EU media bulletin, avatar update

[aia]

(OFC the only thing i can comment on now are these pictures on the PR site.)
Well... i expected MUCH more, i know some offline and online worlds (not SL) in which avatars and their clothes look WAY better than that - almost life like.

The graphic in itself is pretty good, and will probably be at least as good after the upgrade.

Why it might look better in SL is probably because there are way more designers and "implementors", while the designers here first have to think about balancing (not drop too many black coats for instance) and as the number of people is limited, creature and landscape redesign takes precendence.

It would be interesting if mob clothes were droppable/craftable (thor* clothes, the vu7 ragged umbranoid OJs, the NPC and mob (for instance vampire) clothes on RT). The arctic clothes looked cool, just too bad they're (L) and wears out in 5 uses.

 

[ZippO]

That chronicle armor looks HORRIBLE! Faces more realistic and different ethnic backgrounds will probably be welcomed as well by many.

IMO our current Avatar/Armor was pretty descent. That being said.... maybe the re-design will reduce lag in heavily populated areas... if it does... it's worth it no matter how minimal or epic the visual changes may end up being.

Menace

Welcome back dude! hehe

I am hoping for a similiar outcome with lag and avatar models/textures perhaps becoming more streamlined for larger groups of people ingame.

Still looks like pretty good changes though.. I am not sure why they displayed these avatars though in what looks like not even close to full graphic settings. I am sure they will look much nicer than this (or hope).

 

[Aandar]

The graphic in itself is pretty good, and will probably be at least as good after the upgrade.

Why it might look better in SL is probably because there are way more designers and "implementors", while the designers here first have to think about balancing (not drop too many black coats for instance) and as the number of people is limited, creature and landscape redesign takes precendence.

Even the best looking SL avatars look horrible.
I was talking about some other F2P MMORPG i would rather not mention here.

 

[Dragon Moon]

Even the best looking SL avatars look horrible.

Must've been years since you last logged in there.

 

[RickEngland]

This was expected, but nice to see it confirmed.

Pic 1:

Man: My God!!!! there's women walking towards me in just her underwear.

Pic 2:

Women: "Excuse me sir, would you kindly unclip my bra?"

Pic 3:

Man: "It's a bit chilly out here darling, you better put your jacket on"

Pic 4:

Women: "Well if you can't even tell when you've pulled,... I'm off"

Pic 5:

Women: "ok last chance..... Do you think I look more sexy in this"?

 

[Aandar]

Must've been years since you last logged in there.

I actually Googled images yesterday and checked post dates to only look at recent ones.
Maybe it would be closer to what i had in mind if i said "horrible when compared to the current and very near future high standards".
Even the best SL avatars have one big flaw - they look like SL avatars.
I am sure you know what i mean, you could have a gallery of 100 and easily pick which 10 avatars are from SL and which from some other worlds.

To give you an example here is a screenie from one of the user made mods for Skyrim that i have installed on my system:
http://techland.time.com/2012/03/01/the-20-best-skyrim-mods-so-far/slide/better-females/
My female witch avatar looks very different from that pic, but still the quality of the face texture is that high.
Another good example of that mod in action:
http://www.blog.jercouzen.com/2012/04/skyrim-character-mods.html
It looks like there is at least one game graphics generation distance between these 2 and the pics we have on the first page of this thread...


Some of the online worlds offer that and better looking avatars, sure sometimes at the cost of lower than in Entropia tweakability that almost makes it impossible to make an ugly avatar.

I look at this system from the point of view of a player who wants his favorite virtual universe to GROW.
And from these few screenies i am just not sure if the new avatar system will become as big of a magnet for new players as i hoped it would be.

 

[Dragon Moon]

I actually Googled images yesterday and checked post dates to only look at recent ones. Maybe it would be closer to what i had in mind if i said "horrible when compared to the current and very near future high standards"

Yes, I understand what you mean. But you have to consider that those avatars are not made by SL developers, almost nothing in SL is actually made by them. Those avatars, the mesh, skins, hair, clothes, animations etc. are all made by people like you and me. I still earn real money, doing it. So IMO those are not that horrible at all, given that the code/game engine of SL is pretty old by now.

Anyway....professional developers with cryengine as their tools sure could do better than what I've seen so far. And I'm pretty sure, if MA would give us the cryengine sandbox and tools, many EU players with enough time on their hands would do a better job. Just look at the youtube videos of Far Cry 3, and you know what I mean.

 

[Aandar]

Yes, I understand what you mean. But you have to consider that those avatars are not made by SL developers, almost nothing in SL is actually made by them. Those avatars, the mesh, skins, hair, clothes, animations etc. are all made by people like you and me.

Of course i know.
Among other reasons thats why i gave examples of non-professional mods to one of my favorite offline games.

So IMO those are not that horrible at all, given that the code/game engine of SL is pretty old by now.

My expectations are high. In max few years i want to see avatars that are UNDISTINGUISHABLE from people in reality.
Maybe it is because of the GFX engine SL uses, that SL avatars look more like cartoon characters with textures glued on their faces than like real people.
A test: half-close your eyes and look if the avatar looks like a real person on a real photo.

