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Horizon Forbidden West: Evolving Aloy (new character model and visual updates)

EDMIX

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
Nickolaidas said:
The fact that you claimed I 'attacked' Horizon was all I needed to hear. When criticism is considered an attack, it's a huge neon sign for me of who I'm dealing with.
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Why so triggered? You really telling me you can't see that such criticism can be exaggerated to fit many things like Alien series?

The lolz. FFS No need to cry over jokes man, you folks take this shit waaaaaay too personal and emotional man. Out here thinking every last thing is a sign from some dark deep state conspiracy from da elite lol

Thank god I just actually play games.
 
RoyalLaFlame

RoyalLaFlame

Banned
Danjin44 said:
My problem with Aloy is she is dry as fuck! Guerrilla chose most most boring way to make “strong female lead”. Also based on trailer she still loudly talking to herself but motly talking to the players which makes it super awkward.

But I leaned my lesson from KZ Shadow fall and original Horizon, I just dont like how Guerrilla make games.
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Guerrilla is actually not a good game studio. They have amazing technology, but when it comes to actually developing a fun and immersive game, they always fuck it up. Killzone had potential, they fucked it up; Horizon is just probably one of the worst games I've ever played. Amazing tech, horrible video game.
 
aclar00

aclar00

Member
Nickolaidas said:
Alloy is not a Mary Sue. She has to work for validation, train to become better at what she is, and is shunned and ignored by the majority of society. It's only near the end that everyone and their mother want to suck her dick and she's been through hell by that point so it doesn't feel forced.

The only thing that is handed to her is her focus.

But there *are* strong feminism vibes in the story, though. The majority of important heroes are women, the majority of male characters are either trouble or incompetent, the apocalypse was brought by a man, the salvation was seeded by a woman and her plan worked because of her 'daughter', and her daughter herself doesn't get created through male sperm, but through a duplication of her 'mother's' genetic code.

Aside from her male mentor, the other men Alloy meets are either cucks (the king) or bad guys (Hades' thralls). Heck, even the machines are guilty of feminism. Hades, the 'evil' annihilating machine, is male voiced, while the 'good' creation machines, Gaia and the DLC AI, are female voiced.
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...i mean theyre just taking tips from Greek mythology it seems for the most part, no? I also wouldnt so much call it femnism as more female centric story...unless we call other stories with male protagonist and sidelined female characters as masculinism?
 
anothertech

anothertech

Member
heavenly-sword-2-would-put-nariko-in-hell.jpg
Honestly id take a ps3 model over that shit.
 
DispatchNinja

DispatchNinja

Banned
Karonoth said:
You say that as if it was something bad (the lesbian part I mean).
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I don't mean it to sound like it would be a bad thing if the character ended up being a lesbian, or anything other than heterosexual. I love what Naughty Dog did with Ellie and TLOU2. I just feel like it would be added after the fact to appease the crazies who cry and complain about any new game featuring a straight white person.
 
Nickolaidas

Nickolaidas

Member
EDMIX said:
Why so triggered?
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Oh the irony.
aclar00 said:
unless we call other stories with male protagonist and sidelined female characters as masculinism?
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Pretty sure that's exactly what most of those older IPs were. James Bond, Conan, He-Man, all those were IPs that more or less praised masculinity, sometimes at the expense of women. Go read Knull (Howard's pre-Conan work), and see how the female characters were treated.

Both sides of the spectrum (when you go near thè edge) can be equally cringe.

I am not saying that Horizon is a bad game/IP. Far from it. I loved the first and definitely will pre-order West. But I see no harm in calling its story for what it is: female empowerment with ample doses of emasculation and signs of toxic masculinity.
 
N

nbkicker

Member
Its ok ill just wait a few yrs then get the better version on pc which is bound to come with higher textures , framerate then the ps5 and then wait for some mods to come in and make aloys face less bloated
 
Kuranghi

Kuranghi

Gold Member
Abriael_GN said:
My problem with it is actually common with many games nowadays that go for hyperrealism. I can't shake the uncanny valley feeling. I definitely prefer more stylized games, as this is close to photoreal but it doesn't fully get there, and the difference is jarring for me.

