76 replies to this topic

[The dead fish]

Otherwise I recreated today my canon character, Johanna Shepard. It took me seven minutes. It's astonishing how I remembered approximately what I did in the past in the character creator ! My priority was to make her badass, but I do think she looks decent. Too bad, her scar on her face disappears with M2.

 

 

Now I never really was bothered with Femshep in the past. Honestly, they look good enough compared to a custom maleshep, much difficult with many of their horrible facial features. Succeeded to create one that pleases me enough though. 

 

 

Given how Mass effect 1 is so hard about creating a character that doesn't look too bad and that doesn't look too much exactly the same as all the other brosheps ( plenty of maleshep look the same because basically plenty of folks take the same few good facial features in order to create attractive male characters to be honest ) compared to what the game offers even if there is better elsewhere, I'm satisfied.

[aoibhealfae]

How is it possible that your M2 femshep looks so different from M1 ? My characters looked a bit different, but they still looked the same though. There I feel they are totally different characters despite having the same facial features.

 

If you have a single face code that you like, you could create very different FemSheps simply just by adjusting hair type & color/eye type and mouth type... for me, what matters was overall facial alignment since you need to sync them with animations. 

 

To be completely honest, I just use ME1's FemShep default and only tweak around it.  

Spoiler

Original

 

ME1

 

ME2

 

ME3

They're essentially the same but most of the differences was subtle facial placements, skin tone and hairstyle. While in ME1, they look almost alike but they turns out very differently in ME2 as imports. For my older/top Femshep, I choose to keep the ME1 import in ME2 but it went wacky in ME3.... I've tried.

 

With my current/bottom FemShep, I wanted some consistency so I made ME3 version first, then recreate her in ME1 and then use the ME3 code in ME2. 

 

This is a good trick if you want to plan out for a trilogy Shep.

[The dead fish]

 Ugh, wow, M3 just complety destroyed your top old character with the import system... It did the same with my femshep to be honest, but I succeeded to recreate her. Thanks for the explanations and the advice. i might do this for the trilogy in the future. I like consistency too.

 

 

 

ME3

 

[/spoiler]

 

 

Love this one, I mean how the bottom character turned out in M3. She is actually beautiful, quite exotic. I do like the color skin, shape of her jaw and cheeks, and the color of her eyes. The hair too, but I think it's a mod. Seeing the result with her from the three games in the pics, I think I will indeed follow your advice. A very good idea.

[Vanilka]

OMG ! She is gorgeous ! Even in Mass effect 1 !  She is really attractive, even with a bald head. How did you do that ? 

 

Geez, I'd ask her facial code if it was possible, . >_< Never asked, but there, I would do it. But it's true she looks crazy. Unique, but crazy. 

 

Edit : I just realized that you don't find her pretty. ( What ? lol ) don't agree as well, but to each its opinion.

 

As for the op, she looks quite good, you obviously well played the facial proportions.

 

Heh, thank you for your kind words. She must be blushing all the way in 2180s.

 

As for the facecode and all, I'd been thinking about it, but I tend to grow very attached to my characters and feel anxious about the idea of sharing them. I'm sorry about that, but I don't think I'm comfortable with it. That must probably sound really stupid... but... anyway... I think her features shouldn't be hard to imitate. I think from the screenshots you can tell which ones I used - wide nose, big wide eyes, puckered lips, thick but neat eyebrows, brown hair and eyes, in ME1 she has a scar across her face, then you just try to make those features look natural together. If you're on PC, it always helps a great deal to have high res textures installed that make characters look more natural, as well.

 

As for my character's looks, of course I find her overall appearance satisfying in some way, otherwise I wouldn't have made her. I suppose I was just trying to say I was trying to make a face I could recognise more than I was trying to do anything else. I don't know if I was successful, but she's grown on me the way she is. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.

[Vanilka]

Given that each ME has a completely different graphics style, I think it can't be helped that Sheps look different between the games. Mine at least looks quite different in each, no matter how united I try to keep the sliders or whatever. At least the general features, like nose and eyes, remain similar.
 
