Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback All BG3 Heads Shown Together (visual)

Githyanki 4 Hue


Vogue Githyanki: The Poison Toad Edition



Had to be done - We'll show those Elves!

That was entirely too amusing lol
Will try again next weekend

Before getting too much further into it, just wanted to say that if we want more heads, what we really need is to put more of those modelling artists on retainer and invest in it. If we want 120 human heads instead of just a dozen, then the move is to get this gal a much larger team...

https://www.artstation.com/alenad

And if we just can't get enough Halsin, then I don't know, maybe call this dude back in again... I mean right?

https://mabdelfatah.artstation.com/projects/Xn3nkn

There are probably a gang of other artists that actually contributed to this game and created the material that we are now evaluating and which players have responded to. I think they've done great work. I'd just like to see the whole thing approached with a much more comprehensive sweep, and a real emphasis on the custom PC as opposed to NPC stars.

Anyway, here's one for the cheap seats in the back...



I don't know what it cost them, but it was probably the best money they spent. Investing in this sort of Custom Character creation is the most surefire way to generate replay. It's something that the player engages with immediately and when it's working well extends the shelf-life of the game by orders or magnitude. More zots into that! Don't just assume that unpaid mod creators will be able to pull it off at this same level.

I'm sure we'll get around to "Here comes your man" for the male heads eventually, it's just kinda tedious, so that'll have to do for the moment.


ps. Oh fine Mint Condition! you know I wouldn't let Halsin steal the whole show lol



But seriously, take a look through this page of BG3 heads. It really is pretty glorious! I mean if they could take that and just start multiplying it, then we'd be on the path. Also, like how much of your appreciation of this game in it's current state comes down to that artwork right there? I mean between that and the VA work, it constitutes like half of the entire experience, for me at least. I wish they could go fully next level with it. I mean what just those artists managed to crank out is beyond impressive. Practically all my favs! Just do that, but again, and then again! hehe

Also, I seem to recall them promulgating the notion of facial scans (like in the context of sliders I guess maybe) which downplays the accomplishment I feel. Makes it sound like a technology rather than the work of individual artists, which it clearly is. I mean that's some real artistry in there, I'd love to see a lot more of it, not just with the heads but the outfits too. I think they could achieve something really quite compelling here with presets and modular cosmetic features, provided it was more extensive and had a way to present the stuff in an overview menu, rather than 1 by 1 cycling.

Thank you for your hard work, Black_Elk!

My opinion on the matter is that when it comes to premade faces there there is *NEVER* going to be enough options. Ever.

My suggestion to Larian would be either of these:

A) Do the same as Warframe (Operator form) and GTA5 - allow the player to choose TWO faces and use a slider to allow the player to adjust the features to lean towards one or another of the faces. This halves the work for Larian as they do not have to add more faces - but at the same time grants the players MUCH more facial customization, something that is *VEEEERY* important in a game where we'll be looking at our characters face as often as we do in BG3.

B) Traditional sliders. It doesn't have to be as extreme as let's say Skyrim, but something more like GW2. There are sliders to slightly adjust the face the way you want, but not enough to make something extremely out of place.

So, why would I prefer these two options before more faces? Because Larian could easily add hundreds of faces, but there are still gonna be people that are not entirely satisfied. Had it been a game that is being played like Pathfinder KM or WotR, then I wouldn't complain cause you use character portraits for the immersion and you rarely see their character's face anyways - BUUUT, in BG3 the PC's face is basically the PC's ENTIRE physical character design. You see the PC's face all the time in the cutscenes and response-scenes, the face is also applied directly as a portrait.

Quite honestly, I'd be shocked if Larian does not add more to the character customization in the final release - and I'd even bet on sliders coming up. There is no way that they are not aware of how important it is for the player to be able to make the character as they want it to look like when they have literally chosen to have the camera STARE at the PC's face so often.

... Something that I am also HOPING for, but certainly not very certain about is character portraits. At least for the re-occurring characters such as companions and important quest NPCs. And IIIIF they wanna stick to their current design (aka, the portrait being a picture of the face you made in character select), at least allow us to adjust the portrait's position, light and the PC's expression like in DA:O.

Yeah I have the same general feeling, at least regarding the importance of the faces, when so much of the presentation is this cinematic close up hehe. You're probably also correct that it would be near impossible to satisfy everyone absent some sort of slide construct. I wish we could basically have 10x10 rows and columns of broad facial morphology covered, which had like a basic organization by shape and major features sorted, then allow the player to slide out from there.

I also think it would be rad if we could stage and capture a portrait in game. I mean the game already utilizes gestural animation in cutscene, and you can screen cap what is essentially a portrait. We just can't do that and save it out in a way that the game can utilize on the fly. I would love to see it handled more like DAO, with the lighting and expression and such but dialed up to 11. I mean for me that would be the BG3's answer to BG1/2s custom 2D portraits. A 3D portrait suite using the models in-game, complete with outfits and lighting, camera and gesture control, the cap to save out portrait at Headshot, Bustshot. A full body shot for the Char Sheet would be awesome, if we could make use the attack and spellcasting and sneak type animations. Basically a mini unreal type scenario, but adapted so it could be used by a more general audience.

