Human Barbie - Blue Tracker

#1 - Jan. 24, 2014, 4:41 p.m.

Ok so I have a bit of an issue with the human model redo that was just released.
Don't get me wrong. They look amazing. Like a GARGANTUAN improvement from the old ones.

What? I have knees? Amazing!
Hands with actual finger segments and knuckles? That will make holding my sword SO MUCH EASIER!
Abs! I mean, I really should have muscles since I spend so much time fighting.
I kind of feel like the booty area needs some work but that might just be the really awkward position they showed her standing in (feet together, hips level, no one actually stands like that)
The face, holy crap amazing. Above and beyond the call of duty on that one.

Here's my problem.
I am not a Barbie. No one is a Barbie.
No one's waist looks like that. Supermodels' waists don't pinch in that tightly. The only places waists actually form that shape are in photoshop.

I'd also like to say I'm really happy they left the space between the boobs and didn't turn them into comic book numbers. However I'm not sure why they've become attached to the armpits. I'm not an expert on boobs or anything....I've only got one pair to compare them to, but...it just seems to me it shouldn't be one continuous line from the bottom of the arm, around the armpit, around the chest. But who knows. Like I said, not an expert.

But I do know that I have never seen a person with a waist shaped like that.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#50 - Jan. 24, 2014, 8:22 p.m.

As we've said, we're looking to in essence update the original models, even though in actuality making them completely from scratch. Our goal is to keep the "spirit" of the originals, but increase poly count, texture resolution, and animation (to a pretty amazing effect, we think :). What we're not looking to do is change what these characters are and what they've been. We already face a huge hurdle in that we're messing with what is the most iconic and personal part of the game - a person's character. A digital representation of themselves in the game world, even if if that representation is a giant cow-man. Way above and beyond anything else in the game, changing how someone looks is a monumentally delicate task. We want to keep the proportions as similar to the original models as possible, we're going to keep posture and silhouette close to the originals, but all just with a much higher level of detail. When you see your character it should still be your character, and these should still be representative of the player character models we've all been playing as for the past 9+ years.

It's really tempting to want to make major revisions, but someone chose to play a character largely because of the way they looked, and it has come to represent their in-game identity.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#71 - Jan. 24, 2014, 8:43 p.m.

01/24/2014 12:28 PMPosted by Annette
That's all well and good! But making her skinnier and more waifish, especially in WARcraft, seems like the wrong direction in which to have deviated.

I would have to respectfully disagree that she deviates to any great degree from the original model when compared side-by-side, except that the proportions are slightly more full.

Here are the two shown in the preview without any alteration. - http://i.imgur.com/VaIphPC.gif

Bashiok

Community Manager

#238 - Jan. 25, 2014, 2:58 a.m.

Ok well this is taking all sorts of weird turns, so I'll just close this thread by saying there's no commentary here on anything outside of the game, nor should there be. This is the original model launched with the game with more polygons, higher resolution textures, and better animations. That's our goal, and we think we're creating faithful reproductions of the originals.