Guild Wars 2

I had so much trouble creating a character appearance that I felt satisfied with.

I was sifting through screenshots and ran into the one on the left and remembered that I took that to compare it to the ingame one.

The problem is that when you are done creating your character, there’s a good chance it will not look the same ingame. This had me repeatedly creating a character, start the game, then delete it because something was “off” that changes what I was going for.

I stopped that vicious cycle after I finally realized what’s going on. Here, have a look:

Probably because the character generator uses super high graphics settings, and your ‘after’ picture looks like it’s on pretty low settings.

turn on high-res textures.

Please. I knew that was the first thing that was going to be said. Here you go naysayers:

turn off post processing

seriously

Hmm, Im no photographer but… Holy moly! You expect two things to look the same in different lightning? Especially when these two things are low poly models in a game?! Check your character preview in the hero tab.

Yup I felt the same way, No real problem if you’re a charr or an asura coz you know shudder but if you’re a norn or a human, the before and after are starkly different.

my characters look exactly the same, so, idk and i have a mix of low/medium/high settings.

Nice, you became her sister once you created the character.

“Probably because the character generator uses super high graphics settings”

Would be excellent to have an option to use these super high settings in game. If it floors my fps I’d turn it off but it would be good.

As someone else said, the lighting is different.
Have you tried clicking the little yellow lightbulb on the
left picture? : p. That turns off the background lighting and
so makes you able to see what your character will look like in
low-light settings; particularly useful if you create a Sylvari, as their
hair changes color during night.

The LZ it’s not just the lighting, look at the clothes, the in game ones are much less sharp and defined. The face and hair the same.

If we all ran around with our toons that well defined it would probably hurt our fps drastically but I’d still like an option to turn this on just in case my comp. could handle it

Well this isn’t a solution to your problem but :P I actually like the 2nd picture (non-character-creator) because at least to me she looks a lot more realistic. Well ye the lightning itself isn’t realistic but the face, the make up, it looks a lot more realistic then the first picture.

But ye, the character creator uses different lightning settings and also higher res textures.

I just tried that myself and they look exactly the same to me? At least for the character I make?

http://imgur.com/a/N3oQE

The second one looks just like her, I think? The third one looks a little different, but the lighting is such that it’s reflecting off her eyes differently, and makes them look much lighter or brighter than they are in standard lighting.

You got a nice tan in that 3rd pic notebene.3190 did you go to Elona on holiday? :P

As other pointed out, it’s the lighting and post-processing that’s messing things up. Other than that, nothing mysterious going on.

ANet’s designers just don’t have a grasp – yeah, talking to you, guys – on the more subtle, technical, nitty-gritty aspects of graphics productions – just as most people in the industry don’t. That’s why we’ve seen the all-consuming bloom-n’-brown and dirt and grit and motion blur everywhere that everyone hates, yet all developers just keep doing it.

It’s not exactly a simple matter to master, but it all stems from the idea of viewing things from as many different angles and making sure it still looks good. Because otherwise you end up with something that looks good on the rigs you have in your office, yet horrible on your friend’s TV. And you friend ain’t gonna appreciate your game more if you keep telling him he’s looking at things the wrong way.

There are a few differences in your graphic settings than mine as well. Maybe nothing that should make ‘that’ big a difference, but something to consider.

Check this out as well if you want to improve a few things yourself : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/better-colour-overall-graphic-FXAA/page/4#post566647

Also, the human starting area is raining with greyish/dark colors, it’s best to get out and into Queensdale with some sun to get a better idea of your character.

Paul.4081:

You got a nice tan in that 3rd pic notebene.3190 did you go to Elona on holiday? :P

At least that chars´ boobs are attached. Mine, not so much.

But the facial features at least seem to be pretty much as I designed them on creation.
And that´s on med setting as the client won´t allow high res on my WinXP.

Draco isn’t it because it’s on the Unreal Engine? It seems dev’s keep trying to use the bloom etc. in that just because it’s there, then gamers keep turning it off asap

BL2 is also on the UE afaik and the depth of field option is just rubbish, these cheap effects like bloom and DoF have had there day. It’s not natural looking unless you smear vaseline over your eyes when you go outside.

Noticed this with dyes as well, some of them look really nice in the editor but look drastically different ingame.

OK so I fixed the settings and used SweetFX and colors etc, now it looks much better.

Now I ran into another issue. I bought the total-makeover kit by mistake, so I thought what the hell, now’s my chance to make an actual comparison.

