365 réponses à ce sujet

[ipgd]

tmp7704 wrote...

It's the basic part of design which the comics --both american and foreign-- were able to pretty much ignore -- as large part of their cast have effectively one and the same body type dressed in different colours and accessories. It is also part of design which is largely absent in movies, where they similarly settle on generic handsome for the most part (unless it's a comedy or the character's physical shape is part of the focus)

In other words, maybe it's not as crucial as you were taught to believe.

Some comic artists are really ****ty.

That's like saying because Stephanie Meyer managed to publish a successful series without bothering with things like actually being able to write, that actually being able to write is not as crucial as you were taught to believe and isn't something authors should bother with or aspire to.

Yes, there are many comics where distinctive face/body design is effectively ignored in favor of shorthands like bright colored costumes and ridiculous hairstyles. There are also many comics that are drawn by artists who actually know what they're doing, and those are better.

Hollywood's crap is an entirely different issue all together. Though it gives a stupid amount of preference to conventionally attractive actors, those actors still don't look identical. There's an incredible range of distinctive features and shapes you can give to faces and bodies, even staying within the boundaries of conventional attractiveness. Generic Conventionally Attractive Hollywood People like Jessica Alba and Angelina Jolie and Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt do not look identical.

As I said:

which is not so much a failure on the part of the artists as it is the engine that demands they be basically physically identical.

That was answer in context of "And have you seen what they had to do to make that work?" where you were seemingly blaming poor anatomy of the character on the fact the game had separate models of the armour for different combinations of species/gender. Which is simply false, as it's perfectly possible to avoid these anatomy errors even in DAO. Meaning yes, such errors are a failure on the part of the artists.

I'm blaming the poor anatomy of the characters on the fact the armor was rescaled based on the human rig shaped to fit a dorf. Granted, the male human rig also had godawful anatomy that was the failure of the artists, but the issue with female humans/dwarves/elves/qunari looking especially ridiculous was the engine.

edit: Not to say that's the only way to do it, but it saved time and I'm not seeing them getting as much time as they had with Origins on any new game.

Modifié par ipgd, 04 août 2011 - 01:26 .

[TEWR]

FieryDove wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Well... if you get her to max friendship (and I'm assuming max rivalry) and have sex with her, she gains a bit of leather on her attire.

Happened to me in Act 2.

Cough...I need more coffee.

Actually.... I may have been mistaken. But she does get some armor

[BomimoDK]

There's a mod out for DA2 that lets you equip any armor on any companion, but all it does is change the companion armors color scheme a bit. I find that to be very nice since i still get to set the characters role in combat.

What we have to restor here was the OPENNESS of the origins system. Hell. Give a mage a full plate armor if you want. I liked that. You had to count on your own common sense to set him up for combat rather than artificial boundaries.

Just the fact that Varric has no idea how a dagger works and Isabela can't do bows is an example of where such boundaries do NOT fly. Sure the character was optimal in one kind of combat, but if you wanted you could train him/her in a second school. We can't now.

So i say. Restore the openness. But restore it on your premises. A color scheme sounds damn nice for armor IMO. Weapons on the other hand. My call would be to just not restrict that at all. Or restrict it as Origins did. As much as you want to evolve on Origins. Some things were good. The armor/weapon system was such a thing.

[FieryDove]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Actually.... I may have been mistaken. But she does get some armor

Yes, that is much more protection for close quarter fighting. In fact she can solo, I will watch.

[lv427]

I never liked telling my companions what to wear in DAO. I prefer them to be individuals. But I can see the strategic advantage in it. A compromise of being able to find or buy new companion armor would be a good idea, imo.

However, I think it would be awesome, if the companions took it upon themselves to handle armor upgrade when levels change appropriately. Their choice of armor style and stats could be affected by decisions we have made in the game thus far.

[Sylvianus]

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

FieryDove wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

Well... if you get her to max friendship (and I'm assuming max rivalry) and have sex with her, she gains a bit of leather on her attire.

Happened to me in Act 2.

Cough...I need more coffee.