I agree though that making a decent looking broShep is even more difficult than making a decent looking femShep.
 
And that comes from a person who cheats and obsessively installs fan made high res textures to improve the appearance of her game.
 

Otherwise I recreated today my canon character, Johanna Shepard. It took me seven minutes. It's astonishing how I remembered approximately what I did in the past in the character creator ! My priority was to make her badass, but I do think she looks decent. Too bad, her scar on her face disappears with M2.
 

Spoiler

 

Now I never really was bothered with Femshep in the past. Honestly, they look good enough compared to a custom maleshep, much difficult with many of their horrible facial features. Succeeded to create one that pleases me enough though. 
 

Spoiler

 
Given how Mass effect 1 is so hard about creating a character that doesn't look too bad and that doesn't look too much exactly the same as all the other brosheps ( plenty of maleshep look the same because basically plenty of folks take the same few good facial features in order to create attractive male characters to be honest ) compared to what the game offers even if there is better elsewhere, I'm satisfied.

This is definitely a good looking broShep, though. And your femShep looks like she could kick some serious ass and that would be a boring day in her book. (I miss the scars, too.)

[The dead fish]

Heh, thank you for your kind words. She must be blushing all the way in 2180s.

 

As for the facecode and all, I'd been thinking about it, but I tend to grow very attached to my characters and feel anxious about the idea of sharing them. I'm sorry about that, but I don't think I'm comfortable with it. That must probably sound really stupid... but... anyway... I think her features shouldn't be hard to imitate. I think from the screenshots you can tell which ones I used - wide nose, big wide eyes, puckered lips, thick but neat eyebrows, brown hair and eyes, in ME1 she has a scar across her face, then you just try to make those features look natural together. If you're on PC, it always helps a great deal to have high res textures installed that make characters look more natural, as well.

 

As for my character's looks, of course I find her overall appearance satisfying in some way, otherwise I wouldn't have made her. I suppose I was just trying to say I was trying to make a face I could recognise more than I was trying to do anything else. I don't know if I was successful, but she's grown on me the way she is. I do appreciate the sentiment, though.

 

Oh, don't worry, I totally understand. I'm exactly the same actually. I consider it as a personal thing. I wasn't really serious and asking if you could give me her sliders, that was just a way of saying, wow, she is so gorgeous, i'd be tempted to ask you her sliders, because I never usually ask that. But you couldn't know that, that was stupid of me actually. But your gal definitely inspired me. She is truly unique to be honest. Most of the other unique shep look unique but not really good, while yours is really well done at the same time. 

 

If I need to create a new one, I will think about this, thanks ! At the very least you truly succeeded to make work the facial features together, especially with the crazy eyes. I find it audacious that you took those eyes instead of ones more convenient and probably more attractive to the majority.

 

No, the only thing I could ask seriously honestly, it's being able to see more of your awesome character ! 

 

And thank you for my characters =)

Yeah, this is exactly what I wanted to inspire with my femshep x)

[aoibhealfae]

 Ugh, wow, M3 just complety destroyed your top old character with the import system... It did the same with my femshep to be honest, but I succeeded to recreate her. Thanks for the explanations and the advice. i might do this for the trilogy in the future. I like consistency too.

 

 

Love this one, I mean how the bottom character turned out in M3. She is actually beautiful, quite exotic. I do like the color skin, shape of her jaw and cheeks, and the color of her eyes. The hair too, but I think it's a mod. Seeing the result with her from the three games in the pics, I think I will indeed follow your advice. A very good idea.

 

It was a known issue that you can't directly import ME1 face through ME3 (something to do with code arrangement.. like you can import ME3 code directly into ME2 but not vice versa). There's a Lazarus Project patch that try to make it work but it meant changing facial mesh completely. While I don't like how my original Shepard won't carry through but I like that ME3 Shepard is so much more expressive than the first two games.

 

I didn't mod much except for some HD textures and some eyelid fix. The hair did exist in the game (notice that its still the same style as in the first two game) but it was hidden in ME3's, had to manually code it with Gibbed. 

