Re: ME:Andromeda...What is up with this?

This isn't the first time BioWare used a face model that doesn't look anything like the in-game version. Sometimes they're spot on (Mark Vanderloo as Shepard, Jillian Murray as Liara), sometimes the similarities are very superficial (Victorria Johnson as Morrigan, Alleykatze as Leliana).

I think technical issues could factor into this. Some character models don't react well to certain lighting, which is why Miranda Lawson (modeled after yvonne Strahovski) looks very odd in non-cinematic lighting. I think the theory that they intentionally make women ugly to appease to "SJWs" is very far-fetched.

Well, up until the release of ME:A, the character design of Miranda Lawson was basically the poster child of diving head-first into the deep end of the uncanny valley. So it's not like ME:A is especially egregious here.

You have some good points there but that's just it, lighting makes everyone looks different.  The fact of the matter is the intentional ugliness of female characters in ME:Andromeda is not subtle at all.  I was originally using Sarah Ryder and yes she looked like the average girl and there were still differences in her appearance when comparing to Jayde Rossi; this was official launch day.  After the Day One patch there were major changes to Sarah Ryder.  Others saw this and were upset at the changes, and again not subtle.  I mean look at it: (Left is Day one Patch, Right is Launch Day)

Blue big bug eyes after day one patch, big lips, bigger nose, jawline is emasculated, lowered cheekbones, and thicker eyebrows.  These aren't lighting effects.  Yes they managed to make male Shepard and Liara look like their counterparts.  Their biggest accomplishment, and reason for selling well with ME2, was the fact they had accurately rendered Miranda Lawson after the British actress modeling and voicing for her.  Samara was also rendered accurately after Rana McAnear and hey slap the blue paint on Rana and you get a real life Samara.  They even pulled it off with Martin Sheen and the Illusive Man...if he had robotic eyes in real life.  When fans saw the uncanny resemblances with all these characters in the ME world, we asked for more of this.  Sure the old development team for ME is no longer working for Bioware but fans still expected the same production value set by the old team.  And then Sarah Ryder happened...and the Asari happened.  Have you noticed all the non essential Asari look way different and less attractive than the non essential Asari in ME3?  Weren' the Asari the "9th wonder of the universe" according to James Vega, the blue beauties?  Not today.  Its like looking at this skit from SNL, off topic but right on the money with what ME:Andromeda developers are about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhNNrhze3vs

Watch that clip and then look at all female human and asari characters and then laugh as you hear Kate Mckinnon (SNL) telling how she made sculptures of people as if they had a stroke.  These female characters sure looked like they had a stroke and before that Botox (now off the Botox injections with patch 1.05).

But that is besides the point, my main concern for my post was about fixing the long load times and doing away with corrupt save files made by the auto save function.  There was also the added bug included by patch 1.05, the BSOD or Blue Screen of Death.  Never had that happen until I updated to 1.05, would like to know if I can downgrade to before 1.05 since long load times and corrupt auto saves were not even fixed with patch 1.05 so why upgrade...the Botox didn't bother me much, gave me something to laugh at.

@KangQeng

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@KangQeng wrote:

You have some good points there but that's just it, lighting makes everyone looks different. 

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Yes, @Fred_vdp has good points, you on the other hand have noting at all.

This is a link to the Sara Ryder trailer from last year, now please explain to me how it is possible that the Sara Ryder from back then is the same Sara Ryder we have in the game now if Bioware decided to make her "uglier" with the first patch?

Little tip, don't belief everything that is on the internet even if it fits your own prejudice. 😉

Btw. beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, that also counts for the MEA Asari. Or in other words, what your stated about the look of the female characters in this game is purely subjective.

Furthermore, there is a character creator in this game that allows you to create your own Sara Ryder as beautiful as you want to, and this alone means that the whole SJW debate is completely ridiculous.  

@holger1405

Thank you for your opinion.  I value the feedback as it helps to broaden my thoughts and views. It has made me do a double-take on information and dig deeper to find the actual truth and made me a more informed person.