Just a quick follow up, because honestly I was pretty taken aback to discover just how many of the heads I enjoy in BG3 were created by one artist in Egypt hehe. Legit! I would encourage everyone to have a look there. It certainly reframed how I feel about the subject, with a greater appreciation for what was probably involved.

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Abdelfatah on behalf of all of us players, for making some very iconic heads! and being in effect the Art grand daddy of many many subsequent BG3 memes hehe. I mean Halsin, Minthara, Glut, Abdirak, Aradin, Arka, Kagha... many of the Tiefs and Gith and Gobbos... Female Elf heads 3 and 4!? A lot of the real standouts there.

I'd be pretty interested to hear more about the BG3 art team. I mean I know I'd love to hear who created the 5 origins heads too for example, and to celebrate their accomplishments as well. I'm sure there are a lot of other really impressive artists behind this work. If the Panels from Hell included more of that stuff I'd be much more inclined to tune-in.

We also never get to hear from any of the women on their team. You might have noticed that too. I think it would be a refreshing departure from 'the norm' on those Panels from Hell to hear from their lead character designers or to see some cool previews or hear some anecdotes from the art department. I mean they preview fan art on occasion, but that's not exactly the same. They should promo their artists and art a bit more.

Generally we've just heard from Swen the Creative Director and Nick the Lead Systems Designer and those sorts of guys. The quote floating around regarding BG3 and Sliders mostly references the AMA reddit Q&A panel from March 2020 where the relevant question was fielded by David - credited as 'Producer.' I put it here with the preceding Q and the follow up Q to give some more context...


That quote definitely made the rounds, and it is pretty telling. It's also coming from a Producer i.e. 'the Money,' so its hard to know how much of the decision is motivated primarily by cost, what they could afford or thought they'd be able to pull off at the time, who they were able to hire onto the art team etc. Basically what they thought would cover the basic needs, as opposed to some overarching artistic vision about the value of presets vs sliders, or for what BG3s char creation scheme could ultimately entail in that regard. I think a more fruitful response might have come from Nick regarding what systems were in place and how they could be utilized, but David basically gave us our short answer in terms of their thinking on that score... "face type, hairdo, facial hair, skin colour."

Right now "face type" in EA is limited to those 69 faces I showed on the preceding page for the custom PC. They are presets and organized not by morphological type, but rather tend to skip around every other model, to give the appearance of more variety when cycling.

I think it's pretty important if they ever really do want to present us with a scheme where "character creation can be as in depth as you want it to be" in terms of aesthetics, that they have that overall framework built out by professional artists and systems engineers working together, and perhaps someone in an editorial role who can make sure that more bases are covered. I think it can be achieved using presets combined with cosmetic toggles/lists or whatever we want to call them, for things like eyes, eyebrows, ears etc.

Leaving it for the mods we may very well end up with whatever can be created and ported from professional 3d modelling suites or unreal, but in order for that to have cohesion and sufficient variety in it's totality they need to build out a much broader base. I think they retained a lot of the best work for their NPC characters and walled it off in that way. Those heads have a lot of character, but also a lot of baked-in features, because they are singular designs with a singular purpose in mind. They're sometimes very compelling and very beautiful, but they aren't particularly adaptive. You can see for example where Halsin started vs where he ended up, and can probably imagine what a Halsin-esque face template might look like for a more generic version that can then be further sketched out via more cosmetic features by the player.

I wish what they'd do is really focus on the Custom PC though. I do believe that while we can never satisfy everyone, we can still get much closer to the ideal of a 3d portrait designer where the player can indulge their imagination. Closer than what is currently in the game at any rate. But it takes many more Head templates at the foundation, and some way for the Player to get a quick read on those, like at a glance, so it can be navigated through more easily.

Here are all the males...

For this presentation I kept the same order for the numbered heads as they appear in-game, but chose a different orientation. So this time the different numbered heads are descending top to bottom. Left to right shows the views. I'll lead with the Githyanki as an example since I have the female Gith up there at the top of the page. The rest of the fantasy Races are spoilered at the bottom of this post, after a little commentary so as not to overload...

Githyanki Males


The color coded heads show the views Red=Front, Green=Profile, Blue=3/4. I did this mainly for the forum's presentation and on mobile. It allows us to see the head views displayed a bit larger, which I thought should help us to scrutinize and compare the features more easily at glance. Went with 3 colors because the left facing view is sort of redundant, has the troublesome blur and just scales down the overall presentation on the boards, so I think 3 should suffice. Ideally the game would show a single view for each head and rotate them all simultaneously, but this works for a still. The Gith I think have had the most work done. They're the largest set and represent an ideal of fantasy abstraction i.e. they don't look human at all really, but still have a nice spread and a good sense of character.

I recapped all the heads in Red, for the Frontal view. I think I made the basic point with the Count Rugen hairdo on the previous page that the rest all look fairly human lol. Just so we could see the ears as well this time I reworked it. I tried to choose some hairstyles that would show the trims at the shortest lengths where possible, though there were some issues again with the Tiefs, and so I did a few riffs. Basically Red= scissors and clippers, Green= mostly clippers, Blue= side shaved with a razor Ragnar lol. 

