Just wanted to drop a line to say.....you guys are doing a STELLAR JOB on gameplay and content. Just rewatched the 2nd livestream tonight (Happy 4th BTW!!). Super happy and Excited about the State of the Game.
You are absolutely doing the right thing getting all the gameplay elements into place first! I do hope that you spend the time on the backend putting together really outstanding character models/choices as well. Please give us lots of variety and little elements that will allow us to stand out and customize. You have the opportunity to do this so well in Unity. Here's to hoping that when the time is right you find/have the right people that will pour thier hearts into our connection with our toons and how they look.
If I have any vote, I'd prefer that they choose a stylized vision rather than realism. Not cartoonish but stylized. It should shout PANTHEON for the next 20 years.
What say you?
I'm pretty sure they have a good vision for the models and that they are nowhere near complete with what they look like in the game right now. If you look at the races on the 'race' tab the character models look great imo. And I believe the game will look great when it's complete.
I like the vision and direction they're going with the character models, and I have no doubt they'll look great.
One of the big things for me is the quality of animations. If I was forced to split developer time, I would rather have more emphasis put on animations than character models. If there is one thing that Blizzard does exceedingly well, it's animations. They understand how important this is to the feel of a game. As an example, the graphic fidelity in WoW is low, but the great animations make up for it to me. Could you imagine the WoW models with clunky and cumbersome animations? The game would feel completely different to play. It would feel dated beyond its years.
I loved VG and played it until it shut down, but the animations were sorely lacking. I hope Brad and his team can improve upon this in Pantheon. In the end, the character model can look awesome, but if it doesn't move right... its all for naught.
I totally agree in regard to animations vs character models. High def models look great in screen shots and advertisements but good character animations make a much more profound difference when you are actually playing the game. Even vanilla EQ had great fluid character animations that I felt were lost in the graphic overhaul of SoL. I've played other newer games where the developers seem to either not realize this or not care. It doesn't matter how good your character models look if they move and interact with jerky and clumsy animations.
Dekaden said:I like the vision and direction they're going with the character models, and I have no doubt they'll look great.
One of the big things for me is the quality of animations. If I was forced to split developer time, I would rather have more emphasis put on animations than character models. If there is one thing that Blizzard does exceedingly well, it's animations. They understand how important this is to the feel of a game. As an example, the graphic fidelity in WoW is low, but the great animations make up for it to me. Could you imagine the WoW models with clunky and cumbersome animations? The game would feel completely different to play. It would feel dated beyond its years.
I loved VG and played it until it shut down, but the animations were sorely lacking. I hope Brad and his team can improve upon this in Pantheon. In the end, the character model can look awesome, but if it doesn't move right... its all for naught.
I agree, the animations are a huge part of the game. My (likely unfounded) worry is that after they pour all sorts of awesomeness into the actual gameplay mechanics and world building, they will feel rushed at the end and perhaps not put as many resources into the models and animations. I agree the concept art looks good, but it is afterall only concept art. They are hoping to hook some of the newer generation of gamers into trying and falling in love with a more challenging, group centric game...they need to have really polished looking models and animations to help that along.
To me it always seems to be a compromise. I have never gotten to play a game that I loved while also loving the way my character looks and moves. EQ1 doesnt count, they did the best graphically that they could at the time. Played EQ2 for 7 years, hated the models, the animations were alright, loved the combat, played GW2 for 6 months, loved the models and animations hated the combat. Of course there were many others but you get the point.
SO I would like my Pantheon filled with awesome and then wrapped up in awesome with a pretty bow =)
If the character models are like the racial wallpaper then I am totally happy with it. For me customization of the character is more important than the animations, so I may be in the minority here, but I have always enjoyed animations as well as emotes etc. I think they can do both for us, the world looks great so far.
I'm all in favour of great animations before character models. I still prefer the early EQ models and animations over the upgraded models and animations. As Dekaden said with the WoW animations, loved them. Rift animations from what I recall we pretty super-fantastic as well. Each class/race having unique actions would be amazing, nothing like watching a group all casting the same animation at the same time..
More on this : https://pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2704/character-animations
Edit: I cannot spell correctly
Pretty much agreed. If they basically follow the concept art they should be fine. IMO it's one of the least important parts of an MMO if you get them right, but if you get them WRONG it's something you can't put out of your mind. It's more important what you DO in the world, but your avatar is what people see and identify you with.
IMO the updated models in EQ were pretty good. I just logged onto EQ2 earlier today since I pay to play on Ragefire (the fees work for all their games), and my god... the models in EQ2 are so horrible, I can't believe they thought they were ok. I don't like cartoonish either. Funny how people love the WoW "look" - I played for about 4 months but had to quit cause I just couldn't get into the cartoon like world and models.
