Female Worgen Vs Draenei Rant
First off WoW ladies, thank you so much for all of the advice on RPing! Recently got to meet up with a buddy online, and I've been having a blast with gaming! It's really great to have such a nice community here to help me get into the water.
With that said, onto a graphics geek rant! (Semi-rant, at least. There's not any swearing or much angry language. Just a lot of "3D MODELS DON'T WORK THAT WAY! D:")
WoW ladies, I really love and respect the diversity of opinions here. I can even respect that some people don't like the female worgen models, even while I love them, because hey, different aesthetics for different folks.
However. Every single time that I hear the 'lazy reskin of a female draenei' argument I swear that I want to sit these people in front of a computer with Maya/3ds Max/Zbrush/what have you until the knuts and bolts of 3D models is drilled into their heads. Even if Blizzard DID start with the same or similar model, they still had to make a lot of tweaks to make something distinct and different from the draenei.
Now, I'm not a technical wizard like the folks at Blizzard are, and maybe they have some faustian deal or clever code work that allows them to cheat around the rules as I know them. But still, the reskinned model argument bugs me on several levels, since in my eyes it's very hard for that to be true.
And now, to move onto why! With pictures!
First off, basic silhouettes and outlines. Let's take a look at them before we get into the nitty gritty. Now, here's our female worgen model, first with ye basic start up screen mode, and then with a quick silhouette of that model.
Then, the female draenei and outline!
Now, look at the two together.
Not very similar, even accounting for potential differences in camera angles. Particularly, I want to draw attention to the legs and feet, since that's a big giveaway that these are NOT the same models. And also ties into the next point.
Now then, for the big thing. Rigging.
Rigging, otherwise known as 'OhgodIhateitIhateit' is the process of creating a 'skeleton' of sorts for your model, so they can actually move and do all their different animations. If you don't have a rig, your character can't move and is stuck in whatever position you modeled them in. (Sorry, don't have any actual WoW rigs, so we have to make do with a bipedal corgi.)
Rigs are comprised mainly of joints, with things like locaters to point elbows and knees in different directions, handles so you can move your rig easily, and IK handles strung between those joints. So, if you move foot joint 1 near the base of the foot, heel joint 2 will also be affected, and so on. Think of it like a puppet or robot with ball joints, and rubber bands tied between those joints so they'll move a certain way when you pull on them.
For instance, the left hip is the master joint on the left leg hierarchy. Move that, and you move the knee, the ankle, the foot, the toes, etc. And above all that you have a root joint that controls everything. And if you screw up on something, say that you move it to a new mesh, move the joints around, and don't bind it EXACTLY right with good coding, then everything gets messed up. And since you have that system of interacting and connected joints, the hierarchy can get really big and complicated, really fast.
tl;dr being that it is VERY hard to make a rig for one model, and then change that rig over to a different model without having to mess around a lot with coding and double checking a bunch of factors.
This is guestimation on my part, but the rigs probably look something like this:
Very different rigging, especially around the legs. The dog leg joints have a pronounced difference from those willowy goat leg joints. Different horizontal and vertical locations for the leg joints, different posture and neck configuration for the spine and head, etc. Different rigs, different models.
In closing, object all you want about the aesthetics. But at least recognize the difference and craftsmanship on the models!
With that said, onto a graphics geek rant! (Semi-rant, at least. There's not any swearing or much angry language. Just a lot of "3D MODELS DON'T WORK THAT WAY! D:")
WoW ladies, I really love and respect the diversity of opinions here. I can even respect that some people don't like the female worgen models, even while I love them, because hey, different aesthetics for different folks.
However. Every single time that I hear the 'lazy reskin of a female draenei' argument I swear that I want to sit these people in front of a computer with Maya/3ds Max/Zbrush/what have you until the knuts and bolts of 3D models is drilled into their heads. Even if Blizzard DID start with the same or similar model, they still had to make a lot of tweaks to make something distinct and different from the draenei.
Now, I'm not a technical wizard like the folks at Blizzard are, and maybe they have some faustian deal or clever code work that allows them to cheat around the rules as I know them. But still, the reskinned model argument bugs me on several levels, since in my eyes it's very hard for that to be true.
And now, to move onto why! With pictures!
First off, basic silhouettes and outlines. Let's take a look at them before we get into the nitty gritty. Now, here's our female worgen model, first with ye basic start up screen mode, and then with a quick silhouette of that model.
Then, the female draenei and outline!
Now, look at the two together.
Not very similar, even accounting for potential differences in camera angles. Particularly, I want to draw attention to the legs and feet, since that's a big giveaway that these are NOT the same models. And also ties into the next point.
Now then, for the big thing. Rigging.
Rigging, otherwise known as 'OhgodIhateitIhateit' is the process of creating a 'skeleton' of sorts for your model, so they can actually move and do all their different animations. If you don't have a rig, your character can't move and is stuck in whatever position you modeled them in. (Sorry, don't have any actual WoW rigs, so we have to make do with a bipedal corgi.)
Rigs are comprised mainly of joints, with things like locaters to point elbows and knees in different directions, handles so you can move your rig easily, and IK handles strung between those joints. So, if you move foot joint 1 near the base of the foot, heel joint 2 will also be affected, and so on. Think of it like a puppet or robot with ball joints, and rubber bands tied between those joints so they'll move a certain way when you pull on them.
For instance, the left hip is the master joint on the left leg hierarchy. Move that, and you move the knee, the ankle, the foot, the toes, etc. And above all that you have a root joint that controls everything. And if you screw up on something, say that you move it to a new mesh, move the joints around, and don't bind it EXACTLY right with good coding, then everything gets messed up. And since you have that system of interacting and connected joints, the hierarchy can get really big and complicated, really fast.
tl;dr being that it is VERY hard to make a rig for one model, and then change that rig over to a different model without having to mess around a lot with coding and double checking a bunch of factors.
This is guestimation on my part, but the rigs probably look something like this:
Very different rigging, especially around the legs. The dog leg joints have a pronounced difference from those willowy goat leg joints. Different horizontal and vertical locations for the leg joints, different posture and neck configuration for the spine and head, etc. Different rigs, different models.
In closing, object all you want about the aesthetics. But at least recognize the difference and craftsmanship on the models!