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[Oni Link 666]

The male Tauren post is pretty big. There's a bunch of text to go with all this. If you want to read it, go to

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13607366/artcraft-running-of-the-bulls-4-7-2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_sRrI7SOwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spPFNwK8Sb4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnhuib5Sz38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptc7GnkYoWA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl2YQ4vUl3c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43FPKPN9e0c

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

Female Draenei

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13698957/artcraft-daughter-of-argus-4-8-2014

Artcraft—Daughter of Argus
Chris Robinson 4/8/2014 172

Hello again! I’m Senior Art Director Chris Robinson, and today we wanted to give you a super quick look at our current progress with the new female Draenei.

After the April Fools’ joke we wanted to ensure you weren’t waiting too long to see where we’re at with her actual character model update. Keep in mind that she’s still in-progress, and doesn’t have any animation to pose her body or face.

Animation is a big factor for the female Draenei specifically, so it’s important to keep it in mind when comparing the two. The original female Draenei has some fairly extreme posing that happens when she’s animated. If you were to see the static model of the original without any posing you’d see that it looks very similar to the new one. With her pose applied her shoulders stretch backward, her pelvis rotates forward, and her chin lowers—causing her head to angle downwards. The curvature in her lower back, and why the head shape looks slightly different, are also due to the new model not having the same posing applied yet. She also looks a lot taller! Ultimately all of those things will be addressed when we animate the new model, they just don’t take place until she’s rigged and sent on to the animation team.

We hope you enjoyed this super quick look at where we’re at right now, and we’ll continuing sharing more in-progress art as we go forward. The next article in the Artcraft series we’re planning is a look at the creation of the Spires of Arak, a new zone coming in Warlords of Draenor. Thanks for stopping by!

Senior Character Artist Joe Keller did the majority of the work on this revamp, with direction from our Lead Character Artist Tyson Murphy (@tysmurph), and myself (@artofcgrobinson).

 

[Nokterian]

Huge improvements and looks amazing. There going to be some great machinima going to be made from this. Also they used the gnome in there first level 90 boost commercial and the facial expressions are very cool.

 

[Coolwhip]

The first night elf leak has me worried

 

[RPGCrazied]

Looks good. Can't wait to see the night elf male/human male and blood elf male!

 

[SargerusBR]

Ugh, male tauren looks too cartoonish even for WoW standards.

Space goat looks okay though.

 

[Savitar]

I thought they were only doing the original races and not from the expansions, that's what people had been saying.

Bit of a surprise.

Looks good, both of them.

 

[Berordn]

The first night elf leak has me worried

They've confirmed they've scrapped that one and gone back to the drawing board on her. Take it as you will.

I thought they were only doing the original races and not from the expansions, that's what people had been saying.

Bit of a surprise.

Looks good, both of them.

They changed their tune on that a while ago, originally saying that Blood Elves and Draenei would be addressed in a patch and then bumping that timeline up to launch. It makes some sense considering how far removed from BC we are now.

 

[Khezu]

The first night elf leak has me worried

Apparently they scrapped almost all of it awhile ago.

It was pretty ugly.

 

[RPGCrazied]

I thought they were only doing the original races and not from the expansions, that's what people had been saying.

Bit of a surprise.

Looks good, both of them.

Nope. Doing them all. They might touch up the Goblin/Worgen. Pandaren isn't getting anything though.

 

[dimb]

They really didn't bother to do much with the Draenei...

 

[Oni Link 666]

The first night elf leak has me worried

I need to see this. Please link to it.

 

[Oni Link 666]

I thought they were only doing the original races and not from the expansions, that's what people had been saying.

Bit of a surprise.

Looks good, both of them.

They originally said that they're redoing everything up to Goblin and Worgen and they might do those later. They really should do the Draenei since Draenor will be full of them.

 

[davepoobond]

Huge improvements and looks amazing.

I agree

Spoiler

(Mostly with the boobs)

 

[Khezu]

I need to see this. Please link to it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=107382455&postcount=6531

Someone posted it in the WoW thread.

She looks like a monster.

 

[erawsd]

Between these new character models, the stat/ability squish, and the reworking of the combat engine this is starting to feel like WoW: A Realm Reborn.

 

[SargerusBR]

Between these new character models, the stat/ability squish, and the reworking of the combat engine this is starting to feel like WoW: A Realm Reborn.

Game is 10 years old, a revamp was sorely needed

 

[Rex Griswold]

They really didn't bother to do much with the Draenei...

They didn't need to. BC player models have aged much better than the classic ones, so I anticipate similar treatment for the Blood Elves, and I don't mean that negatively since I'm really pleased with the Draenei.

But I'm biased since my main is a space goat.

/hype

 

[MattPeters]

Female Draenei looks very good.

Show human males, they needed the most work!

 

[QisTopTier]

hahaha the female Draenei butts got even bigger xD

 

[dimb]

They didn't need to. BC player models have aged much better than the classic ones, so I anticipate similar treatment for the Blood Elves, and I don't mean that negatively since I'm really pleased with the Draenei.

I think the BC models haven't really aged well at all, and it's been years and years since they came out. There's a reason they got snuck in for overhauls.

 

[Loxley]

The first night elf leak has me worried

Don't be.

^^ Senior Art Director at Blizzard

 

[Oni Link 666]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=107382455&postcount=6531

Someone posted it in the WoW thread.

