Ithelia looks so weird

Plada

Hello! Sorry, but why Ithelia looks so weird? Her face model doesn't fit into the game at all.
Is there any explanation why she looks so strange? Does it work as it should be?

I took these screenshots from the other players to show you this:

colossalvoids

Looks like a wealthy nibeneese princess that went on a spiritual journey to elsweyr for only 9.99k septims/month.

SolidBeast

It doesn't fit over the original facial animation at all, causing some very weird warping at the lips when she speaks and the eyes are very dull and strange. Almost like she's underwater and sort of fish-like. I'm actually shocked that this made it onto live because of how undercooked it looks. I hope they fix this...

Anifaas

She looks like she's on skooma in the first screenshot.

Syldras

Plada wrote: »

Hello! Sorry, but why Ithelia looks so weird? Her face model doesn't fit into the game at all.
Is there any explanation why she looks so strange?

But she's a Daedric Prince!!! She's supposed to look slightly unnatural!!!!

Lugaldu

That is... Ithelia? I cant´t believe... totally unfitting to all other NPCs in ESO!

C_Inside

Kinda looks like a female version of Snoop Dogg. Maybe in next year's expansion we'll get the man himself to complement this lady.

noblecron

I agree she does look weird but at the same time I do know she's a Daedric Prince so they want to do a unique look. Maybe the warping is tied to the fact she's associated with mirrors

LostScot

I didn't realise cosmetic lip fillers were a thing in ESO...

Syldras

To be fair, as a Daedric Prince, she would be able to manifest in any way she wants. There is no true form, she could have also chosen to show herself as a flying dish of pasta - but for whatever reason she rather chose "early 21st century hippie princess".

Plada

I doubt she would choose a face like that

Syldras

The more I think about it, didn't they try to market the whole "story arc" as an eerie Lovecraftian horror story? Those dead fish eyes do look like she was from Innsmouth.

Plada

@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_GinaBruno
Hi, can we get your comments on this? Is this really intended? Because this character's face is so out of the game, as if they forgot to edit it. it looks terrible

NoticeMeArkay

She looks like a second life avatar on medium settings.

deGarcia

I agree that she feels off, but some of the ''haha funny'' jokes aren't really giving any feedback.
As mentioned above, her eyes are really close to ''dead fish eye'' trope and along with her lips it feels like it poorly works with the game's facial animations - she stares off into distance or through you, but not at you; partially because she lacks what all other NPCs have - eye light in the corner of their iris. So I also wonder if this is intentional or fault lies at game engine.
What also bothers me are her braids - they're too 'sharp' in contrast with her loose hair, for lack of a better word? Like it was a temporary mesh that was left as if it's still an early stage photobash-work.
That being said, she looks different even in all of promotional work - cinematic trailer, promotional screenshots, artworks..

Whever or not ZOS are allowed to say if it's intentional, going to love the character regardless, but it'd still be great to know.

Shagreth

Is she sporting what could be a slightly updated character model? They eventually NEED to do that, I mean, have you seen the feet? PS1 graphics right there. But yeah, there's also something off about her model at the same time.

ArchMikem

I can at least tell they tried to introduce a character model with more fidelity than usual, and I think that's why everyone says she looks weird. She's approaching realistic detail but doesn't have the animation rigging to support the detail.

And yeah it's the lips. Really big lips.

Syldras

Shagreth wrote: »

Is she sporting what could be a slightly updated character model? They eventually NEED to do that

My first throught was that (in addition to those fish eyes) she doesn't fit ESO's "art style" in a way. Whether character models should be updated is a topic on its own, but there should be a consistency, otherwise it just feels off. Imagine they'd have new character models in newer chapters while keeping the appearance of the npcs in older zones - just no. It's the same situation here.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Yeah, we brought this up during PTS too.

Personofsecrets

Okay, interesting. I thought that this look was just my graphics being too low. Yea, she looks odd.

It was literally the first thing that I noticed when I bumped into her.

Her eyes look like they should be a bit further down and the nose a bit further up. For the given nose position, the mouth is too high.

The eyes are angled strangely and they don't seem to be equidistant enough from the nose.

Introduction of a new daedric prince shouldn't really come with this type of design flaw. It's a big deal to make a new type of important character like this and she has an oddly proportioned spacey look.

Sepultura_13

LostScot wrote: »

I didn't realise cosmetic lip fillers were a thing in ESO...

I thought the same thing, LOL

Then again, if breast and buttock implants are a thing, it only follows that lip fillers would show up. I mean, Botoxed faces are already common, yes?

Luthivar

Cher finally made it to Tamriel! Now she's truly omnipresent.

LostScot

Plada wrote: »

I doubt she would choose a face like that

That's not quite how Ithelia looked on the statue that was available to purchase at the 10 year anniversary event! Found a picture of it from the Bethesda store:



Much better!

SilverBride

I guess I wasn't the only one that was taken back by that face. I'm seriously creeped out by it.

Personofsecrets

LostScot wrote: »

Plada wrote: »

I doubt she would choose a face like that

That's not quite how Ithelia looked on the statue that was available to purchase at the 10 year anniversary event! Found a picture of it from the Bethesda store:



Much better!

Is this the same statue offered for preorder? Do you know if the ones at the 10th anniversary were numbered?

Syldras

LostScot wrote: »

That's not quite how Ithelia looked on the statue that was available to purchase at the 10 year anniversary event! Found a picture of it from the Bethesda store:



Much better!

Picture doesn't load, but I know it for another thread. And I'm personally not really convinced by a Daedric Prince looking like a mix between Britney Spears and a kitschy gift shop angel statue either (while knowing that Daedric Princes don't neccessarily have to look monstrous). Maybe I should be more forgiving, though; at least the statuette doesn't have those creepy fish eyes.

ArchangelIsraphel

Britney Spears x Cher +

= Ithelia

Serpari

Ithelia's character design doesn't fit the Elder Scrolls universe. That, I believe, is the core issue. She looks like your average Southern Californian model, balayage included. While I think the mirror concept is cool—the iridescence on the textures push the engine in cool ways, I've enjoyed the mirror daedra from the excursions so far—Ithelia herself is overdesigned. Some hilarious comparisons I've heard from my friends are Saint's Row 2 Shaundi, and the woman in the 'We Are Under [Snip] Attack' meme. Her dead-eyed model due to her face textures either lacking and/or underbaking a normal and specular, giving her eyes no shine and thus no life, don't help matters.

For a daedric prince I get no sense of otherworldly awe about her. Just am ambiguously brown woman with crystal wings on a journey to self-discovery in Southeast Asia, given her attire and tattoos.

[Edited for profanity bypass]

TaSheen

It certainly doesn't look like the redheaded woman on the login screen - though perhaps it was wrongly assumed (by me) that she is Ithelia?

BetweenMidgets

Haven't started the new content, but that's a pretty unappealing model. It doesn't feel "otherworldly" to me, it feels like someone who has done a lot of drugs and is pretty over life at this point.

I remember reading something.. somewhere... maybe the Reddit AMA recently, and I believe it was Lambert who said they made a whole new model and rig for her.

Crazy how much worse this looks than the original models the team created 10+ years ago.

Necrotech_Master

TaSheen wrote: »

It certainly doesn't look like the redheaded woman on the login screen - though perhaps it was wrongly assumed (by me) that she is Ithelia?

im pretty sure thats supposed to be the "unnamed elven hero" based on the armor and such