For instance, when you look at a real person, you don't notice the hyper-small stubble on the skin (it's there, but your eye doesn't focus as much on it). On this, I can't unsee it. The same goes with the push for imperfections, which is understandable, but since you don't have the infinite resolution of reality, lots of it simply feels like dirt.

All those super-small details are amplified on a 3D model, and they're hard to ignore. In-game, it shouldn't be an issue, but I'm not sure what will happen with cutscenes. I can appreciate the technical effort, but the final effect isn't something I especially enjoy.
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Definitely agree, I feel like this rim-lit effect on Aloy in this specifically is starting to make it look like a super high end model, like those 5k+ scale models of game and anime characters you can get:

hdmmblds-01_a01_1.jpg


Its not quite there yet, and while its a nice step in rendering quality it does have the uncanny valley to me.
 
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WitchHunter

WitchHunter

Banned
Just fix the dialogue screens. The character placement was so repetitive, I had headaches. Aloy in the left corner, Aloy in the right corner. Back and forth 537 times.
 
Croatoan

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
BadBurger said:
I take it you're an animator, or worked with them in some technical role? Shouldn't they have tech by now that can fill in the discrepancies? I mean I can literally put my face on Leonardo DiCaprio's character from Django if I want or transform myself into a women with a free app on my phone. Surely there must be sure fire, solid tech out there now to make a scanned woman look like a woman for something as major as a $100m budget game?
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I am not an animator, I am actually a programmer with experience in 3d modeling. However I am a project lead that works with our artists so I am aware of the issues we have had. We are a small indie company

Real humans don't always look "Correct" when digitized. Both men and women can look odd, and it seems to effect women more than men. I personally think it has something to do with the uncanny valley, possibly caused by FOV and how that messes with our perception of a digital creations "features". This can make female faces appear more manly. Not all women suffer from this. It seems to effect women with wider faces to begin with. I actually think Jesse from Control matches her real life model but my brain tells me there is something off with her. Its more psychology than a technical issue. Scan data, is scan data. Its not messing up and there is nothing wrong with the tech. What is messing up is the human mind when viewing digital art. My argument is you have to take account for this and stylize the characters to remove as much of the uncanny valley as possible while still keeping the as much realism as possible. Most companies wont do this beyond simple edits because, well, you are essentially idealizing a real woman or man.

Here is a good image of Jesse that highlights my point
maxresdefault.jpg


Nobody is going to argue that Courtney Hope isn't gorgeous, and Jesse is no doubt a direct scan from her (face shape, nose and lips match up perfectly). So why is Jesse so man facey? People will point to the eyes being a little off, or the chin or maybe the eyebrows but none of that is super egregious in my opinion. I don't have an answer, but you can definitely see the FOV issue by looking at the eyes and the curves of the face. It gives the illusion of Jesse's face having more depth (horse face) where as Courtney's appears flatter. Is that the problem? Probably not entirely. Better Skin rendering and a higher poly count could probly help Jesse out a lot. We just aren't there with either yet. Personally I would have told my artists to stylize Jesse some (smaller, thinner chin/different, fuller, lips/hair style to better match face/redo cheek bones/possibly shrink face (its kind of long)/possibly flatten face) which would have diverted her from Courtney but lead to a more natural looking character. This isn't a knock on Courtney though, I want to make it clear that I would only make these changes to get away from whatever this issue is (call it the uncanny valley for simplicity?). For a character like Aloy I would keep the sharp jaw line and simply make her face thinner and more feminine.

