Is the character creation tool bugged, or what's wrong with the game?

Octopuss

The looks of my female character has been bugging me ever since I created her, but I never fully figured out what the problem was. Today after buying an appearance change token and going back to the editor, it struck me.
This is what my character looks like in the editor when I use appearance change token:


I don't think that's too bad, I actually quite like her.

But wait.
This is what she looks like in the character selection screen:


What the heck? What? That's pretty ugly! What happened there?

Wait... it gets worse.
This abomination is what I actually run with ingame:


What's going on??

Why should I even bother trying to create decent looking characters when there is such difference between the creator and what they actually look ingame?
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

starkerealm

So, fun trivia, I had to create several of my characters' faces, without being able to zoom in at all. The ability to zoom in was broken for a couple days after launch.

rhapsodious

First picture: indoors, soft light
Second picture: outdoors, harsh light
Third picture: outdoors, scattered light (so no nearby point of origin)

Here's how a human face can "change" depending on the light source:

coop500

I feel like I'm playing 'spot the difference' Maybe I'm just dense but I don't see a difference? Except maybe skin color.

SpiderKnight

Apache_Kid

Was cursing this same thing myself when creating a character yesterday OP. You'd think that on my 9th one I'd have it figured out but it turns out that I ended up creating a dark elf and not really loving how the character looked in the actual game compared to the character creation screen. I am skeptical to say "well it must be the lighting in the character creation screen" because i took my character to my house and tried to look at her at varying levels of lighting with different kinds of lights and I still could not replicate how my character looked at the creation screen. That character is now deleted and I made a new one that I am satisfied with. Either way the character creation screen is extremely misleading and causes time to be wasted by deceiving you.

Octopuss

Different light, still the same crap.


I would say the shape of the face is completely different ingame compared to the creator.
To me, it almost appears like female features being swapped for male ones.

ADarklore

There is also the thing where if you try to 'balance' the eyebrows evenly in the creator, they will come out slanted in the game, basically the setting in the creator is the 'even' game setting even though it looks askew there. I have had to accept that in the creator things that appear will not reflect in the game world... even skin color that looks good in the creator can come out too dark, too yellow, etc... in the game world.

BuddyAces

[Snip].

What he made was a great character. What he ended up with was an abomination. The character creation is bad. It needs work done to it. BADLY

[Edited to remove baiting]

PrinceShroob

You're viewing the same face from different angles and with different lighting; of course the face is going to look different.

I not only cannot see a difference, I'm perplexed as to how those minute differences somehow make the character an "abomination."

QuebraRegra

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Was cursing this same thing myself when creating a character yesterday OP. You'd think that on my 9th one I'd have it figured out but it turns out that I ended up creating a dark elf and not really loving how the character looked in the actual game compared to the character creation screen. I am skeptical to say "well it must be the lighting in the character creation screen" because i took my character to my house and tried to look at her at varying levels of lighting with different kinds of lights and I still could not replicate how my character looked at the creation screen. That character is now deleted and I made a new one that I am satisfied with. Either way the character creation screen is extremely misleading and causes time to be wasted by deceiving you.

Since launch, I've always thought the render from the creation screen resulted in different looking characters in the actual gameplay. I cannot tell you how many times I have started a new character, only to delete them and start over once I see them in the jail cell.

Different render code? It's not just lighting....

Apache_Kid

QuebraRegra wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

Was cursing this same thing myself when creating a character yesterday OP. You'd think that on my 9th one I'd have it figured out but it turns out that I ended up creating a dark elf and not really loving how the character looked in the actual game compared to the character creation screen. I am skeptical to say "well it must be the lighting in the character creation screen" because i took my character to my house and tried to look at her at varying levels of lighting with different kinds of lights and I still could not replicate how my character looked at the creation screen. That character is now deleted and I made a new one that I am satisfied with. Either way the character creation screen is extremely misleading and causes time to be wasted by deceiving you.

Since launch, I've always thought the render from the creation screen resulted in different looking characters in the actual gameplay. I cannot tell you how many time I have started a new character only to delete them and start over once I say them in the jail cell.

Different render code? It's not just lighting....

Yup i dont see how it's just lighting. If it's lighting that is causing this issue to us then the lighting on the character creation screen is not replicable in game because I tried so many different lighting levels with different light sources in my house and COULD NOT replicate how my character looked in the creation screen. So if it is lighting then the character creation screen needs to have it's lighting changed because it's clearly deceptive.

Verbal_Earthworm

not being cruel, but she isn't very feminine in any of the shots.

if you have to have the "right" lighting to make her look feminine then she is already too masculine looking.

Prof_Bawbag

I created a very similar thread an age ago. Go to page two of my thread and you'll see some characters look waaaaay more different than even the example you've given us. Lighting is one thing, but some toons look inherently different. So much so it can appear to be two different toons, especially on console.

Here's my thread and as i said, my pics are on page 2:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/310211/characters-looking-nothing-like-they-did-in-character-creator/p2

jaye63

Octopuss wrote: »

Different light, still the same crap.


