Brink : No Girls Allowed

[Super Happy Cow]

It's just a job, and I'm just entry level. But I know my shit, so don't make yourself look like a complete **** being hyper aggressive and assuming that I don't.

Go ahead. Explain to me the first steps you would take in developing a pipeline that would facilitate the streamlining of the character creation process that would result in 24 distinct looking characters, 3 bodytypes, and both sexes, All within 2 UV spaces maximum, for the base models, and give me an estimate of how long that would take.

To be fair, I am a next-gen 3d modeler for a AAA studio as well. I know artists (character and otherwise) who sit on both sides of the fence on this issue, so I don't think the impression here should be that the opinion of one professional is held by all of them. I don't think that doubling the base models to include females is the way to go, but to see a third to half of the existing character templates as females may have been just as nice, and possibly even give the feeling of more variety with the gender option.

And unless the females were all meant to look and move like the Siren from Borderlands, I question how much separate rigging really needs to be done in a FPS, and one with 3 distinct body types already integrated. Balance is the key, and solutions could be found in the concept/design stage and prototypes tested early on to ensure they feel right. Such a stylized aesthetic as Brink's would allow for a lot more leeway than a strictly realistic one. I say this because I've personally done a fair bit of female character modding for a stylized, male-only FPS (TF2), and while it took some careful concepting to fit the male frame and rig, it was far from impossible. And I was a complete nub when I began the project. The results were well-received by the community by my research (250+ sample, male and female) and Valve themselves.

So just sayin'.

Do you know how many studios close on average per year? And how many people get layed off after every production cycle?

No studio should be forced to take unnecessary risks, though of course it happens all too often, sadly. I don't see how adding females necessarily causes such a tremendous game-breaking risk as you have suggested.

I do understand what you're saying, and I am agreeing in your point: It would be stupid to not send all you've got into a battle. But for me, that only holds true if you know your opponent is doing the same. When you've got something as long-winded as, say, the Thirty Years' War, then having women to bear children is what will keep you existing beyond the conflict, not just through it. I'm not willingly being sexist, but think about this: During the TYW, the rate of birth decreased by about 50% in Pomerania. That's 50% less people than could have been standing against a possible enemy. (Granted, there was famine and illnesses that contributed to the low rates, but I hope you see what I'm getting at.)

Also, ew. I wouldn't care if I was one of the last ten women in my society left due to war, I wouldn't consider it my duty to bear children nor would I willingly choose to. I'd still prefer a gun in my hand, leave procreation to the other nine if they so choose.

Completely valid. Though you do have to consider that females would need to be animated completely differently from males. The rigging is still in issue because you would have to retopologize everything from a completely different sculpture.

And as far as the art direction goes making life easier, I would say it would make things harder. The art direction emphasized masculine features. While having females with similarly exaggerated features could work out, you're not going to get away with using the same base. Not by a long shot. This means building entirely different models, different rigs for different accentuated proportions, different base sculptures different clothing, different unwraps(resulting from different topology), different rigs, different animation sets(both legs and torso).

But if you'd build a highly stylized game with female characters with short necks, broad shoulders and thin hips, that's your style. Go for it.

She brings up an interesting point about Siren from Borderlands though. If she moved differently it was never something I noticed, and characters like Zoey from L4D have the same animations and are built around the same build as the males, and it isn't very noticeable. I suppose in a game like Brink it might be since people are flipping around like Mirror's Edge was the hot new IP to rip off, but I still doubt the validity of the "if they made females they would have been shut down or ran out of money/not have been as polished as it is now" argument.

How much money does it really cost to make female movements look like female movements, instead of just male ones but with more slender legs or something?

But how different are the models? Proportional scales, and very similar builds for 4 characters, rather than the 24 you're suggesting, with various different types of clothing, that all have to animate with a wide variety of weapons.

Also, imho, mirror's edge has not been ripped off in the slightest. The only thing that Brink has that it's predecessors didn't, is wall jumping, sliding and grabbing ledge, which Urban Terror did more than a decade ago(Save for sliding, which it included recently).

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Aaaaand, I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not on the second point. I will say that you should look up Women and the Russian Theater of WWII. When you are fighting for your very existence against an undisputably stronger foe, you throw every single fucking person you have at them cuz in situations like that, the only advantage you have if more man power. It is ridiculous to cut off half of your potential manpower just to preserve the weak womanly folk. For one thing, that is incredibly sexist, and when you are fighting for your very survival you don't waste time on that sort of thing or you lose very quickly, and for two things it's strategically inadvisable to say the least. They haven't regressed to primitive ways, they're a futuristic society! Progress does not start going backwards the father in the future you go!

Just as a last point before I go to sleep:
I do understand what you're saying, and I am agreeing in your point: It would be stupid to not send all you've got into a battle. But for me, that only holds true if you know your opponent is doing the same. When you've got something as long-winded as, say, the Thirty Years' War, then having women to bear children is what will keep you existing beyond the conflict, not just through it. I'm not willingly being sexist, but think about this: During the TYW, the rate of birth decreased by about 50% in Pomerania. That's 50% less people than could have been standing against a possible enemy. (Granted, there was famine and illnesses that contributed to the low rates, but I hope you see what I'm getting at.)

Anyways, g'night folks.

Just about every revolution or resistance movement in modern days have included women. From the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the struggle of Communist China (c. 1920-1948), to the Polish Resistance during World War 2 and onward to Cuba, Kurdistan, Bolivia, Vietnam etc.. The Soviet Union gets bonus points for also including every able-bodied person that volountereed in their armed forces regardless of gender.

See, the thing is you are thinking about this in some wierd quasi-biological way that frankly doesn't make any sense. If you lose the conflict as the rebel force, you have lost, you are gone, dead, you have failed. If you win, there will no doubt be a silent majority that will accept your rule. This is the case in the majority of all human conflict, that the silent majority of the losing side is subjugted and assimilated into the victorious side.

But let's pretend the oppressors doesn't have a silent majority of men and women who will accept our rule and this is a no-holds barred Us or Them slugfest to the last man. You'd need about 50 people in an even gender ratio to be able to establish a long lasting genetical diversity. If you win with less then fifty people on your side left that's kind of the very definition of a pyrrhic victory.

My point being that the arguments about realism, logisticts and survival does not make any sense. Historically, the rebel factions that haven't exclusively cattered to men are the ones that have been the most sucessful simply because they expand their recruitment base, could get more people on their side and didn't exclude based on any criteria but "Do you agree with us?".

 

[duchaked]

ummm I think they shoulda done it regardless. don't see a reason why not except for laziness or someone who just really was against the idea for some strange reason lol

Wow just, really WOW. So you think that throwing in design work and modelling and animations (which may i state include wall jumps ,sprints,ducks,dives,vaults climbing and plain old running which is a lot more than most games) for 3 new models, is something they could of done and they just were being lazy. Just really wow i didn't think somebody could be that ignorant.

okay laziness is a bit strong, tho I'm not particularly worked up about it whatever the reason. but still geez man, we coulda been friends but you seem so fired up I'm not sure I'm ready for that kind of intensity. maybe sometime later we'll see where we find ourselves in life but hey it's not a race. as long as we reach our goals in life

 

[mightybozz]

I know nothing about modelling, animation etc., so I'm going to ask the guys out here who seem to have experience:
Including women would increase modelling costs. I can understand that.
Would it necessarily increase costs of animation? Surely human skeletons operate in the same way when loaded down with guns, bombs and ammo?

And would it be so painful to have, say, a minority of character options women (as I think someone mentioned above) to save on the cost of supplying what might be a minority market, but not exclude half the human race?