Question about character details and customization

[Crystal]

I found a video of how will be this game and it looks awesome, the waterfall, the lights, the herb, all looks perfect, but characters seem too simple to me. I want to ask if they will be in 3D and if when zooming they will be detailed like in Dragon Age or, conversely, simplistic like in Starcraft 2. And, finally, if the level of detail is realistic enough, would be possible customize their appearance with a face editor, body details, eye color and hairstyle?

[LadyCrimson]

And, finally, if the level of detail is realistic enough, would be possible customize their appearance with a face editor, body details, eye color and hairstyle?

I doubt it. They're likely going to be too small for something like eye color to be noticeable in-game anyway, even in the closer view angles. The concept in these types of games are usually a focus on portraits, often as a sidebar ... where you can create/use custom portraits if you wish, to represent your character, but it's not going to be a Skyrim-y like character customization sort of thing at all.

 

It will not be like Dragon Age, no. P.E. is in the older, traditional isometric style than a modern 3D top-down/3rd person style.

[Lephys]

I believe they have mentioned character/inventory screen "paper dolls" that will use closer-up ("larger"), more-detailed models. But, yes, you most likely won't see such details on the character models while roaming the environments and battling things.

[Crystal]

Wow! Thanks for the fast responses!

 

I know what kind of game is, Sacred 2 has the same style but you can zoom enough to appreciate all character details. And Dragon Age is isometric too, I mentioned it! Maybe a face editor is too ambitious but could be available few models of heads like Divinity II.

[LadyCrimson]

I don't think they've really made it clear how zoomed in we'll be able to go yet...it's just my assumption that (in-game) it'll be fairly similar to the way it was in the older games like BG1/BG2 etc.

 

In their recent environment prototype video, it looked like two zoom levels ... one as the chr. was walking across the river rocks where you could see some detail in their armors and hairstyles, but not really their faces, and the other very zoomed out with the chr. very small in a corner.  Whether that was a true representation of a "min/max" concept and/or if it'll change as they progress, I can't predict.

[Lephys]

^ True. I just remember Josh (I believe it was Josh) talking about the character models and answering some questions regarding that update about them (and the universal armor and such), and saying that they don't really see a reason not to take advantage of higher-quality, less-tiny models in your inventory/equipment UI (and potentially other such places in the game).

 

So, I would just think that, it's likely we'll actually be able to see details such as eye color and such, in specific parts of the game (such as the inventory/equipment paper doll, and possibly certain dialogues, maybe? *shrug*), with the least-likely-but-not-impossible scenario being the "You'll just get to zoom in on your characters at any random point in the game to be able to see tiny details like eye color."

 

Merely a best guess with the info we have so far. 8P

[Prometheus]

The devolopers said that you can customize your character. from Update #41:

 

...
One of the goals in preproduction was to figure out how we could make character modeling pipeline be as efficient as possible. The problem is fairly complex: All of the six playable races, human, elf, dwarf, aumaua, orlan, and the god-like can wear armor, boots, gloves, helmets (...well, some have trouble wearing helmets, but we will talk about that some other day...) and have other options that the player can customize like facial hair, hair style and skin color.

...

 

 

In the new Update Josh said, that you can get closer than what was shown in the video.

 

 

 

...

* The scene where the characters enter the scene and the sabre guy walks across the creek is our current default zoom level.  We currently control zoom on the mouse wheel.  It can get closer than what's in the demo and as far out as the "wide" shots, so you have a lot of flexibility there.

..

[LadyCrimson]

Good to know.

It's still not eye color, however. But maybe we'll be able to zoom in close enough, then, where it might be feasible to actually notice eye color. Not of huge interest to me personally, but still, kinda cool/more than I'd be expecting.

[Crystal]

Great! Apparently there will be appearance customization. Only remains to know if the characters are in 3D and how detailed they will be.

[MortalMandolin]

In BG2 I was totally satisfied with the character costomization. To me it mattered more how the equippment was looking on my char.
Some time in the game everyone of the chars wore either a cloack, hooded robe, or at least a helmet to distinguish him from the other chars. Apart from that I think that is much more important,

to distinguish the character from others. maybe not the eye-colour but the physical apperance, which could be equippment, or even body posture. :D

[rjshae]

My guess is that it will be zoomed in just enough to see some of the details on the equipment. I think they did mention that it would be a low poly count of around 2,000, but they would start at a much higher poly count (for the bump map and texture). They should be able to get a decently attractive puppet model that way. Hopefully, it'll be tintable as well.