I chose that Blue hairstyle not just to amuse myself hehe, but because it almost shows what a proper texture differentiation for the scalp might look like. Unlike "bald" which is pretty waxy and monotone and kicks off a ton of blur, this shave on this cut suggests a bit more of the razor'd look. It might be more of an optical illusion here, but basically a subtle shift in tone and texture that we'd want I think for the under layer of some hairstyles just so the scalp isn't so pronounced.

I switched from a profile in Ochre to Green to keep with that first RGB idea, but kept the fighter gear, which gives a sense of how the neck is compressed with some races, esp Dwarves. Here with the profile view I also tried to find the shortest 'buzz cut' on offer. This hairstyle is actually the Abdirak trim, but from this angle you can't really see the side bangs, so it gives us an impression of what a more military style buzz cut might look like. The green view shows two lengths of buzz, again cause the Tiefs had limited options. The Tief length for Green is like one clipper size up on the sides with the Tiefbun there lol.  

Right now the shortest styles we can get for a full trim after "bald" is still pretty long for some races, closer to an inch in length with the forward comb say or the tight curly. I tried to present a survey in Red. One thing I noticed is that the Dwarves seemed to have a bald option that shows some shadow closer to a buzz cut. Might be the lighting or the camera angle there doing a cast shadow for the Dwarves, but it gives a rather different look. You can compare with the Red Tiefs who I made bald for contrast. I almost made the Gith bald, but they end up looking a lot more like Goblins or Orcs without some hair, so instead they got a Faux Hawk for the front view. I did the shortest available for most the others in Red. Sadly the Halflings don't have the shortest option so they had to go one size up with the clippers on the tight curls. The Tieflings showed some weird artifacts with some of the short trims around the base of the horns too, so bald was the simple choice there just for the visual to compare with the shaves and buzzes. The Tief version of bald shows more variation in the scalp than some other races. Obviously there are many fantastic hairstyles, though some will clip and I wanted to show the ears this time. I've heard people requesting more of the shorter trims too, so thought it was worth tossing these in there just to give an idea what we might see for the shortest lengths, and since it shows the ears/browlines pretty well. I think the shortest trims could use a bit more texturing, both the short straight and short curled styles read a bit flat in the contrast, but those are the most "GI Joe" looks on offer right now. 

One final point, regarding beards... Clearly it is quite possible to give a completely different impression with a beard, and some may decry the sight of beardless dwarves I'm sure lol, but I'd like to suggest that if the male models get to have beards (and hopefully more beards at some point), then the female models should also be given an additional customization option for parity. 

Perhaps the females could get some headdress embellishments, more elaborate jewelry or piercings, something of that sort? 1 of those customizations should be a false beard too, Hatshepsut queen pharaoh style. It's cool that females can wear normal beards, but I mean something that is more likely to be regularly used would be nice. Lipstick would be an easy one, though I do feel like cosmetic makeup should be available to all. I think something like some headdress, ribbons, collars or chokers perhaps would be cool. Something for flair. A colored piece of cloth or jewelry could also help to distinguish the character in the same way that the BG1/2 character color choices did, but more individualized here to the head model. I think that would be a nice touch and something many people could get into. I'd also like to see some form of face covering, similar to a bandana or ninja mask as an accessory for all. It fits the setting well and gives a more bandit look. Anyhow, best we could do on short notice. Happy friday!

Humans

Elves

Half-Elves

Halflings

Dwarves

Tieflings

Githyanki

Pixies

 

I guess I'll have to take it from the lack of commentary that the presentation was just that stunning? lol

I think I'll now use this thread to just say everything I have to say, rather than scattering it piecemeal across multiple threads. I want to talk about hair and makeup and such eventually, but before going there a brief digression about color.

I'd like to talk for a second about the color palette itself, or rather the color swatches available to us in Character Creation (esp. when you click the "show all colors" tick box next to whatever field skin, hair, makeup etc.) A roundabout way of discussing why I'm not a huge fan of the current naming conventions there. First a quick primer. 

This may be pretty familiar to anyone who's ever changed the ink in their printer, or played with a projector or their computer monitor, but just in case... In design we typically talk about color as being Additive Color (RGB), or Subtractive Color (CMYK). The former we tend to think about in terms of projected light and screens, the latter in terms of pigment and print media. Here's a simple example to show the distinction from the wiki, you've probably run across something like this before, and there are some nicer examples if you simply search google, but these were free hehe. You can see how they relate in terms of the secondaries (where the ven diagram merges) and where they differ (at the center.)


The K in CMYK stands for "Key" which is typically referred to as Black, or more accurately "Imperfect Black", or sometimes "Perfect Gray." 

Essentially the K determines the Value scale, or the relative darkness or lightness of the final color. This is often called vibrance or luminosity when discussing specific colors in relation to each other, or simply saturation. In pigment Tints describe lightened colors (mixed with white), Shades describe darkened colors (mixed with black), and Tones describe the midranges (mixed with true gray.) You can think of Value as how the color would present if you made it grayscale.

Hue describes what's going on absent that Value information. Hue simply means "color" in Old English via Norse, but has been adapted to a more specific usage these days. Basically Hue is "the color" as it presents across the whole range of potential values. Again an example from the wiki, where the Value is constant (midrange) and only the Hue changes. 


