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

Kuramas9tails

Lighting. Color. Background.

All of this has an effect on the human eye that designers pick up on. There's a whole psychology on the effects of color and lighting. Any beginning designer goes though this course from illustration to graphic design to interior design to photography. In photography class, you learn to manipulate the light to work best for the object. A person can look completely different in different lightening. Still the same person, we just perceive it different based on the environment.

In game though, you are given different lighting, more natural, as opposed to the portrait lightning (i.e. character creation screen). Just because the lightning is set to give you a portrait feeling doesn't mean your character is now going to look like that in natural lightning. You can't have both.

Octopuss

How is it that characters in Skyrim look pretty much the same regardless of lighting then?
No, I think something's not entirely as it should here.

seaef

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.

Congratulations, you’re not OCD.

TheShadowScout

postlarval wrote: »

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.

Congratulations, you’re not OCD.

Its supposed to be CDO.
With the letters in alphabetical oders. As They Ought To Be!

Colecovision

The creator messed me up a couple times too. Still, even if it’s user error, it’s a video game. The fact that they charge you $10 if you make a mistake is terrible, and grade A premium crap customer service. I’m still surprised there is no in game fix for this like there is in Skyrim. To be fair to ZoS, they did add the ugly vampire penalty, so this is frequently meaningless anyway.

kargen27

Lighting is the biggest difference. Also some ratio difference in the images given as examples. I put the examples in this thread in photoshop and was able to overlay the different images to see that the facial features are exact. With the OPs images I had to stretch one image a bit to get an exact match. Could be an in game thing or how the images were saved before posted.
The light in the image creator is a diffused light so wrinkles and skin blemishes will be more pronounced in most of the lighting found in game. Eye sockets could appear deeper and subtle cheek shadows will be more pronounced. Think of the acne commercials on television and the image creation screen is the "after" image.

The faces might be a bit longer because of a ratio difference??? but for the most part the features are the same and the light is causing the difference.

MornaBaine

Part of the problem is the lighting, which is "flattering"/too dark in char creation and extremely harsh in char selection. The other part of the problem is that you cannot get different camera angles in char creation and the angle used is markedly different than the angle used in the char select screen. It's not until you get into the game world and can move you camera around that you can REALLY see what your character looks like.

Soleya

I see the problem, you tried to create a pretty character that isn't a Bosmer.

Insanepirate01

I think it's more than lighting. So glad other people noticed this too thought I just sucked at making pretty characters. Never bothered me till I made a female character. It's like the facial structure actually changes on the toon. Character creation is fake news

kargen27

Insanepirate01 wrote: »

I think it's more than lighting. So glad other people noticed this too thought I just sucked at making pretty characters. Never bothered me till I made a female character. It's like the facial structure actually changes on the toon. Character creation is fake news

Facial structure remained the same on the above examples as I was able to overlay them and they matched.

Octopuss

Insanepirate01 wrote: »

I think it's more than lighting. So glad other people noticed this too thought I just sucked at making pretty characters. Never bothered me till I made a female character. It's like the facial structure actually changes on the toon. Character creation is fake news

That is true! My male character looks pretty much the same regardless of lighting conditions.

Hurbster

Octopuss wrote: »

How is it that characters in Skyrim look pretty much the same regardless of lighting then?
No, I think something's not entirely as it should here.

Different engine, much older.

Glurin

Alternatively, you could just roll with it.

swippy

starkerealm wrote: »

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.

so did i, except it was because i somehow didn't find the zoom button. fun trivia: you can bruise your forehead that way! : )

Grimm13

Just wish they would allow us to toggle between lighting conditions to see the effects in character creation.

SpiderKnight

Grimm13 wrote: »

Just wish they would allow us to toggle between lighting conditions to see the effects in character creation.

This is definitely what we need. I just did a race change today, while my character didn't turn out horrible, I'm still not entirely happy with the looks.
The other thing that really annoys me is the very small selection of voices, this is (weirdly enough) what kept me from race changing before and what ultimately made me regret my change. I don't get why we can only choose certain voices for certain races, I want my Imperial voice back on my character.