Edit: Looking at the image more it appears they might not have used the scan data of Courtney's skin? The mole above Courtney's eye is missing on Jesse. Could have been edited out or they could have used a custom painted skin, or a scan from someone else (which would be odd). I used to mess around with Daz3d characters and one thing I learned with those is Skin Diffuse/Base Color textures have a huge impact on how a character looks regardless of what the actual topography of the 3d model is. Just something to think about.

giancarlo-esposito-far-cry-6-759.jpg


Here is an example of a male character using scan data that doesn't look that odd (at least from this angle). If you look at picks of Gincarlo there is no real hint of a FOV issues here. Really confusing but this is also a High poly model with some CG level skin shading (Cinematic). Thats sort of another thing about 3d models, their looks can be good or bad based on the angle they are viewed at, and the number of polygons. This is a phenomenon that effects all 3d characters though. Normal maps are great, but they are no substitution for actual modeled facial detail.

aeAxEMq_700b.jpg


Here is his in game model for comparison...its pretty bad lol.
 
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yurinka

yurinka

Member
DrAspirino said:
ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?????

E25wzKGVEAYT8CF.jpg
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In the 'we believe in generations' interview Jimbo never said they were going to avoid crossgen games. He said instead that were going to keep supporting PS4 during at least 2 or 3 years after the PS5 launch, and that he wanted to see the games released on PS5 using its new, unique features like adaptative triggers, haptic feedback, way faster loading times or 3d audio.
 
E

Elbow Identity Shallow

Member
I'm still bewildered by the fact that some are still talking about how the lead character looks, it really seems like on here people don't actually care about games any more. For all the criticism that ResetEra appears to get on here, this place really seems to be on the opposite end of the exact same stupidity stick as that place.
Honestly, you'd all make a lovely couple with them, I can quite see the two places being in a marriage like John and Mary in Father Ted. :messenger_beaming:
 
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Apeopleman

Apeopleman

Member
Men_in_Boxes said:
NeoGAF is a mixture of insane people, insane people who produce genuinely funny posts, and a smattering of normal, well adjusted individuals who have reasonable and occasionally insightful takes.

This thread contains all three types of people.
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That’s what makes it great
 
Dr. Claus

Dr. Claus

Banned
EDMIX said:
yet anyone can form some argument to scream that Aliens is "woke" that it took a female to save everyone.

" the salvation was seeded by a woman" ie Ripley
"the majority of male characters are either trouble or incompetent" most of the um "male" crew dies in Alien 1, same with Aliens soooooo one could just argue the same fucking shit man, I'm starting to believe if Alien was NEVER a thing and was released as a Sony game as is, you'd just fucking cry about the same fucking shit.

"OH WOW a WOMAN saved the whole crew" WOKE
"OH SHOCK, all the MEN incompetent and or cucks and DIE"....WOKE
" herself doesn't get created through male sperm, but through a duplication " oh wow, so Aliens Resurrection? aka WOKE

Soooooo Ripley saves they day in many films, not woke, Aloy saves the day...must be woke.
Men die in Aliens, not woke, men die in Horizon...a agenda perpetrated by the feminist elite TO WIPE OUT MAN...kind lol
Clone in Horizon, see to wipe out man....kind, clone in Alien (not woke at all)

lol

ok pal. Good luck with that. I don't know if Aliens is a Sony game, made today as a brand new IP, that you'd be out here even liking it, you'd just fucking attack it like you are doing with Horizon bud.

Alien-Resurrection-Quotes-Featured.jpg
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"Woke" refers to slacktivist writing. Mary Sues, token characters, etc. Its clear you have no clue what you are talking about, as usual.
 
EDMIX

EDMIX

Writes a lot, says very little
yurinka said:
In the 'we believe in generations' interview Jimbo never said they were going to avoid crossgen games.
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Agreed. This idea is normal that they support past gen systems as Sony is literally known for that. PS2 released and still had PS1 games coming out, PS3 came out and PS2 had God Of War 2 release, PS4 came out and GT6 and The Last Of Us where still put out on PS3, even titles like Resogun came out on PS3, so the idea that they'd support PS4 after PS5's release isn't really shocking or some conspiracy.

