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[Silky]

Lol at people making excuses for Capcom. Sheva basically looked as pale as possible. Saying it's the 'lighting' of the game is ridiculous.

Nah, I'd argue it's the lighting. Some scenes she looks more closer to her concept, others she looks really pale. consider that there are some zombies with lighter skin than Sheva.

 

[Mik2121]

[/B]
What on Earth are you talking about?

I thought I explained myself correctly, but I will say it again.

Making slight changes on skin can be done not because the developers are terrible racist people trying to change history (??), but because of how the engine manages lighting. Making the skin a bit lighter sometimes helps letting the asset read better, be it a human or whatever. Not in all games, but if a game is generally too bright (like RE5 seems to be, with the sun hitting all the time), auto-exposure could make darker elements read worse.

This can also result on an otherwise darker asset to look brighter in-game because of the adjusted exposure settings.

I'm not saying this was the case or not, but it happens.

 

[SirJackDaniels]

Maybe they are pale because they are sick

 

[-Plasma Reus-]

Naughty Dog seems to be doing it right.

 

[QuantumZebra]

Define "better".

That's what I'm wondering

 

[@Wreck]

wow Vanessa change is pretty crazy

 

[Fushichou187]

Even worse when this happens in real life..

OT, when devs get asked about changes that seemingly change ethnicities or at the very least opt for a lighter skin tone, what is their response?

 

[Camp Lo]

I might get shit for this, but yes, that can be the case. In one of the games I'm working on, I originally wanted a black main character, but with the art style I want, I found she lost more and more detail the closer I got to her original design. Oftentimes the shadows just made it look awful and in some darker areas the character just looked like a weird moving smudge.

Were I better with lighting, character models and the over all art of the game, I probably could have figured out some compromise that didn't mess up the art style too badly, but sadly I'm just one dude and in the interest of time had to give up on that version of the main character.

Hm, glad to get an insider perspective on this.

 

[BradleyLove]

Of course this discussion also implies black people can be "not black enough", which is equally as harmful.

 

[Sajjaja]

Actor Bill Duke Talks Dark Girls and Colorism: http://youtu.be/tYZ6RWBAcDM

Quoting for the new page.

Don't bother. Reading this thread, people don't want to talk about the larger issue, just take pot shots at japanese developers for giving black girls white hair.

Talk about missing the point entirely.

If someone clicks it, it's better than no one at all.

 

[Steroyd]

Spoiler

Bwahaha that reminds me of this, to a lesser degree.

 

[Silky]

More specifically she's Ethiopian/French and is an exchange student in japan.

Her tribe is in Kenya though? I'm pretty sure Kenya is under Ethopia

Maybe they are pale because they are sick

Wasn't Birdie originally a white guy?

 

[Banana Aeon]

This doesn't look black, this looks like solarium gone wrong

It does look bad, but instead of whitewashing her, they could have put some effort into making her look better.

 

[PhoenixFyre]

Hm, glad to get an insider perspective on this.

Just to be clear, I wouldn't count myself an insider, just a guy part of a two man team trying to make our own games. I just don't want to paint the picture that I work for some gaming dev.

 

[Anung]

Man, I absolutely love Sheva's design.

 

[Infinite]

Her tribe is in Kenya though?

You right.

 

[redmetal86]

Sheva looks pretty close to the concept art when you remove the puke green filter from everything.

Kinda reminds me of Jada Pinkett Smith here.

 

[EdwardTeach]

Better? Because they lightened her skin, changed the colour of her eyebrows and did literally nothing else?

That sounds awful suspect to me...

Suspect in what way? Surely he is entitled to his opinion, it is purely subjective as to which skin tones someone prefers.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Also happened with Connor in AC3. Not sure if the original plan was for him to be darker skinned, but that's some serious white washing. He's practically lighter skinned than his British-born father. The "mixed race" excuse makes it even worse because of the supposedly "consensual relationship" between his parents. But that's a whole other even uglier form of the white washing of history. Lightening a character's skin color usually hides another form of cultural and political violence (as it does in this case).

He's half english, and there's absolutely nothing supposed about his parent's relationship, him being half english is not an excuse, he was like that from the start. His in-game model is actually darker than the final concept art.

He's also darker than his actor.

 

[papercan55]

Take Resident Evil 5 for example, and Sheva Alomar.
From concept art...

She's pretty isn't she? Looks awesome. Then something got lost in the evolution of the character.

sheva was only introduced after capcom showed of an amazing looking resident evil 5 which had chris fighting off against an army of africans, the gaming press went wild with racism accusations so they introduced sheva and made the game co op to balance out the problems.
once the racism storm had died down they slowly made sheva less dark skinned but kept her as a cop op partner, resident evil 5 was ruined.