When printing in CMY (on white paper) the Key has to be provided in pigment (hence the black K in the ink cartridge), whereas with projected light in RGB this attribute is supplied by the surface of the object being illuminated. In CMY when the pigments are mixed you get muddy gray, and the value can then be 'darkened' further by the addition of Black. True Black (i.e. no reflected light) is virtually impossible to achieve in pigment, hence the use of terms like imperfect black or perfect grey (basically as far as one can get in shade given the limits of physics and the materials being used.) 

In an RGB color scheme, modern usage often describes the various colors in what's called Hexadecimal or HEX code. There is a broader range of colors available in HEX than there is in CMYK, which you may have noticed anytime you attempted to print an image only to find that it looks rather different on the page than it did on your screen. This is why printers often have to translate from HEX into something they can use, CMYK percentages or a matching scheme like Pantone (invented in the 1950s for this purpose). 

So why does any of this matter? I'd argue that the palette we have in use currently assumes an RGB type overlay with projection, but where we don't have an underlying set Value or set hue which is constant, and which uses a naming convention more familiar from working with pigment rather than light, when clearly the later is what we're doing when we make a selection.

In the many heads above you can see where subtle variations in Hue or Value occur when comparing individual heads. For example Elf head 1 has a different base Value and Hue than Elf head 5. This also happens with the different sets, the Githyanki heads all have a different base Value and Hue than the Elves and so on. In practical terms this means that if you want those heads to end up looking the same, you have to select a different swatch. I didn't do that above, because I wanted to show the baked-in differences, but you have to re-key stuff if the goal is to see each head using the exact same "color." 

The color impression is further complicated by the fact that the lighting conditions are outside of our control. The intensity of the lighting changes based on where the camera is and how far the model is from the main light source (upper left.) The issue is compounded, because we see the model is presented in-scene. That background has a lot of cyan in it. We're looking at the sky and at the mountains in atmospheric perspective (e.g objects in the distance become more blue the further they are away from us, like reality, or like a DaVinci painting) so this all combines to present a rather restricted impression. The color you choose here will look different, than it will look in-scene on the Nautiloid, where the lighting conditions are completely different.

This would only be a minor annoyance, if it weren't for the fact that once the game is launched we cannot alter anything. We have to prognosticate in advance, without knowing whether we'll like the final results, or if they'll end up say way too dark or way too light, too red or too blue for our tastes etc. once we're off to the races. 

It is impossible to perceive color in isolation. We only see color along a continuum relative to the other colors that surround it. You can see this effect in operation if you look at painting painted with a limited palette. You can make 50% grey look like it's Blue if you put in a scene that is mainly Yellow Ochre. This was common practice when painters had to crush a precious stone to create lapis lazuli, and when only popes and kings got to be decked out in blue hehe. Look up  "the Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt for another example. There is virtually no blue anywhere in that painting. It's all grays. But they look blue, because of the cooling effect when placed in opposition to ochres and reds. The same sort of thing happens here in BG3 during character creation, where our impression is distorted based on the scene and what's around us.

Just something to keep in mind while we evaluate the palette swatches below...

Skin


Hair

Eyes

Tattoo and Makeup

First thing you'll notice is that the swatches are not organized in terms of Value or Hue at all, but instead just sort of randomly distributed without any clear grouping. Sure it looks kind of nice as a mosaic, but it isn't particularly convenient for a comparative evaluation. You have do a jump down and over or back up again, if trying to get an actual gradient. You'll also notice that instead of allowing a more fully realized palette for everything, they get more restricted the further down the categories you go.

When the skin tone palette is totally desaturated, you can see that it's pretty all over the place. This isn't just nitpicking, using such a random scheme makes it more difficult for the end user to find the combination they're after. It also makes it more difficult for people who suffer from various forms of colorblindness to parse what's going on. I'm not colorblind myself, but it is very common, and typically people who have RG or GB colorblindness, will instead key off Value or Texture/Pattern to get their bearings. I think right now the palette, similar to the head morphology, is intentionally obfuscating. Meaning it's presented in such a way to present faux variety, or an impression of many different options by being disorganized and forcing the playing to skip around. Muddying the waters to make them appear deeper as it were.

I'd be curious to here if anyone else has this feeling? Or if others are experiencing a similar frustration? lol

ps. the image attachment rescaling and compression on these boards is slightly maddening hehe. I tried to clean it up the best I could, but the forums just tend to do what they want. Sometimes it upscales sometimes it downscales, and I haven't been able to determine why or when, but at least gives a sense.

I do agree that what's offered is intentionally set up in a way to make it look like there's more variety and more options than there are. I've said often that the character creation is exceptionally underwhelming with very little Real variety, and a great mountain of same-face. The thing that frustrated me more was the way many people went on and on about how awesome it was in the initial early days... and I was just quite stumped as to what they were talking about, because aside from being of an individual high graphical quality, it's just kind of weak and underwhelming.