Yeah Rev I had a hard time with EQ2 models also, I never really liked what my character looked like, which is sad to be honest. Couldn't agree more with what you said about WoW, I tried it and it just didnt feel right for me. I am perhaps weird and do like taking the occasional screenshot of my character in some cool location and stick it on my desktop, much to my wife's chagrin.
internalprime8 said:I totally agree in regard to animations vs character models. High def models look great in screen shots and advertisements but good character animations make a much more profound difference when you are actually playing the game. Even vanilla EQ had great fluid character animations that I felt were lost in the graphic overhaul of SoL. I've played other newer games where the developers seem to either not realize this or not care. It doesn't matter how good your character models look if they move and interact with jerky and clumsy animations.
Dumb question on this. With HD level models and possible mechanics to go with them what demands will hittingthe average players system? I run a monster so I should see any issues at High rezolution but others might.
Not being a developer I was curious on server and PC demads.
Ox
Manouk said:NoobieDoo said:
Would it be hard ot sneak in a loading screen where the avatars, above, are represented as the opposite sex of what they are here? maybe on a future stream?
The joke being the gnomes, in being the same or suprise, being the gnrrl (<- pun on grrl)
The images there are concept art, not actually game models. So it's a visual that they are shooting toward, but probably subject to a fair amount of change as well. I'd love to see a male/femail style sheet for every race though :)
On the topic of animations, it's nearly a given at this point that character animations be done with motion capture rather than directly thru by-hand developer model manipulation. Instead of a bunch of artists trying to recreate believable animations, you instead hire an actor or two and rent time in a mo-cap studio. It's much less expensive, and much more realistic results. (Well, technically it is actually real results...) The artists create the models and a skeleton that can be manipulated, and simply apply the data from the mo-cap sessions to the models. There's some touch up work needed, but it's infinately faster than old school animation and therefor much less costly.
Feyshtey said:On the topic of animations, it's nearly a given at this point that character animations be done with motion capture rather than directly thru by-hand developer model manipulation. Instead of a bunch of artists trying to recreate believable animations, you instead hire an actor or two and rent time in a mo-cap studio. It's much less expensive, and much more realistic results. (Well, technically it is actually real results...) The artists create the models and a skeleton that can be manipulated, and simply apply the data from the mo-cap sessions to the models. There's some touch up work needed, but it's infinately faster than old school animation and therefor much less costly.
Yup, this! I was fortunate enough to spend some time working in the mo-cap lab at my university. It was a very cool experience getting hooked up with all the markers and seeing your movements translated onto the computer :D
I agree, the animations are a huge part of the game. My (likely unfounded) worry is that after they pour all sorts of awesomeness into the actual gameplay mechanics and world building, they will feel rushed at the end and perhaps not put as many resources into the models and animations. I agree the concept art looks good, but it is afterall only concept art. They are hoping to hook some of the newer generation of gamers into trying and falling in love with a more challenging, group centric game...they need to have really polished looking models and animations to help that along.
To me it always seems to be a compromise. I have never gotten to play a game that I loved while also loving the way my character looks and moves. EQ1 doesnt count, they did the best graphically that they could at the time. Played EQ2 for 7 years, hated the models, the animations were alright, loved the combat, played GW2 for 6 months, loved the models and animations hated the combat. Of course there were many others but you get the point.
SO I would like my Pantheon filled with awesome and then wrapped up in awesome with a pretty bow =)
I agree very muchly indeed!
I must admit I am spoiled by the modern mmos' pretty character models, á la Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert Online. (Even though I pine after EQ1 style gameplay in some other aspects!) I don't mean to say the character creation would have to be like in BDO but... Please, please give us lovely, handsome and beautiful character models with a lot of character creation customizing options!
I would like to be able to make a fat Ogre, dwarf, human. Or an aged battered Dark Myr.
A game does not appeal to me when all characters are athletes and all female characters are top and trunk overloaded.
If not at launch, I do hope the dev's get that in soon after.
For many players it doesn't matter as long as they can play the game and for others it might just be too detailed costumization to bother with it?
I do believe, I do not stand alone with this suggestion.
I know this is an old thread, but at least I searched for it and didn't just start a similar one.
Rominian said:If the character models are like the racial wallpaper then I am totally happy with it. For me customization of the character is more important than the animations, so I may be in the minority here, but I have always enjoyed animations as well as emotes etc. I think they can do both for us, the world looks great so far.
I agree! Fancy character models or smooth animations are nice, but nothing disappoints me faster than going in to create my character only to find my options are so limited that everyone is going to look essentially the same.
I hope they're putting time in developing a large number of hairstyles, faces, make-up/scar/tattoos, and skin/eye/hair colors. Creating an individualized character is the most fundamental component to an MMO.
Oh, and please let there be a chest slider, because invariably I want to shrink the chest area on women... >_< Male devs always make them too big for comfort.
