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In this first journal about Leader and Hero classes we start out by discussing the creation of the leader and hero assets in Age of Wonders III. My na
[See the full post at: Dev Journal: The Anatomy of a Hero]So good to get another meaty dev journal. Thanks for this 🙂
Tomipapa, you guessed right. The “Clothes” section under character creation IS for different armour variants!
I’m a fan of the old 2D art but have no objections against the step from 2D to 3D. Graphics here look beautiful. My concern is about the close-up portrait. Since all leaders/heroes will be low-poly objects, wouldn’t 3D close-up portraits look less detailed than a generated 2D painting?
One small other thing is that I’m a bit worried that all these options for customization may turn leader creation too close to SIMS character creation…
So amazing! I just love this dvarven lady!
Orkish Dreadnought is great too. I see customizing hero will be better than in so many RPGs.I’m a fan of the old 2D art but have no objections against the step from 2D to 3D. Graphics here look beautiful. My concern is about the close-up portrait. Since all leaders/heroes will be low-poly objects, wouldn’t 3D close-up portraits look less detailed than a generated 2D painting?
One small other thing is that I’m a bit worried that all these options for customization may turn leader creation too close to SIMS character creation…Oh, don’t worry, it’s still nothing like the Sims. Likely just a bit of customization to make it feel like the leader is really something unique to you, that you’ve brought into the game world.
AnonymousAnyone else worried the men will all be ugly? I find in most games they go to great lengths to make the women young and attractive, but the men old and ugly. Just look at Skyrim! Every male is either 8 or over 40 and homeless looking; while the women are fair-skinned and beautiful. I hope the appearance options are diverse so that everyone’s views of beauty are accounted for. Will make for more interesting characters.
Yeah, the dwarven lady is well made. My favourite is the goblin dreadnought, with that mad face:”i will blow up everything!(including myself)” His fater probably was a goblin bomber 😀
Great read. I love the freedom in customization, it really makes the game more of an RPG that way.
Things are looking good. 😀 In the past I was concerned about the hero portraits because Avulas from the Theocrat gameplay video seemed to have a very generic face and body, but that was probably mostly due to how early and alpha things were at that point. Thank you for putting in extra effort to make the races distinct instead of just reskinning humans.
I think these 3d models look great, but I’m concerned about selecting leader/nation race. I’m sure devs saw the conversation about selecting leader who belongs to different race than starting race. I was also hoping to see if we can do that or not, but I didn’t see anything about that. I hope a developer can clarify this.
One small other thing is that I’m a bit worried that all these options for customization may turn leader creation too close to SIMS character creation…
Duuude, actually sims character creation is great (well, most hairs suck and there is limited choice unless you invested 400? $ into buying all expansions etc. so we use CC :P). I would be more than happy if we get something like sims creation 😀
Good show, but I’m a little disappointed that you can’t make the elves have any beard at all.
Now, before people accuse me of backtracking my Tolkien absolutism, it turns out that Cirdan in fact has a little facial hair,
“As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said: ‘All is now ready'”
It turns out that only the oldest elves, in their third stage of life, could grow beards (probably only in middle earth, as Valinor did not allow physical aging in the same way) In some of the other papers.
So there, word from god says elves can have beards.
I wouldn’t be opposed to elves with beards (and I’m a fairly ardent tolkienist). Even if AoW lore expressly forbids this it’s easy to impose the restriction in the campaign while still allowing for “freedom of expression” in scenarios and random maps.
No big deal either way.
Oh, and great update btw. 🙂
You really did it! Bearded Lady! Pratchett would be pleased ))
Looks Mad, Is it the same Armour model and or accessories applied to each race? Like the hair and beards? Because it looks the same amount of polys and do people think we can add extras?
I haven’t seen anything on Dragoniens yet. Very excited to see.
Also would like to thank you guys for making character customization have a load of detail and variety.
(sorry for double post, didn’t realize dev journal was connected to the forums)“It’s just very expensive. And such a long time to make. And it is difficult. 2D now only for art-house.” (c)
Eador’s developers answer the question why they made the game in 3D.Nosferon – The hero’s heads have been made with a much higher poly budget then the regular units. (the body type picture resembles standard units, not the heroes) We should be able to capture quiet some detail in the final portraits
Lance Walters-Unrau – When creating characters it is so, so very tempting to make everyone look like Clint Eastwood. Wrinkles and weathered skin adds detail, which creates interesting characters. This is why so many characters tend to look weathered and old. We are aware of this and try to offer a choice between very different skins, for both males and females.
chrysophylax páuperem – This subject is the cause of a heated internal debate here at Triumph Studios 🙂 Thanks for the quote though. Some folks here might be able to use that as ammunition during a next debate!
Flenoom – As a Terry Pratchett fan myself, I’ve been lobbying to have bearded dwarven ladies for almost a year now. I prevailed in the end. /
vfxrob – In most cases all armor sets are shared through all races. Unfortunately I can’t say anything regarding custom made models
I can assure you doing these heroes in 3D was way more work than the original 2D implementation. The pipeline is so much more complex: concept art, systems design, rigging, modeling, sculpting, texturing, animations, testing everything fits together, etc. Same applies to the 3D environment.