Anyway....professional developers with cryengine as their tools sure could do better than what I've seen so far. And I'm pretty sure, if MA would give us the cryengine sandbox and tools, many EU players with enough time on their hands would do a better job. Just look at the youtube videos of Far Cry 3, and you know what I mean.

Yep

 

[Xen]

Is Skyrim an MMO? If not, it is very inappropriate to compare.

 

[Aandar]

Is Skyrim an MMO? If not, it is very inappropriate to compare.

Not yet.
And if you reread my posts you will see that i mentioned both on and offline worlds.
I named Skyrim because it is not a competition to EU, i don't want to advertise here games that could take away some of the current and potential EU citizens.
An avatar is an avatar - a base 3D mesh model with some player selected modifications, premade animations and textures, it doesn't matter what kind of a game it is.

 

[Xen]

Not yet.
And if you reread my posts you will see that i mentioned both on and offline worlds.
I named Skyrim because it is not a competition to EU, i don't want to advertise here games that could take away some of the current and potential EU citizens.
An avatar is an avatar - a base 3D mesh model with some player selected modifications, premade animations and textures, it doesn't matter what kind of a game it is.

It does matter because if it's not an MMO, you don't have many other avatars having to load yours.

 

[Aandar]

It does matter because if it's not an MMO, you don't have many other avatars having to load yours.

Oh the loading of avatars and how extremely badly coded that part of EU is...
An avatars shape and texture can be transmitted by only as many variables as there are controls in the avatar creation chamber - i don't think it is more than 100 x 2 bytes, then there are just few pieces of clothing each can be described by 2 byte clothing ID, plus 1 byte color ID and 1 byte color intensity for each field, and 1 byte texture ID and 1 byte texturing success, then 2 bytes for decay.
The most amount of data would be in the user created tattoo, but it could get stored locally in some temporary folder and then recalled by just its few bytes unique ID.
In fact all avatar data could use that temporary storage and be recalled just with their hash value if nothing changed since the last full download and only redownloaded when the hash changed.
Then loading avatars would not take more than 1 hundredth of a second.


Also for times when 1000s of avatars have to be displayed at the same time, there is an avatar quality slider in the GFX options and dynamic range dependent object quality function in the engine - max quality only at closeups no farther than 1 meter etc etc.

 

[ChairmanEdgewise]

I actually Googled images yesterday and checked post dates to only look at recent ones.
Maybe it would be closer to what i had in mind if i said "horrible when compared to the current and very near future high standards".
Even the best SL avatars have one big flaw - they look like SL avatars.
I am sure you know what i mean, you could have a gallery of 100 and easily pick which 10 avatars are from SL and which from some other worlds.

To give you an example here is a screenie from one of the user made mods for Skyrim that i have installed on my system:
http://techland.time.com/2012/03/01/the-20-best-skyrim-mods-so-far/slide/better-females/
My female witch avatar looks very different from that pic, but still the quality of the face texture is that high.
Another good example of that mod in action:
http://www.blog.jercouzen.com/2012/04/skyrim-character-mods.html
It looks like there is at least one game graphics generation distance between these 2 and the pics we have on the first page of this thread...


Some of the online worlds offer that and better looking avatars, sure sometimes at the cost of lower than in Entropia tweakability that almost makes it impossible to make an ugly avatar.

I look at this system from the point of view of a player who wants his favorite virtual universe to GROW.
And from these few screenies i am just not sure if the new avatar system will become as big of a magnet for new players as i hoped it would be.

I know several games with 'avatars' or 'characters' that have more detailed faces etc, skyrim being one of them...

Not one of them are MMORPGs tho....


EU is without a doubt the most detailed mmorpg I have ever played, I can barely wait to see what the new overhaul has to give to us!

 

[Xen]

Aandar, if you think other MMO's handle avatars better, post the name and/or examples. I don't think that is forbidden.

 

[Aandar]

Aandar, if you think other MMO's handle avatars better, post the name and/or examples. I don't think that is forbidden.

Maybe we should wait at least until tomorrow when we see the new system going live before burying it under a pile of better looking systems...

 

[Menace]

I just hope for MA's sake the new "system" launches and goes off without a hitch.... Still hoping I can come back someday to what feels like a "Completely different EU" that shares the same "Feeling" as the old EU did..... Maybe this is a start!

Menace

 

[Menace]

I just hope for MA's sake the new "system" launches and goes off without a hitch.... Still hoping I can come back someday to what feels like a "Completely different EU" that shares the same "Feeling" as the old EU did..... Maybe this is a start!

Menace

+REPs cuz I had "Hope"?

Menace

 

[Nobleone]

I just hope for MA's sake the new "system" launches and goes off without a hitch.... Still hoping I can come back someday to what feels like a "Completely different EU" that shares the same "Feeling" as the old EU did..... Maybe this is a start!

Menace

It seems that 'hope' is not enough when you are as incompetent at programming as Mindark...