Actually.... I may have been mistaken. But she does get some armor

Armor completely artificial, even for a pirate.

[BomimoDK]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Didn't read the options presented after the first post.

I love the unique armors myself, they've been something I've loved a lot as they can tell a lot about a person. The love interest armors were a really nice touch, I loved seeing Merrill wearing Hightown clothes (it fit with her moving into Hightown).

Though I understand most people missing the lack of equipment management, I was kind of disappointed whenever I looted a piece of mage / warrior gear when I was playing a rogue and it served no purpose other than vendor trash.

What I'd like to see is probably more on the unique look front or keeping it as it is now, though allowing the player to customize gear. Want Isabela wearing plate? Sure, you just need the stats for it and you're set. Just don't expect her to actually wear plate.

Expanding the above idea further:
Another thing you could potentially do if you'd still want armor impacting look but still have unique appearances for the companion, have the different weights of armor (by reintroducing them) have some minor effects on the companion armors.

Isabela is wearing light armor? Have her in her casual armor.
Isabela is wearing medium armor? Maybe add some pieces of leather here or there different from her "default" outfit.
Isabela is wearing heavy armor? Expand the above, add some plating to her clothes. Something similar to what Fenris has on his clothes. Nothing drastic that makes it not "look" like Isabela.

You'd have to balance resources as this would create a lot of unique models for each companion, though it would make some people happy as you'd see some characters gaining protection for the armor they are wearing (a minor complaint IIRC) and you'd be keeping unique looks.

You know. This along with unique color schemes depending on what set will create a lot of diversity. If not colors, then patterns. See. I've always wondered how Isabela would look in Red and Black. How would Fenris look in Royal blue? Could Aveline don a pink armor? Just imagine!

I wonder how much work that would be. If it was just color change, they could just script it or w.e. as an overlay on the original texture by overlaying it with white and THEN the color... The memory print would be a nightmare though. Maybe patterns?

[Giltspur]

Experiences.
(1) DAO: Aw crap.  I got this robe for Morrigan and it looks worse than her normal armor.
(2) DA2: Aw crap.  I got this Hawke specific drop I want to equip on Aveline.

Overall, I like the unique appearances for the companions.  But I also like to juggle stats and synergize gear with talent selections.

Are more runes and belts, rings, necks etc enough?  Well, we still have (2).  Hawke (or PC) shouldn't have more armor types than companions.  Or you run into the "Aw crap, it's for Hawke only" problem.  So if you have to change the armor slots for the companions to make the personal look believable I want you to do the same for Hawke.

I believe I'd like to see a few looks (I'd actually be okay with one look that only slightly changes but others probably want more than that) for each companion but still have mages able to equip any mage gear, rogues equip any rogue gear, warriors equip any warrior gear.  And a rogue drop might look different on Varric than on Isabela.  This is fine.  Believability on this count isn't an issue in a world where you can fit 30 sets of armor in your backpack that you can't even see.  And I don't mind model re-use on new pieces of gear (though recoloring or changing some material or design on it goes a long way).  So if I get new gear that slightly changes Isabela's outfit but keeps her style, that's fine. 

Another thing that's possible is to get drops (componenets, schematics, whatever) that you use in crafting new armor as opposed to having enemies drop whole suits of armor that you pick up on the battlefield.  If you actually have to go to the "blacksmith at camp" it makes even more sense why a dropped item looks one way on Varric and another way on Isabela: because the blacksmith did it that way.

[tmp7704]

ipgd wrote...

Some comic artists are really ****ty.

Didn't even have to click the link to guess where it'd lead

That's like saying because Stephanie Meyer managed to publish a successful series without bothering with things like actually being able to write, that actually being able to write is not as crucial as you were taught to believe and isn't something authors should bother with or aspire to.

I don't think this comparison works well because Stephanie Meyer is more of an aberration than a norm, while for what we talk about it's more of an opposite.

I think it's more like a --100% theoretical-- situation where you have someone claim that seatbelts in cars are incredibly important, except the statistics from last 50 years or so (with the majority of cars not having the seatbelts) show the lack of these seatbelts resulted in ~dozen deaths, total. I.e. granted it is a factor, but really not a major one.

