
Greetings fellow ME fans,
this thread was created originally to facilitate regeneration of custom-made characters in ME1. But it has evolved into a place for presenting character ideas to those who consider playing the trilogy from the start. As some of those ideas come from ME2, it offers information about how to convert custom-made ME2 characters to ME1 (page 2). A link to a ME2-to-ME1 Face Code Converter is given near the bottom of this OP. The thread also shows many great examples of ME2 characters converted to ME1, most of them as part of a special project of mine, as explained on page 2. If you include mere visual representation, you'll find over one hundred character ideas here, almost a third of them with detailed info for regeneration. The full list of the latter options is given at the bottom of this post.
Last addition to the GME2CCTME1 Project: Duchell's Gabriel, and ELE08's Jane, on page 5!
Without a good or interesting character at the helm we're missing out on the full enjoyment of this marvelous game. "Flaws" in the character's appearance can become quite distracting. To find the game as fun as it gets from the start, we may feel the need to generate a given character more than once, be it our own work with tweaks, or someone else's creation.
This could be a bit problematic for ME1 gamers. ME2 was supplied with an official face code system with which any character created therein could be quickly reproduced. ME1 was not. With the latter, all we got is a number of face-generating sliding bars. If we don't remember the exact position of those sliders for a given character, the attempt to reproduce it is bound to suffer accordingly.
But those sliding bars are moved in certain steps. This can actually be used to the same effect as the ME2 face code system. All we need is a codification system for the changes we can make on those sliders, keep track of the changes we actually make, and then a place to store that information. There's already a thread dedicated to sharing ME2 face codes on this site. I thought it a good idea to create a separate thread for ME1 players - a thread with the same function but invented face codes. People looking specifically for ME1 character ideas will have an easier task finding them this way.
So how do we best codify the face changes we can make in ME1? As you're all well aware, in the case of male characters, there are eight different screens for face generation, and in the case of female characters, one more. If we've opted for a male commander the first screen looks like this:

By clicking on the button for "Cycle Presets", we can make the first set of changes to our character, by clicking on the buttons below the first, we get access to other screens and potential changes; on each screen there's a number of different features that we can change. Now, in discussions in this thread about how best to codify all these options, a system with the following legend has presented itself:
C = (screen for) CYCLE PRESETS
F = FACIAL STRUCTURE: 1=Facial structure, 2=Skin tone, 3=Complexion, 4=Scar
He = HEAD: 1=Neck thickness, 2=Face size, 3=Cheek width, 4=Cheek bones, 5=Cheek gaunt, 6=Ears size, 7= Ears orientation
E = EYES: 1=Eye shape, 2=Eye height, 3=Eye width, 4=Eye depth, 5=Brow depth, 6=Brow height, 7=Iris color
J = JAW: 1=Chin height, 2=Chin depth, 3=Chin width, 4=Jaw width
Mo = MOUTH: 1=Mouth shape, 2=Mouth depth, 3=Mouth width, 4=Mouth lip size, 5=Mouth height
N = NOSE: 1=Nose shape, 2=Nose height, 3=Nose depth
Ha = HAIR (in case of male): 1=Beard, 2=Brow, 3=Hair, 4=Hair color, 5=Facial hair color; (in case of female): 1=Hair color, 2=Hair, 3=Brow, 4=Brow color
Ma = (female only) MAKEUP: 1=Blush color, 2=Lip color, 3=Eye shadow color
With such a system, the actual face code could look as simple as this...
Male C1
F 2-5, 4-3
He 1-31
E 7-5
J 1-22, 4-20
Ha 1-8, 2-3, 3-8, 4-6, 5-5
Thanks a lot to Another Dave whose comments upon the two earlier systems resulted in this third edition which is both more informative and scaled down to basics than ever before. Credit to him!
HOW TO READ THE CODE:
The first row of the code, which starts with the gender designation "Male" or "Female", shows which Preset face the character is based upon. A "C1" here means that you don't need to cycle through the Preset faces but leave the greeting or first face generation screen (illustrated above) as it is. A "C2", however, would mean that you have to click on the link for "Cycle Presets" once, so that you get to the second face here. The other letters in the code are abbreviations of the names of the other generation screens where change is needed to produce the character in question and they are listed in the order as they appear. If you see an "F" in the code, for example, you need to click on the second link from the top, the one called "Facial Structure", because at least one feature on this screen has been changed from its preset values. The number of #-# combinations after the abbreviation indicates how many changes are needed and the #-# combination itself what feature, counting from the top on that screen, needs to be changed and to what position the slider for that feature must be moved. A "2-5" in the code instructs the reader to move the second slider from the top to the fifth position from the left; a "4-3" that the fourth slider from the top should be moved to its third position from the left, etc. All screens and features which are not refered to in the code must be left unchanged.
Important Note:
if you adopt this system to write a face code for your ME1 character and expect to have use for it on the generation screens of ME2 as well, you should consider writing down the values for the unchanged sliders, too. Because if you don't import your character into ME2 as is but want to change its appearance a bit there, you may have to recreate your character from scratch. The good thing with this system, however, is that you don't need to note those unchanged values in ME1 right away. With the slimmed-down code for your character handy, you can always go back later and start a new game in ME1 just to check what those other values were.
Using the above code example according to this system - with face code and pic examples all revised in February 2011 - the final character should appear like this...