[Tamerlane]

Great! Apparently there will be appearance customization. Only remains to know if the characters are in 3D and how detailed they will be.

Character models are 3D, yes. And as was mentioned, your character's paper doll will likely be more detailed than their regular model.

Edited April 24, 2013 by Tamerlane

[Sensuki]

I'd be happy with hair style, facial hair, hair color, skin color. I don't mind if heights/girths are locked for diff races, not overly important to be scalable in an isometric game. Would be cool if you could show off 7" tall humans ie. The Mountain that Rides in the game though

Edited April 24, 2013 by Sensuki

[TrashMan]

I don't see why not.

You could adjust the height of characters in ToEE and every piece of equipment was visible on them.

[Lephys]

I'd be happy with hair style, facial hair, hair color, skin color. I don't mind if heights/girths are locked for diff races, not overly important to be scalable in an isometric game. Would be cool if you could show off 7" tall humans ie. The Mountain that Rides in the game though

It'd be nice, maybe, to have a few different height options within a given race's height range. I dunno if we really need a slider, though. Of course, I don't really know that a slider wouldn't be easier to implement than simply a handful of individual pre-scaled options for the model. *shrug*

 

Also, I think it would be interesting if stuff like that were tied to trait-type things that actually affected how people perceived you. You know, kinda like Fallout traits, and Arcanum Backgrounds.

 

"You're just plain huger than anyone else of your race. Your height range is raised by a foot. You gain +1 STR, and people are naturally intimidated by your stature, granting a +1 to all Strength-based checks. However, you lose 1 DEX and suffer a -1 penalty on all Dexterity-based checks."

 

Something like that, for a simplistic example.

 

To clarify, I think having people react differently to whatever height you happened to pick on a height slider (or stockiness slider, or muscliness slider) would be overboard. It seems like it'd be REALLY out-of-hand if not managed by something like a trait (that can function as an actual switch). Basically, your regular, aesthetic customizations to your character would be purely cosmetic and for your own enjoyment but actual changeable options (just like Race or traits) could flip switches that cause reactivity amongst NPCs in the game. And with physique options, the range you get to choose from by default could simply be the cosmetic range, then you'd have to use traits to get beyond that (just like being 7 feet tall instead of 6 could be tied to a trait, so could being extraordinarily muscley -- beyond what you can achieve with the default slider -- or ridiculously lithe, etc.).

 

*shrug*. Just an idea.

[Ulquiorra]

I found a video of how will be this game and it looks awesome, the waterfall, the lights, the herb, all looks perfect, but characters seem too simple to me. I want to ask if they will be in 3D and if when zooming they will be detailed like in Dragon Age or, conversely, simplistic like in Starcraft 2. And, finally, if the level of detail is realistic enough, would be possible customize their appearance with a face editor, body details, eye color and hairstyle?

 

Do you know how much modey went to produce Starcraft 2 ? or even Dragon Age ?

 

PE will have less money so this is imposible ...

 

In my opinion it whoud be simmilat to Neverwinter Night type of character custumisation ... not so mych of sims 3 ..

 

You whoud propably be able to chose some "heads" and custumize skin colour and hair .. mayby tattos but i don't think so ...

 

 

Characters will still look good but you propably don't see such details.

[Tamerlane]

I was really tickled when I saw the heigh/weight sliders in Neverwinter Nights 2. Obsidian is obviously very limited in this regard by both the resources they have and the type of game this is, but I really hope we see something like that again.

[Crystal]

"You're just plain huger than anyone else of your race. Your height range is raised by a foot. You gain +1 STR, and people are naturally intimidated by your stature, granting a +1 to all Strength-based checks. However, you lose 1 DEX and suffer a -1 penalty on all Dexterity-based checks."

 

That could be perfect. I ever wanted that aesthetic be more than pure cosmetic, I searched about this topic at the forums and apparently nobody said nothing similar, so I want to extend this idea to an entire topic to be put in a deeper consideration.

 

In my opinion it whoud be simmilat to Neverwinter Night type of character custumisation ... 

 

mmm we are at the second decade of this century... something similar to NWN2 will probably be the minimum amount of detail that people expect, less than that would be a little disappointing for a foundational project like this, especially considering that 2D backgrounds will save enough power to fully focus on characters. That's what it seems to me.