Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Elves are not Elven - Tel-quessir feed back ;)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I haven't seen many people complaining about them.

I don't know how to say this politely, but some of the faces almost look deformed, no?

I am guessing you never played Elder Scrolls III. That was truly painful.

I have, lol. Don't remind me.

Which ones? Female? Male? Elf? Half-Elf? We're here for the details .

+100
Just quoting for truth.

Two years later, and most model problems are still there: the ugly, un-elven male elves & tiny-eyed, square-jawed female elves.

I'm 100% sure Larian can use real people presets AND modify the model - halfling eye proportions are proof of that; and at this point it's just stubborness.

Ok, at least elves got their individual animations...
...but somehow I think adding and testing a whole set of new animations should be harder than tweaking a few faces, swapping them around (half-elves to elves), or making everything available to every race.
Since Tav could use both male and female hairstyles in the last patch, it looks to me that these things aren't hardcoded, rather, someone could uncheck some check that links specific heads to specific races.

And now we can add gnomes to the pointy-eared problem. (Half of those heads contradict both the text description of gnomes and the previous, well-established art... and this is when they had 2 extra years to add lore-consistent models... And don't get me started on the fact that Drow are called Drow, Duergar are called Duergar... but Svirfneblin are Deep Gnomes because it's not like consistency is a concept that exists )

I am happy with the elves I have made and wouldn’t want existing heads changed or removed! Adding more heads is good, though.

It's the same with me, I am very happy with my elven characters (though I must admit I am always using the same head model). More models to choose from would be nice, but I can understand well why they are not implemented in early access. From a technical standpoint, it should not matter for testing if you choose head A or B.

The existing elven heads are pretty...I wouldn't debate that... but there's nothing to distinguish them from half elven or human heads aside from ear shape. You could put all of the elven, human, and half-elf heads into the same pool and nobody would be able to tell which is which. Some minor changes, particularly to eye size and shape would go a long way towards making elven faces not interchangeable with half elves.

This. For me it doesn't matter that they are pretty, what matters is that they don't look like elves. Well, atleast they don't look like DnD elves. If this game was based on LotR...Larian would be spot on. But it's not. We're not in Arda, we're in Forgotten Realms.
Then again, even if Larian won't change the looks for elves or other races that imo look too human, it won't stop me from playin the game. What will is dirty faces. Just can't stand it. But now I'm heading off topic.

On the surface, this seems like a fair compromise...until one stops to actually consider the end result: newer, proper elf heads alongside the older humans with pointy ears. How does that make sense? It doesn't. What ought to happen is that the original "playing it safe by appealing to consumers that don't know any better or care" heads should be removed and replaced with a selection of faces by someone that actually gives a damn about Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms lore. Focusing on these details may seem overly-fussy, but remember that works of art endure through distinction and not conformity.

Just how badly hosed were the Gnomes? It's not that I don't appreciate the wee eccentric kindhearted folk, but...I didn't expect them to be poorly represented.

It still boggles the mind that the so-called "sliders" that others on this forum have referred to could not be implemented.

+1 I really hope they consider adding the option - even if it's with some free update after release. Small changes that wouldn't change the head geometry too much (and wouldn't affect head animations) can be used for great effect. Here's an example:
Before & After: just 4% size increase and 8% rotation


The 'after' pic was elven enough to fit in with BG2's Aerie, Viconia (and Jaheira) just fine. (sidenote: both images had the head lowered by approx 2 vertebrae. Also... we really need to get rid of those extra vertebrae. These aren't D:OS2 elves!)

Awesome!

It's look amazing! I really hope Larian will consider adding more heads or sliders.

Wow. How did you do that ?

That was just a quick fix in Gimp for my own BG1-2 games. I thought I'd link it here to show how seemingly small changes (slight size increase and rotation in this case) can have a big visual impact.
I think the greatest fear when implementing 'sliders' is 'omg, the animations will look wrong/horrible/misaligned if someone drags the slider too far'... but I think a lot can be achieved with less. /shrug

Maybe Female Elf heads 3 through 5, but 1 and 2 are god awful. 3 through 5 could use more angular look. Similarly, the male Elves look more like what would be male Half-Elves and vice versa (the male Half-Elves look like male Elves). Elves should have more angular faces which is what people have been arguing.

It's all a matter of taste, isn't it? I think female elf heads 1 & 2 are the most elfy. I used female head 1 for my high elf wizard and was very happy with it, and am pondering head 2 for a female wood elf, as while I like head 4 better in many ways it just doesn't say "elf" to me.

And I do see the the male half-elves as more human-looking than the elves (and on average prettier, but as they're the ones with +2 charisma I don't see a problem with that ).

Hopefully Larian will add some more choice, and where a face could potentially work for more than one race they'll make some small tweaks and make it more widely available. They've clearly already done this with a number of heads, though some are more successful than others.

Just create more face options, some elvish, both for male and female, and then let players choose from ALL faces like you can now for hair. This would provide the most variety so players can pick what THEY think is most elvish.

Personally, currently, I agree. The male elf faces are terrible. I literally found 1 face I thought could pass for my evil Drow. That's it.

But bottom line is we need more face options for all races. Period. And PLEASE let's have some human faces that look more dwarvish, because some people have more round faces and pudgy noses and such. AND PLEASE BODY TYPES!!! Scrawny barbarians just look wrong to me. I need BIG muscular Halsin barbarians.

Ahem. Halsin keeps that rant on topic. Round face and body. We need those options for everyone - especially so Icelyn can create some Halsin look alike to have in her party if they don't allow her to have the real Halsin. 😁