Right on, good looking out Niara. I thought I maybe slipped and fell into the solo echo chamber trap there hehe, so its good to hear from someone with a similar feeling on this stuff. Maybe it was just a bit image heavy for some as well. If we knock onto a page 3 I'll leave more space to just discuss, or for others to post related visuals too. The lipstick post on the previous page kind of inspired that last digression for sure. So maybe we get a bit more of that in days ahead too of we're lucky.

I think for me the char creator (just like colors) is evaluated largely in relative terms. So if you came to BG3 from other cinematic rpg games like DA or Skyrim or SWTOR then perhaps it's fairly impressive. I mean if the benchmark is from like 10 years ago, then sure, this one is slaying it. Compared to slightly more recent fair like ESO or just what we've seen lately coming from Unreal, it starts to feel a bit more meh.

On the whole I'd say the NPC head models are pretty well executed. They also get bonus points I think for applying more "character" to the various monstrous head models, like with the goblins say. Or for the monstrous types that have since become PC types like the Tiefs or Gith. When you see them all dialed out to a level that's typically reserved just for Humans that does get some plaudits.

I think people also saw the hair models and immediately felt like their minds were blown. Cause usually hair is so horrid in RPGs lol. So another notch in the belt there I suppose.

At the same time when I was scrutinizing the Gith, especially Gith without Hair, I kept thinking "ok this is working right now, but what happens when you need to make a Half-Orc too?" Cause they probably end up pretty similar hehe. I guess maybe with more of an underbite and some protruding lower canines there? But you know, when you see them together the generic patterns emerge. Also when I see the Tiefs and Half-Elves next to each other, again I sense a fair amount of overlap, like just add horns and demonic eyes and they're largerly interchangeable. Or of course, the obvious interplay between Human heads and Elves, or Human heads and Halfings etc.

I think it's perfectly fine to present a more limited default skintone selection or eye color where it makes sense for fantasy race consistency, but where it fails for me is the overall morphology when added to that just looking sort of the same. To take the most salient examples, if Elves are just beautiful Humans with pointier ears, or Halflings are just portly shorter Humans, or Dwarves are just Humans with super compressed necks and huge noses, then you end up with something that leans pretty hard into same face territory. I'd love for them to start with Humans for the base, and morph from there for each facial type, but the longer they leave the current scheme in opperation the harder it becomes to build that out in a satisfactory way.

Also, because EA is Act 1 of a 3 act play, I think many people may assume that what we see now in terms of heads or char creation is only like a 3rd of what we'll eventually get. But I'm not totally convinced of that either. Even if that was the case though, and we get this x3 eventually, I still think that's not the wisest plan. Unlike some other content features, having more stuff available in Char creation during EA could only help to maintain player engagement. So this is one of those areas where I think they should dish it up as soon as it's cooked, and not hold that stuff in reserve just to make the full release seem 'fuller' by comparison. Updating the interface for some of this stuff might be a bit more involved than just adding to the pile, but I think it would pay dividends down the line. So I hope they tale note of at least some of these jmpressions. I mean one can hope right heheh

ps. I just noticed that I left the "show all colors" box unticked for the tattoos above, went to edit it in, but then realized that it only shows like one more swatch anyway, and for makeup we don't get anything new by clicking the box. So I guess it doesn't matter much. For comparison with the Skin Tones in the post above though, I did want to include a more standard palette here. Something that would be a lot more familiar and simpler to work with. I chose an SVG template, again cause it was free on the wiki hehe. When the colors were standardized initially, first in 8 colors, then 16, then later into 216 the need to provide clearer "common names" for the various numbered colors in use was more apparent. There is some overlap here between HTML and SVG naming conventions, but what you won't find are colors with names Efritee, Fey, Decay... in scales of 1-4 or 1-8 etc. This is what I mean by the BG3 design being rather more confusing than it needs to be. The game could serve as a more educational tool if it wanted to be, and allow people to learn how to work with this stuff in other contexts, instead of just being a 1-off.


In effect what BG3 is doing is presenting a series of colors like that, but in various combinations and mixtures, because they're in overlays and overlighting. However, the user doesn't really have a way to see the underlying organization or understand where the starting point is, to intuit where they're going to end up. It's basically like trying to mix colors at random, to use an analogy from painting, when you don't have any kind of consistent system for it. People tend to find that stuff frustrating, which is why Munsell and all those codes and whatnot were conjured up in the first place. Cause they help to make all this stuff more user friendly - gives some shared common ground to build on. I'm not sure why they arranged the various BG3 color blocks in the way they did, except maybe to just give it that diagonal sweep at the top? Or maybe this is how it looked in DOS and they just kept with that? I really don't know honestly, but it's like the linear B of color coding. It probably makes sense to someone I guess, but just seems kinda mysterious to me hehe. Maybe the more regular palettes seem boring to people who work all day with that stuff as designers, but for the uninitiated those schemes are very helpful, which is why they exist.

Here's another one I just yanked off google, because I think a presentation like this would be much more intuitive to the average user. I mean you can just imagine it flipped on its side to fit char creation screen layout, but you know, where the Values and Hues are grouped together in a way that makes a bit more visual sense when viewed comprehensively.



Note how that same image still has an internal logic in the overview, even when completely desaturated... Still showing the columns organized in value gradients.