This is my canon commander since day 1 after obtaining a copy of Mass Effect (before I knew this forum even existed).
He's gone through a number of different incarnations, but here's the current story (roleplaying example #1):

Deker Eugene Shepard - a man known for his tremendous energy and relentless drive to eliminate bad guys. The source of this drive is the trauma he went through as a young colonist on Mindoir, where everything he loved, including all relatives and friends, was destroyed by savage Batarian raiders. He nearly died there, too, and carries ugly scars all over his body since. Sworn to hunt down the culprits and all of the same evil mind to prevent anything like that to happen again, he signed on for best possible training to do so: the career as a soldier and officer of the Alliance Fleet. But the dark personal history sometimes gets the better of him. If something reminds him too strongly of Mindoir, he can lose his composure and erupt into a terrible fit of rage. A number of such instances has earned him the nickname of "Mean Gene", and a reputation of being ruthless. One of those instances was on Torfan.
The incident on that moon was the climax of a long and bloody campaign launched by the Alliance to rid the Skyllian Verge of batarian slavers and other criminal elements. The attack on Mindoir in 2170 was a clear indication that trouble was brewing in the area. But it was not until the Skyllian Blitz in 2176, when the very human capital of the region would have gotten razed to the ground by the same savage elements, if it hadn’t been for the heroic actions of a woman called Ma'heona'e, that the Alliance realized the seriousness of the situation. Two years of hard campaigning later, the Alliance Navy had the last army of slavers trapped on their subterranean base on Torfan. The superiority of the human fleet was wasted in the assault on the underground bunker, which extended miles below the surface. But Mean Gene led a corps of elite ground troops into the heart of the enemy base. Nearly three-quarters of his own squad perished in the vicious close-quarters fighting, a cost he was willing to pay to make sure not a single slaver made it out of Torfan alive.
Gene does not care about himself, or the way he looks, or trivial things like that anymore. The ever unshaven chin is a tale-telling sign of this. But he cares a lot about certain things. People better behave in his presence.
Not surprisingly, while there’s a growing number of (bad) individuals calling him bad names, there’s also a growing number of (good) individuals to whom he’s become some sort of saviour. The latter group of people has a different nickname for him: “Deus” (Latin for "god"), from his initials. But they don’t dare to call him that in his presence. He's known to even dislike hearing his real name Deker, a Hebrew word which means “to pierce, piercing”, or Eugene, Greek for “well-born”. Only Gene is OK with him - “born Shepard".
Befitting a real marine, Gene prefers to gear up with heavy Hydra armour and an assault rifle he can trust to work in all conditions, including the butt end of it.
Faces of the commander (best observed in full size):

in thoughts

troubled soul

new XO

handling husks

in turian-designed armor

Speaking to Spectre Requisitions Officer

Rushing geth snipers in Peak 15 Research Facility on Noveria

The final trio on Ilos

Two years and one big resurrection project later, in new body and armor on unknown Cerberus space station

Looking like the real deal on his way to the colony of Freedom's Progress

Heavyweight Gene approving of the new Normandy

Being introduced to EDI - thinking Joker won't like sharing control over the ship with that thing
...

One version of this character was the first to reach ME2 for me. But the transfer revealed some flaws in his facial features that took me many attempts (and two femshep careers) to remedy in the way shown above. The other day this last version of the man reached ME2 again. Looked far better now. Except for certain situations (in the beginning of the game), like when holding a weapon, where his face appears a bit compressed, ME2 has him looking like a real hero. Few characters have given that impression on me.
* * *
Footnote: a greater selection of pics is displayed in an album here. On this site, however, albums (go figure!) are the worst place to post pics, as the uploaded images get reduced in size automatically so severely that they lose most of their impact. So that album will primarily be plain informative about the progress of Gene's career. Some busy bee called Dirban [dihr-buhn] is apparently involved in the production of such information...
Anyway, by following the above steps, we could all give ourselves the means to easily reproduce any ME1 Shepard out there and enhance our gaming experience accordingly. If anyone has a better better idea for such a system, I'm all ears. Until then, any gamer willing to share his or her ME1 character with others are welcome to use the method envisioned here and post the results in this thread.
Coming up: more examples of how this could work.
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The Transfer From ME2 To ME1
cachx was the one who, to my knowledge, created the first ME2-to-ME1 Face Code Converter and made it available for all people on this site. I used it for the first half of my GME2CCTME1 project. In connection to an explanation of what all digits in the ME2 face code stand for, which was given on page 2, I provided a link to that converter. That link now seems dead. Fortunately, Tup3xi has stepped in to create another one. You can find it here. Give Tup3xi his due credit there, too.
Edit 16 June 2013: Found a place where cachx's version is still operational - here.
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THE STARS

For inspiration in Asian-looking femsheps, see my Linh, Halo and possibly a variant of Ma'heona'e.
For inspiration in Black femsheps, se oldharryold's Sophie, Flies_by_Handles' Nemain, Xeranx's Qiyana; maybe AkodoRyu's "Ada" and Duchell's Keira as well.
For inspiration in Black malesheps, see PrinceLionheart's Joshua, Mondo47's Isaac, Axeface's Kael and IntrepidProdigy's Kai.
Don't forget to check out the many other sheps listed as visual inspiration on page 5.
Modifié par Domar, 30 juillet 2013 - 09:17 .





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