     I will, however, still not change my opinion on intentional ugliness made by developers because it is my opinion I formulated when I looked at characters on launch day of ME:Andromeda and compared them to everything else from the ME trilogy.  They got it right with all the previously mentioned characters I listed above but how can they get it wrong with here?  I'm OCD that way. When I see something presented one way, and then presented another during actual game time it makes my eyebrow twitch.  The fact is Jayde Rossi is the face model for Sara Ryder and Steven Brewis Scott Ryder's face model.  Rana McAnear was Samara's, Liara had Jillian Murray, Kaden had Luciano Costa, Male Shepard had Mark Vanderloo, Candice Neil was Jack's face model, Kenyon Glover was Jacob's model, Yvonne Strahovski was Miranda's voice and face model, Diana Allers had Jessica Chobot as a face model, James Vega had Jamal Kazak, even EDI had a little Tricia Helfer in her.  Most of these game characters had voice actors and face/appearance models, a confirmed fact.  I'm not downgrading normal people I'm downgrading the developers choices.  As a student working on my diploma in Art, I am a realist in terms of my art style; my choice of medium is charcoal on flat surfaces and I do realistic portraits as much as possibly rendered with my shaky semi-Parkinson hands.  When seeing face models and comparing them to actual content in these games I have to make a critique as a fellow artist and gamer who feels let down by production quality.  This brings me back to Jayde Rossi.  Why present her as the face/appearance model but not have any similarities between her and the actual game character?  Do not present good looking people as character models but end up with something else in the game.  It makes no sense as an artist.  It would make you wonder who was the appearance model for Van Gogh's Scream painting if he had used a model.

     As far as character creator goes, its very limited at what can be done and because of the limited options you can attempt to make your ideal Ryder character but more often end up making them look worse.  Thats why you get funny youtube videos of people making intentionally ugly characters in their play-through instead of trying to make good looking characters.  Even Bioware acknowledged this limited character creation menu and said they would add more features in future updates.  But you are right, my view on female characters are subjective since they were presented that way to me beforehand.  As I said earlier, with the countless good looking people used as character models I have to be subjective because my opinion was formulated on facts that key important characters were chosen to be modeled after real people who are good looking.  The artist in me ask "why say this but present that?  If that is the case there is no point in realistic rendering of a face model you aren't even using, go abstract, avante garde, heck go cubism with facial details instead."  So yes, my subjective view was implanted into my thoughts of the Mass Effect Trilogy and the decade spent playing them when I had no homework to do or decided to procrastinate.  My point is todays AAA Bioware/EA developers should stick to the bar set by designers of the last trilogy, not dumb it down,

I think they simply tried to Stevenbrewising Sarah, and failed. They were supposed to be twins.

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@PandaTar wrote:

I think they simply tried to Stevenbrewising Sarah, and failed. They were supposed to be twins.

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Twins that aren't identical can look completely different.

I have twin cousins who look nothing alike, they aren't even the same height. They don't even really look like brother and sister. He looks like his dad but she doesn't at all, she doesn't even really look like her mum !

I'm aware of that, given I have 2 aunts like that. What I tried to impress upon being twins is that the modifications done on her face, specially nose and chin made it towards her brother's resemblance, instead of her own.

Hmmm...that is a nice interpretation too, the twins idea, but yeah they failed.  Imagine if they had the two leads as Asari instead, they could have pulled of the identical twins then.

And against all odds, asari has the best face/mouth expression in the game.

Anyway, let's see how this updated character editor will come. I would like if we could change our physique a bit too, bulky, fit, willow, ultra fat. That's another thing missing in the game. Everyone is equally fit in the game, plus all men have the same height, all women too. Too many variables! Someone might've gotten it wrong.

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@PandaTar wrote:

And against all odds, asari has the best face/mouth expression in the game.

Anyway, let's see how this updated character editor will come. I would like if we could change our physique a bit too, bulky, fit, willow, ultra fat. That's another thing missing in the game. Everyone is equally fit in the game, plus all men have the same height, all women too. Too many variables! Someone might've gotten it wrong.

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That brings with it a whole other issue of making clothing fit the models properly with minimal clipping depending on how they have done them

Yes. It's basically a luxury. Not that it did bothered me in the other games. Back then, I think everyone had the same height, actually, only disguised by their skins, crevices and bulky armors. When I saw that Sarah was much shorter than Scott, and then Vetra was that giant, I saw they actually got a bit of work done.

