25 replies to this topic

[SirSlaughter]

Hi everyone.

I belive that MWO artworks are really great, but I think that their respective 3D models are so different... I mean they often are larger and too blocky while in the artworks they look so dynamic and slender... It seems that artworks are created within a 4:3 screen and then stretched into a 16:9 proportion.

I'm not asking to review already released mechs of course (too much time wasted), but just to ask the Dev team to think about future releases.

What is the opinion of the community?

Thanks for your time guys

Edited by SirSlaughter, 27 June 2013 - 10:36 AM.

[Galen Crayn]

The concept art of the victor was fantastic, but in 3-D he looks so ugly... Was one of my favorites, but THIS victor comes NOT in my house Hope the phoenix mechs will look better

[Spheroid]

Galen Crayn, on 27 June 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

The concept art of the victor was fantastic, but in 3-D he looks so ugly... Was one of my favorites, but THIS victor comes NOT in my house Hope the phoenix mechs will look better

We only have one picture of the Victor so far. That is not enough to judge. The Heavy Metal looked terrible in promo pictures but the standard Highlander looks pretty good ingame. The fear is not justified at this moment.

[Tennex]

the actual model rarely look as good as the concept.

though there are a few that do; the catapult, atlas, awesome, commando, dragon, spider

Edited by Tennex, 27 June 2013 - 10:14 AM.

[Kibble]

Tennex, on 27 June 2013 - 10:10 AM, said:

the actual model rarely look as good as the concept.

the exception being the catapult, awesome, dragon

You mean when it seemed like they cared about the game. All the in game models looked good up to the Awesome then it started to go down hill.

Edited by Kibble, 27 June 2013 - 10:13 AM.

[Tennex]

Kibble, on 27 June 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

You mean when it seemed like they cared about the game.

back when they had more time to work on it i guess.

but yeah quality has definitely been dropping. i hope they hire more artists

Edited by Tennex, 27 June 2013 - 10:15 AM.

[SirSlaughter]

I don't think they are ugly, they still look good and are more detailed than the first ones. I just say artworks are simply on another level.

It seems that artwork are created within a 4:3 screen and then stretched into a 16:9 proportion.

Edited by SirSlaughter, 27 June 2013 - 10:37 AM.

[s5134195]

I don't think the Hero skin really does the 'Mech justice, and the angle belies the actual proportions of the Victor. As such, I will withhold judgement until release.

I think as the texturing process has evolved and streamlined since the "Founding Four", it has more or less settled into a segmented look, where each "block" or "panel" is outlined by a line of grey grit and metal, so that skins and colours can be applied and changed easier. Darker colours, such as the black on this Victor, don't blend as well because the cracks and crevasses are a lighter grey. Light and bright colours suffer the opposite effect of looking almost cel shaded. Just go through your mechbay.. In particular, jump from the Yen Lo Wang to the Death's Knell, and see how much the lighting numbers have been tinkered with. Jump from the Raven or the Dragon to the Trebuchet and notice the huge difference. The Trebuchet is almost hard to look at, and plasticy. I thought Gabriel found his groove with the Blackjack, Jagermech, and Highlander, but since the latest patch, they have become highly reflective in-game. In response, the Quickdraw is quite a bit more matte:





I will see how the Victor turns out, but I'm really hoping for a consistency pass on the textures and scales of all 'Mechs (before or after release).

[Harabeck]

Concept art always looks better than the in-game implementation. This holds true for every single game ever. The concept artist gets to pick a specific, pose, angle, lighting, etc to make their concept look as cool as possible. When this gets put in game as something viewed from many angles, with different lighting, and with the limitations of modern graphics, it won't look as good.

[s5134195]

Harabeck, on 27 June 2013 - 10:35 AM, said:

Concept art always looks better than the in-game implementation. This holds true for every single game ever. The concept artist gets to pick a specific, pose, angle, lighting, etc to make their concept look as cool as possible. When this gets put in game as something viewed from many angles, with different lighting, and with the limitations of modern graphics, it won't look as good.

This is absolutely true. I would love to see Alex's orthos for more 'Mechs than just the Catapult, just to see how close the in-game models actually represent his vision.