The BG3 palette is in some ways more extensive, by eliminating extraneous unusable colors, and instead showing more variety and duplication for the color swatches that do work, but I still think they could do much better. Ideally this stuff wouldn't reset when you click a different Race like it does now, but be consistent across all models, for example. Even more engaging would be a way to isolate and combine colors for different effects, which is what we see in those BG3 colors like Fey or Decay. They're basically two tone mashups, where the eyeshadow or lips or cheek tones do something different depending on the swatch, but where the results aren't exactly predictable and you have to click click click like chaos to get what you're after, if it even exists as an option.

A lot of games have a pretty good solution to this. Have you guys tried Black Desert Online or even Vindictus? Both of these have a kind of photo shooting mode at the character design meny where your character can pose, make expressions and even change to other outfits for the particular shot. I am not asking for a photo booth, but ... Yeah. I believe that Larian could take a look at the system those games (along with DA:O) if they want to develop a good system for making 3D character portraits, assuming that 2D portraits are not up for discussion (since I would very much prefer that).

About the color palette - I always assumed that they were in the order of usage, aka "human skin colors", "drow skin colors", "gith skin colors" and hence thought that that is the explanation to why the color palette isn't properly sorted by color and hues. I mean, I believe it kinda looks like that could be the case when you expand the entire list?

Anyways - continuing on colors. I feel like skin color is actually very well versed and I never felt like I am unable to get the color "just right." Eyes and hair however... Now that is definitely a different story. For hair I am missing both of my favorite colors when it comes my color of choice for my typical ranger - those colors being "strawberry blonde" (a blonde color with hints of a red hue) and light auburn (like a gentle red-orange tone, think of autumn leaves or many traditional ginger-colors). Many of the bright hair colors look off, so I usually roll either with plain black - all black hair colors are simply gorgeous in BG3 - the dark red one or the "tweed" one (which is basically a cooler shade of bright brunette). I would really love to see some more warm colors on the hair color palette - especially when it comes to the blonde/brunette colors.

Regarding eyes - the most pressing issue with the eyes are the fact that there are so many colors and shades on the color chart spectrum - and even more so if you want eye colors with more than one color (aka, a inner and outer circle). I mean, BG3 even have a lot of special eye colors (like the tiefling colors) so I generally feel like there are so many colors and options missing. Especially on the green spectrum - I simply am not very fond of the green colors available. There are a lot of gorgeous purple options though! Also, nothing that is by any means necessary but if I could add one small wish in the matter, then I would wish for a option for heterochromia (aka, eyes not having the same color). c: But that is just a tiny little detail that I am not even sure would be worth the effort on Larians end. :]

I'm honestly not even sure what you're on about in regards to the colours and stuff, Elk. To me they're clearly organised from left to right, it's just that there's 10 colours to each gradient and 12 choices per line?

No you picked up on it exactly Dex, that's why I stuck the desaturated palette right next to the regular one to make it simpler to parse. The main point was more how it's not organized by Hue, but also how having the value gradients for the Hues break across the line disguises when we shift from 10 options at the start to fewer (only 8) later for the hues at the bottom. My first thought was 'why did they choose a 12 column presentation for a 10 value gradient?' but you can sort of see why if the idea to is to hide the fact that they're dropping 2 values halfway down the palette. My other thought was that perhaps they did it this way because the first palette is labelled "Skin" and they didn't want to privilege the lightest or darkest values by having one or the other always be the leftmost box in the grid. So by always breaking the Hue/Values across 2 rows the way they did, the lightest value shifts position across the palette in a diagonal sweep as you descend. It's possible they made it this way recognizing that skin color can be a fraught subject if the organization appears to favor one value over another constantly. Or it's possible it was just accidental, because the designer wanted to create an impression of movement, and to avoid a more standard rainbow or spectrum just to be different from everyone else lol.

When you expand or collapse the "Show All Colors" tab, you get a different arrangement based on the selected race, which is what I meant by everything resetting. You can see it clearly if you move from say Race: High Elf to Race: Drow, in the later case the row showing the coolest blues moves from where it's located at the top of the full palette down to the bottom in the more limited Drow spread.

Something like this will happen with each different Race chosen. Some limited palettes are more expansive than others too, So Tieflings have the largest palette set and the most options, then Elves and Drow. Humans, Half Elves, and Halflings have fewer still, and Gith have the most limited palette. But every time you select a different fantasy Race the limited palette will reset and reorient. Like a rubix cube or something lol. The color names are also rather unconventional. An example of reinventing the wheel, or muddied waters, where standard language would serve better. Notice how mixed up the metaphors are. I mean except for the top 3 rows, where temperature language is used (Warm = more redshifted, Cool= more blue-shifted, with Neutral=base) the others just skip around. Here are our BG3 Hues as listed in descending order when the palette is fully expanded.

Tones 1-10

Neutral
Cool
Warm
Blush
Pallid
Ice
Lichen
Dusk
Ash
Wisteria
Amethyst
Earth 8
Gold 8
Ochre 8
Olive 8
Sage 8
Moon back to 10
Wood
Vampire

Tones 1-8

Smoke
Sulfur
Chili
Red
Pink
Orchid
Purple
Violet
Azure
Storm
Aqua
Green
Lime
Efreeti
Dryad
Madrid
Fey
Decay

And then it's like 'OK, cool names I guess' like wandering the cosmetics aisles at a department store lol, but because of the way the overall palette is organized (or rather not organized) by Hue, they come across pretty haphazard to me.

