3D Artwork Megathread (all discussion here please)

[Aart]

Covering over the 3D models with some kind of post rendering filter might go some way to making them more palatable, perhaps?
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It does not have higher quality of anything - its just an effect of making image coherent - filter acts as a glue, common thing between all elements that otherwise look out of place (image made by PełPeł)

I don't know why, but this version looks more in the Uncanny Valley than the original one. On the other hand, I am not a person with a glorified visual taste, so I could not see a problem with the original image as well

 

[OnlyAraku]

Actually I'm really surprised how many people strongly dislike this big 3d art: current Tinto Talks has more than 5 times the number of [x] as any other TT to date, including maps. If You count it as % of number of votes it is even worse. I thought it was just me but apparently people do have strong opinion about this for many different reasons.

After some consideration I believe that for me the main problem is not 3d art per se but this big useless throne room render - it reminds me heavily of Civilization series and just feels out of place. I really hope it is just loading screen that we misinterpreted as in-game diplomacy window or something.

By render you mean 2D art right? Because the throne room is just an image, not a 3D space/model which Johan clearly states. I don’t understand what your issue is with it, if not a misunderstanding of it being 3D.

 

[Brynjar]

The 2D portraits are timeless and look fantastic.

Which ones? There is a pretty large variety even within a game like ck2. Personally I would prefer no character portraits at all in project Caesar since I would prefer any character interactions to be kept to a minimum.

Paradox, wake up already. Imperator was a failure. Victoria 3 is a failure. CK3 is a failure. This isn't my opinion and feelings, this is what your numbers say.

I have a pretty strong dislike for what Paradox has done to all of those titles, but despite a dislike for 3d characters I don't think the existance of 3d characters are even on my list of issues with those games. I can't even remember Imperator having 3d characters, most of them are 2d from what I can remember.

What I do have an issue with in especially Vic 3 is how much space the characters are taking in the UI, but that's not really an issue with 3d characters in itself. One could do the same with 2d art. The Imperator UI suffered quite a lot from the 2d art bloat all over the place.

Paradox forums and subreddits aren't filled with "OMG guys my new butler looks so sweet, look at the amount of pixels on his hat!".

Assuming you are paraphrasing and not looking for a quote saying exactly that, I'm pretty sure both the CK3 forums and Vic 3 forums have quite a few of those.

You will never get AAA++ Xbox kids hyperactive on sugar to play your games.

They don't need those. It is sufficient to replace every two of me and you with three 25+ years old persons who enjoys looking at the artwork and laughing at events for the few hours per week they are able to justify to play though. As long as the Paradox monetization model remains as it is, the way you play and the number of hours spent in the game doesn't really matter as long as they buy the DLCs. If they were to sell playable tags as microtransactions it would be a different story.

Just give people EU 4 with an optimized code. That's literally it. What's the singular complaint and excuse in EU4?

You must be new to the forums if you think people don't have a single complaint about EU4...
Trade, Colonization, mission trees, mana, development, rebels, tech system, one military system covering the entire time period, AI, fort system, carpet sieging, mercs. The list could go on, and most, if not all of those complaints goes back more than half a decade by now.

People want more mechanics and the devs replying that the base code is too old. Its not people complaining that their army reformer isn't picking their nose in a 360 degree animation.

Are you suggesting people like Johan are spending his time making the 3d art? I doubt that is the case. It's also not like a company like Paradox aren't going to use artists if they get rid of the 3d models. 2d art isn't free either, and they aren't going to spend all their time making free maps and military units.

That looks good.

The worst part of the original, the beard, still looks just as bad, or worse.

Also, I hate 3D portraits, but I liked many of the mechanics in the dev diary, I wouldn't put a dislike down on the TT for that reason alone.

And I disliked the described character interactions, and hit respectfully disagree to the TT for that reason alone, but don't really care about 3d portraits. We knew they were coming.

this is something i realised some 6-9 months after vic3 released

I realised it when I read the first Vic 3 dev diary, and got 165 respectfully disagrees for it

 

[Testerian2]

By render you mean 2D art right?

By render I mean 3d person + 2d background together. Maybe wrong word for that.

 

[D Austin Vaughan]

Nobody wants them. They ALWAYS look bad, they ALWAYS look like cartoon characters. They always break immersion when they are the only thing animated in the UI and end up making the rest of the game look dead and pulling you out of your fantasy.

Paradox, wake up already. Imperator was a failure. Victoria 3 is a failure. CK3 is a failure. This isn't my opinion and feelings, this is what your numbers say. Or did support for Imperator stop because it was making too much money?