[Tennex]

s5134195, on 27 June 2013 - 10:32 AM, said:

where each "block" or "panel" is outlined by a line of grey grit and metal, so that skins and colours can be applied and changed easier. Darker colours, such as the black on this Victor, don't blend as well because the cracks and crevasses are a lighter grey. Light and bright colours suffer the opposite effect of looking almost cel shaded.

Definately did notice this. The black color they use to show wear looks really bad when the mech is painted white. on the other hand they don't look great when the mech is painted black either.

wish they had gone with the silver worn steel look on the edges, like in closed beta. instead of the grey rusty edge, making everything look cell shaded.

or if possible it'd be nice to let the dark edge lines to have some transparency, that way when using lighter colors, the grey don't stand out as much, and doesn't make mech look cell shaded.

Edited by Tennex, 27 June 2013 - 08:18 PM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I just wish they wouldn't distort the proportions so much. Seems like each and every mech comes out much larger and thicker than either the concept art or the original TRO art. This is an issue because larger and thicker has a huge impact on the performance of a mech, case in point the Awesome which only sucks because has such a large and wide torso that is very easy to hit.

[InRev]

It almost seems like they are reusing the basic "skeletons" or frames a lot recently. Trebuchet, Highlander, Quickdraw and maybe even the Victor all look like they have the same silhouette, which gives them a rather generic look. Some say that this is a consequence of them being humanoid mechs, but the Atlas and Spider are both humanoids yet have incredibly different profiles.

Regardless, as many have said in other threads, complicated. subtle geometry in concept art seems to turn into blocky blandness in the models. Maybe Alex is just too good an artist for 3d modelling to keep up?

[The Cheese]

I was a little underwhelmed with the Quickdraw model and to a lesser extent, the Highlander, but overall, the mech models are a highlight of the game.

[Bishop Steiner]

Galen Crayn, on 27 June 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

The concept art of the victor was fantastic, but in 3-D he looks so ugly... Was one of my favorites, but THIS victor comes NOT in my house Hope the phoenix mechs will look better

Personally I think the Victor looks BETTER (if a little too broad for hit box purposes) in game. Ditto the Hunchback, Cataphract, Catapult, Cicada, Jagermech and Jenner.

[Revorn]

I feel, since the Highlander most Mechs look close to each other. Maybe PGI changed the Designer and the New one dont get the the diversity of BT Mechslook rigth.

All Legs and Hips feeling to be the same. Anyone feels feels this way?

[TexAce]

The reason for this is that in the future you will be able to see exactly which weapons you are using.
And for this there has to be a unified look for the PPC when in a torso for example, or for Med Lasers.
So they build them with blocks which you can change easily.

this makes them all look the same somehow but I think this is the trade-off for having visually identifiable weapons.

So the question is:
What do you want more?

Unique looking mechs or visible loadouts?

[Devil Fox]

Unique mechs... that's why we have radar and info gathering... to know what something has on it! Do I see what that Jager has out at 500m? No, not until he fires either his ac20's or Guass unless he got targeted long enough... having visible builds is worthless if your clear view is only 2-300m whilst everyone snipes or camps over 500m away.

I would rather unique mechs and hitboxes then the generic lumps that have been coming out recently...

[DaZur]

Couple 3D art design points to keep in mind:

1.) Artwork utilizes dynamic posing for effect while our 3D iterations are limited to either shut-down / at rest or powered-up... leading to static poses that don't emote a lot of "life" for lack of a better definition.

2.) The 3D models need to be modeled in such a way that regardless of the torso rotation, arm elevation / traverse plain, or ancillary weapon-model swap, they do not intersect / clip though other sections of the body. This tenant often leads to the certain concessions in design, most notably the broad chest / shoulders which placates this requirement. The artwork is static and is ruled more by aesthetics than practical design.

3.) Right-wrong or indifferent... I think a lot of the scale issues echo back to a creative decision to make some concerted effort to match a perceived volume with the mechs potential weapon loadout. It's the 4 gallons of poo in a 2 gallon bucket premise... Let's be honest... a lot of TRO art design pays absolutely no attention to practical scale and necessary scale / volume to accommodate the various proposed weapon loadouts.

Edited by DaZur, 28 June 2013 - 06:01 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I said "other" because for the most part, I think they are on par with each other.