Alqu

I'd objectively accept the lighting explanation, but it sure seems like there is a hidden masculinizer pre and post character creator.

Marginis

Looks like there's also something going on with the graphics settings. Does the game allocate more resources to character appearance when it doesn't have to load all the other parts of the game? Would make sense, as on my higher end PC and Xbox One X I've never encountered these issues to this extent before, although my character appearances bugged the hell out of me on my regular old launch Xbox One.

Violynne

I did notice the lighting changed the appearance of my character. If you want to see how drastic it can be, stand in a well lit area and wait for a storm to approach. The change is quite noticeable.

For me, the only odd thing I noticed is the nose shape I picked in character creation didn't end up the nose in the final face. It's a bit smaller and has a more pointed tip than I expected.

This tells me some "shortcuts" are taken while in game to render the character.

Much like how dyes aren't universally applied despite all armor sharing the same material.

Drachenfier

Apache_Kid wrote: »

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.

that's not just lighting, look at the difference in the lips. The one in game has a completely different setting than what she has selected.

Jhalin

Like others have said it's primarily a lighting difference, but the in-game camera also uses a different focal length

MLGProPlayer

postlarval wrote: »

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.

Congratulations, you’re not OCD.

That's not how OCD works.

MLGProPlayer

Insanepirate01 wrote: »

I think it's more than lighting. So glad other people noticed this too thought I just sucked at making pretty characters. Never bothered me till I made a female character. It's like the facial structure actually changes on the toon. Character creation is fake news

Your character is 100% identical in character creation and in-game.

Jhalin

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Insanepirate01 wrote: »

I think it's more than lighting. So glad other people noticed this too thought I just sucked at making pretty characters. Never bothered me till I made a female character. It's like the facial structure actually changes on the toon. Character creation is fake news

Your character is 100% identical in character creation and in-game.

They are the same 3D model yes, but they're being rendered in different lighting and with a digital camera with different specs than what's used in the character creation screen.

If nothing else the focal length should be consistent across both sections of the game.

Moloch1514

You have to use PTS and the cheap Appearance tokens there to create the right character that also looks good in game. Then take screenshots of all options to re-create on Live server.

inespeloazul

Yeah, it's just an issue with different lighting and camera. Hell, you can even notice a bit of stretching on one side of your character outside of menus thanks to how the camera works, making them look lopsided. Also, as someone who fusses over their characters' appearances I can say that your characters will always look worse in character select.

Octopuss wrote: »

How is it that characters in Skyrim look pretty much the same regardless of lighting then?
No, I think something's not entirely as it should here.

Y'sure you were playing Skyrim? Skyrim had the exact same problem, in my experience.

Ardaghion

I have to agree that the character selector looks worse than the character generator and the game world. I don't think there's a bug but the lighting is different between the character generator, character selector, and game world. I also think the rendering isn't meant to be as good as the game or the character generator.

I created an Imperial female and gave her skin some color but in the character selector she looks dark brown while only slightly tanned in game. In the character selector she looks overly angular and harsh. She looks good in game, I wasn't shooting for supermodel pretty but a bit more athletic and it works.

I just recently created a Breton female and thought she looked very pretty in the character generator but wasn't quite right in the game world. In the character selector she looks like she's had bad plastic surgery. I decided to pay the 1,000 crowns and tweak a few things so she looks much better now.

I'm at work so I can't post images but this weekend I'll see if I can get some pictures up and post them. Sadly too late to get some character creator images.

platonicidealgirlfriend

fullest offense but y'all need to like go outside and observe actual people in the actual world if your collective minds are blown by the play of light and line.

eta: and some of you need to go see actual women if you think there's a "masculinizing filter" lmfao

Smokewood

It's NOT a lighting issue... lol
The creator looks much better and FATTER.
The in-game models are far more slim and boney looking.

It's more of a lens affect.

Spacemonkey

Its a mix of ligthing, AND facial expressions characters do in game but not in the character creator (more smiley, less, frowning, etc...)

I've also always found in my case that shaders/textures etc... were better both in the creator in the UI screens that show your character. But I have a feeling this is also affected by PC rigs (Character creator will always use higher settings for all rigs where as in game is dependent on your setup)