 

Personally, ME's CC is way more fussy than Dragon Age's CC (by my experience with DAO and DAII, I can't play DAI with this PC though). But playing the same Shepard across all three games simply makes me happy.

[ArcadiaGrey]

I agree though that making a decent looking broShep is even more difficult that making making a decent looking femShep.

 

I just put together some images using Fraps (it works great, so thanks again for that) and posted images of my broSheps on another thread.  Thought I may as well share them here too.  They're not great, but I'm not sure you can make a great maleShep tbh.  No mods other than the high res texture mod for ME1.

 

So here's my first, Cailan Shepard.  His eyes are too blue I think, seeing how he's mixed race, so I darkened them when I took him into ME2 - 

 

 

The challenge with my current maleShep was to make him significantly different from Cailan.  This was the best I could do and in the end he worked out okay.

Jack Shepard, a.k.a Squinty McSquinty face     

 

 

The eyebrows are magnificent.  

[fraggle]

The challenge with my current maleShep was to make him significantly different from Cailan.  This was the best I could do and in the end he worked out okay.

The eyebrows are magnificent.  

 

Haha, yeah, my first and second MShep looked quite similar. My current one looks at least a little bit different I think. I like your Sheps

 

And the eyebrows are cool. My current one also wears his brows with pride

 

Some great Shepards in here!

Now I'm also going from making a Shepard in ME2 or 3 and convert their codes into slides ever since my 2nd and 3rd Shep looked f*cked up. I'm curious how it will turn out, getting through the games likes this for the first time.

[ArcadiaGrey]

Haha, yeah, my first and second MShep looked quite similar. My current one looks at least a little bit different I think. I like your Sheps

 

And the eyebrows are cool. My current one also wears his brows with pride

 

Some great Shepards in here!

Now I'm also going from making a Shepard in ME2 or 3 and convert their codes into slides ever since my 2nd and 3rd Shep looked f*cked up. I'm curious how it will turn out, getting through the games likes this for the first time.

 

Thanks  I think most Sheps are related, there's a strong family resemblance going on more with Shepard than any other Bioware protagonist I think.  Limitations of the character creator I guess.

 

I tried that this time round.  I had ME1, ME2 + ME3 running at the same time on the character creation screen (yay for my new laptop, the old one would have melted  ) and began IN ME3.  Once I liked it I put the code in ME2 and kept tweaking and then got the sliders for ME1.  After hours, literally hours. I gave up. I couldn't make a coherent face across all 3 that I liked, well, not for maleShep anyways.

SO I just started ME1, made Jack up there ^, and thought 'screw it, when I get to 2 and 3 he'll look like whatever he looks like.'  I'd have enough tbh.  So fingers crossed it works out better for you.  It did seem to work with my femSheps so it's a neat idea.

 

I've literally just started ME2 and Jack has actually imported okay. *faints in shock*

[Vanilka]

Oh, don't worry, I totally understand. I'm exactly the same actually. I consider it as a personal thing. I wasn't really serious and asking if you could give me her sliders, that was just a way of saying, wow, she is so gorgeous, i'd be tempted to ask you her sliders, because I never usually ask that. But you couldn't know that, that was stupid of me actually. But your gal definitely inspired me. She is truly unique to be honest. Most of the other unique shep look unique but not really good, while yours is really well done at the same time. 

 

If I need to create a new one, I will think about this, thanks ! At the very least you truly succeeded to make work the facial features together, especially with the crazy eyes. I find it audacious that you took those eyes instead of ones more convenient and probably more attractive to the majority.

 

No, the only thing I could ask seriously honestly, it's being able to see more of your awesome character ! 

 

And thank you for my characters =)

Yeah, this is exactly what I wanted to inspire with my femshep x)

 

Oh my, I'm so embarrassing. I'm sorry, I misunderstood then. Thank you again for everything you said!

 

Hey, don't tempt me even as a joke. I have a metric f-ton of screenshots of all three games. This forum wouldn't see the end of them! 

 

Have fun if you get back to it, though!

