EU Graphical Update Feedback - Hands and Feet

[Siddiax]

Taking something like the feet and replacing it with a higher quality model is going to require all of those sandals and open toe shoes/boots etc to be reworked around said new foot. This in turn opens up potential issues with rigging and seams between the different model pieces.

It's a huge amount of development time AND QC to do well. I'd love to see it but I'll be absolutely gobsmacked if SE pull it off without massively sacrificing something for it.

Can't say it makes sense for them to increase each face's poly count and give them new textures but not update bodies and hands/feet. I'll assume that they're not quite ready yet which is probably the reason we haven't been shown anything so far.

[Yencat]

Can't say it makes sense for them to increase each face's poly count and give them new textures but not update bodies and hands/feet. I'll assume that they're not quite ready yet which is probably the reason we haven't been shown anything so far.

That's what I'm thinking/hoping as well, otherwise it's going to look even more shocking answering a Linkpearl call with the Frankfurter fingers right next to the updated faces and hair.

[Sebazy]

Can't say it makes sense for them to increase each face's poly count and give them new textures but not update bodies and hands/feet. I'll assume that they're not quite ready yet which is probably the reason we haven't been shown anything so far.

Look at it this way:

8 races, 14 unique heads once we factor in genders (sorry Hrothgars!), 4 base variants of each head, that gives us a worst case of 56 head models to update if we assume the worst case of them not being able to use morphs to transfer the updates across all variants at once in their development tools.

Now compare that to the hand and foot models alone. How many sandals, open toed shoes and glove models does this game have? Now multiply that for racial and gender variants. It's going to be in the 1000s. It'll be way more than an entire expansion's worth of new gear.

Again, SE *might* make the decision to create an updated base body for each race and use that going forward, but that's tremendously tricky to do well and with artistic consistency. It's an extreme example, but remember how weird Everquest looked circa Planes when you had a mishmash of old and new player models? Now imagine if WoW had have let you mix and match it's revamped models with the classic ones. Again, it'd just look strange.

It's not the option we want, but unfortunately it absolutely makes sense from a development perspective.

[Yencat]

There's only like.... 4 (I think? Midlander male & female, Lalafell and male Roegadyn) actual bodies though, so hopefully standardizing will be a little easier because of that.

[Sebazy]

There's only like.... 4 (I think? Midlander male & female, Lalafell and male Roegadyn) actual bodies though, so hopefully standardizing will be a little easier because of that.

It's not the bodies themselves that's the problem. It's updating the gear around and over it. Think of something as simple as the strap over the foot on a set of sandals.

With the current club feet that strap could be as simple as 6 tris. Rework the foot into a much higher poly mesh and suddenly that 6 tri strap isn't going to cut it. It's going to need to be remade to correctly fit the new high poly foot model. Now add in your Lala, roe and gender variants and that 1 sandal has spiralled into a not insignificant amount of work. Now multiply that by however many different and unique sandal models this game and it starts getting out of control fast. And that's before we start talking about gloves.

[Yencat]

It's not the bodies themselves that's the problem. It's updating the gear around and over it. Think of something as simple as the strap over the foot on a set of sandals.

With the current club feet that strap could be as simple as 6 tris. Rework the foot into a much higher poly mesh and suddenly that 6 tri strap isn't going to cut it. It's going to need to be remade to correctly fit the new high poly foot model. Now add in your Lala, roe and gender variants and that 1 sandal has spiralled into a not insignificant amount of work. Now multiply that by however many different and unique sandal models this game and it starts getting out of control fast. And that's before we start talking about gloves.

But things don't strap over or around the body in this game, a fingerless glove replaces your bare hand with a glove with a new hand in it.

I won't deny it'd be a lot of work anyway, but if they're updating the textures of a strappy leather sandal to actually look more like leather then the foot is baked into the sandal anyway and would probably need to be remade.

Edited to add: I definitely see what you're saying though, it's mostly wishful thinking from me. It'd be such a bummer to have all this work done and still be stuck with those ugly Lego fingers.