Ok, so maybe the colors are a little extravagant, but the clarity of units is hard to beat here. I would probably play EU4 with this instead of sprites it did well.
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Ok, so maybe the colors are a little extravagant, but the clarity of units is hard to beat here. I would probably play EU4 with this instead of sprites it did well.
Because I think much of it is aesthetic. Not just in the sense of whether the art looks good or not but also whether it fits with what someone thinks the aesthetic of the game should be. I’d consider “don’t want this kind of graphics in a strategy game” an aesthetic preference.
And regardless that’s all still personal preference. None of it is stuff that you are likely to convince someone on in a debate with words.
“It’s pretty,” “it’s ugly”
“It immerses me,” “it distracts me”
“It’s bloat,” “it’s eye candy”
Not that useful discussion can’t happen, but that sort of thing is more likely to come in the form of “how can we improve this specific element” (I already saw a thread about improving the family tree, for example) or expressing personal preferences for how something could be done differently rather (there's also a thread asking for an option to turn off 3D portraits) than trying to “defeat” each others subjective opinions about 3D portraits as a whole.
That’s the outcome of randomized portraits with limited variables, not of 3D. CK2 had the same issue. And if you don’t have generation you have a different sort of repetition, so it’s just back to personal preference on which sort of repetition is worse.
I never did. I just said telling people to defeat your arguments is pointless, ‘cause it’s not that type of debate.
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It looks...off, to me. Like in the way you can always tell a professional photo was professionally done. The people in them don't feel like they were actually in front of that background. Perhaps this is eased off somewhat by trimming it down to just a portrait, but if this is their best foot, it feels off, and if this isn't what it's going to look like in-game why present that much room? I'm awful at art but I'd be curious what it looks like with the background completely cut out so that we can just see the guy alone and if that helps (it's not going to help the other dude, who just looks like he's made of wax).
It's one of the reasons I think more stylized portraits are better. Imperfections bother you less on something that's not meant to be perfect (consider that the only real complaint that's ever been lobbed at HoI4's oil paintings is that the generic portraits were too common, which is just a fancy way of saying we want more of this art). That's not by default inconsistent with 3D and it is literally possible to achieve heavily stylized 3D, but 3D models seem to pretty consistently be built around realism where stylized art tends to be 2D.
And none of this resolves anybody's concerns about UI and UX.
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The funny thing is, those leaderheads were ugly, but they looked alive in a way. Those characters had character!
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Yeah, this is the first dev diary that has seemed like it is featuring something very unfinished. This isn't even just about the models but the fact that they showed off "18th century background" for a character that wasn't wearing 18th century clothes. To be fair, it's something that needs a whole art team to work on and a good map or piece of UX is easier, but it's strange that the screenshots didn't seem quite as polished.
I think Stellaris might be an even better example than Hoi4... the human portraits look okay, and obviously if you don't have alien species to factor in you can make more unique face templates as well as clothing styles. That was kind of my wish as, while I know PDX is moving towards 3D models in general, they are a big drag on developers' resources for something that seems controversial (although maybe less popular on the boards than casual fans, I'm guessing)
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Why not use 3D modeling? I'm pretty like 3D.
With 3D modeling, I can now see 3D anime girls in EU5! We can also add a lot of "physical effects" (you know what)
Foe example of FRENCH QUEEN（maybe he is french femboy king! which make me more excited）:
With 3D modeling, I can now see 3D anime girls in EU5! We can also add a lot of "physical effects" (you know what)
Foe example of FRENCH QUEEN（maybe he is french femboy king! which make me more excited）:
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Man, 3D models were never my first choice, but after seeing some of the utter vitriol and hatred towards 3D models, now I basically want to defend them. They are not perfect, but clearly it looks like a solid amount of effort and care went in to making them (as seen by how easily you can mess up 3D models comparatively). You know, you can be unhappy about it, but without being so antagonistic or hostile to the dev team who worked on them (who are probably pretty personally disappointed it was poorly received by so many people). Of things in your life to go nuclear on, 3D models on your game, really?