What I found was that the face of my character was elongated in-game. If you look starting around the bottom lip down to the chin area, you can see how it does not match the character editor to the right (no, I have not made any changes whatsoever when I opened up the editor).

What say you people?

Artifacts during story cutscenes:
Self shadow cast.
Left Asure Dead eye
etc,etc.

Engineer Grenade plank halfway thru my head XD

No matter how I look at it, the difference is there. A couple more screenshots:

Oh oh, here’s a picture from the front (check adam’s apple on both and see how it’s visible on the editor, but no in-game):

Take a passport picture of yourself, you’ll get same results in real life.

With the last few pictures you’ve posted, I think part of the reason the chin looks longer in game is that her head is tilted slightly downward. In other words, in the CC she has her chin up. Look at the profile pics and you’ll see that the angle of the hair bun changes. In-game, hair bun is higher than the top of her head, in CC the top of her head is higher. Also the tip of her ears: in CC they line up with her eyebrow, in game they are higher than the eyebrow because her head has a slight downward tilt. It’s pretty subtle.

The LZ.7891:

As someone else said, the lighting is different.
Have you tried clicking the little yellow lightbulb on the
left picture? : p. That turns off the background lighting and
so makes you able to see what your character will look like in
low-light settings; particularly useful if you create a Sylvari, as their
hair changes color during night.

Yep. Doing this is especially vital if you play Sylvari.

Ayan.1750:

Oh oh, here’s a picture from the front (check adam’s apple on both and see how it’s visible on the editor, but no in-game):

In the makeover kit you character is lit from the front left by a diffuse (soft) light there. In the in-game shot you’re lit harshly from what looks to be directly right. I think that would explain the difference there.

Tomkatt.1684:

Ayan.1750:

Oh oh, here’s a picture from the front (check adam’s apple on both and see how it’s visible on the editor, but no in-game):

In the makeover kit you character is lit from the front left by a diffuse (soft) light there. In the in-game shot you’re lit harshly from what looks to be directly right. I think that would explain the difference there.

I think lighting is one of the real drivers in the comparison. The character generator only has to light 1 figure so it can use a more complex lighting system and still be reasonably responsive. Out in the world, there are many more figures for lighting to interact with, so I expect that lighting is scaled back a bit.

Out of curiosity, how does the look of your character compare to character creation when you’re in a cinematic dialogue sequence? In theory, it would be the same kind of environment from a lighting perspective… only 2 figures to light…. but it ain’t my personal work, so I’m just speculating.

Animation:
I just want to add, as I’ve created the ‘perfect’ toon, only that once ingame a characters hair will be stiff as a board or looks awkward once they start moving around.

What you need is come kind of 3D room to ‘play’ with your toon in to get an idea of what it will look like. Rather than the current ‘print preview’ we have now in character creation.

Udolpho.1209:

With the last few pictures you’ve posted, I think part of the reason the chin looks longer in game is that her head is tilted slightly downward. In other words, in the CC she has her chin up. Look at the profile pics and you’ll see that the angle of the hair bun changes. In-game, hair bun is higher than the top of her head, in CC the top of her head is higher. Also the tip of her ears: in CC they line up with her eyebrow, in game they are higher than the eyebrow because her head has a slight downward tilt. It’s pretty subtle.

Yeah, I noticed that on the first couple of pictures. Though even with the subtle head tilt forward, it still seems to be a bit much and unnatural. Definitely a design flaw.

Its simply, ur char has gotten ugly with time and age…sucks to be old

Ayan.1750:

OK so I fixed the settings and used SweetFX and colors etc, now it looks much better.

Now I ran into another issue. I bought the total-makeover kit by mistake, so I thought what the hell, now’s my chance to make an actual comparison.

What I found was that the face of my character was elongated in-game. If you look starting around the bottom lip down to the chin area, you can see how it does not match the character editor to the right (no, I have not made any changes whatsoever when I opened up the editor).

What say you people?

It’s not elongated, your character is in a perfectly static posture in the character creation screen, whereas in game your character is in a more natural posture; head tilted slightly down, slack-jawed, shoulders slumped, hips forward, etc… It would look really really unnatural if your character ran around the world with perfectly erect posture as if she was constantly posing for a picture.

It’s lighting & fov. Nothing to do with textures or elongated mesh blah blah.. you took kitten in the creator with bright pre-set stage lighting & one at moon-lit night in Kryta. You honestly think they should look the same?