Know your customers. Your audience isn't playing your games because they have more megapixels and polygons than the new Call of Duty or Fortnite.

Paradox forums and subreddits aren't filled with "OMG guys my new butler looks so sweet, look at the amount of pixels on his hat!". They are 100% screenshots of MS paint looking maps and people loosing their minds over the combination of tiny minimalistic icons some guy managed to stack.

The 2D portraits are timeless and look fantastic. You will never get AAA++ Xbox kids hyperactive on sugar to play your games. There just aren't enough explosions, batman skins and microrewards per second. You won't get people who play The Sims either, because they want to paint their chouch and remodel the kitchen, not conquer Manchuria.

Did Cuphead the game need 3D models? Would it had been more sucesfull if it had 3rd rate Pixar characters instead of beautifully hand drawn 2D models? Isn't the video game market over saturated enough with "modder turned game dev" quality levels of 3D models?

You say not to worry, that the 3D portraits will be just in a small part of the game? Great, then REMOVE THEM. As you said, they aren't that big of a deal, so delete them if they are not that big of a deal.

Paradoxes last 3 flagship releases are failures or mediocrities. Just give people EU 4 with an optimized code. That's literally it. What's the singular complaint and excuse in EU4? People want more mechanics and the devs replying that the base code is too old. Its not people complaining that their army reformer isn't picking their nose in a 360 degree animation.

Remove 3D portraits, cut the UI windows to 20% of the screen and stop pushing this every new release.

CK3 is super successful, pretty much the most played PDX GSG after HOI4 if you look at Steam numbers. Imperator was a game with a lot of potential but sadly hasn't been developed further (though I and many people still play it). Victoria 3 is super fun and gets waay to much hate, the new DLC looks very promising. I have over 1k hours on Vic3 and CK3 for example and have many friends I regularly play them with and have a blast. If you look on steam, Vic3 has a continual player base in the thousands. I know here on the forums there is endless hate on 3D characters but I and most people I know find them more immersive than names with numbers. I personally am enthusiastic and very satisfied with the direction PDX GSG are going in and so are my friends in the communities I am in.

 

[arctus]

I honestly think that placeholder portraits used for victoria3 are great (you can still find them under game/gfx/portraits/placeholder). Too bad they were never used



View attachment 1144979View attachment 1144980

They should really aim for this art style, i think it's more fitting for an eu5. I think the 3d portraits always have some cartoonish vibe on them that hits my immersion hard.

 

[MasterPaw]

because there are a lot of people that liked it as well, as you can check yourself on reactions to the character Tinto Talk.

I agree with all but this, reaction to the TT is broader than the art

I liked it mostly because of the character system, not because of the art (even if I find the African one good, European ok but the beard meh)

I don't have a strong preference, maybe slightly on 2d but what I want really is dna system and being able to recognise them first, which the current 3d system can.

I think a reasonable outcome would be to keep using 3d (improved) but allow a moddable post-processing to make it look 2d or whatever style. If that's OK with performances I have no idea

 

[D Austin Vaughan]

You guys honestly have the patience of saints.
So from those of us how love the 3D models, thank you to the team. Please don't let the loud whining of the few stop you.
P.S. Where do we sign up for adding a DNA system and associated character models to Stellaris 2, so that I can spend all my time on an alien hybrid breeding programme.

Exactly. While the 3D models aren't always perfect (Vic3 ones could be a bit improved but I still like them) I will always prefer them and defend PDXs choice by turning to them over 2D.

 

[za3tarani]

I realised it when I read the first Vic 3 dev diary, and got 165 respectfully disagrees for it

i also complained alot at the start (maybe not first devdiary), but i was hopeful. and even with the new warfare system i thought "whatever, atleat i get everything else"... today, warfare isnt even top3 complaints i have.

i remember complaining about the centralized building system, the lack of transport cost and other things but i assumed they had figured it out and it would still be fun. i even played the leaked beta and saw all the flaws, but still assumed, when bug free etc the game will play somewhat different.

 

[MaXiMuS-54]

3D models are fine so long as they don't take a lot of development time away from other things. Artists are short of work as well as AI can generate art for basically free nowadays. I've seen even movies use AI generated posters.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

I love when people start their rant with "NOBODY LIKES/WANTS/ASKED FOR!!!!!!" when I clearly don't agree with their opinion and have no problem with whatever they rant about. Vic3 characters are meh, children are very bad. I don't play it anymore, but I've just started playing CK3 and I don't complain about the animated characters. They are ok. I actually prefer them to 2D ones of CKII or Stellaris (Imperator ones are ok too).

