Serious: What's the reason for the look of the NPCs? Technical difficulties?

[Nikola515]

I think they originally wanted to have something like Freelancer but changed to FPS walking. This would explain poor textures and NPC animations. But you are right they do look similar just like in game... Ill try to find that post but i think they wanted to do something with point & click for station navigations....

I wish they would go with Freelancer style of "walking". FPP walking was nice for first 5 minutes and then it become painfully boring and reperetive experience (in dark times of X-Rebirth 1.0)

All though I like FPS walks in station I agree with you 100%. At this point there is nothing to do in stations worth of FPS on first place. Maybe if they ever decided to do FPS boarding or some useful interaction than I would like to see it. Something what SC is doing right now.... But yes Freelancer style would have been perfect for XR and it would be cheaper to build it.

[mr.WHO]

God forbid the FPP boarding - Egosoft has no experience with FPP shooters, so the end result would be even worse abomination that FPP station walk.

At best it would be the rambo style you alone vs 100 marines which is silly.

[Nikola515]

God forbid the FPP boarding - Egosoft has no experience with FPP shooters, so the end result would be even worse abomination that FPP station walk.

At best it would be the rambo style you alone vs 100 marines which is silly.

That would be funny to play They could always put flying drones instead (cargo drone vs player Rambo style) But something is telling me that they will probably keep FPS walks and I hope they find a way to keep them interesting.

[linolafett]

considering this Screen from early 2012 i think they had the NPCs for a while:
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=320565

That image was done by me. I used Yishas model and some teladi assets. The scene was rendered in the "captains office" room. All meshes are like they are taken from the game (aside of the disco ball ).
The image was rendered in a 3d tool (blender) is therefore not ingame footage and just looks from the shading/lights much better.

[mr.WHO]

I must admit that even if overall image was buffed the Yisha face is even worse than ingame

This makes me wonder about X4 - will we return to betty or will we be able to choose/customize our copilot/crew?

Betty seems like easier, cheaper and safer option, but some tiny masohist inside me can imagine "space granny" co-pilot

[dfm5000]

They've learned there lesson the in game models will look like this now without a doubt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVRB-aPYci8

To keep up with Star Citizen planets generate worlds that look like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO0EKdy ... L&index=77

[nalim27]

Hi,
for accurate human models I recommend OpenSource tool Make Human. You can create for example 30 different models very quickly.

http://www.makehuman.org/

[dfm5000]

That actually looks worst then what their using in X-Rebirth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2ACKt9bssc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOz4n1QOqXs
==============================================
The biggest problem Ego suffers from is the same thing every other company suffers from they fail to make character hair. It's hard to immerse yourself in a game where everyone is bald because someone failed to hire a woman that could implement hair.

Majority of the time for people that play Skyrim or Sims it's always a female Modder that is making the hair.

The next huge thing that fails them, is space games take a while to develop by the time they get X4 out, other engines will be light years ahead of them. Don't make your fans wait this time we already waited for X-Rebirth 7 years. Allow people to participate in a Alpha product, as a fan of this game I don't want wait another long stretch to find out we are duped again.


Thirdly you need to provide us with better development tools, ego soft community is the equivalent to the Bethesda and Bohemia Interactive community. Your games all suck in vanilla but usually the modders were provided with the right tools to begin making the game a billion times more enjoyable then vanilla.

With the right tools even X-Rebirth could have been a great game.

[jkflipflop98]

considering this Screen from early 2012 i think they had the NPCs for a while:
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=320565

That image was done by me. I used Yishas model and some teladi assets. The scene was rendered in the "captains office" room. All meshes are like they are taken from the game (aside of the disco ball ).
The image was rendered in a 3d tool (blender) is therefore not ingame footage and just looks from the shading/lights much better.

Well then, there's the answer. The game needs better lighting and shaders. The engine should be doing all it can to make the models look better, not making them look so much worse. yisha looks a million times better in that promo picture than the model in the game does.

[mr.WHO]

I think that there is another factor why NPC appear more ugly then they are - bad speech lines.
I mean in gloomy day same things looks worse than in sunny day.
In X-Rebirth literally all characters starting from Yisha act and speak the way that you want to throw them out via nearest airlock.

When someone irritate you, you start to see bad things much more than the good things and the visual appearance is a first victim.

[MegaJohnny]

Well then, there's the answer. The game needs better lighting and shaders. The engine should be doing all it can to make the models look better, not making them look so much worse. yisha looks a million times better in that promo picture than the model in the game does.

I don't have a strong opinion on the game's lighting, but bear in mind that image didn't have to be rendered in real time.

[kelmenwong]

Was there ever an official explanation given?...

not that i know of. but OBVIOUSLY, it's QA process issue.

any non-blind QA should noticed those fugliness.

it can be QA feedback the poor quality, but their management decided to ignore it. very likely due to $

it cost $ to get studio to workup good model.

but anyway, the quality-"assurance" process is obviously failed.

[Privata]

Also, the Teladi and Split models aren't stellar, but they are much better than the human ones. It's obvious why though: Far less "uncanny valley" with aliens.

Replaying XR the last few days I had an epiphany: The setting of the game should have been an alien sector! (protagonist could stay human for identification purposes). Sure, it would be weird at first, but the team had obviously far more talent creating alien models.