She looks like a monster.

Looks like a vampire. Good to hear they're doing something different.

 

[PFD]

Nice to see them finally replacing those ancient models/animations. The new ones look great

 

[kanuuna]

They never used speculars on player models, did they? The detail they're able to bake into a simple diffuse map is really amazing. The way they bring out the muscles is really nice. Any pre-Cata armor is probably going to look odd with them having pushed the texture resolution up gradually with each expansion.

Now if they could manage asymmetric textures on armor, that'd be something.

^^ Senior Art Director at Blizzard

Shame that they scrapped it because I thought that looked good, if a little less petite than the original. And without the hair, especially the eyebrows in place, I think it's hard to call that a bad piece of work.
You'd hope they could use that for a group of NPCs or a faction that's estranged from rest of the race.

 

[Rex Griswold]

I think the BC models haven't really aged well at all, and it's been years and years since they came out. There's a reason they got snuck in for overhauls.

I agree with you; just because they aged better than the classic ones doesn't mean they aged all that well in the grand scheme of things.

The animations are what will really make them shine.

 

[Fjordson]

Wow, these look fantastic.

So glad they're doing Draenei. Definitely not race changing my shaman now.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=107382455&postcount=6531

Someone posted it in the WoW thread.

She looks like a monster.

Other than the colors being too light I don't see much wrong with this.

 

[Dugna]

hahaha the female Draenei butts got even bigger xD

But the chest shrunk also, so it's like they shifted it down.

 

[QisTopTier]

But the chest shrunk also, so it's like they shifted it down.

Nah they just stopped using a push up bra They are more rounded now and not perky.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Great facial animations. Even if it's all very cartoonish, it's quite nice.

 

[Loxley]

Speaking of model upgrades, Thrall is getting quite the upgrade as well.

Mists of Pandaria model:

Warlords of Draenor model:

 

[Oni Link 666]

Speaking of model upgrades, Thrall is getting quite the upgrade as well.

Mists of Pandaria model:



Warlords of Draenor model:

Thrall's balls!

I heard Mathew Rossi and Anne Stickney badmouthing his new look on the WoW Insider show, but I think it looks cool. He can't put his collar down over his Akuma balls, OK!?

 

[Wynnebeck]

hahaha the female Draenei butts got even bigger xD

I don't think any other female model is touching a female Dwarf butt in terms of roundness.

 

[JCizzle]

Speaking of model upgrades, Thrall is getting quite the upgrade as well.

Mists of Pandaria model:



Warlords of Draenor model:

Man I wish I could roll an Orc with that model and not the giant shoulder player version.

 

[cdkee]

Makes sense that instead of WoW2 they're just going to keep the tech updated (somewhat)

 

[jediyoshi]

lewd

 

[ref]

Both models look really good, all of them do, the new ones that we've seen.

Haven't played in about 4 years, but this next expansion is really making me want to play again, start fresh.

It just pains me that the raiding probably won't be as good as it was in BC.

 

[The Goat]

Looks great. Really like seeing these in more detail like this. Gives the community time to get used to it, and hopefully like it.

I can't wait to see these in Blizzard's own machinima. The Gnome was awesome, so I expect great things going forward.

 

[mollipen]

Dammit I do not want to get back into this game. But… my space goats!

 

[dispensergoinup]

Wow Thrall looks amazing, dat confident pose.

 

[Nome]

WoW still looking *great*!

 

[Xiaoki]

Looks like a vampire. Good to hear they're doing something different.

Must be because of no hair. Night elves have fangs in game right now. They dont have claws though.


Draenei head tentacles still seem a little tacked on. But cant see where they connect and for some reason they get darker at the tips when they should get lighter.

 

[Deified Data]

I dislike WoW and games like WoW but I've always admired its aesthetic. It gets a lot of hate but I find it very emotive and easy to look at.

 

[Dot50Cal]

Speaking of model upgrades, Thrall is getting quite the upgrade as well.

Mists of Pandaria model:



Warlords of Draenor model:

Thrall was not hunched in MoP, that was a model edit to show how he would look like with a hunch as the player characters have.

Both of these are the pre-release MoP model, he stood upright as in the second. To me its not even a question of which I'd prefer. If they stood straight, I'd have more Orc characters. Does this look pleasing to people?:

 

[zashga]

Tauren is pretty cartoony, but I like the expressiveness. That discarded night elf model... yikes.

 

[EekTheKat]

The current Draenei model has severe clipping problems with certain helms,

specifically this one - there's a ruby attached to the collar that's a part of the helm that rests on the chest of the draenei that sinks into her chest in a lot of animations, including idle animations.

It's going to be super disappointing if they don't clean this up for the expansion.

 

[Grief.exe]

Between these new character models, the stat/ability squish, and the reworking of the combat engine this is starting to feel like WoW: A Realm Reborn.

What were the changes to combat?

 

[Oni Link 666]

I doubt they will do much work for old armor. At least not now. I only expect old armor to work and not crash your game or something.

 

[Blueblur1]

The models look great. It makes me want to try WoW again.

 

[erawsd]

What were the changes to combat?

Mostly under the hood stuff. The primary stats have been rebalanced, hit/expertise are gone, they've introduced a bunch of new stats like multistrike and amplify. Theres some other mechanical things like the way they're killing caster mobility and the retooling combo points/facing requirements.