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Blizzard reveals how new character models are made
It turns out it's a little rougher on them than you might expect. This is one of those times that the video pretty much speaks for itself. The ending is a nice reveal, though.
Why updated graphics matter
What you see above is the result of time marching on - in my draenei's right hand is Sulfuras, the Extinguished Hand, a drop from Firelands. In the left hand, Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros, the legendary drop from the original Molten Core. (Yes, I know technically it doesn't drop, the Eye drops, you craft a Sulfuron Hammer and then use the Eye on it, I've had the thing since MC I know how I got it.) What I'm showing you is essentially the orderly progression of time via graphic upgrades - you can essentially see the history of the game unfolding via the difference between these two weapons. Everything from the spikes to the grip to the shape of the head, it's all more detailed and crisp on the newer model. The older model is a collection of polygonal shapes that bear only a vague resemblance to a hammer compared to the newer model, which is itself still not as good as models we have in the game now, never mind some of the Warlords drops we're about to see. The gap between these two hammers is the gap between 2004 and 2011, and here we are, three years later than that - and they show us how much a ten year old game can in fact change.
The Queue: Today is the day of new character models
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Adam is your regularly scheduled Queue host today. But I stole it from him. Why? Because I'm super evil. Finally, the truth is revealed! BapoThe-Paladin asked: So any guesses on how many times maintenance will be extended? I'm going to guess 3 times.
Patch 6.0.2 preview highlights upcoming UI changes
Those bags in that header image may look like a disorganized wreck now, but they're about to get cleared out a little sooner than expected. Blizzard released a preview of upcoming UI changes for patch 6.0.2 yesterday -- that's patch 6.0.2, the pre-patch for Warlords of Draenor, not the expansion itself. Along with all the pre-expansion content quests, the new character models, and the preview of Upper Blackrock Spire, we also get all those lovely space-saving improvements ahead of time. That's on top of a host of other really cool UI improvements, including a new and improved Group Finder that includes the Premade Groups function. In addition, the new map and quest log will make an appearance, the new Void Storage tab will be unlocked, you'll be able to check out your handy new reagent tab in your bank, and you'll be able to sort your bags more easily than ever before. I have to admit, while I'm excited about being able to sort my mounts and pick a few favorites, I'm far more excited to see rows and rows and rows of empty bag slots. For more of what to expect in patch 6.0.2 and how this will change the way you play, check out Blizzard's full preview on the official site.
Warlords of Draenor Beta: New character models incoming
One of the things about the beta is, it can still surprise you. CM Zorbrix just posted to the forums about something we've all been wondering about - several of the new character models will be making their appearance in the beta. Both male and female trolls, human males, tauren females and night elf males will all be playable. Zorbrix - Beta Realm Maintenance - 8/21/14 I just wanted to confirm that this build will have 5 new Player Character Models. Troll Male and Female, Human Male, Tauren Female, and Night Elf Male. We've mentioned this before when models are first shown to you folks in beta, but I wanted to stress this point again: These models are a Work-In Progress. Things will not be perfect, and our QA testing of these models (and the subsequent bug fixes) are not yet complete. I do hope you enjoy the models and give constructive feedback as appropriate, but please keep this is mind when looking at the models today. source It's important to note that the night elf male hasn't even had an Artcraft yet. This is definitely a work in progress, as was the case when the draenei male appeared on servers before it was previewed. But I find this amazingly exciting - finally we'll get to see how these models look in action. We've added a slideshow of the new night elf male model below for players to look at.
Breakfast Topic: Do you want to keep your old face?
In my extremely accurate and scientific polling (I read some twitter) I have discovered that one of Blizzard's biggest fears for the new character models seems to have been pretty accurate. Even though they've said (multiple times) that the faces on the new models are still a work in progress, I keep seeing the same reaction over and over again - "I really like the new models but my character's face has changed and now it's not as good/not my character." If you remember back to 2009, when the when are they going to update character models talk started being bandied about, you'll remember that being one of Blizzard's biggest arguments against doing it - people get very attached to their characters and think of them in a way that makes them very dangerous to tinker with. So far it seems like people have a Not My Character's Face policy towards the revamp - they like how the new models are more detailed and are in general much more fluid and animated, but they still don't like it when the faces change. So how about you? How attached to your character's face?
