Might this be you?

Posted by: David Cheney | January 29, 2011

Might this be you?

Eve Online, the MMORPG, is in the process of upgrading their avatars and environment to a broader spectrum virtual world. As a fan of synthetic art I say WOW. (Where are *u*, WoW? Oh, sorry, I see you there behind the Lindens and Blue Martians…

Eve’s character creator produces really gorgeous avatars – and it’s really easy to use. Much of an avatar’s shape is defined by mousing over areas that highlight, then clicking and dragging. To the right are a set of drop-downs for Shape, Complexion, Hair, Eyes, Makeup, and Clothes. (It’s worth noting that many of these selections can be turned off using an X up the upper right of a panel – with sometimes appealing results). Skin and other textures are generally excellent, and across the board clothing is fantastic.

The below are basically straight out of game – post work is mostly cleaning up the borders and the rare fix. Click images for full size and detail.

Of course I have a wish list:

The ranges of many controls are too narrow. We all know that most players will create, uhm, heroic body shapes, but I think that the existing ranges will lead to a pretty homogeneous community. I hope to see the body shape ranges extended quite a bit.
Why not provide full selectors for colors of complexion, hair, eyes etc? Even if enforcing some sort of racial identity is a goal, I’d think more flexible color selection would be easily accomplished. The ability to create a red iris alone would be awesome (I changed iris color in the top picture in this post using Photoshop).
Though really great hair is still beyond the reach of any sort of real-time production, Eve’s hair ranges from “ack??” to “hey that looks pretty good!”. While there are currently 22 hair styles, some are really similar and a few just look bad. (If your hair looks like it is an oil painting, you’ll want to ensure that “High Quality” textures is selected in graphics preferences). Hopefully hair styles will get polished and/or increased. One promising feature is the introduction of some sort of collision physics – hair reshapes dynamically around shoulders, clothing, etc. I still prefer short or “up” hair, but I’m impressed to see them tackling this.
While I’m able to achieve pretty good results with the existing makeup system, it suffers from the same restricted color palettes I’ve already mentioned. More importantly, I’d definitely prefer a “paint your own makeup/tats” approach (or option?) that brings the flexibility needed to really personalize something as important as one’s face.
I do hope that Eve will be introducing means for partners – or ambitious members? – to be able to create clothing. I assume that cheesy aviator sunglasses will quickly be extended with something less comic :)

This next screen provides additional controls for creating your portrait. Click and drag to move and turn your body and head and eyes – and to shape your expression. Right side panels support choices of Background, stock Poses, and Lights:

Most of the current 81 possible backgrounds are worthy of the pros – and presumably adding custom backgrounds is not out of the question.
Stock poses currently seem only affect position against the background and not head tilt or expression.
Lights? First, THANK YOU! for demonstrating that you’ve included really good lighting (and not bad shadows) in the portrait creator, and I oh-so-hope that you’ll have such flexible character lighting systems in appropriate places in-game. That said, the application of what appears to be an impressive lighting system looks to be severely handicapped by the current UI model, which does not allow for the selection of light positions, intensities, or colors. Users that care about such should note the easily overlooked arrows that “Browse Light Colors” on the lower left. Again, these demonstrate impressive lighting system features with lots of opportunity for improvement in the UI.

Eve has made really exciting advances in easy avatar creation and I’m really looking forward to seeing these Avatars in-game. Many people would like to evolve their avatar over time, and wonder if I’m misunderstanding – Eve will not allow character editing past the “commit” output by the character creator? Why build such an amazing capability for radically limited use?? Tell me I can at least change clothing!! In any case, lots can be done with these avatars.

Assuming that these are indeed the avatars that will be usable in some 3D spaces in game and in community – what is left to be demanding about?