 

[Silky]

Sheva's in top3 for best RE girl. Shame no one will appreciate her characterization because RE5 was apparently a bad game.

 

[DoktorEvil]

Bwahaha that reminds me of this, to a lesser degree.

Wait, you're saying a pirate who spends her life traveling on the seas wouldn't have a tan?

Of course this discussion also implies black people can be "not black enough", which is equally as harmful.

That's where I fear these conversations will lead to.

These conversations about skin color seep into Latin America, where race and ethnicity can be twice as confusing.

 

[Sword Familiar]

Sheva's in top3 for best RE girl. Shame no one will appreciate her characterization because RE5 was apparently a bad game.

I like her too :/

 

[Camp Lo]

Just to be clear, I wouldn't count myself an insider, just a guy part of a two man team trying to make our own games. I just don't want to paint the picture that I work for some gaming dev.

I meant more that in rare cases it can just come down to the art direction rather than a more nefarious scheme.

Of course this discussion also implies black people can be "not black enough", which is equally as harmful.

Yeah, it's on its way.

 

[Ralemont]

Of course this discussion also implies black people can be "not black enough", which is equally as harmful.

I don't see that implication in this thread. It's one thing to look at lighter skinned black characters and say they should be darker skinned, it's another to look at characters that were originally darker and watch them get whitewashed. This thread is about the latter it seems to me.

 

[Pyramid head]

Some of the spinning in this thread...


"Ohh, Sheva is lighter than her concept art! That's racist" (even if the concept art was made by the exact same company). Then someone shows another character in the same game that actually became darker... "Ohh, Sheva is lighter than her concept art! That's sexist!" (wut).

Seriously. In many games the skin being lighter is usually a visual limitation. If the game tends to be dark, making your character too dark is going to have him blend in a bit too much, or you won't be able to see certain expressions that the developers wanted. Going for a lighter skin isn't usually as much a racist thing, as it's just for visual clarity in the game, and how the game manages contrast and lighting.

So true, man.

At first, I couldn't work out why I kept getting killed when playing RE5, but eventually I discovered the screen was actually filled with all of these dark skinned 'zombies' which were just blending into the scenery.

 

[ShinMaruku]

Given that black people have a huge assortment of shades of colour, I can't really comment on don't make her 'too' black. I view it as if ya got colour you got colour. I mean my family in Jamaica is in the 'not too black ' catergory because well 2 great grandparents from Europe and Asia so of course we'd look a bit different.

Since Vanessa now looks like Beyonce I can call that white washing.

 

[PrinceKee]

Killer Instinct had some "character lightening" also. Even though i don't think Orchid is Black...

From This...

To This...

 

[mantidor]

Character design in fighting games is awful overall to be honest. I was reminded of the Sofitia debacle as well.

 

[Leafhopper]

Bwahaha that reminds me of this, to a lesser degree.

That one actually was kind of explained though.

 

[Kinyou]

sheva was only introduced after capcom showed of an amazing looking resident evil 5 which had chris fighting off against an army of africans, the gaming press went wild with racism accusations so they introduced sheva and made the game co op to balance out the problems.
once the racism storm had died down they slowly made sheva less dark skinned but kept her as a cop op partner, resident evil 5 was ruined.

In hindsight they just should have switched Chris with Sheva entirely.

 

[Mik2121]

So true, man.

At first, I couldn't work out why I kept getting killed when playing RE5, but eventually I discovered the screen was actually filled with all of these dark skinned 'zombies' which were just blending into the scenery.

I assume you're being sarcastic? I doubt dark skinned zombies would blend on the scenery of RE5. However HDRI could kick-in and make their faces harder to recognize. That could be one of the reasons why they made a main character lighter.

Again, I didn't say this happens always, but it's a real reason.

 

[sixteen-bit]

I hate what they did to Vanessa between VF4 and VF5

 

[Zing]

So now, people aren't "black enough"? What's next? Characters in games that aren't gay enough? Women characters not feminine enough? Clowns that aren't funny enough?

 

[TheBlackMarvel]

Suspect in what way? Surely he is entitled to his opinion, it is purely subjective as to which skin tones someone prefers.

There's a difference between "I prefer this" and "this is better".

 

[Deleted member 47027]

Given that black people have a huge assortment of shades of colour, I can't really comment on don't make her 'too' black. I view it as if ya got colour you got colour. I mean my family in Jamaica is in the 'not too black ' catergory because well 2 great grandparents from Europe and Asia so of course we'd look a bit different.