Hollywood's crap is an entirely different issue all together. Though it gives a stupid amount of preference to conventionally attractive actors, those actors still don't look identical.

True; but while not identical, the variation are quite minor. And honestly, there isn't really movies out there where the director would say "no we can't have actor X and Y play together because their silhouettes aren't different enough", is there? What i'm getting at is, it's at best a minor factor, rather than crucial aspect of character design. And... it doesn't seem to actually hurt these productions much -- when was the last review you saw which would acknowledge this aspect in any manner?

I'm blaming the poor anatomy of the characters on the fact the armor was rescaled based on the human rig shaped to fit a dorf.

I'm not sure i get this complaint   ultimately dwarves, elves and humans are all humanoids, and their rigs and armour will follow the basic form of torso, two legs, two arms etc. By scaling individual parts you could arrive from any of them to any other one, even if they were individually built from scratch. As such, i don't understand why the fact dwarf rig possibly started as human rig is of any importance here, let alone to be blamed -- what's to be blamed imo is poor work done with the scaling. Which is again responsibility of the artist, not limitation of the engine (as the engine doesn't enforce such poor quality of scaling in any manner)

Modifié par tmp7704, 04 août 2011 - 01:48 .

[tmp7704]

Mike Laidlaw wrote...

Useful thread is useful.

If i remember things right, around the time DA2 launched one of major reasons provided why the switch to the new equipment system happened was:

that on many screenshots from DAO the companions looked mostly identical, wearing the same armours.

However, that argument kind of glossed over the fact the reason why companions looked this way was, there was pretty much one armour model per armour class. Meaning, it wasn't exactly possible to make the companions look diverse even if someone wanted to. But you don't need to force custom appearances on the companions to address that. Providing greater variety of appearances and leaving the freedom to select them as the player pleases can do the same, and without unnecessary limitations.

(not to mention if you take a look at screenshots of DA2 from various players, the individual companions still look identical on these screenshots unless the mods are involved. So it's questionable whether even the original goal behind the change was really achieved)

The desire to change that by enforcing individual armours on the companions (rather than adding greater variety of looks to choose from freely) also seems to ignore the possibility that it may be actually wish of the player to make all their companions wear similar if not identical gear, in order to make them look like a coherent unit or for whatever other RP reasons they may come up with.

Modifié par tmp7704, 04 août 2011 - 02:16 .

[4bs.zer0]

If I had to choose between DA:O and DA2 system, I'd choose DA:O. I want every equipment slot available to protagonist to be available to compainons.

As for companion-specific unique looking armor - there's really nothing preventing these to be included. Remember Morigan and her unique robes, expand on that. Just don't remove the option to equip compainons with anything else. "Special" equipment slots only make sense on characters like Shale and Dog.

[TheBlackBaron]

4bs.zer0 wrote...

If I had to choose between DA:O and DA2 system, I'd choose DA:O. I want every equipment slot available to protagonist to be available to compainons.

As for companion-specific unique looking armor - there's really nothing preventing these to be included. Remember Morigan and her unique robes, expand on that. Just don't remove the option to equip compainons with anything else. "Special" equipment slots only make sense on characters like Shale and Dog.

This. So much this.

[ipgd]

tmp7704 wrote...

I don't think this comparison works well because Stephanie Meyer is more of an aberration than a norm, while for what we talk about it's more of an opposite.

I think it's pretty safe to say that most content and most creators in any field are pretty crappy. But just because crap is everywhere and some people are willing to put up with crap does not mean crap should then get a free pass.

Comics are also a bit of a strange case in that the characters are passed around constantly between different artists of varying levels of ineptitude, and they have to rely on design shorthands in order to remain recognizable. While it would be nice if Alex Ross and Adam Hughes could draw every comic book ever made, they can't, so Generic Superhero 985 has to substitute a distinctive face and body for bright orange underpants so people know what's going on when Rob Liefeld is drawing him.

