Totally agree.Especially about the pieces just hanging off the body in thin air.That bugs me to no end.It's pitiful looking for a game released in 2014.There's absolutely no reason my armor should just have pieces and pads just floating and flopping around in thin air when they are supposed to be connected to the suit.

If they are going to be floating in the air above my character,then I'd rather you just remove the damn things entirely.

(this,of course,doesn't apply to armor that is supposed to be "magical" or have "floaty magical bits".Obviously,my lvl 20 average gear isn't supposed to be doing this.I hate to have to say the blatantly obvious,but some people today require it evidently.)

I agree with the knee pads and the hip plates, I like them both, it's just weird to have them floating near the actual armor, and not looking like an actual part of the armor, but otherwise, bodypaint armor doesn't bother me.

Joviex wrote: »

and you would be completely wrong. I use maya, max, lightwave, modo, nuke, ps, you name it.

http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/community/profile.aspx?name=Joviex

you can easily search the Internet to see ive been contributing to both the CG and game industries fora long time.

I have been in the CG industry for fifteen years and software development a decade prior.

I am currently the supervisor for pipeline development for Nickelodeon Animation going on five years.

To compare working in blender or Max to an actual development pipeline in full production is extremely nieve.

Those are some pretty big feathers you puffed up. But that doesn't really address what we are talking about here. This thread is about armor appearance, and the alleged performance hit based on the mesh itself, not pipeline development.

The difference between a body mesh with painted on armor, and the same mesh with the same vertex count being shaped with more distinctive armor design is a difference in sculpting and weighting. We already have the attachment points and skinning for all of this, it comes down to the design of these meshes.

The only thing they would need to do to improve appearance is enhance the sculpts and vertex weights for appearance. There are going to be clipping issues for any armor in any game, because appealing animations are always preferred over realistic ones which account for limited range of motion.

This is a design choice, not a limitation of resources. Armor in L2, and ancient game that serves as a great example, still looks better on this basis because of decisions like that. With the time and resources they had, they could have done it this way, but they didn't, and it looks like laziness from the player perspective.

I agree with OP, I have seen games with better armor design than this. I guess there is a reason why they made it they way they did, But I still think they should look into the design concept and make some changes that make the armor look more realistic. Before ESO I was playing SWTOR, and even that game has better armor design concept then ESO in my opinion anyway.

I guess though, that the reason for why certain things on the armor looks like it is floating in the air, is to avoid clipping. But still, I love the game. And my suggestion if u use medium armor... use the Nord, it looks better than most and especially if u have a female character.

Yeah sorry I'm normally punching stuff silly to notice if my bum looks right in my armour..