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3D anime characters are really horrible, animated 2D are much better
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Yeah I find it quite absurd that out of everything shown so far, the thing that apparently broke the camels back was "3d models". The game looks to have a great simulation, a team responsive to feedback, a detailed and accurate depiction of history, a good evolution of various gameplay concepts introduced in previous Paradox titles but all of that is for nothing (in some peoples eyes) if they simply have 3d models for characters.
You can dislike the models and their implications for modding, development, and such but to completely disregard the game just because of them makes me question how much people cared for the other aspects of the game. We should have a mature discussion on the pros and cons of the 2 styles, not some mud slinging competition. I do admit I am biased for 3d models since I do like their implementation in CK3 (though not in Vic3). But either way, let's keep it civil.
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Those look nice. But I guess even that’s too serious for PDX. The cartoonish stuff seems to have become fundamental part of the corporate design.
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As I asked earlier: why do we even NEED large, detailed paintings of something as inconsequential to the game as characters anywhere other than on the loading screen? Would we have big 3d paintings of other things that are of similar importance? Trade goods? Buildings? Unit types? Terrain? In Imperator half of the province window was cluttered with a big painting of terrain instead of useful information. I feel like we are just going deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole with this.
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They are not remotely close to "terrible". They are perfectly fine. Its certainly no worse than every single Philosopher advisor in EU4 having exactly the same portrait.
No-one is going into hysterics over the lack of variety in EU4 Philosophers... yet they are upset that there isn't enough variety in these kings faces?
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Advisors portrait don't need to be as much diverse, because recognising them doesn't matter
Here when you have some interaction with them it's more important
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Because it's nice when games look nice. And for many people nice art is an important component of that. For some people nice art also adds to their immersion. And people might disagree on what counts as "nice art," but there's a reason most of the anti-3D crowd want 2D portraits and are talking about how nice 2D portraits would look instead of wanting no portraits and talking about how much portraits are a waste of space period.
Hopefully. Well 2D not 3D, but still.
In Vic 2 the terrain painting is almost a quarter of the province window. In EU3 the 3D city view was bigger than the functional part of the province view. In HoI3 the terrain painting is probably close to a quarter of the interface. In HoI4 it's smaller but on water provinces it's probably over a third of the window. Around half of the province interface in CK2 is reserved for paintings of baronies (yes, that's functional and important, but imagine how much more information could fit in less space if it was done with small icons instead; I'd still prefer the paintings). Stellaris has a large illustration of climate on the planet view. Even pre-Clausewitz CK1 has around a third of the province interface taken by a terrain painting
For reference Imperator is actually a bit under a quarter of the province interface for the drawing (that's with the collapsible province portion opened, but personally that's how I always play; it takes up a higher percentage if you collapse that). Vic 3 is under a third of the area taken by the terrain painting. CK3 is probably between a third and a half, although they write over the painting a fair bit.
What I'm saying is that having relatively large decorative art in the interface isn't a new thing at all in Paradox games. Even the CK2 and CK3 character screens aren't as different as the discourse might make you think in terms of how big the character portraits are. And they do it for a reason - many people like nice art.
Why is liking nice art of all things associated with being a casual who's uninterested in deep strategy? Is this some "the real gamers play in Excel" thing?
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Not bashing you, but the encroachment of anime "girls" on games like hoi4 and euiv have played a large role in the memeification of history.
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Project Caesar appears to have all of the mechanics of EU4, most of the mechanics of Vicky, and some of the mechanics of CK3. It is over the longer simulation span than any other Paradox game. It has all the making of the most complex and sophisticated grand strategy game ever developed (based on the TT's we have seen).
But we're going to dismiss it as "for casuals uninterested in deep strategy" because... it has 3D portraits? Hmmmm.
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It is a shame that the thing that brings me to the forums for the first time is my negative reaction to something, but I have hope. In the Civ3 comparison we can find one thing I rather enjoy about the characters by the sounds of things. It would seem that we will be getting that similar and rather unique Civ3 style of portraits advancing in their clothing and backgrounds through time. I have hope that the image quality will improve with time and if need be, perhaps they will be easy to replace with 2D VIA modding. Maybe that way folks can add their own custom backgrounds and character portraits!
Just wanted to share one thing I enjoy about this topic at least