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with what we saw today in the dev diary i am somewhat certain we will not have 3d models. at least i see not how that would fit into what we saw with )pop) icons and such, and it looks too good to be just placeholder art. I hope it is not only wishful thinking
 
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I think this actually has more to do with what type of game EU5 will be. We are probably moving away from Mana and Advisors probably because they want to reduce the amount of boardgamey mechincs of the EU4. The question then arises what would be required for the EU5 graphical presentation. 2D art would probably be better for asthetics and calirty but is less dynamic and genertaive than 3D. If they do not need dynamic charecter representation where charecters age and die then going without 3D will be fine.

If however there needs to be a lot of charecters who need to be dynamically represented then it will probably be the 3D style because generetive 2D art despite some insistences in this thread is not in a stable enough place to be used in a proffesional full cost game. For all the nice looking portraits that come out of it it would also generate some tuly bizzare and bad shit. In addition if you need the portrait to change with age then you would have to constantly regenerate it. You can talk all kinds of shit about CK3 art style and Vic3 art style but they are both quite consitent while allowing for dynamic generation of new charecters and aging of old ones which those games require.

TLDR: If EU5 is going to be about charecters then we are probably getting 3D portraits. If it is not about charecters we might instead have more 2D art as it does not need to be as dynamic.
 
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Also just as a point about Gilded Age although those portraits are nice currently we have only seen historical charecters. What happens when those charecters die? How are new portraits made? Are there generic ones that will replace historical charecters? How many variations are there? None of those things are actually clear from the trailer so it is easy to be impressed by it even though realistically we do not know how things will look like in game.
 
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I think this actually has more to do with what type of game EU5 will be. We are probably moving away from Mana and Advisors probably because they want to reduce the amount of boardgamey mechincs of the EU4. The question then arises what would be required for the EU5 graphical presentation. 2D art would probably be better for asthetics and calirty but is less dynamic and genertaive than 3D. If they do not need dynamic charecter representation where charecters age and die then going without 3D will be fine.

If however there needs to be a lot of charecters who need to be dynamically represented then it will probably be the 3D style because generetive 2D art despite some insistences in this thread is not in a stable enough place to be used in a proffesional full cost game. For all the nice looking portraits that come out of it it would also generate some tuly bizzare and bad shit. In addition if you need the portrait to change with age then you would have to constantly regenerate it. You can talk all kinds of shit about CK3 art style and Vic3 art style but they are both quite consitent while allowing for dynamic generation of new charecters and aging of old ones which those games require.

TLDR: If EU5 is going to be about charecters then we are probably getting 3D portraits. If it is not about charecters we might instead have more 2D art as it does not need to be as dynamic.
aging is not a problem with ck2 portraits (and its mods), it is divided between portraits of children, young people from 16 onwards, then it changes to adults, I don't remember at what age, and at 50 it changes to elderly people, there is no problem with that, 3d would literally bring several bugs and the whole problem of rendering clothing which would bring even more bugs.
 
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Also just as a point about Gilded Age although those portraits are nice currently we have only seen historical charecters. What happens when those charecters die? How are new portraits made? Are there generic ones that will replace historical charecters? How many variations are there? None of those things are actually clear from the trailer so it is easy to be impressed by it even though realistically we do not know how things will look like in game.
Just look at the ck2 system, which is from Paradox itself and works perfectly. You don't need to show your whole body or even keep moving like GE portraits
 
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aging is not a problem with ck2 portraits (and its mods), it is divided between portraits of children, young people from 16 onwards, then it changes to adults, I don't remember at what age, and at 50 it changes to elderly people, there is no problem with that, 3d would literally bring several bugs and the whole problem of rendering clothing which would bring even more bugs.
CK2 protraits were famously hard to differeniate though which in a game about cahrecters was just bad. I never have this problem in CK3. Also having children just suddenly spring from the defauly child portrait to young adult was always jarring. Anway I do not even mean we need fully body 3D portraits anyway (nor that we need them at all if the game won't be that charecter focused) just that if they do want dynamic portraits that change and adapt with time then they need to have the tech to be dynamic. Again if do not have a charecter focus we do not need such portraits anyway.

