Am I the only one who dislikes portraits (as a concept)?

[algroth]

Generally speaking I feel the traditional portraits work better for their overall aesthetic of Deadfire given the setting and the very organic feel the UI is going for and so on. In comparison I don't feel the CG models are neither high quality enough nor look organic enough to be a decent match to the rest of the aesthetic. In games the likes of Wasteland or Planescape: Torment, the UI was going for a pretty different feel and the setting could also justify a more modern-feel approach to the character portraits, but I don't feel that approach would fit Deadfire in particular, or has really fit most previous traditional fantasy RPG settings that have attempted the same. That said, I haven't played Divinity: Original Sin so I can't comment on that.

Edited April 9, 2018 by algroth

[injurai]

Exactly, the best cgi portraits usage I've seen was in SC2. It just perfectly fits the overall theme they have going, plus all the portraits are bespoke and higher quality than the actual unit models.

 

With character creators, I just don't see it looking as good.

[AndreaColombo]

I too prefer 2D portraits.

 

In the case of a spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine games, I’d find the 3D mugshot especially unfitting.

[Aramintai]

Exactly, the best cgi portraits usage I've seen was in SC2. It just perfectly fits the overall theme they have going, plus all the portraits are bespoke and higher quality than the actual unit models.

 

With character creators, I just don't see it looking as good.

SC2 is not a bad example, but those characters weren't just some randoms that you can make in an editor. Most editors I've seen can only make ugly mugs with varying limitations of choice and in party games like POE and DOS you can make a full party of these monsters...the horror . Hand sculpted 3D faces made by developers are still better. And hand painted portraits are better and cheaper.

 

Personally, I don't have high hopes for the future of character face editors for party based games yet, but I'm hoping that at least someday in the bright future when cool graphics are beautiful and cheap that there will be a party based rpg with a set of companions having beautiful 3D animated portraits working sorta like in Planescape: Torment - they had various animations and showed when they were hurt or dead. 

[mrmonocle]

Turned out an interesting discussion, however you haven't convinced me. 

 

1. Portraits are always a matter of taste. A perfect example is TToN that had styled 3d model heads in early builds that were beautiful with a slight Speterra Core wibe, later the heads were replaced with abysmal portraits.

 

2. Portraits are a finished work and don't reflect the character's progress. As an expression means they are inferior to a screenshot tool/3d head

 

3. Portraits are an artifact of the bygone era limitations that have been lifted to everyone's joy. It is the direction no one will argue.

Edited April 13, 2018 by mrmonocle

[Aramintai]

As an expression means they are inferior to a screenshot tool/3d head

Really? Did you take a look at the previous page and that dead eyed, plastic-y 3D mug and a hand painted portrait comparison? I don't know about you but for extended periods of game time I'd rather look at a normal looking face of a painted portrait instead of the low-poly mug of a 3D model, clearly meant only for small sized paper doll usage.

 

Also, I'm not sure where you've seen expressions on those. They can't have a hearty smile like in Eder's portrait, or have a snarky expression of Pallegina's portrait, or even "long face" of Aloth's portrait - these expressions let you get a better feel of character and that's something that is lacking in most static 3D mugs for portraits.

Sure 3D faces of hand sculpted characters such as Geralt in the Witcher series, or Nathan Drake from Uncharted, or Aloy in Horizon: Zero Dawn can be quite expressive, high-poly and good looking - but those are from games with a single playable character whose face is set in stone by the devs. To make faces of such quality editable is gonna be very very expensive and I've yet to see a character face creator that is even remotely close.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Aramintai

[injurai]

1. Why should we convince your matter of taste?

2. Garb doesn't reflect your character's progression either. I thought we established expression was a matter of taste? Why do people still get portraits painted when they could just have a daily instagram photo? Once again portraits aren't a status report, they embody the ineffable qualities of a person.

3. Because 3D renders were too ****ty or something in the days where 3D renders was the norm? Because any styled an be captured off of a 3D model today, or any 3D animated portrait is objectively better? If photoshop hasn't made oil paints obsolete, why have 3D renders made 2D portraiture obsolete? Unless...

 

It's not obsolete and it's an art choice.

 

What's with the objective argumentation after admitting these things are subjective? Trying to have it both ways?

[Sedrefilos]

There's nothing to convince here about. It's just how Obsidian chose to go. There's no objective truth about which one os better aesthetically, but I'll argue some more for its functionality.

Not to convince anyone but to give a viewpoint for why I believe companies should work more on their character models in these kind of games.

Customization is paramount in an rpg for me and portraits take some of that away. You chose a portrait someone draw for something else to become your avatar's picture. Eh... Not expressive enought for me.That's why I prefer 3D caps of the character I customized. Yes it is a choice of limited options but still way more customizable than pre-drawn portraits.

 

If I was a painter, able to paint my character's portrait exactly as I wanted, maybe then it would be totally different for me.

[Aramintai]

There's nothing to convince here about. It's just how Obsidian chose to go. There's no objective truth about which one os better aesthetically, but I'll argue some more for its functionality.

Not to convince anyone but to give a viewpoint for why I believe companies should work more on their character models in these kind of games.

Companies should also watch their budget. I salute Obsidian for saving money on such luxuries as character face editor (especially useless for an isometric top down rpg) and pouring it into more important things like, more content. 