I would say the shape of the face is completely different ingame compared to the creator.
To me, it almost appears like female features being swapped for male ones.

nope... same structure. Lighting difference. I spent 20 minutes trying to find structural differences and not one.

Prof_Bawbag

In fact here's the pics (please work)







The end result

Onslow666

This is why I always wear a helmet, hood or hat when I play.

Arv_Morvis

Ugh this is why i haven't made a single female character yet, too much detail to work on and to hard to please my sense of beauty... that's where male characters come-in for the most part you really can't go wrong and if it does turn out bad when you finally get in-game you can just tell yourself its a "battle hardened face" or women dig scars

duendology

Interesting, I don't have such issues. What I create I get..

And I agree with a few people here.. I don't see the difference between those two..apart from the fact that the face is not that much soft to begin with.

EvilCroc

I had this problem only with male nord characters.
It is very difficult to create decent looking male nord in this game, but even if you will do it, he still will be ugly in character selection menu.

altemriel

rhapsodious wrote: »

First picture: indoors, soft light
Second picture: outdoors, harsh light
Third picture: outdoors, scattered light (so no nearby point of origin)

Here's how a human face can "change" depending on the light source:

this!!


but I agree with you, that there should be more light options in the character creation screen (indoor light, outdoor natural light, diferent angles of light source, etc...)

Mettaricana

Fun tip i found depending on your facial preferences say you wan a smooth but pointed face make jaw and chin smaller than you like in the creator as they will look more proportional ingame. I ended up making like the more gorgeous high elf ever like this took 9 remakes and during the buggy creator where youd hit confirm and the face parts would scatter all to hell litterally cannot duplicate my high elf the same again she had a face that could seduce the gods

heaven13

This is a problem I have with most games, tbh. Oblivion's character creator was so bad that a wood elf that had a warm skintone in the creator looked as white as fresh snow in game. The difference is that with most other games, I can tweak after the fact without needing to pay real currency to do so.

I'd love the option to select different light sources/environments during creation to see my character in something other than that weird lighting they have.

Another issue (especially I've noticed for Nords, but also affects others too) is that the face shape triangle slider changes the lip textures. Some, at least in the creator, look like they're wearing an icy lipstick or super shiny gloss. And don't get me started on the fact that Nords seem to suffer from permanent open mouth syndrome.

Octopuss

If the main problem is the game's lighting system, then it's due for some major rework asap.




At this point I don't feel like wasting anymore time on this

Apache_Kid

Octopuss wrote: »

If the main problem is the game's lighting system, then it's due for some major rework asap.




At this point I don't feel like wasting anymore time on this

The differences in the pictures are.... striking. And very noticeable. I feel bad for you because the left picture is like a million times better. Hope they can somehow make the character creation screen and log-in screen less deceptive in terms of the lighting.

TheShadowScout

Octopuss wrote: »

What's going on??

It's... a trick of the light.

And yes, we all have been there...

altemriel

Octopuss wrote: »

The looks of my female character has been bugging me ever since I created her, but I never fully figured out what the problem was. Today after buying an appearance change token and going back to the editor, it struck me.
This is what my character looks like in the editor when I use appearance change token:


I don't think that's too bad, I actually quite like her.

But wait.
This is what she looks like in the character selection screen:


What the heck? What? That's pretty ugly! What happened there?

Wait... it gets worse.
This abomination is what I actually run with ingame:


What's going on??

Why should I even bother trying to create decent looking characters when there is such difference between the creator and what they actually look ingame?
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

it is all because of different lightning, that changes the appearance very much. so yes, the problem with the character creation screen is, that it has only one lightning type, we should be able to switch there between, artificail light, its intensity, then outside light and its intensity and different angles of light source!!

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober

Merlin13KAGL

It's a lighting difference. It is a bit asinine that there are not multiple lighting options available when making a character. If affects skin tone and so many other things.

Octopuss

I just think the game renderer needs some attention.

Nestor

coop500 wrote: »

I feel like I'm playing 'spot the difference' Maybe I'm just dense but I don't see a difference? Except maybe skin color.

The two main differences are the lighting, which can change all over the game, but does have an effect on skin tone and shading. But, the big difference is the Perspective, by this I mean "focal length" of the lense used to view the object. As an extreme example, if you use a fish eye lense, then the subject looks more fat and rounded, where if you use a telephoto lense, the subject looks slimmer and better proportioned. This is why most fashion photography is done with a 135mm to 300mm lense, not a 50mm "normal" lense (with digital camera's, 35mm is considered normal now)

Basically, the character face in Chargen is slimmer than what is seen in game. Not sure of FOV can fix this (which kind of mimics changing the focal length. But what I do is exaggerate the slimness of the faces in Chargen, then they come out looking more like I want in the game.

zyk

I think the OP is correct. I believe the in-game characters have been optimized multiple times over the years. It's possible some or all of those changes haven't been correctly applied to the character creator, resulting in differences that are subtle to most but would stand out to the one who carefully created the character.