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Making black people in character creators can be hard most of the time.
- Thread starter Afrocious
- Start date
Nemesis121
Member
Same problem i had with GW2, couldn't find a good hair style, chose short hair, otherwise the skin ton of the character is spot on...
But since it's released added a lot of new hair styles, gotta get a hair styling kit and see if anything sticks..
Here are some of my MMO characters.
Guild Wars 2. It's definitely hard in this game because faces are preset and a lot of the facial features, particularly for women, are extremely whitewashed unfortunately.
Elder Scrolls Online. Really good character creator in this game.
Guild Wars 2. It's definitely hard in this game because faces are preset and a lot of the facial features, particularly for women, are extremely whitewashed unfortunately.
Elder Scrolls Online. Really good character creator in this game.
Really? Mine turned out like myself pretty much like me.
http://m.imgur.com/N5zGrtM
http://imgur.com/UCni5tr
http://imgur.com/TEipiiH
Pretty much. When I clicked on this thread I knew it would have a dark souls 3 focus. This game has a really bad character creator but really they all so. Thankfully the gameplay is solid.
bobbychalkers
Member
That game was a mess in this regard, it was either an old black dude or a young black dude with anime hair.
Hypemaster
Member
Where's the black hair diversity man, why I always gotta rock a buzz cut From?
fabricated backlash
Member
Not to equate the two, but finding good beard Option in any character Creator is also borked as fuck. You can choose between douchebag and hobo
I can only imagine. The character creator in Froms games are so bad I couldn't make a decent looking character period.
As far race goes, I like what MGSV did. That with more options would be awesome. The cc made it easy to have attractive characters of different races without resorting to extreme stereotypes.
Wow! MGS5 is really on point with this. There really should be new minimum standards for all games with character creation.
I'm very white, so as others have said, this is something I probably haven't spent as much time thinking about, so thanks for sharing OP. I certainly always appreciate the insight into the larger industry circumstances.
I do hope that they continue to find ways to enhance character creators to allow people to just... create the characters they want more seamlessly. It's not like there's narrative reasons in 99% of these games why you can't play a specific skin tone or something, so it seems like it's largely down to dev resources and priority for how much depth they put into those creation tools. So it really is my hope that as development tools become more innately nuanced, that we'll see more naturally improved options for folks like yourself OP.
I mean, this is nowhere near the same context, but I'm a slimmer built guy with long hair, and a lot of character creators give me pretty limited options, but because things like Mass Effect is a military format, I just sigh and figure it's military regulations why they wouldn't let me play a man with long hair, but there's no reason at all for there to be less tools for tailoring characters to have more inclusive ethnic orientation. I really do hope that things get more suitable across the board.
I do hope that they continue to find ways to enhance character creators to allow people to just... create the characters they want more seamlessly. It's not like there's narrative reasons in 99% of these games why you can't play a specific skin tone or something, so it seems like it's largely down to dev resources and priority for how much depth they put into those creation tools. So it really is my hope that as development tools become more innately nuanced, that we'll see more naturally improved options for folks like yourself OP.
I mean, this is nowhere near the same context, but I'm a slimmer built guy with long hair, and a lot of character creators give me pretty limited options, but because things like Mass Effect is a military format, I just sigh and figure it's military regulations why they wouldn't let me play a man with long hair, but there's no reason at all for there to be less tools for tailoring characters to have more inclusive ethnic orientation. I really do hope that things get more suitable across the board.
peaceiscloser
Member
I can only imagine. The character creator in Froms games are so bad I couldn't make a decent looking character period.
As far race goes, I like what MGSV did. That with more options would be awesome. The cc made it easy to have attractive characters of different races without resorting to extreme stereotypes.
what i loved most was that I could be a real Filipino in MGSV.
ScriptedReality
Member
You telling me....in The Division my girl looks terrible. And any game where i can customize a character i just go for a tanned white guy with the most race neutral hair. Especially FallOut . I loved Skyrim with mods because I actually made a girl with classy dreads and a beautiful complexion. Lemme see if I can find a pic of her. God, the hair in these games. smh
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Black Desert Online and Blade and Soul are both really good at allowing yourself to make something that represents, at least a part of the features you'd like to see.
Soulbourne games have bad character creators. As do Elder Scrolls. They are highly detailed and customizeable, but its a pain in the ass to make even a semi decent person.
In Mass Effect and Dragon Age it was also surprisingly difficult to make a good looking character. Sometimes you'd have a character you liked in their default face, but every time they started talking or doing certain gestures, their face looked all weird.
Then I prefer making characters that have lesser options, but are more proportionally well based, like in Guild Wars 2.