 

I just put together some images using Fraps (it works great, so thanks again for that) and posted images of my broSheps on another thread.  Thought I may as well share them here too.  They're not great, but I'm not sure you can make a great maleShep tbh.  No mods other than the high res texture mod for ME1.

 

So here's my first, Cailan Shepard.  His eyes are too blue I think, seeing how he's mixed race, so I darkened them when I took him into ME2 -

 

Spoiler

 

The challenge with my current maleShep was to make him significantly different from Cailan.  This was the best I could do and in the end he worked out okay.

Jack Shepard, a.k.a Squinty McSquinty face     

 

Spoiler

 

The eyebrows are magnificent.  

 

Eyebrows and stubble detected! Vanilka Approves

 

The renegade ending shot is so badass!

[ArcadiaGrey]

Eyebrows and stubble detected! Vanilka Approves

 

The renegade ending shot is so badass!

 

I love me some stubble!  I have to put it on every guy character I make.  Purely for lore reasons obviously, it's not that I like a slightly dishevelled look or anything. 

 

And yeah, the renegade ending shot is way better than the paragon.  He looks at the camera like 'awww yeah'.  Seriously awesome.

[Vanilka]

I love me some stubble!  I have to put it on every guy character I make.  Purely for lore reasons obviously, it's not that I like a slightly dishevelled look or anything. 

 

I may... or may not be guilty of the same thing, ahem. Because of the lore. Of course. 
 

And yeah, the renegade ending shot is way better than the paragon.  He looks at the camera like 'awww yeah'.  Seriously awesome.

I know! I feel like making a pure renegade playthrough just to get one of these.

[Kynare]

 @OP She's pretty! I find that going dark-haired usually yields better results in my experience. I think it's because the spider leg eyelashes don't stick out sooo much, lol. My display pic is my character from ME1 and the only fair-haired female character I was satisfied with, but I don't have that face in the next two games. I ended up redoing her completely for ME2 and ME3. =x

 

Way more successful attempt with darker hair and skin tone:

ME1

Spoiler

 

ME3

Spoiler

 

ME3 FC: 433.G6G.G61.B1G.W66.1DL.GGB.A61.RL7.6G7.3G5.213

 

I would literally play through the opening over and over until i found good lighting to see the face, and then I'd start a new save and tinker with it some more. I also used to take pictures of the face on my cellphone and use it as comparison when I made drastic changes to the sliders. Urgh.

 

Male Sheps were a bit easier, imo. I had one male Shep who I was proud of and translated nicely in the next two games without any editing (aside from hair identity crisis):

 

ME1

Spoiler

 

ME2

Spoiler

 

ME3

Spoiler

[ArcadiaGrey]

 @OP She's pretty! I find that going dark-haired usually yields better results in my experience. I think it's because the spider leg eyelashes don't stick out sooo much, lol. My display pic is my character from ME1 and the only fair-haired female character I was satisfied with, but I don't have that face in the next two games. I ended up redoing her completely for ME2 and ME3. =x

 

Way more successful attempt with darker hair and skin tone:

ME1

Spoiler

 

ME3

Spoiler

 

ME3 FC: 433.G6G.G61.B1G.W66.1DL.GGB.A61.RL7.6G7.3G5.213

 

FemShep's eyelashes are so over the top, spider's legs pretty much sums it up.  Seriously, give me a natural option. 

 

Just wanted to say that your femShep rocks. 

[The dead fish]

@ Kynare : Did you change the color skin of your femshep in M3, or is it the import system that gave such result ? Because she seems way much darker in M3. In M1 at least from what I'm seeing in your pic, she seems to be white, in M3, she seems to be black. 

 

For the darker color skins in M1, I feel the Normandy at the beginning is one of the best places to look at your character, the lighting ( that is meh overall in the first episode ) is almost the same as in the character creator. Sometime, in some places like the citadel, I feel my character has a lighter color skin than what I intended lol. 

 

But in the normandy, it's almost always good. There, it is totally what I saw in the CC. 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

It will better with M2 and M3 as well. 