Since Vanessa now looks like Beyonce I can call that white washing.

I totally agree that people shouldn't be given shit for not being black enough - which is why I've tried to focus only on people that were whitewashed. I don't want anyone to think I'm saying "Well Sheva just isn't black enough" as the issue is that they've changed her.

 

[oneida]

man I wanna learn Vanessa.

 

[ShinMaruku]

They wanted Vanessa to be Beyonce. Beconce's grand parent was white so they white washed her. It also could just be that Sega said "She too dark" without any malice behind it just ignorance.

 

[Camp Lo]

Killer Instinct had some "character lightening" also. Even though i don't think Orchid is Black...

From This...

To This...

Looks like they changed her for the better. Damn.

 

[Silky]

Killer Instinct had some "character lightening" also. Even though i don't think Orchid is Black...

From This...

To This...

Orchid is Tibetian-American that used Janet Jackson as a face reference for their character. I MUCH prefer the Orchid in KI '13

Jago was also tibetian american that looked like a Japanese dude in KI1/2 and now looks like a bald dude with a Rohan Kishibe hairstyle.

 

[Crossing Eden]

In hindsight they just should have switched Chris with Sheva entirely.

And have Sheva kill Wesker? RE5 was about Chris finishing the fight with Wesker.

 

[dark10x]

You're looking too deeply here. The issue is that most of the world now uses LCD displays as opposed to CRTs, good plasmas, or OLED based monitors. Due to inherently inferior LCD technology creating any character with an overly dark complexion (whether human or not) would lead to potential issues. You'd be controlling a character shaped slice of LCD backlight as opposed to an actual one.

VF4 was designed for CRTs, VF5 (arcade) was made for LCDs. Bam. There it is.

Spoiler

*all tongue in cheek, by the way*

 

[FF Seraphim]

Maybe Vanessa took a vacation to Japan and put sunscreen on only to find out that the stuff bleaches your skin but it was too LATE!


I am being somewhat serious here, for some odd reason when my wife and I were in Japan she couldn't find any sunscreen that didn't have something that bleached your skin.

 

[Izuna]

Didn't they make American Boy music video b&w because the UK Adele refused to be whitened up like blacks in America do?

May be a rumour though.

 

[Kinyou]

So now, people aren't "black enough"? What's next? Characters in games that aren't gay enough? Women characters not feminine enough? Clowns that aren't funny enough?

I think there's a point to be made when a character became more light skinned over the course of the development, or just became more lightskinned in the sequel. Those "He isn't asian enough" accusations that were thrown around with Far Cry 4 made me cringe though.

And have Sheva kill Wesker? RE5 was about Chris finishing the fight with Wesker.

True forgot about that.

 

[MHWilliams]

This is why when people talk about "creative vision", I chuckle a bit. In most large games, there's thousands of people working in tandem on the game with dozens of stakeholders pushing and pulling the final product in their preferred direction.

Of course this discussion also implies black people can be "not black enough", which is equally as harmful.

Incorrect. It implies that the original "creative vision" was a dark-skinned character and developers/publisher decided that was a problem.

So now, people aren't "black enough"? What's next? Characters in games that aren't gay enough? Women characters not feminine enough? Clowns that aren't funny enough?

Also incorrect. See above.

 

[LiK]

Given that black people have a huge assortment of shades of colour, I can't really comment on don't make her 'too' black. I view it as if ya got colour you got colour. I mean my family in Jamaica is in the 'not too black ' catergory because well 2 great grandparents from Europe and Asia so of course we'd look a bit different.

Since Vanessa now looks like Beyonce I can call that white washing.

I agree with this

 

[ShinRPGamer]

To be fair, Vanessa's origins are "unknown" according to the wiki. It could be explained with her not having dark skin, but having a temporary tan that went away.

Did the fading tan also result in her muscles becoming less toned?

 

[BronsonLee]

VF3 says hi

...We don't talk about that game D:

It's possible. No one said it was a natural tan. Could be using a spray tan or similar product.

Doesn't prove anything of course, but the same could be said about most people's assumptions in this thread.

Or the infinitely more likely solution of her being whitewashed hardcore; I doubt Vanessa has time to do spray tanning while punching people in the gut over and over again

 

[Crossing Eden]

I don't see that implication in this thread. It's one thing to look at lighter skinned black characters and say they should be darker skinned, it's another to look at characters that were originally darker and watch them get whitewashed. This thread is about the latter it seems to me.

But we're talking about games whre there are also examples of characters who were lighter and got darker. And the implication that racism is the sole reason why. I mean we even had a guy saying that Connor from AC3 got whitewashed.