They've done that in the past, thus I see zero evidence that some plan existed to just ignore PS4 the day PS5 came out.

Like.....zero. I see more claims about this more then any solid, factual evidence. So it sounds to me like people WANT that quote to mean that, more then anything the quote is actually truly saying.

aclar00 said:
...i mean theyre just taking tips from Greek mythology it seems for the most part, no? I also wouldnt so much call it femnism as more female centric story...unless we call other stories with male protagonist and sidelined female characters as masculinism?
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I agree, but I wouldn't waste much time with this one, anything is an agenda apparently. I'm convinced you literally can just remake a Greek Mythology in modern times about any of the heroines and they'll argue its REALLY a agenda.

No one is allowed in games to them. Aloy not allowed to be heavier, no chins allowed to be bigger then a certain size lol

I don't know how any of this fucking shit works for them tbh. They going to end up telling you that if a character even looks in a certain direction long enough....its a SIGN of something. Watch.
 
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yurinka

yurinka

Member
EDMIX said:
Agreed. This idea is normal that they support past gen systems as Sony is literally known for that. PS2 released and still had PS1 games coming out, PS3 came out and PS2 had God Of War 2 release, PS4 came out and GT6 and The Last Of Us where still put out on PS3, even titles like Resogun came out on PS3, so the idea that they'd support PS4 after PS5's release isn't really shocking or some conspiracy.

They've done that in the past, thus I see zero evidence that some plan existed to just ignore PS4 the day PS5 came out.

Like.....zero. I see more claims about this more then any solid, factual evidence. So it sounds to me like people WANT that quote to mean that, more then anything the quote is actually truly saying.
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Yep. In fact, PS consoles traditionally sold aprox. a third of its units after their successor was released, partly due to late great games released the (plus other factors like price cuts).

Why would Sony would want to reject this third of the PS4 hardware sales? Specially when PS4 was more or less matching the launch aligned sales of the best selling ever console (PS2)? Even if PS5 sold -as it's doing- at gaming history record levels, a huge PS4 userbase would continue on PS4 for several years more. Huge mean beign a big majority of their userbase during the first 3 years or so after the PS5 release.
 
aclar00

aclar00

Member
yurinka said:
Yep. In fact, PS consoles traditionally sold aprox. a third of its units after their successor was released, partly due to late great games released the (plus other factors like price cuts).

Why would Sony would want to reject this third of the PS4 hardware sales? Specially when PS4 was more or less matching the launch aligned sales of the best selling ever console (PS2)? Even if PS5 sold -as it's doing- at gaming history record levels, a huge PS4 userbase would continue on PS4 for several years more. Huge mean beign a big majority of their userbase during the first 3 years or so after the PS5 release.
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I havent check the historical rabbit hole of data to verify, but hasnt Sony’s support been generally limited to about the first year of the new console's release? And by that i mean 1st party games not the hardware or services support.

From what i recall, Sony definitely continues to sell precious gen hardware for years, but their direct software support generally dries up much earlier. 3rd parties on the other hand tend to release games slightly longer especially shovelware titles playing the numbers game.

Dont get me wrong i know it makes since to still target the PS4 market, however, games like The Last of Us were already years into development for PS3 and release a few months before PS4 released. Much in the same way of Ghost of Tsushima.

Hopefully GT7, Horizon and God of Ware are the last cross gen games. Otherwise we are looking at a short (4 years tops) gen that focuses solely on PS5 games. By the time it ends the PS6 crossover will occur.

I believe Ryan's plan is to see at least 2 games per IP release for the generation though. I think he wants to cut down on development time and make use of engines and tools already created. HFW and God of War I think are the early Inclinations of this. I assume its much quicker to use the assets of the previous gen to make a sequal instead of starting from scratch on a new engine.

Im sure we'll see 2 Wolverines and 2 Spidermans (not including DLC) this gen, along with whatever other IPs Sony releases.
 
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