But they are right that providing the same sort of user experience (like customization like features, animation and smooth zooming) in hi-res would be impossible to do in 2D.
chrysophylax páuperem – This subject is the cause of a heated internal debate here at Triumph Studios Thanks for the quote though. Some folks here might be able to use that as ammunition during a next debate!
Glad to be of aid, if you ever need any Tolkien quotes, from the Lord of the Rings, Silmarilion, Histories of Middle Earth, or even The Letters of Tolkien, let me know (I suggest a signal that displays the “banner of Elendil”; that looks like this “There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, . . . And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems … and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold.”
As a side benefit, you guys can also have non white halflings. I remember a Slate controversy on this subject where no one pointed out that, in the books, all hobbits are non white to some degree. They just didn’t do that for the movies because 1). Americans think all British people are white, and 2). They didn’t want Frodo, a mostly Fallohide hobbit, to be whiter than Sam.
In fact Lotr elves doesn’t have beard because they are good. Cirdan has and he is very old and wise, but having a beard for a younger elf would be considered an act of arrogance. In Aow there are plenty of arrogant elves.
Looking good and impressed with the amount of work and talent going in to this, my only worry is the finished 3D look is sharper and non-cartoony like D3 for example in the final version. The 2D art in AoWII was cool as was the colour pallet used, but the customisation options in AoWIII, if with enough depth will easily win me over!
Now, before people accuse me of backtracking my Tolkien absolutism, it turns out that Cirdan in fact has a little facial hair,
“As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said: ‘All is now ready’”
I was thinking about elves with beards from yesterday but I couldn’t find anyone. I was thinking about so many of elves like Glorfindel or Haldir but they hadn’t any facial hair. I can’t forgive me I forgot about that who recognized Gandalf as the most wise of Istaris. So thank you for recalling me that.
Will it be possible to customize some AoW2 leader look-alike? It would be a pleasant and nostalgic to see Merlin, Yaka, Nimue(not necessarily naked), Artica and others in 3D.
In fact Lotr elves doesn’t have beard because they are good
And Gandalf isn’t, or the father of the Dwarves Durin himself (of the Longbeards)? Rather, the elves beardless state represents their “youth” and worldly immortality. This is a good thing, at least at first, for them because it allows the Elves to be in their prime for millennia, learn new languages, etc. On the downside, it promotes stasis, “fading”, and occasionally impatience and scorn for the more passing peoples.
Cirdan’s wisdom and age are both represented by his beard, and in some ways cause it, since he has allowed himself to age and change with middle earth, rather than long for the unrecoverable past.
AOW Elves have the same biological immortality, and many of the same faults. Both elves are guilty of haughtiness towards humans and disobedience to an otherworldly power (Archons and the Valar respectively) in staying in their lands actually meant for humans. So, I would only allow beards for the “old” model of elves, and make it silver colored, or at least tinged.
Thumbs up!
Looking good and impressed with the amount of work and talent going in to this, my only worry is the finished 3D look is sharper and non-cartoony like D3 for example in the final version. The 2D art in AoWII was cool as was the colour pallet used, but the customisation options in AoWIII, if with enough depth will easily win me over!
My worry also as I still love the 2D art style of AoW:II, one of my all time favorite high-fantasy worlds to game in visually, both in the character art and world appearance.
But many of the screenshots in the gallery look great and seem to keep a fair amount of the AoW worldly feel. And customization plus a better zoom feature will go a long way for me in the game.So far sounds great but I have a question. Will we be able to create new heros to add to the list of heros the game will ship with? This question also goes for the Wizards as well (I’m using AOW2 terminaology sorry.) I ask because I like to create my own maps with my own heros and such as I did in the previous AOW games.
I love it all! The new lore history that’s added is great. These new and detailed characters (and I hope some old ones too!) are great. Love it in any and all ways. And the female dwarven beards, awesome. Great work with not making the body frames similar.
There are a couple of things I’m wondering:
1. Naval combat. Previously each race had the same naval units, one combat and one transport. Will that be elaborated? Say one specialised naval unit per race?
2. The spheres of magic. There used to be six (not including Cosmos), but with the new classes, including classes like Dreadnought that use their mana not for magic, will those classes still be there? For instance for a sorcorer or archdruid? Or will they still be there for anyone to chose from?Thanks Nils! Its awesome.
And Elves should have beards!
A: Beards are just awesome, nuf said. They just look to feminine unless we can put eye patches, scars or war paint all over their faces!
B: Also I’m pretty sure in Raymond E Feists books the elves had facial hair (its a big fantasy novel series (not as popular as Tolkien)) their was Murad and I think the Mad elf king
C: In the Tales of Dunk and Eggs their is a Targarian brother with a massive white beard and we all know they are some crazy breed of elf!So we will need that option for when we make a custom map!
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