In Guild Wars 1 nightfall, the entire game was based around north african and middle eastern folklore, and there was some really solid variety of hairstyles and faces to choose from that looked on point. We don't see a lot of games with a african setting. And certainly not in the fantasy realm!
Soulbourne games have bad character creators. As do Elder Scrolls. They are highly detailed and customizeable, but its a pain in the ass to make even a semi decent person.
In Mass Effect and Dragon Age it was also surprisingly difficult to make a good looking character. Sometimes you'd have a character you liked in their default face, but every time they started talking or doing certain gestures, their face looked all weird.
Then I prefer making characters that have lesser options, but are more proportionally well based, like in Guild Wars 2.
In Guild Wars 1 nightfall, the entire game was based around north african and middle eastern folklore, and there was some really solid variety of hairstyles and faces to choose from that looked on point. We don't see a lot of games with a african setting. And certainly not in the fantasy realm!
supermarioworldE
Banned
It's usually the hair that I take notice of immediately. Not many options outside of straight.
ScriptedReality
Member
The people who care of course are the people who are here talking about it lol.
I could make a badass Indian-American with a penis shotgun in Sunset Overdrive.
Dragon's Dogma was pretty good in allowing varied facial features and using different skin textures instead of recolouring a single default - the hair was still very limited, though.
I agree that many games have creation tools that are limited to, or streamlined to, create a certain type of white character.
But keep in mind all races come in a lot of varieties, Caucasians as well. I can often estimate the nation of people from different European countries based on their facial features (not an exact science offcourse). Italians, Russians, Swedes, Germans, etc. I am a white male and my lips are far from small, I also have a thick nose bridge on a relatively flat nose. I have never been able to create a character that resembles me. (I will admit that I probably also suck at these tools, though, heh). And when I was younger and didn't shave my hair short, I had curls. Curly hair isn't exactly a viable option in many titles as well.
Taken together, I agree many creators seem to be aimed at creating a subset of white people, but I feel people of any race or gender frequently encounter limitations. Given technical advances, I do feel this will improve over the years. And I hope good presets for all races and genders will be the norm in the future.
Edit: I would like to add I think it is shitty that it is almost always difficult (or even impossible) to make a decent Black character. While I can't make myself in most games, I do think it is very easy to make a good looking white character in general. That is not the case for a lot of other races. I do not mean to imply otherwise.
But keep in mind all races come in a lot of varieties, Caucasians as well. I can often estimate the nation of people from different European countries based on their facial features (not an exact science offcourse). Italians, Russians, Swedes, Germans, etc. I am a white male and my lips are far from small, I also have a thick nose bridge on a relatively flat nose. I have never been able to create a character that resembles me. (I will admit that I probably also suck at these tools, though, heh). And when I was younger and didn't shave my hair short, I had curls. Curly hair isn't exactly a viable option in many titles as well.
Taken together, I agree many creators seem to be aimed at creating a subset of white people, but I feel people of any race or gender frequently encounter limitations. Given technical advances, I do feel this will improve over the years. And I hope good presets for all races and genders will be the norm in the future.
Edit: I would like to add I think it is shitty that it is almost always difficult (or even impossible) to make a decent Black character. While I can't make myself in most games, I do think it is very easy to make a good looking white character in general. That is not the case for a lot of other races. I do not mean to imply otherwise.
DC1
Member
Making me want to play DD again.. For the 4th time. :,(Dragon's Dogma is cool
Ended up changing his hair when I got to Gran Soren, though.
Orniletter
Banned
MGS V's character creator is one of the alltime greats. Literally every face and permutation looked at least all right, most of them looked great. So much better than the plastic crap you get in most FromSoft, Bethesda and Bioware games.
Those evil Konami-pachinko yen at work I guess.
At least in the creation screen. The ingame versions usually ended up looking pretty bad.
DC1
Member
I care about the look of any CC model for ever game that I buy just as much as the story or gameplay.
What's ironic about this thread is that gaming, through character creation modeling, is about the only place where most people on the planet can satisfy the concept of "someone that looks like me" in the entertainment space.
Great OT Afrocious!
DC1
Member
You telling me....in The Division my girl looks terrible. And any game where i can customize a character i just go for a tanned white guy with the most race neutral hair. Especially FallOut . I loved Skyrim with mods because I actually made a girl with classy dreads and a beautiful complexion. Lemme see if I can find a pic of her. God, the hair in these games. smh
Very awesome!
Weltall Zero
Member
That MGSV pic is mighty impressive! It would be awesome to have a character creator as well made as that one in any game you want. Indeed, I've often wondered if in the future, character creators may be outsourced to dedicated companies and reused between games, much like graphic engines nowadays.