Warlords of Draenor: New model adjustments in the works
There have been quite a few rumblings online about the new character models, pointing out that the models themselves all appear to have the same facial expressions with little of the variation we're seeing on live servers. Senior Art Director Chris G. Robinson hopped on Twitter yesterday to address the concerns, pointing out that the new models on the beta are by no means final, and of course still subject to change. In the case of the human female model, base animations are still undergoing adjustments to bring them closer to matching the original base structure and expressed emotion. .@Selcaer Definitely subject to change, we're now fine tuning each face, altering base pose to more closely match original structure/emotion - Chris G. Robinson (@artofcgrobinson) July 5, 2014 The base animation is the default expression on a model's face when they are not in any kind of active motion. It's the expression your character has when they are simply standing around in town, or on the character creation screen. Currently, the human female models in the beta are all wearing the same expression while they're standing around. With updates to the base animation, and the tweaks to eyebrows and other facial features as tweeted by Robinson, the models should once again appear just as diverse as they do on live servers.
Warlords of Draenor: My first day in the Alpha
Okay, so the standard caveats apply. This is an Alpha test of Warlords of Draenor, it's confined to the Frostfire Ridge, and there are of course tons of bugs because it's an Alpha test, and an Alpha test of an expansion to a ten year old game. Also, I'm not going to spoil anything really significant, but if you keep reading this you're basically saying I want to know more about this expansion that isn't done or out yet, so there are going to be spoilers. It's unavoidable. So first up, let me tell you the gist of what's happening. So far, the only thing being tested is Frostfire Ridge. That means Horde, so you end up seeing a lot of Horde screenshots and hearing about Horde questing, Horde garrisons and Horde in general. Just a whole lotta Horde. The music? Amazing. I guess that's to be expected, but still. Also, I deliberately went with orc and tauren characters because of their new models. Cause we all want to see the new models. So I'll start my impressions with those.
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.
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.
Compare new and old female gnome model animations
Though we saw some brief previews at BlizzCon -- and detailed Artcraft posts on certain races since -- we're still waiting on the official unveil for many of the updated character models coming in Warlords of Draenor. But for those of us who can't stand to wait any longer, Wowhead's model viewer offers previews of female and male gnomes, female and male orcs, female and male dwarves, and male tauren. But if you're particularly interested in gnomes, like I am, you'll be especially interested in this video preview of the updated female gnome model complete with animations and emotes. Compared side by side, the new animations -- especially the facial animations, which bring a lot of life and personality to the character -- are pretty stunning. Keep your eyes open for more videos from Wowhead -- and more Artcraft posts from Blizzard featuring the remaining races.
Old models to remain available at low graphics
Over on the EU forums is an ongoing discussion of a type that usually comes about every expansion cycle: the question of whether or not your computer will need upgrades in order to run the new content. The short answer from CM Taepsilum is that, if you're happy with your computer's current performance in WoW, you're probably fine for Warlords of Draenor. So there's the answer to that. However, fleetingly mentioned at the beginning of the post is the following interesting tidbit: Taepsilum Quote: Maideen Since we are being blessed with new character models (Which can be disabled? Yes, no?) Yes, if you set your graphics quality to Low. source This isn't something that's been explicitly clarified before now. There's been some talk that there would be a way to switch between the old and new models but we hadn't heard exactly how that would be done. It seems we now know: just set your graphics to "low" and it will enable the old player character models. If you've been nervous that your beloved main of many years might be changing irreversibly, hopefully this allows you to breathe a little easier. There'll be a way back!
Warlords of Draenor: Adriacraft hunts down new male tauren model
Our friends over at Adriacraft have been busy mining away at data from the Warlords of Draenor alpha, and discovered something interesting -- the new tauren male model. While we saw a brief glimpse of the model at BlizzCon, it was just a flat model, lacking expression or animation. The images from Adriacraft look to be from the character selection screen, and the model has its familiar stance and expression. Adriacraft has other shots from the character selection screen as well, including both male and female dwarves, male and female gnomes, and the male orc model. A tweet from Senior Art Director Chris Robinson indicated that the tauren male and his animations will be featured in an upcoming edition of Artcraft -- so players wondering what the model looks like with some emotion on its face may not have to wait too long to see it. For more screenshots and images of the new models, take a look at our gallery.
