If one has a pretty low standard for what constitutes "looking great", maybe. But to me, while better than their other attempts, it still looks bad, and I wish they would just stop trying at this point.
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I don't think this is about standards at all, just say you have a different taste and prefer 2D over 3D
Not saying it's a bad thing, I personally don't mind either, but CK3 looks beautiful partly due to the 3D design.
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All the 3d models is one reason newer paradox games lag out, they also have several issues that persist, like SSA in ck3 still being quite pale, and the AC:Unity face syndrome, especially on babies
This whole thread isn't about whether 3D is viable or can be made pretty, but about whether we want it.
The 3D in CK3 is perfectly serviceable. It's better than I:R and V3 by a country mile, and is certainly enough to work for a GSG's purposes. And yet I don't want it. At the end of the day, this isn't a question of whether or not 3D can be made to look acceptable, it's a question of whether people want to see it. I like 2D better and have never pretended otherwise, and I hope this game goes that route instead.
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I don't care for 3d portraits, so if you guys had your ways, I wouldn't shed a tear on them, but contrary to other issues which make me very active here, I would just be indifferent to them, as long as the game is good and good looking.
I don't find CK3 or Victoria 3 horrible, though I agree that sometimes 3d art takes a bit too much place without being informative enough.
I don't find CK3 or Victoria 3 horrible, though I agree that sometimes 3d art takes a bit too much place without being informative enough.
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Yeah, e.g. every time I look back at Monkey Island the 2D games aged gracefully, the first 3D game on the other hand...
Calling it now: April's fool this year will be an announcement that future paradox streams will use vtuber models looking like these portraits and future games will allow you to add your own vtuber models to the games.
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If you google "CK3 portraits" and go to "Images" the majority of the responses will be links to fan-made unique portraits, AI upscalers, or a mod on Steam that makes them look better.
The default Paradox version just doesn't cut it for most people.
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For me it's not just a matter of 2D vs 3D. In my opinion the 3D portraits in paradox games are simply ugly. Not because they're 3D, but because they're bad 3D. If they were able to do them in 3D but make them look good, I wouldn't mind. But to me, the 3D portrait implementation in PDX games is just poor, even when not compared to 2D.
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I'm not opposed to 3D per se, I'm more concerned about the implementation of it. I don't think it will be viable to have CK3-style 3D models in the game for every culture group. CK3's Royal Court DLC probably had the most 3D models out of all its DLCs and its release date was heavily pushed back from the initial date. Another problem in CK3 is that a lot of cultures still don't have the right clothing models. Everyone from Tibetans, Pannonian Avars, pre-migration Hungarians, Chinese, Mongols and Oghuz Turks use the same clothes. Project Caesar will have a large map than CK3, so it will need to implement 3D assets for cultures such as the Japanese, the Native Americans, the Mayans, the Inuit, Polynesians, Vietnamese, the Kongo, the Indonesians, etc. Sure, Project Caesar could do what CK3 did and portray Han Chinese as Mongols, but it would be pretty immersion-breaking to see an anti-Mongol Red Turban rebel Zhu Yuanzhang depicted as a Mongol. At that point, I'd rather want no character models like EU4 than a 3D model.
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There were ZERO reasons to add 3d to Victoria 3, yet we had them. A game, most famous for spreadsheets and statistics, got 40% of UI dedicated to abhorrent 3d freaks, that provide zero immersion, zero information, zero utility. Game, famous for pops, got characters.
EUV, too, have zero reasons to add 3d, and some people, me included, are worried that EUV will, too, be designed by a committee like Victoria 3.
EUV, too, have zero reasons to add 3d, and some people, me included, are worried that EUV will, too, be designed by a committee like Victoria 3.
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With recent Victoria 3 dev diary, I beg Caesar developers, DO NOT FORCE US TO SUFFER SAME FATE! Spare us 3d abominations and unnatural hybrids, who escaped from some underground genetic splicing facility.
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It's so sad to see so much effort put into something so bad. It really is tragic.
Just opened the files of HoI4, picked a random a file and I got this:
Look how good that is in comparison.
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I would prefer this too. I think it would lend itself very well as DLC content actually since it wouldn't impact gameplay at all.
In addition, I would prefer a 2D system simply because I think it's easier for modders to expand it. Even if the original 2D portraits don't look good, it's trivial to use image generation or artists for more enhanced versions, while adding/expanding the 3D models is way higher of an entrypoint for modders. Not even to speak about changing the "feel" of the 3D model, like changing the shader etc.
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Shortening the quote, but I agree on all points, Vic3 has an unnecessarily large focus on the 3d models. While I personally don't dislike them inherently, unlike seemingly a majority of people, I do agree that they are too ever present in too many places. The country overview in the current Vic3 version has the national flag literally in the background of the ruler portrait which I just really dislike, the portraits in general could do with being quite a bit smaller, just large enough to still make out what they are showing. I've also had fun making assets for the 3d models, which I couldn't have done as easily had I actually had to draw, counterintuitive as it may be considering the state of 3d modelling in PDX mods.
One thing that I think could improve portraits by a lot is simply having a different stylistic shader applied to them. If you've seen the CK3 legend chronicle window you might know what I'm talking about. In that UI element the portraits are stylized to resemble a painting, something which Vic3 should imo try and apply to all portraits. This could help a lot with uncanny-ness and small issues the portraits have.
Add to that static animations and maybe an improvement of the poses in the process and you have what I think is a very good system to make appealing portraits, while still having the usefulness of a 3d dna system to generate (reasonably) unique and distinct faces. In fact, PDX has already used 3D to make what appears to be 2D, flags in Imperator as well as Victoria 3 are actually 3d models, CK3 I think isn't but I might be wrong.
To summarize, I would personally like seeing a system like Imperator's in Ceu5ar, using portraits for what they are suited, differentiating characters beyond just names, making use of the dynamicity of a 3d dna system, but also applying filters to make the models seem less like they are 3d and instead make them appear as if they are paintings, drawings, photographs, whatever fits the game, the latter not being relevant to Ceu5ar specifically of course
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The horror, the horror
The saddest part is; these are probably the best Vic 3 has offered so far, and it's still tragically bad.
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If the models from CK3 could be exported to another game since they use the same engine it could be interesting but otherwise it seems the models take a lot of development time.
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Something I havent seen mentioned in this thread is that 3D models are a HUGE pain for total conversion mods, speaking as someone who works on those. Making a wacky fantasy mod with weird creatures instead of humans is much easier in older games where you only see 3D models if you zoom in to look at armies moving around, because its much easier to suspend your disbelief with those. In newer games 3D models are everywhere and if theyre all human your immersion is instantly gone. Meanwhile 2D portraits are much easier to draw and make en masse.
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For the Vic3 case I suspect they forgot to put an "off-switch" to their 3d. It just seems to be so random for V3, which the game doesn't focus on RPG element at all.