on the verge of what is capible at acceptable frame rates for an RPG.

 

If I every see a totally lifelike model in a game I'll let you know, I've never seen fingers move in a realistic fashion. Model deveopment is quite a long process...

 

Modeling of the mesh, creation of the texture for the mesh, rigging of character bones and animation. That take alot of time and a fair few people.