SOTA Characters...Please don't stick a fork in it

Here's my version :





Which is better !!!!! lol

 

I dont want to explain again the same. Cool pics.

 

Here are a few female models available in the Unity asset store that SotA could utilize that look better than what we have currently.

$15





$85



$5





Just saying there are other options out there.

 

very cool!

 

Here's a finely rendered lady just for you, Eriador,

 

Three points:

1) Yes, rendered still frames can look much better than real-time in-game graphics, particularly if you only have one character to render, and not dozens of others.

2) Yes, rendered still frames can look much better than real-time in-game graphics, particularly if you only have one character to render, and not dozens of others.

3) Yes, rendered still frames can look much better than real-time in-game graphics, particularly if you only have one character to render, and not dozens of others.

 

Perfect lady for Sota. (L)

 

Dont forget the houses with all the custom items. And the day cycles the weather...

 

So true and some of the pics I posted have been optimized by an absolute pro .....*some*

My game doesn't look too much different though and that's game play footage.

Skyrim has the graphics, custom items / housing and hundreds of weather systems.

More important than the above, High Baron O`Sullivan has posted information on clearly superior unity models that cost $5 - $85 US.

What sayest thou?

 

As with other threads one the subject this one is getting derailed, so I'll make a desperate attempt to get us back on point with some practical considerations.

1) As previously mentioned, the global proportions of the female model are off right now, far enough off to be a serious concern. The $15 model O'Sullivan posted is an example of a much better base line. We had raised this issue in an older thread though and I think it was dev acknowledged.

2) When it comes to character customization, I have one word for you, just one: HAIR. Hair is a massive part of self expression in the real world for both men and women. If (hypothetically) the one and only choice we had was a myriad of hair styles (I mean a ton), we'd be half way to where most of us want to be in terms of our toon looking the way we want.

Interestingly, I had a very quick peek at the Carbon video, left it small inside the post so I didnt even really see what the quality was, but something caught my attention: Yup, it was the simple tossing back hair emote! Its all about hair.

 

It may have ended for WoD, but was carried on into the world of EVE Online. You can customize nearly everything about the character, specifically the face. Tattoos, scars, dozens of hairstyles, a full range of hair color, eye color, skin tone, eye position and shape... these are just a few things the Carbon framework was capable of, and was integrated into EVE about four years ago.

Not saying it needs to be this, but SotA's character creator needs to be able to do more than what could be accomplished 18 years ago.

 

This is where I chime in and say that skyrim is usingamuch better engine then Unity.

 

One of my first checks if character customisation is taken seriously is the option to have long hair, that grows over the shoulder.

It does not happen often, actually very rare customisation option.
But i am always sad that it is left out so many times, as long hair just look so darn good on women. grin




And of course , i am just fooling around. I bet adding the option for hair like my example must be like 500 000 Dollars extra pledge money and a ton of extra work. The animation of them falling over the shoulders. For every armor you create you probably need to check if the long hair works.

You can listen to many youtubes saying how hard it is to create hair.
But this demo gives hope.



Unitl then, I will miss them.

 

So very much this.

 

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I hear what you are saying. It is fine to me since I made the post that we talk about characters that we have admired or whatever to flush out inspiration and likes and dislikes.

The more technical people chiming in on what is so about character development is very interesting to me. In the end it's just the bottom line of the importance of improving, scrapping or whatever needs to be done. It is an important issue and we are all here because we care about SOTA and it's success very much.

For those that think this is just another post or gripe about SOTA characters well in some ways you could say it is, but who is new here?, who has a thought on this that didn't see previous threads, and who was getting just a little of a sense of urgency when it was an Oct-Dec release date?

Just as with the map, PVP, and combat, etc., we will not be suppressed on this issue ,so for those who are *sighing* on this subject, don't read if you don't want to talk about it. And not to you in particular Sunsanvil, but as a fact: We need better looking character models somehow, someway no matter what some say. SOTA DESERVES AND NEEDS THIS DESPERATELY before release. I do believe this will happen. We have a wonderful community and team of developers who will make it so.

 

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Oh those models are so cool. Thanks. We'll take one of each LOL.

 

It takes a single person to create a working, proportionally appropriate skeleton model. You don't need an AAA budget - you need just one talented person. It is my hope that the upcoming re-polishing effort will fix the major flaws. Eventually we'll see increased character customization. I'm having a hard time "identifying" with the models we currently have.

 

Well done O'Sullivan! These are some of the ones I was seeing in the Unity website. They would be a great improvement over our current avatars!

 

I think it's too soon to be judging the quality of the characters. Portalarium has some pretty experienced and talented people on board and I doubt that they'll release anything as clunky as we've seen so far. On the other hand, it's important to remember the size of the team and their budget.

While some inspiration can be taken from the above examples, consider that some of them are renders, some of them took years of man-hours to create and some of them are from single-player games. I followed EVE development for a number of years. Yes, the tech they developed for character creation is impressive and much of what is seen is possible on today's machines (albeit topend.) Their efforts were long, arduous and costly. They also worked closely with NVidia to get advanced tech. This tech was intended to be used in World of Darkness, Dust 514 and EVE. World of Darkness was canceled, EVE's Walkiing in Stations was canceled and Dust 514 appears to be limping. While the underlying tech can still be utilized for more than characters, the millions that they spent on development has been largely wasted.

This is not to say that we shouldn't prod the Devs about it, but I think complaining about how the characters now look is premature. If they look unacceptable to the average player you can bet that they are unacceptable to Portalarium's professionals.

 

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Thank you for your insightful post Mugly Wumple. I disagree on one point though, and that is that this does need to be talked about. The dev team does need to know how we think on many of the different parts of SOTA that we see. They are so busy, and yes a small team, imagine how helpful it is to have insights of gamer preferences while they are creating this marvelous game. So again we will not be stifled on this, it is for the good of the game. This is about SOTA and this is for the good of SOTA. The development team can take what we say as inspiration, or use it however they need, or of course take it with a grain of salt if appropriate to the demands of the system they are creating. I'm not speaking of you in particular but to anyone who doesn't want to be in this post for SOTA, don't be in this post. We are a wonderful community just caring about the game, perhaps a bit obsessive/compulsive, individual, and unique lol well not me of course lol.