I agree that it would probably be more buggy but the portrait bugs are the least of CK3 or Vic3 issues. Also CK2 quite consitently got portrait bugs while only having 2D poraits, bugs are as much about the dev cycle as they are about tech. I still remember the fully bald Scandinavian viking portraits that hung around for 2 patches or the mongolian steppe children all becoming white european children.
 
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CK2 protraits were famously hard to differeniate though which in a game about cahrecters was just bad. I never have this problem in CK3. Also having children just suddenly spring from the defauly child portrait to young adult was always jarring. Anway I do not even mean we need fully body 3D portraits anyway (nor that we need them at all if the game won't be that charecter focused) just that if they do want dynamic portraits that change and adapt with time then they need to have the tech to be dynamic. Again if do not have a charecter focus we do not need such portraits anyway.

I agree that it would probably be more buggy but the portrait bugs are the least of CK3 or Vic3 issues. Also CK2 quite consitently got portrait bugs while only having 2D poraits, bugs are as much about the dev cycle as they are about tech. I still remember the fully bald Scandinavian viking portraits that hung around for 2 patches or the mongolian steppe children all becoming white european children.
its just more easy for 2d, cheaper and can be more realistic, the 3d portraits of CK3 that are in the tabs that only show only the head are really hard to distinguish between, they look the same most of the time, skin color, hair color etc, somehow there is no illumination in there, where in 2d you can do a handrawn illumination and colors looks more realistic, everything can look better with a a handrow 2d and consuming less resources and performance.
 
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I think we just disagree on the CK3 portaits which is fine. My point isn't even that they are so great to look at (though in my opnion they are) I just understand why the developers went for 3D protratits in CK3 and Vic3 because it fit their design goals. The question is what will Tintos design goals be and will they be more in one direction or another.

I do find 2D portaits pretty in a lot of games (though never in CK2 I did always find them fundemnetally ugly in that game) and I agree with you that handrawn 2D does look nice. I do not agree that it would be cheaper or less labor intesive considering if you want a diverse set of protraits that do not repeat over and over would be way more labour intesive than a programitc dna based 3D system.

Preformance wise it is not the protraits that cause issues it is the math. EU4 which is not the most graphcially intesive games in the world starts to chug if you play until the end date and have conqured a lot because of the math. Victoria 3 if you got rid of all the 3D portraits and inputted 2D ones would still run like garabge in the late game because it has so much math to do because of how the pop system works. Rendering a mostly static 3D model is not that heavy of a lift.
 
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3d is literally harming the game. It is ugly and hard to fix - Paradox cannot fix deformed and hideous monstrosities in Victoria 3 for a year now. It hogs interface space.
It is underrstandable for CK, where characters are central point of a game, fot for grand strategy games, letting a model that have absolutely no interaction with the game, save for cosmetics, to take up to 40% of UI space - it is a recipe for a bad games like Victoria 3.
Another example is Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity. PoE uses hand drawn portraits, Tyranny have soulless 3d-shots. To the point where hand-drawn characters became a mark for non-NPC\important character.
 
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I know I'm probably a minority here and the opinion is unpopular, but I like the UI of CK3/Vic3 and the 3d art in CK3.

What I don't like is the way they did people in Vic3. They just feel somewhat stiff and wooden, almost unnatural.

If EU5 goes into 3d, they better do it right and properly.
I really don't get it tbh.. I'm with you on staying 3d models because it gives us a chance to have ahistorical characters with unique randomly generated faces!
 
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I agree with the general sentiment that CK III handled 3D portraits better than Vicky III, but I still feel like even with mods improving the appearance of the models that they just aren't for me. It's just too much of a "cartoony" art style that I don't like to see in my Paradox grand strategy games which I associate more with realism. That doesn't mean that cartoon styles don't work in anything, I think they work in Civilization for example (though not VI, I really didn't like those ones personally) but not in a giant epic scale RTS nation builder that takes literal days in real life to finish like Paradox games.