In series that are effectively owned by one artist or consistent team of artists, or have some sort of persistent art throughout (like video games), there's no excuse. You can design physically and facially distinct characters there, and you should.

I think it's more like a --100% theoretical-- situation where you have someone claim that seatbelts in cars are incredibly important, except the statistics from last 50 years or so show the lack of these seatbelts resulted in ~dozen deaths, total. I.e. granted it is a factor, but really not a major one.

I don't think deaths are really comparable to good character design. Sure, many series get away with having crappy writing or crappy music or crappy cinematography or crappy art or crappy character design, but anything crappy is still crappy, and people with any background in those fields will notice. Some people may not know enough about something to notice and point out exactly when and why something is bad, but these principles are principles for a reason and they contribute positively to the collective piece even if it is not immediately and descriptively apparent to the layman.

True; but while not identical, the variation are quite minor. And honestly, there isn't really movies out there where the director would say "no we can't have actor X and Y play together because their silhouettes aren't different enough", is there? What i'm getting at is, it's at best a minor factor, rather than crucial aspect of character design. And... it doesn't seem to actually hurt these productions much -- when was the last review you saw which would acknowledge this aspect in any manner?

That doesn't happen because, again, people aren't identical. If DA's models had as much detail as real life human beings, my complaint would not exist. Real people invariably pass the "strip them naked and shave their head" test. [Good] art specifically attempts to emulate that immediately apparent individuality in real human beings -- when detail is or must be reduced through simplification and stylization, it is substituted with exaggeration.

Live action and drawn/modeled characters are completely incomparable. There's an entirely different set of tools available to you. You don't have to worry about name recognition or salary or acting skills when picking a look for your character. People don't complain about this because character design is character design and actor casting is actor casting. This isn't even apples and oranges, it's like, oranges and bike tires.

Modifié par ipgd, 04 août 2011 - 02:25 .

[Kekkis]

TheBlackBaron wrote...

4bs.zer0 wrote...

If I had to choose between DA:O and DA2 system, I'd choose DA:O. I want every equipment slot available to protagonist to be available to compainons.

As for companion-specific unique looking armor - there's really nothing preventing these to be included. Remember Morigan and her unique robes, expand on that. Just don't remove the option to equip compainons with anything else. "Special" equipment slots only make sense on characters like Shale and Dog.

This. So much this.

More like race and class specific eguipment. Sten and Oghren can´t use the same breastplate. (You should be able to figure out reason, why Stens breastplate looks funny, when Oghren uses it). Biowares way of "I prefer to look good, than to stay alive" is not good,. Whatever fans say about it.

[PinkShoes]

i agree with you. I honnestly really did like that they had their own looks but it would of been a cool idea if, say on their personal quests we could find other armor just for them so we can pick and choose which ones we want to put them in. Say one armor has a higher fire resistance which is great when going up agasints dragons or the other his a high consitution. Also, more rune slots for their outfits would be great.

[Zjarcal]

tmp7704 wrote...

(not to mention if you take a look at screenshots of DA2 from various players, the individual companions still look identical on these screenshots unless the mods are involved. So it's questionable whether even the original goal behind the change was really achieved)

I'm guessing that Laidlaw meant that companions like Leliana and Zevran look the same as each other both wearing standard leather armor, as opposed to saying that the companions looked the same in every screenshot from every different user.

[Wulfram]

Since we didn't get much choice in armour, the rune system could have been used to pick up some of the slack. In practice it was a while until we got a decent number of slots, and there didn't seem much that was interesting to do with it anyway - if you were metagaming you could fill up with the appropriate slots for the boss you were coming up against soon, otherwise you might as well just slap on a protection rune and ignore it.

[tmp7704]

Zjarcal wrote...

I'm guessing that Laidlaw meant that companions like Leliana and Zevran look the same as each other both wearing standard leather armor, as opposed to saying that the companions looked the same in every screenshot from every different user.

