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New female tauren model
The latest artcraft post has been released on the WoW official website, and it previews nothing less than the new female tauren model. This model update in particular has been highly anticipated, because the old female tauren models are...well, they're not all that expressive, are they? Fortunately, their blank bovine stares are all set to be a thing of the past. The new models take full advantage of newer texture-rendering capabilities, featuring gorgeous detail in the fur, a full range of facial expressions, and far more natural-looking hair. In addition, their hands have also been scaled-down, as Senior Art Director Chris Robinson notes that female tauren hands were particularly huge, even by WoW standards. Head on over to the official site for the full preview, it's well worth your time.
Warlords of Draenor page updated with new gnome, tauren models
The official Warlords of Draenor web site has had two new additions -- both the female gnome and male tauren 3D models have been added to the page. The male tauren was showcased last month in an edition of Artcraft that primarily featured the animation of the model, including expressions, speech and movement. In all of the emotive cheering, laughing, dancing, and speech, there wasn't exactly a lot of menacing expression -- which is why I'm happy to see the new screenshots added to the site as well as the 3D model. As for the female gnome, we saw her briefly at BlizzCon, but she was never actually featured in an Artcraft of her own. I have to say the female gnome update is one of my favorites so far -- the current gnome model, while adorable, doesn't quite capture the sheer range of expressiveness like the new model does. Although the additions are a definite bonus to the Warlords of Draenor website, I hope we see more of them soon -- we've had a lot of Artcraft content featuring models in progress, I'd like to see more of them in action. For both female gnome and male tauren, be sure to take a look at the official Warlords of Draenor web site -- and for more of the new character models, check out our compilation gallery below.
WoW is getting class accessories
The World of Warcraft will be getting cosmetic accessories to spice up their characters. These items will allow people to customize the looks of their characters to greater reflect the classes and play-styles that they choose. In the example that Blizzard gives, rogues could equip cosmetic daggers or vials of poisons -- they'd have no in-game effect other than to change the look of the character. And as we see from the picture above, librams and quivers (they're back from the dead) are also another example of cosmetic options. As with all new features, there's a lot of fine tuning, so don't read too much into everything yet. This new feature was announced in an Artcraft blog post that briefly appeared on Blizzard's French site, but has since vanished. We suspect that we'll see another version of it appear soon.
Extended canines confirmed for new night elf model
Night elf players concerned with the new model released earlier this week can breathe a sigh of relief -- your canines will be pointy as they should be. A tweet from Senior Art Director Chris G. Robinson confirmed that the models released for the latest round of Artcraft were an earlier iteration, and later versions of the model have the pronounced canines usually found on kaldorei. Final version of the NE Female will have canine teeth like this. Artcraft was just an iteration w/o canine geometry. pic.twitter.com/2tW9o83WBJ- Chris G. Robinson (@artofcgrobinson) May 13, 2014 Lest anyone get too panicky about the models being shown in each edition of Artcraft, Community Manager Bashiok hopped on the forums to further clarify what's going on with the new models being shown.
New Night Elf female model revealed
The Artcraft posts over at the official World of Warcraft site have helped give us preview looks at the new character models as they've come to light. Now, we have our look at the updated night elf female model. So far I have to say that it's a vast improvement. She stands a lot better, she has a wider range of expressions and we can see at least two relatively different faces in this pictures. My wife plays night elf, so I'm partial to them, and I think they did a good job preserving their feel here while updating them. I especially want to point out those hands, which are a lot better than the original model. This gives me hope that when night elf males show up, they'll actually have reasonable looking hands. Head on over to the Artcraft blog to read about the process they went through to design this model.
Artcraft presents The Spires of Arak
The Artcraft series returns, this time with a preview of an entire zone - the Spires of Arak. This time Gary Platner takes the lead, explaining all the various ways that Blizzard makes a zone in World of Warcraft, and how it came together for this zone. The Spires of Arak is the home zone for the Arakkoa, and its unusual design is based around the spires the bird-people make into their homes. A lot of us contributed to the Spires of Arak, but ultimately Matt Sanders (exterior level designer) and Kelli Hoover (environment artist) were tasked with creating the zone. Kelli gathered resource material and started to do some paint-overs of our concepts in order to unify a distinctive new color palette. Meanwhile, Matt created the proof of concept in our editing tools in order to test ideas for creating large spiky rocks with the exterior terrain editor. Head over to Blizzard's latest Artcraft post and see how they did for yourself.