@Dez I haven't played Black Desert or Vindictus, but that sounds very much like the sort of direction I wish they'd take it. I too miss 2d portraits, but have sort of given up the ghost on that score. There was a huge back and forth convo on the old Obsidian boards, when they were debating ditching 2d portraits in favor of 3d modelling, and I tried to argue the merits of traditional portraits for like a year and a half there. Alas, they had made up their minds already.

The basic point was always that a Portrait has to do something rather more than an Avatar, by including things like gesture and expression, lighting or contrast as a mood setter and the like. Things which give a visual sense of character on the quick read, whereas the 3d avatar was clearly like a blank face unanimated template. But many people just couldn't see the advantage, or what made a traditional portrait qualitatively different than what they were offering as a ready replacement. I'd say stuff like 'we're not there yet, Maya isn't far enough along, different levels of abstraction/immersion are required, we're giving up more than we're getting, these aren't portraits etc. And people would reply like 'who cares, I don't want a portrait, I just want the little head box to look exactly like the Avatar I created in the char creator. Fast forward almost 20 years, and we're now almost at the point where the avatar actually can function like a portrait. Games have become so cinematic, and the need for expression there is so pressing, that we can see where the games are now able to produce something passing fair for a portrait in-game. It's just that we aren't given access to the full range of gesture or expression, or the same kind of scene setting tools that the animators and directors are using. Like if I could make my Dwarf raise one eyebrow and smirk for a comic angle, do uplighting to make it seem horror, change a pose or a background and save out the cap, then it's on.

But they're still gatekeeping that stuff. They got it in a little lockbox on the director's desk where we can't reach, and the portrait/char sheet image is still just keying off the avatar with no intermediate input to give it extra character. You can see also where it's just been baked-in to some character models, like for their heads. How a Minthara or some random gobbo or tief might have a great grimace, whereas some other head is smiley, and another is stone faced. But you can't do any interchange. The modelers like abdelfatah know what they're doing, they're creating 3d portraits more or less, but we don't get that necessarily in our custom PC options. Or if they are there, they're few and far between and locked onto just one head model instead of being available across the board.

I agree completely regarding the hair and the eyes and such. I'm also reasonably happy with the skin tones on offer. They're sufficient for my needs to be honest. I mainly wanted to put that palette next to the others just to show how steep the dropoff was when we move down to the next categories.

We go from 324 colors in the skin tones, down to just 111 for the hair. The hair models themselves often kick off pretty flat, so going from one style to another and it's like the same swatch definitely isn't doing double duty in many instances, and we have only a 3rd there compared to the skin. Even if hair or dyed hair, should probably offer a lot more variety than skin, just going off what's available in reality hehe.

For the Eyes it looks like a palette of 82 there at first glance, but that's not really the case. Cause like you mentioned some of those are for Demon Eyes, or where the sclera flips, or where the inner and outer iris is inverted, or whatever else, and some colors are just walled off like that. So it's really more like half what we're seeing.

Tattoos I can understand for a limited palette, cause there are only so many ink tones that are going to work there for a universal, but the makeup I can't figure at all. I mean I don't wear makeup in my day to day life, but a cursory glance at my girlfriend's vanity and it's like even working with a single base skintone a palette of 24 is barely covering it at all lol. She has like half a dozen of those, and only what, like maybe 2 or 3 skintones to work with? Depending on the season, like a sunburn or a tan on occasion, but basically just 1 tone at bedrock. Imagine a professional makeup artist showing up to the job with a single palette for all comers? That'd never fly in Hollywood. And here we have 324 skin tones at the foundation heheh. I mean if anything the makeup palette should probably be even larger than the skin tones palette, but at least on par. I might not have a use for it, but you can be damn sure Faerun Sephora would be an instant hit with a lot of players.

Anyhow, it's pretty hard to know what their endgame is for this stuff. It could be that were are working with the barest of bones in EA and they're going to blow all our minds when the full release releases. But just in case they're thinking "neah, this is more than enough" they get a thread like this to give them pause. I mean it's really their own fault, cause I'd probably rather play the game with a full party of 6 and some WASD movement or an orbital cam etc, but since they're kicking the can on that, instead I'll just harp endlessly on the morphology and lack of char creation material till they wise up on that count hehehe

ps. to the post below - definitely!


pps. Just cause I was bored, here is the skin tone palette broken down by named group in the same order as in-game but without the diagonal sweep effect. I just crudely did a pull and paste on a black background to reassemble it, but shows how the hue jumps around, and which swatch groups are 10 deep vs 8. Also desaturated alongside to show the value skipping. Perhaps not as striking or visually tetris'y as the makeup box version we get in game with the 12 rows, but shows what's there in a different way.

Lipstick. Need it. The skin tone choice changes the lip color. This is fine, but there are many skin tones with bright pink lips that drive me crazy.

Cheekblush would also be great to add subtle tones.