I'm guessing it's mainly about that, too, but that brings us just the same to the cause being all leather armour in DAO used the same, single mesh with largely identical textures. It also ignores that rogues in DAO weren't actually limited to wearing only light leathers so they didn't actually have to always look like each other.

[tmp7704]

ipgd wrote...

I think it's pretty safe to say that most content and most creators in any field are pretty crappy. But just because crap is everywhere and some people are willing to put up with crap does not mean crap should then get a free pass.

However if you're going to go for the angle that the crap is dominant and it gets free pass, this imo works against your point. If something is incredibly important, it doesn't get free pass, especially on mass scale.

Some people may not know enough about something to notice and point out exactly when and why something is bad, but these principles are principles for a reason and they contribute positively to the collective piece even if it is not immediately and descriptively apparent to the layman.

Certainly, i'm not denying this is something which increases quality of the piece. My argument is instead over whether that improvement is on the level where it'd warrant saying it's something incredibly important. (and consequently, whether it's something that can be really said to be on the level of "you must make companions bodies different or it's totally /wrist time")

That doesn't happen because, again, people aren't identical.

Virtually identical, no. Similar enough in build that the differences aren't immediately apparent, especially when wearing similar clothes?



quite easily.

[bleetman]

If I'm honest, I've tended to stick with a unique character appropriate outfit for each companion in the rpgs I've played, either by throwing community created mod armour at them or stubbornly having them wear their starter outfit the entire game shut up Bastila I don't care that your clothes have no stats. Customization via enchantments/other such methods whilst still retaining the original outfit suits me just fine.

[element eater]

well id like to have the ability to equip companions how i like but maybe with a few visualy unique sets for each one similar to morrigans robes in dao

[milena87]

I liked the choices DA:O gave you, but I also believe that unique-looking armours make more sense for the companions.

I like what Dave of Canada suggested: the unique-looking armour as base and different pieces of protection attached to it based on what type of armour you're using. This way everything you loot can be used by both the PC and the companions. Of course this would mean that also the PC would have a unique-looking armour (possibly with differences between the classes, like the Champion set). I'm fine with it.

Also, I'd love the unique-looking armour to evolve during the game (maybe after some important quest), 3 or so different sets would be enough I think
I don't mean evolve only visually of course, the new set could have more upgrade slots and the ability to use more powerful enchantments in them.

Actually, one thing I didn't really like about DA2's upgrade system was the impossibility to decide for myself the upgrades for my companions, unless the upgrade was an enchantment slot. I'd make all the upgrades enchantment slots. Obviously we should be able to craft more enchantments, with limitations on the use of the more powerful ones.

I also like the idea that the LI's armour changes a bit. It could be something frivoulous of course, not a completely different set of armour, like what Merrill got

[Special_Agent_Goodwrench]

Having several (2-3) unique armor sets for each companion would suit me just fine. I'd like them having the same equipment slots (armor, helmet, gloves, boots) as the PC though, so I can improve their stats with the normal junk I find laying around. It doesn't have to affect their appearance in any way.

Or, have have an equipment crafting system that goes something like this: You have your crafting components you can purchase or find (some rarer than the others) and bring them to a specialized crafter. Let's say you have 'Leather Gloves', 'Drake Scale', and ' Leather Elbow Guards' which can be used on Isabela among some others. The crafting looks pretty much identical to the rune crafting, with the 'Leather Gloves' being where the other components go. You combine the three and get a boost to dexterity from the gloves, fire resistance from the scales, and defense from the elbow guards. You can swap in other components if you wish. For example, instead of the 'Leather Gloves' you choose 'Cestus' which instead increases attack. Several tiers for each component would also be a positive addition me thinks.

[Ahriman]

I'm tired of these 'unique', 'personal' and other style-is-the-only-true-answer things. I want to be able to give my teammates new armor, I can accept some compromise variant like 3-4 sets of armor for each teammate accessible through special forge/seek/trade quests. Everything is better than "we are friends now and I'll be wearing some better armor".

Modifié par Wizz, 04 août 2011 - 05:12 .

[Dasher1010]

I'd like to see companion armor be sold in stores that's unique for every party member.