Warlords of Draenor: Artcraft provides first look at new female draenei
Just the other day Artcraft revealed the new male tauren models--complete with animations and videos--and today they're at it again with a sneak peek at the (real) new draenei female model. This is a quick look, as emphasized in the post itself, because the model has yet to be sent to the animation team. As a result you'll notice her posture in this preview is quite different from the draenei model we know and love. That will change once the animation team gets a chance to properly rig and pose the model, but for now we're getting a glimpse of a work very much in-progress. At first glance, the new draenei model doesn't seem as different from the old one as the tauren or orc models, for example, but this is to be expected. The original draenei (and blood elf) models, implemented in Burning Crusade, were a significant step up from the models of classic WoW. That being said, there's marked improvement in these previews. The hair, the detail of the leg musculature, and in particular the hands all give our beloved draenei much more depth and finesse in the body. The curvature of her head-tentacles is also much smoother and more realistic-looking. This is a nice upgrade from the current draenei, and I look forward to seeing more.
Warlords of Draenor: Artcraft reveals new male tauren model
We had a bit of a sneak peek of the tauren model this weekend thanks to Adriacraft, and now we get the official preview with an Artcraft at the official site. Now, I play tauren quite a bit - they're my favorite Horde race, in fact - so I'm happy to see them get an update. The current model looks good enough in plate, but the years haven't been kind to it as new races with upgraded polygon counts and more points of articulation were introduced. Going from a pandaren warrior to a tauren was an exercise in time travel - the older model looked every bit its age. As for this model, I think it's already an established improvement just by virtue of not having the mane look like straw heaped onto the back. Clearly, great effort has been made to keep the model true to itself while still looking updated, and although I'm a little iffy on the eyes, I'm hopeful that we'll see some variation in that regard. The video is particularly helpful for getting to see it in action. It's a far, far more effective model for conveying emotions via expression - it's hard to imagine seeing a tauren look this expressive, frankly. Seeing the open mouthed belly laugh alone convinces me that this is a far, far improved model in all regards. In general, I find it much improved - now I just want to see how they do with the female model. Head on over to the official site and see the process detailed.
Orc female model revealed
The next installment of the Artcraft series has revealed the new Orc female model. We've previously seen pieces on Garrisons, as well as the human female model, adding to the undead male and female, as well as the gnomes, dwarves and male orcs we saw at BlizzCon. Blizzard is again doing sterling work in staying true to the original model, and I am glad to see that her body shape has not changed dramatically. The strong, powerful-looking orc lady is by far my favorite model in the game, so I'm glad to see that her musculature remains largely unchanged. There are some minor alterations to her posture, though, and her posterior looks somewhat altered, without wishing to be unkind. I can't help thinking her head looks smaller in some of the images too. But the face and hair look fantastic. There is some slightly odd shading where I had always assumed she was bald before, around her ponytails and the like, but I'll assume that's optional. The face is wonderfully expressive, as we've come to expect with these models, and the hair looks great.
Warlords of Draenor: Details on the art of garrisons
Senior Art Director Chris Robinson has been keeping us on tenterhooks awaiting the next Artcraft installment, dealing with Garrisons, and it's here! It's a fascinating post, giving way more than just art, an insight into the design process and the "gameplay first" approach the designers have taken. We also hear from Wendy Vetter, the Dungeon Team's lead artist, who walks players through the process of making the new old, and the old new, as they borrow and adapt older textures and assets while still bringing them up to date with the new systems and graphical quality. There's also input from the props team, giving information on the elements they've added into the mix, the storytelling side of design, creating a whole with items and their use. They're the team working on decoration and filling the space in the buildings. It's another great installment in the series and a fascinating read!