Tattoos to add — freckle and mole patterns.

These three additions would be awesome for customization.

How's this for a thought, put a BG3 portrait back on the table. I mean I'll sing it's praises until it's for sure never going to happen. But even if they don't want a custom 2d that we import, they could still give us a custom 3d that we design in-game.

Since Volo is already dressed like some kind of Medici court painter, what if Volo had us "Sit for our Portrait!" Like we simply must! And that way I can use an in-character, in-game shorthand for what a portrait suite might look like.

First we set the mood, either we can choose an abstract backdrop painting, or use an environmental cue. For example, first the background setting. 

Maybe we have wilderness with a couple choices? say Forest, Mountain, Beach, perhaps throw some weather variants in there for charm and so we'd see the same environment but one in biting snow, another balmy summer breeze, springtime, autumn decay. Basically whatever environments the game has on offer. Very similar to the current display, but just with more scenes of bucolic splendor to choose from hehe. Let us choose between night or day, and stage the overall lighting with a main source either Sun or Moon, or Dappled light if there are trees and such. This covers all your wilderness PC types, say Rangers Druids Barbarians and the like. Then we get another set that's more Urban. Basically a Tavern, Palace, Tower Prison and Armory fair. Toss in a Library too, or an Alchemist's table or Temple backdrop, and this set can handle basically all your other types. Wizard or Rogue or Priest or Fighter types. Basically a simplified scene, but also with some accoutrements that service several Race/Class combos. The portrait maker in like a mini holodeck more or less, where we can build out the scene. 

Then we come to the Figure/Face stuff. This is the real portrait, where based on our inputs we get to embellish our scene further by entering it.

Using dialog style descripting inputs we can tell Volo what we're after. We can start with secondary light sources, or spotlighting. Whether we want a column of divine light showering us from above, or a terror underlit view, or a sensible Rembrandt type lighting from the side lol. He can offer suggestions on this, and give us some color lights to play with too.

We begin with the face close up. After selecting all the various base features we like, getting the makeup all sorted and the hair properly quaffed or hacked off or whatever, we move into the gestural phase. Volo describes for us a series of emotive facial expressions and we pick the one that captures our character's dominant personality vibe best. So can you picture yourself the skowling or smug villain vs the wise furrowed brow master, or quisical shifting eyebrow. Couple version of the Mona Lisa smile and frown. Some Crazy, some Aghast. A Basalisk's gaze that turns em straight to stone like blue steel. Get creative Volo! but basically he's giving us what an animator or cartoonist or theater crash course would give us. You know a way to emote the face for the portrait capture hehe.

Extend the same idea to clothing, and action posing for the full figure or bust, and you've basically got a Full Portrait creator out of the Char Creator and the assets already available in-game. We know what the various sneak and combat ready and spellcasting type animations, just more in freeze frame. Then click, Volo uses his magic bards brushes and bangs it out for us lol. All that's really needed is a mechanism to do the scene set up stuff and then the capture.

Essentially we'd have that Portrait then provide what's viewed in the Char Sheet (more full/bust) and the Char Box (headshot) for the main GUI portrait that's used for char selection. 

They can look at the "Show us your Character" type threads in the General section to get a sense of what people like in a presentation. It doesn't have to be crazy complete to start, since this is more proof of concept stuff. But using a staging sort of device like others have mentioned, or the kinds of mini suites we've seen in other games. That would really take it next level I think. More like what the portrait used to be, or an idealized version of the portrait might be for a 3d cinema game.

My first thought was to have this all frontloaded as part of the character creation menu, but it could also be handle in-game in-scene, provided we have some sort of magical stage and backdrop. Like initially we just get the blankface view like we have now, but later we get to revise it into something cooler.

The easel could be at camp for example, and Volo as our renaissance man could show us the ins and outs. The image we cap there can then replace what's presented in the Portrait Boxes (Char sheet, and GUI one). Have the equipment/inventory avatar remain more or less the same advanced paper doll, but with the generated portrait in use for the other stuff. 

I can picture how it would look, just making it like a dressing room of the imagination. The PC can have some delusions of grandeur playing dress-up and light-up and morph, but when it concludes we actually get a portrait that is then used in play. That would be so legit to see. A proper D&D style presentation. 

I hope Volo is a better painter than a surgeon. Lol

(Fun idea for sure)

All of these! I often use lipstick with high transparency just to get the lips in the color I prefer (and bright pink is NEVER one of them). DEFINITELY want the freckle and mole pattern tattoos, however - I am fairly certain these will be a "no go" since most faces have these attached to the face selection (which is why I'd argue for a face merge-option that has a slider attached to it).


Y.E.S.

I mean right! hehe It would be great fun

Also, just cause I mentioned the parity at the outset, I think they should try to achieve an equitable distribution whenever possible. Here are all the Elves again but this time together. I redid the female heads right quick in CMY, just cause I knew there'd be that black bar to deal with hehe. Gives a more full spectrum visual for charm sure, but more importantly shows how we're missing a row there. For most races it's the same, with an extra set or two, alternating between male or female depending on the fantasy race chosen. I wish there were like 10 times as many heads obv, but for however many there end up being, they should shoot for an even split across all categories I think, just for parity.