I didn't like MGS V's character creator very much, but that might just be me not being able to understand it. The presets are great, but trying to make something too different from any of them was a waste of time. Ended up going back and just choosing a preset.
It doesn't affect me as much because I'm just used to it, I guess. In real life, I mean. Being mixed is so prevalent in my country, that "random features + dark skin", which is what some people complain about, is pretty much what black people look like here. Same for white people, many of them will have "black" facial features. To the point where skin color is the only real distinction that's made for race.
Now that I think about it, this is probably the reason why I always had more trouble creating asian characters, the fact that my vision of black people is so much more varied. It's just easier to look at a character and think "yeah, that's pretty much what I wanted" if it's something I see all the time.
The wind is pushing meeeeeeeeeeee
It doesn't affect me as much because I'm just used to it, I guess. In real life, I mean. Being mixed is so prevalent in my country, that "random features + dark skin", which is what some people complain about, is pretty much what black people look like here. Same for white people, many of them will have "black" facial features. To the point where skin color is the only real distinction that's made for race.
Now that I think about it, this is probably the reason why I always had more trouble creating asian characters, the fact that my vision of black people is so much more varied. It's just easier to look at a character and think "yeah, that's pretty much what I wanted" if it's something I see all the time.
The wind is pushing meeeeeeeeeeee
HighResTomato
Member
Dab Xenoverse is particularly bad when it comes to creating a black character, I didn't expect much but it's just shocking.
Also in FIFA if you make a black player for your online club you have to pretty much complete all the accomplishments to have black hair apart from an Afro. A lot of people end up with a black character with Caucasian hair.
Not that I expected EA to give a fuck, I mean they could just rip the assets from NBA Live which has a lot of black hair styles.
Also in FIFA if you make a black player for your online club you have to pretty much complete all the accomplishments to have black hair apart from an Afro. A lot of people end up with a black character with Caucasian hair.
Not that I expected EA to give a fuck, I mean they could just rip the assets from NBA Live which has a lot of black hair styles.
KibblesBits
Member
I almost woke up sleeping people over this comment.
To be fair, MGSV doesn't give a lot of freedom to actually customize the facial structure of the character. There's essentially some 20-odd handmade faces to choose from, and from that you can make some small adjustments.
It's a lot different from something like Souls, where I'm assuming there's one generic baseline face to which you can make endless variations through adjusting a massive amount of parameters. Obviously it's a lot more difficult to arrive at a desirable result through tweaking numbers on a generic face than having a professional 3D artist just sculpt the thing.
It's a lot different from something like Souls, where I'm assuming there's one generic baseline face to which you can make endless variations through adjusting a massive amount of parameters. Obviously it's a lot more difficult to arrive at a desirable result through tweaking numbers on a generic face than having a professional 3D artist just sculpt the thing.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Not a race specific problem in those games, lol.
As a black guy the character creator that hurt me most was Xenoblade chronicles X's. It's mostly presets that you can sort of fiddle with but the only "black guy" preset was this dude who looked 30+. Since I'm not that old I just decided to pick one of the "young Japanese or white" guy characters and just gave them darker skin, which felt like a half measure.
As we've progressed to this current Gen I would have hoped for these problems to get better. I'm not asking for the world, just a couple extra curly hair options and a nice face.
As we've progressed to this current Gen I would have hoped for these problems to get better. I'm not asking for the world, just a couple extra curly hair options and a nice face.
Its not perfect but its got the right idea. Its not something you would appreciate if you have never tried to make black or asian characters.
FloatingDivider
Member
As a half white, half black man I agree with this thread. While I'm less lacking for skin tone options because I'm kind of white enough to make do with the South-American skin tones they always include I never have any sensible hair options outside of the corniest fucking cornrows, the joke option enormous Afro, and I always dread the dreads. Nevermind facial hair but everyone got it bad in that department unless you're capable of growing a lumberjack beard. Lumberjack beards everywhere.
ScriptedReality
Member
Which mods were you using for the character creation?
ScriptedReality
Member
Wish I could tell you, this was way back when skyrim came out. I can check my old nexus mod stuff when I get home to try and update you.
The only game that I think that got this right, was Metal Gear Solid V's Character Creation mode.
My friend, who's half-Indian/half-Caucasian, was able to re-create herself in the game, which is pretty impressive, as she had the worse luck otherwise in other character creation games.
My friend, who's half-Indian/half-Caucasian, was able to re-create herself in the game, which is pretty impressive, as she had the worse luck otherwise in other character creation games.