I'm more accepting of the 3D portraits in a game such as CK III due to inherent focus on characters (personally I want an EU-style game during the Medieval period which sadly CK III moved away from that), however I still greatly preferred the 2D portraits of CK II. Now personally I don't even see the necessity of portraits in EU V, this is after all primarily a game about steering a nation through the transition of Medieval to Modern, I don't need a giant UI screen showing me a a 2D or 3D portrait of the king, just how he is doing as a ruler in an overall UI menu about the government or dynasty.

If we are going to have unique random 3D portraits for everyone, the monarch, chancellor, advisors, governors, and everyone's mothers, then the Imperator system of having a small window next to their name in the corresponding tabs showing a small portrait of them would be the best method, with obviously the quality of the models being improved. Basically just shifting EU IV style to 3D (advisers were the only portrait you saw and it was only in the court tab, 3 small windows, no full body shots) with a focus on keeping a more "realistic" style 3D (obviously I'm not asking or care for giant AAA uber realistic face model).

Portraits are nice in the games but they shouldn't be the selling point, Paradox shouldn't feel the need to have these big fancy 3D full screen models, keep them nice and small and fit the style and theme of the game. 2D portraits in my opinion are superior, but if the development team feels the need to move towards 3D than I definitely feel that the Imperator system would work best if improved upon.
 
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I really don't get it tbh.. I'm with you on staying 3d models because it gives us a chance to have ahistorical characters with unique randomly generated faces!
Nope, thank you, we already had our share of "unique randomly generated faces"
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Nope, thank you, we already had our share of "unique randomly generated faces"
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That's really a monstrosity, not gonna lie. Why they can't just go back the the 2D model showed by someone in this thread? I mean just think at all the PC resources that those clipping clothes are taking from actual gameplay! And why are they showing a baby that looks like an early medieval representation of baby Jesus? Just make a 5 years old as such, not like a shrunken 40years old man! Or simply don't show him untill he is an proper age to rule. I mean, for me, these things were intolerable; how can you take a grand strategy game seriously if your game looks like e collage of bad creation from Spore?! Vic3 is the game I want to love so much but I really can't force my self into, and 3D portraits are part of the issue.
 
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I mean just think at all the PC resources that those clipping clothes are taking from actual gameplay!
In the context of the amount of resource being used by the simulation, the computer players' decision logic, and the rest of the UI?

Not much. The only resource it's really wasting is screen space.
 
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I think this actually has more to do with what type of game EU5 will be. We are probably moving away from Mana and Advisors probably because they want to reduce the amount of boardgamey mechincs of the EU4.
What makes you think there won't be advisors? Just because advisors in EU4 are linked to the monarch point mechanic doesn't mean a game with advisors needs monarch points. Regardlessbof what currencies and power mechanics the game ends up with, advisors can make the game better.
CK2 protraits were famously hard to differeniate though which in a game about cahrecters was just bad.
My biggest issue with CK2 portraits is that there are far too few of them, which makes too many characters look the same, not just similar. That is probably an issue which is easier to solve with 3d models, but not necessarily an issue which needs tl be solved in a game not focusing on characters.
 
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For ck3 the way their models look and work is great, I'm actually a big fan of the level of customization you can get in character creation, and it's fun because sometimes individual people do look weird.

In V3, the strange choice to go with 3d models is unironically one of the reasons I didn't pick up the game.

For this game, unless it's going to very focused on individuals in the style of ck3, which I doubt, I'd much rather go with a gallery of hand drawn portraits like eu4 or hoi4 have. Yes, you do get tired of the same faces sometimes, but with each patch more portraits can be added to grow the pool.
 
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2D is timeless, i would pick it everytime
 
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I like 2d portraits better, but it's easier to work with 3d portraits. You have pretty much infinite variety, you can play with lighting, clothes can fit on the character, animations are easier etc.
The variety really is key. If I was playing EU4 and every 20 years I had to cycle through to another one of the HOI 4 generic leaders to stare at while playing my country I'd go insane. Already playing HOI4 I get stuck with generals that are all identical when I play a weird country. And it's not really feasible to draw enough 2d portraits for 100 hours of play.
 
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