I think an all-alien cast would raise some eyebrows, but, ultimately, would have been more warmly received than the fugly human NPCs.

I love that idea.
X1 and 2 had a very alien feel (to me at least) and its something I felt was missing in TC (to a point) and XR.

On top of that the main quest for the hero could be to find a way back to argon space. a reflection of older X games stories but with a new modern twist.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Quality of art assets such as textures/models is a VERY subjective thing and where QA assessment of them is concerned it will depend on the briefing they are given.

From a purely technical aspect, the models/textures are largely ok (everything is to the right proportions and in the right place, and there are no obvious modelling flaws - e.g. unexpected holes, flipped faces, misaligned normals, or t-vertices). They are far from stellar in terms of aesthetic looks and IMO there is no good reason for them to be overly aesthetically pleasing.

[BigBANGtheory]

Pretty much everything from the consumer PoV is subjective, that doesn't make it any more or less relevant. The facts are that PC gamers have enjoyed highly detailed character models for many years and reasonably expect progression. When regression objectively happens it stands to reason that it becomes a focus of attention and jest.

It feels to me the models are operating on the same scale as the larger universe and are thus suffering from detail due to their size. You see the same effect in simulators like DCS and Take on Helicopters.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Pretty much everything from the consumer PoV is subjective, that doesn't make it any more or less relevant. The facts are that PC gamers have enjoyed highly detailed character models for many years and reasonably expect progression. When regression objectively happens it stands to reason that it becomes a focus of attention and jest.

In a game like X or similar, I believe it is unreasonable to expect the same degree of focus on (or detail with) character models as you would get in other games that are more focused on the characters themselves (e.g. Witcher, Mass Effect, etc).

It feels to me the models are operating on the same scale as the larger universe and are thus suffering from detail due to their size. You see the same effect in simulators like DCS and Take on Helicopters.

NPC Avatars in such titles are not suffering from detail due to their size per se, but rather due to them being (at best) a secondary feature.

[BigBANGtheory]

Pretty much everything from the consumer PoV is subjective, that doesn't make it any more or less relevant. The facts are that PC gamers have enjoyed highly detailed character models for many years and reasonably expect progression. When regression objectively happens it stands to reason that it becomes a focus of attention and jest.

In a game like X or similar, I believe it is unreasonable to expect the same degree of focus on (or detail with) character models as you would get in other games that are more focused on the characters themselves (e.g. Witcher, Mass Effect, etc).

Sure but there is a huge something in between a Witcher3 character model and some RPG game from the 90's. Like it or not, reasonable or not PC gamers expect highly detailed character models in first person because the market has conditioned us that way and there is no getting around the fact of the matter. Is it a tough ask for ES to hit those expectations bordering on the impossible? Sure, it is what it is.... if you can't reach a minimum viable level then maybe you shouldn't go there.

The first person experience in XR to me comes across as a project still in development not final release. It will be interesting to see what changes in the VR experience where this becomes even more important.

[mr.WHO]

It will be interesting to see what changes in the VR experience where this becomes even more important.

Space Grannies, now in VR! Next-gen!

[BigBANGtheory]

It will be interesting to see what changes in the VR experience where this becomes even more important.

Space Grannies, now in VR! Next-gen!

Show me you specs please...

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Sure but there is a huge something in between a Witcher3 character model and some RPG game from the 90's. Like it or not, reasonable or not PC gamers expect highly detailed character models in first person because the market has conditioned us that way and there is no getting around the fact of the matter. Is it a tough ask for ES to hit those expectations bordering on the impossible? Sure, it is what it is.... if you can't reach a minimum viable level then maybe you shouldn't go there.

I disagree with your overall stance, everything has to be considered in the context of the environment.

In large scale FP sims it is impractical to achieve the level of character detail some seem to be expecting AND achieve the required level of sim fidelity overall. In that particular context, the customers in question may not be 100% happy about it but they do accept there are limits to the technology.

X (even in a VRE) is not (or should not be considered) primarily an FP sim, and the modelling focus should remain on the ships and not the in-game avatars.

Gamers (and especially the gaming press) need to start doing the same.

The first person experience in XR to me comes across as a project still in development not final release. It will be interesting to see what changes in the VR experience where this becomes even more important.

I am not so sure about that, I think the most important factors will be how well the VR headset is capitalised on and control system support will also be a major factor. If ES do not up their game with respect to HOTAS support or focus too heavily on game pads then I think their VR solution will be a mega-fail for this genre.

As it currently stands, only keyboard and mouse works particularly well IMO for X-Rebirth and the game controller support is extremely lack lustre given the current flight mechanics.

Current Modelling concerns are at best a back of the bus factor, and perhaps not even a factor at all. The only time it may come an issue is if any modelling/rendering "cheats" make any particular feature look too flat without good reason.

I have tried to use my nVidia 3D monitor with X-Rebirth (Essentially VR without head-tracking) and found the overall effect unworkable because of the way ES handle cockpit overlays and other factors. ES will need to address the overall 3D rendering effect as a PRIMARY developmental concern. These issues should not be insurmountable as other games have managed it, but ES in most of their games to date have been more miss than hit on that score IMO.

I disagree with your perspective about FP mode feeling like it is still in development but overall, I generally agree that it will be interesting to see what ES do change for the VR Edition. I personally hope they do not put too much undue focus on the wrong things.