These two kings we've seen from EUV are nicely done. If the rest of characters will be of the same quality - I will have absolutely no problem with 3D portraits. The only wish I have is that they should be rather small, I don't need to see large characters covering 1/3 of screen space.

 

[Johan]

Am I going crazy or did people live a completely different timeline than I did? I vividly remember the CK2 portraits being called ugly back in their day and being criticised, with players even recommending each other not to buy some of the CK2 portrait DLCs like the Byzantine Portrait Pack.

You are not crazy. They were not popular at all early on.

 

[CirclePete]

My preference would go to modulable 2d portraits, like Stellaris.

Especially since I like to mod graphics, and it would be easier (at least for me) to add portraits for historical characters like Napoléon, Leonardo da Vinci, Catherine de' Medici, Copernicus... which could still have a "dna", but also an attribute unique_portrait = yes.

Like these ones for EU4 (all advisors for France, because it was my latest playthrough):

 

[AirXJecko]

CK3 is super successful, pretty much the most played PDX GSG after HOI4 if you look at Steam numbers. Imperator was a game with a lot of potential but sadly hasn't been developed further (though I and many people still play it). Victoria 3 is super fun and gets waay to much hate, the new DLC looks very promising. I have over 1k hours on Vic3 and CK3 for example and have many friends I regularly play them with and have a blast. If you look on steam, Vic3 has a continual player base in the thousands. I know here on the forums there is endless hate on 3D characters but I and most people I know find them more immersive than names with numbers. I personally am enthusiastic and very satisfied with the direction PDX GSG are going in and so are my friends in the communities I am in.

If we want to be picky EU4 and CK3 are pretty similar in term of player numbers, with EU4 having a little bit of higher average but similar numbers on peak players

 

[Koopatin]

I still think, more people will not buy it because of the art style than will buy it because of it. But I also think both numbers will be miniscule and most do not care.
I would like for an in game option to deactivate those portraits, always better than a mod but... well. It is what it is. (btw. I am not in the camp, "game is ruined", and i think most are not)

And Still, I absolutely think graphics/portraits are an absolutely valid point to decide not to buy a product. It does not matter how great something is in every other aspect, if I hate parts of it, it is not for me. (Hypothetical, it is not that bad for me)

 

[OnlyAraku]

By render I mean 3d person + 2d background together. Maybe wrong word for that.

I see, personally I feel the background sets the atmosphere quite well, especially as I encounter different ones when interacting with other kingdoms in diplomacy. I don’t really see the character model being overlaid on top of it as being jarring.

 

[Testerian2]

Am I going crazy or did people live a completely different timeline than I did? I vividly remember the CK2 portraits being called ugly back in their day and being criticised, with players even recommending each other not to buy some of the CK2 portrait DLCs like the Byzantine Portrait Pack.

If they were not popular, and people still prefer them to 3d portraits - this is not really an argument for 3d

 

[Kaspar Osraige]

3D models are fine so long as they don't take a lot of development time away from other things. Artists are short of work as well as AI can generate art for basically free nowadays. I've seen even movies use AI generated posters.

I maintain my position that mentioning AI in any thread should be an automatic ban

 

[donbg]

If they were not popular, and people still prefer them to 3d portraits - this is not really an argument for 3d

The point is that people don't prefer them to 3D. A vocal group of people in the forums prefers them to 3D, and is pushing a rose-tinted nostalgic view of the past that doesn't reflect how people actually felt about these 2D portraits, doesn't reflect how people received the CK3 3D portrait transition and possibly doesn't reflect how most players of the game now feel about the 3D portraits.

 

[lazprune]

Am I going crazy or did people live a completely different timeline than I did? I vividly remember the CK2 portraits being called ugly back in their day and being criticised, with players even recommending each other not to buy some of the CK2 portrait DLCs like the Byzantine Portrait Pack.

Obviously, 2D portraits nowadays need not to look like they did back in the day but it's crazy to think that somehow the change to 3D in CK3 was a downgrade and was disliked by the community. Victoria 3 portraits do indeed look ugly but for me the issue in that game is hardly limited to just that.

The 3D portraits we saw in the thread also looked really well-made. Sure, some improvements could occur but they were fine overall, and 3D does add some benefits over to it. I don't understand the reason or logic behind this panic. This seems to me to be a very vocal minority complaining about the change. I hardly doubt the vast majority of EU4/PDX fans actually care about this.

Mediterranean portraits were the ugliest portrait pack ever released before they were reworked into a pretty byzantine pack.