@KangQeng

First, paragraphs would really make your reply easier to read.

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@KangQeng wrote:

@holger1405

 I'm not downgrading normal people I'm downgrading the developers choices. 

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Well, imho you did exactly that by implying that the completely fine looking Sara Ryder we have in the game (not supermodel fine but completely fine in normal standards.) is somehow ugly.

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KangQeng wrote: When seeing face models and comparing them to actual content in these games I have to make a critique as a fellow artist and gamer who feels let down by production quality.  This brings me back to Jayde Rossi.  Why present her as the face/appearance model but not have any similarities between her and the actual game character?  Do not present good looking people as character models but end up with something else in the game.  It makes no sense as an artist.  It would make you wonder who was the appearance model for Van Gogh's Scream painting if he had used a model.

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Criticising an artistic choice is one thing, allege that Bioware made Sara Ryder look the way she looks now because they tried to "appeasing SJW individuals" is something completely different.

You did the later and you did that without any kind of real facts to back up that claim. 

You also could see how Sara Ryder would look in game long before the game was released, and as said before, you can create your own character if you want to. The character creator is not the best ever made, (and as you rightly said Bioware already stated that they will improve it.) but it's still easily possible to achieve good results with it. (There are plenty of guides on the net if someone needs help with that.)     

@holger1405

     Like I said its a matter of my opinion that I will not change.  I've already presented my facts with lists of names you can look up to see the facts.  Pretty sure in my last post to you I said you made good points and I also noted I did double takes on them since some of them did seem fishy after going through them.  It did not sway my opinion to changing it to yours because I had other facts that didn't sway my opinion.  Again look at the list of characters and models they are portrayed to resemble, it says a lot when you come to Mass Effect Andromeda.  When one sibling looks like their real life model and one doesn't. 

     And your nitpicking out of my three paragraphs, (yes I did indent to indicate paragraphs, this isn't an MLA style term paper so I'm not hitting return twice before indentation).  There is no difference between criticism and opinion.  I've had these conversations with my professors all the time when they criticize my work.  I tell them thanks for their incites and thanks again for their opinion when they think I should have done this instead of that on a project.  Criticism and opinions share the same goal, giving voice your thoughts on subjects.  I made my criticism on a game and feel they made ugly choices to be politically correct with the SJW movement (if true its something the developers are never going to come out and say it because they would lose their consumer base).  Again that is my opinion, not an allegation, one you can agree with or as you are now, disagreeing with and that is fine with me.  I'm not try to convert you, just stating the facts of whats been done with past characters from the previous trilogy and whats been done now to characters in this new installment to the ME world.  Again take a look at the list of characters I posted up earlier and their confirmed, factual, real life model counterparts (again I can not stress enough that these list of names are proven facts released by the developers of ME Trilogy).  You can disagree with my opinion and I can agree to disagree with you and we can move on.  Below is a link to tallying every character together in one list so you don't have to do separate searches for each individual ME character:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/themetalcat/the-real-life-actors-behind-mass-effect-characters-12spw?utm_term=.yl16OlAgR#.ocjvWj9L5

You even failed to mention that my subjective view on this particular series has been ingrained due to the list of good looking people past characters were modeled after.  If this was a continual trend to be implemented into the current installment, don't represent a realistic CGI rendering of Steven Brewis as Scott Ryder but skimp out on Jayde Rossi with Sara Ryder.  It feeds into my views, and others, that mabye the SJW is affecting the concept artists in the development team cause hey it could happen.

     Now onto character creation, if you've spent long hours making characters in say Skyrim or I don't know the ME games, the mechanics are easy to handle.  I also admit its hard to make a good looking character so I always, in terms of the ME trilogy, went with the default look.  Skyrim is different because with add mods you can change many aspects of facial features and go crazy with it to beyond the point of insanity.  But, a big but, if my attempts to make a character better than the default ends up looking like a mess all the time and I have to end up looking at website manuals to help me make a better character, that is doing too much and you can obviously tell the developers are saying "quite experimenting with character creation and just use the default."  Again my opinion/criticism on this particular character creation screen.