Sure, AAA companies with lots of resources nowadays should be expected to have them where applicable, but not borderline indy devs like Obsidian. Still, even AAA companies can hugely disappoint on that front - just take a look at BioWare's latest games, like Mass Effect: Andromeda for example (still can't look at those ugly mugs without laughing). Currently the best character face editor I've seen was in Monster Hunter: World - with effort it could produce decent looking faces with enough variety. Some people even managed to make decent Geralt mugs there:

 

But that's a game with a whole other budget.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Aramintai

[Sedrefilos]

To my preferance, Deadfire models are ok to have a 3D capture for my character picture. I'm not a graphics elitist. I'd rather have my customized 3D face for my picture than compromise with a selection among 3-4 (a couple if playing orlan or aumaua or a specific godlike!) pre-drawn pictures even if Deadfire had DA:O graphics

 

Of course, if Obsidian doesen't feel their models are that good for this and don't want to spend any more money on 3D model graphics it's totaly understandable; as I said, this ffeature is not a dealbreaker, it just messes a bit with my love for fully customizable character it's all.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Sedrefilos

[Sedrefilos]

Oh, anothe feature that could be cool, since they went for hand-drawn portraits, could be what Shadowrun did: you pick a portrait and the character model automatically matches it. Then you can change stuff if you don't like.

[Aramintai]

To my preferance, Deadfire models are ok to have a 3D capture for my character picture. I'm not a graphics elitist. I'd rather have my customized 3D face for my picture than compromise with a selection among 3-4 (a couple if playing orlan or aumaua or a specific godlike!) pre-drawn pictures even if Deadfire had DA:O graphics

Well, you don't have to limit yourself to those few official portraits. It's very easy to put custom portraits into the game and there are **** ton of them on the internet, less for orlans and aumaua but there are some of those too. And if devs won't lock companions portraits in release version you'll be able to change them too.

[Aramintai]

Oh, anothe feature that could be cool, since they went for hand-drawn portraits, could be what Shadowrun did: you pick a portrait and the character model automatically matches it. Then you can change stuff if you don't like.

Not a bad idea, that's something they actually can do. Or at least remove portraits of other gender from the pool.

[Gilthas]

It can be annoying when the game doesn't offer a portrait that you like, but I wouldn't like them to be gone.

[InsaneCommander]

I really like the 2D portraits. It's not uncommon for me to be in doubt about what class/race I want to play. Then I look at the portraits and find two or three that I really like. After that I try to match one of them to the class/race combinations I'm considering and decide, based on the portrait, which character to play.

[Sedrefilos]

 

To my preferance, Deadfire models are ok to have a 3D capture for my character picture. I'm not a graphics elitist. I'd rather have my customized 3D face for my picture than compromise with a selection among 3-4 (a couple if playing orlan or aumaua or a specific godlike!) pre-drawn pictures even if Deadfire had DA:O graphics

Well, you don't have to limit yourself to those few official portraits. It's very easy to put custom portraits into the game and there are **** ton of them on the internet, less for orlans and aumaua but there are some of those too. And if devs won't lock companions portraits in release version you'll be able to change them too.

 

I know but it's so annoying to do. If they had an option to just import the picture from the character creation would be great. Now O don't feel doing all that stuff manually. Also, I play a wild orlan. Not many on the internet.

[PatrioticChief]

I love the portraits! 

[George_Truman]

Don't worry OP my burning disdain for portraits keeps me up at night.

[Arsene Lupin]

I love the *idea* of portraits, but am typically ambivalent (at best) about the execution. What modern CRPGs need are dynamic portraits that allow a degree of customization. Make each portrait a multi-layered image to allow players to modify certain colors (eyes, hair, skin, clothing, etc.) and we're good to go. The problem with most portraits in games is that they're seldom very diverse, and rarely match-up w/ the character models/sprites. But it's not like that's not a problem that's hard to solve--it's just a problem that, evidently, is very low-priority.

[Hassat Hunter]

Portraits here. 3D shots of characters are just jarring, even in games like Divinity: Original Sin 2. DA:O also suffered greatly for them.

[Hmm-Hmm.]

I like the portraits very much.

 

One niggle is that I usually want more - and the more races and classes and playstyles there are the more portraits I think a game needs. Sure, class isn't as important as you can have portraits which are appropriate for multiple. But aside from racial and gender differences there is also the matter of tone and role/playstyle. A swashbuckler isn't the same as a duelist is not the same as a mercenary - and all could probably have the same class. And that's not even mentioning more personal differences such as a more malicious or capricious or chivalrous one.

[Selky]

I like portraits as a concept a lot, what I don't like is being flooded with fugly immersion-breaking backer portraits. It wouldn't bother me if a lot of "normal" portraits were being added in Deadfire too but that doesn't seem to be the case - the only new portrait that looks natural is the blonde female orlan.

[Wormerine]

the only new portrait that looks natural is the blonde female orlan.

Oh, that one is fantastic. I ponder having my orlan get a sex change during this 5 year period... probably not though. 

[Arsene Lupin]

At the risk of offending someone by bumping an old thread....

 

I love the *idea* of portraits, but am typically ambivalent (at best) about the execution. What modern CRPGs need are dynamic portraits that allow a degree of customization. Make each portrait a multi-layered image to allow players to modify certain colors (eyes, hair, skin, clothing, etc.) and we're good to go. The problem with most portraits in games is that they're seldom very diverse, and rarely match-up w/ the character models/sprites. But it's not like that's not a problem that's hard to solve--it's just a problem that, evidently, is very low-priority.

 

...I'd like to point out that HBS' recently-released "Battletech" game does exactly this. If you own it, check it out. They even went a step further, somehow, as their (insanely robust 2D portrait generator) is capable of applying different lighting to each portrait, and can even alter really subtle details. It's beyond impressive, and way more than I'd expect from a dedicated 2D RPG like Pillars, so it'd doubly--triply--surprising to see in a strategy game like Battletech. (And if you don't already own it, don't buy it, it's buggy as hell and is pretty much the poster child for why the Unity Engine has such a bad reputation among consumers).

[MrH]

I think they're awesome, I just wish there were more of them.