New screenshots of character visualizer, virtual tabletop

[Ebon Shar]

Even a low-end computer can easily render better models than these - and not only that, but animate dozens of them in real-time, with dynamic lighting, spell effects, etc. These are static, they require much less processing power.

As a matter of fact, computers could do better-looking graphics than this several years and graphic card generations ago.

The models are awful - not only technologically inferior, but also just plain ugly. There's no excuse.

Perhaps, and we can hope, these are placeholder images used during testing. I can live with the graphics as they are, but I agree that even lower end computers these days can deliver much higher quality.

With the cluster that was WOTC's character generation software for 3E, I'm not holding my breath for functionality with this version.

Relating to the Rogue and his limited weapon selection, as we saw in the recent Ampersand article, how does the newly revealed Rapier fit in? Is the Rapier in fact now a martial weapon, or was the preview list not inclusive of all Rogue usable weapons?

 

[psionotic]

Anyone else think that the female faces look too masculine? Maybe they're not all that way, but in 2/2 examples. Yikes.

 

[fnwc]

I'll just say this, I am glad I am using table-top, cause my imagination works a lot better then those pictures/characters

No kidding. I'm fairly enthusiastic about 4th, but these screens look like they were made by the same designer as the DDO game; the interface and models look like they're from a PC game made 10 years ago.

Hopefully they tighten this up a little before launch.

 

[Pour]

Do you think there will be third party opportunities in character modeling and design? Because I'm certain there will be a market for better looking characters. Wonder if that will fall under the OGL... It would open up a lot of nice variety and most certainly increase willingness to use DDI.

Just think of it. Third parties could introduce different versions of existing armors, like hide armor that actually has some cool parts of the animal like the head and claws, or plate without the heinous swirled pauldron, (and I could go on and on...). And new backgrounds, environments, monsters and spell effects, too, of course.

Third party might also be able to offer new model styles entirely, like cell-shaded heroes or maybe Lego people.

 

[Plane Sailing]

And Spiked Chains.

And Katana. Watch the firestorms rage once more!

 

[Wolfspider]

Yay! Katana!

I sure hope the have a "trenchcoat" option....

EDIT: Ooooh! Great mimes think alike!

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I really do think the preview didn't give all the rogue weapons. Perhaps for this very reason they didn't want to showcase the civilian, military, superior model yet so they left out things for that reason. *Shrugs shoulders*

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Do you think there will be third party opportunities in character modeling and design? Because I'm certain there will be a market for better looking characters. Wonder if that will fall under the OGL... It would open up a lot of nice variety and most certainly increase willingness to use DDI.

Just think of it. Third parties could introduce different versions of existing armors, like hide armor that actually has some cool parts of the animal like the head and claws, or plate without the heinous swirled pauldron, (and I could go on and on...). And new backgrounds, environments, monsters and spell effects, too, of course.

Third party might also be able to offer new model styles entirely, like cell-shaded heroes or maybe Lego people.

I believe the engine for DDI was a cut-down version of the Aurora Engine that Bioware/Obsidian used for the NWN games.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yay! Katana!

I sure hope the have a "trenchcoat" option....

EDIT: Ooooh! Great mimes think alike!

Oh the old "Bad Ass Merit" with its prerequisite of katana, trenchcoat and sunglasses.

 

[Irda Ranger]

The character modeler looks like dog crap; fantasy cliche at best.

With the innovations already present in MMORPGs today, you'd think that WotC would actually hire expert character modelers. These people are a dime a dozen, and hungry for work.

Boy, you said it. I think we're better off with a really good text-only generator, but if they're gonna go with graphics, it should be graphics that add to the experience, not detract from it. I've been playing D&D for many years, so I'll keep playing "despite" the poor character modeler, but I bet this will turn off potential new customers.

[old grump voice]
Back in my day we rolled dice made out of plastic, kept our character records in pencil and used poor Xerox copies of fantasy novel covers, comic books or rule book art for our character portrait - and we liked it!!
[/old grump voice]

But seriously. I hope whatever character sheet printout WotC supports allows you to paste in a pic of your choosing to represent the character. There's too much good fantasy art out there to be restricted to their crappy modeler.