[Kynare]

@ Kynare : Did you change the color skin of your femshep in M3, or is it the import system that gave such result ? Because she seems way much darker in M3. In M1 at least from what I'm seeing in your pic, she seems to be white, in M3, she seems to be black.

 

I actually had to do it backwards from ME3 > ME1... the lighting is a bit off in the first pic, but I'm sure I had her set somewhere past the first couple pale/white options. I always pictured her to be darker-skinned like in ME3 though (was going for Filipino)

 

The screenshot from ME3 was during Sur'Kesh with that super bright natural lighting. Some different lighting: pic

[The dead fish]

Thanks, I was just wondering. You have a great and pretty shep by the way. This haircut is cool on her, never succeeded to make it work on my other femsheps.

 

 I've modified my femshep by the way. She was supposed to be mixed race, but in the game indeed very often she is just pale with the weird lighting in M1. You wouldn't think she is mixed race. I don't know why I notice now what I didn't notice years ago    . I think it's because of DAI and its awesome CC. ( I hope MEA will be as cool with the CC ) Therefore I finally chose the darkest color, that way, no more issues with the lighting in M1.

 

I also gave her a bigger nose, bigger lips, etc etc. She looks decent enough and above all, she keeps her badassery hehe. I'm totally satisfied. I'm going to let her that way until M3. 

 

Spoiler

 

Now, why I had to recreate my canon femshep before finishing my playthrough with my male shep... I'm not anymore able to play with him..  The voice acting of femshep ( french voice ) is so great. The tone is just perfect in M1. Not too dramatic, but you can feel she has feelings at the same time.. I'm forced to finish the whole trilogy with her again first.

 

I'm sorry Ashley. You are going to be alone and nuked 

[Joseph Warrick]

Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
 

[olnorton]

@ Kynare : Did you change the color skin of your femshep in M3, or is it the import system that gave such result ? Because she seems way much darker in M3. In M1 at least from what I'm seeing in your pic, she seems to be white, in M3, she seems to be black.

I found the lighting in ME3 had a huge impact on my African Shepard, in some shots she was almost white.

http://forum.bioware...rilogy/page-429

Check Rescued the scientist to Killed a reaper. And many times she was lighter still.

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

I tried to make mine as beautiful as I could. I'm quite proud of her, despite the fact that ME3 made her face look small (I think it's like that with all ME3 FemSheps though). Still, I felt the ponytail was a good change for "srs business" ME3. Plus it fits her new headgear. She got her start when I saw someone's gorgeous FemShep on the BSN and I asked for the face code. I changed some features. Left is ME1/ME2 (minus the scars), right is ME3.

[KaiserShep]

Very nice, OP.

 

I admit to also being a bit obsessed over making the PC look precisely what I envision, so defaults are never an option unless it's for a "not-serious" playthrough where I'm purposefully goofing things up for the character. I wasn't sure what I was going for when I was making my FemShep, but I also share your preference for the wide-jawed faces. I tried making Sheps with narrower faces and I just wasn't feeling it. 

 

[The dead fish]

I found the lighting in ME3 had a huge impact on my African Shepard, in some shots she was almost white.

http://forum.bioware...rilogy/page-429

Check Rescued the scientist to Killed a reaper. And many times she was lighter still.

 

Eeh, I didn't notice anything wrong with the lighting in your pics. ( at east it's impossible to be confused about the color skin of your character despite the contraste ) I'm glad you showed me your femshep though. She is truly badass, awesome and unique. 

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

It's true, ME3's lighting isn't very good. The contrast is too high. Skin looks too pale, and "brown" hair looks black.

[Kenshen]

Been meaning to do some google searching but since I am here and this is on topic mostly I will ask, is there any way to pull the slider data from a ME1 save?  I have been feeling the urge to play ME1 again but I want to use the Shep that I am use to using but I want to start with a fresh level 1 character and not the level 60 one.  So far I have not been able to reproduce that which I created years ago.  I know there was something that dealt with ME1 to ME2 face code help but the link I had book marked is no longer valid.