Female Draenei model coming next week
Senior Art Director Chris Robinson tweeted last night that we'll be getting another new character model next week. This time it'll be the draenei female. We recently learned that the Draenei and Blood Elves will be getting model upgrades with the release of WoD (rather than later on in the future, as was announced at BlizzCon 2013). Stay tuned to WoW Insider, we'll be sure to have it up immediately upon release. In the mean time you can look at all the previously released models in our handy gallery: Edit 4:50 p.m.: Clarified the BlizzCon statement.
Do we need a free character re-customization for the new models?
The recently announced new character models are causing quite a stir, with varying opinions appearing. The reactions to the new female human model have been largely positive, but the question I'm interested in today is whether you think we need a character re-customization after the models are added to the game. On the one hand, I can see that the developers' objective has been to stay as faithful as possible to the original models, and as such they may not really see the need for it. But although I think there has been some great work done in this area, they haven't been entirely successful with the fidelity to old models. Indeed, that is a very subjective assessment, too, and what you liked in your character's old face might not be evident in a new face. Depending on the skintones available, given that Chris has teased potential others, you may want to alter that too. Hair style and color can, of course, be edited in the game. %Poll-86777%
New human female character models revealed
Blizzard Senior Art Director Chris Robinson has been teasing us with heavily cropped images for a couple of weeks now, and the blog post he was alluding to has finally arrived, revealing the female human character model. It's a sterling piece of work, you can really see how they've done their best to retain the look and feel of the original character, while removing the blockiness of the old model. And it looks to me like this is the best job they've done so far. The model has not changed in size or overall shape at all, with the exception of some slimming in the legs. This, frankly, makes them look more natural than the older shape. Instead, the original shape has been smoothed, and contours added, making it look so much better. The look of strength remains in the arms, she hasn't been given a super-flat belly, nothing has really changed. And the face, which is where the greatest difficulty surely arises for the art team, is a faithful simile. While it's a highly subjective matter, it seems that they have managed to simultaneously maintain the shape and style of the original face, while bringing it up to date with the rest of the character models we've seen so far. The hair looks fantastic, as we've become accustomed to with the new models we've seen so far, and with Chris Robinson teasing that new hairstyles may become available at some point, it's exciting to see what they can achieve. If you're curious about the other models, or want to see them all collected in one place, do have a look at our gallery, and hit the break for more human female images!
Rumor: Are we getting a new character model preview this Thursday/Friday?
Chris Robinson, Senior Art Director at Blizzard, tweeted a pretty obvious hint of what's to come later this week in a blog post reveal on the official Warcraft site. As pictured above, it really looks like some new hair ... and where would Blizzard showcase new hair? On a new character model. I don't think it's a very big stretch to say that another model preview is on its way. It could just be new hairstyles, however that'd seem pretty anti-climatic, especially given that we haven't seen any of the other models yet. In fact, I'll go as far to say that this hairstyle looks like it belongs on a Human or Blood Elf (which we know are now in-progress for WoD). Stay tuned to your Warcraft news sites (especially on Twitter). Should be interesting!
New skins and hairstyles planned for Warlords character models
Senior Art Director Chris Robinson has been tweeting today about the coming updates to show players the new character models that are ready for public airing, and the current stages of the process. Within the series of tweets, Chris also slipped in a sneaky mention of the designers' future planned features, mentioning new skins and hairstyles: Along with breakdown of decisions made with each PC, and hopefully someway to track and update everyone with plans for additional features - Chris G. Robinson (@artofcgrobinson) January 9, 2014 Like skins, new hairstyles,etc. want to be as transparent as possible so community knows we're listening and implementing feedback - Chris G. Robinson (@artofcgrobinson) January 9, 2014 While these are only plans, not confirmed new features, and there's no timeframe on them at all, it's pretty exciting to read. The new models we've seen so far have been amazing, and new hairstyles and skin tones or even things like the recent fan mockups on imgur would be fantastic additions. It's always great to learn that designers are listening to the community!
What do you want out of new character models?
We knew that updated models were coming for vanilla-era races in Warlords of Draenor, for which (we're pretty sure) anyone playing those races is thankful for. But we've recently heard that both blood elves and draenei will also be getting updated character models, which will hopefully get all of the game's models up to the same visual level. So knowing that new character models are coming our way, but we don't have a ton of detail from Blizzard on what to expect -- so let's talk about what we want out of them. Our own Matthew Rossi has said this would be an ideal time to add variant skins for races, but for my part I want better hair. Hair that looks more like hair and less like an experiment in geometry that used far too much hair gel. But what about you, dear readers? What do you want out of updated character models?
