Why is Bethesda so bad at making faces?

[Axolotl]

The problem wasn't the tech. It's just very poor design.
HL2 and VTM came before Oblivion and had much better faces and animation.

Yeah but to be fair they have better faces and animation than everyone.

I think it is just because they don't see it as a priority and it's something that is very hard to do. It's probable NPC interation simply isn't viewed as very important by Bethesda, just look at the voice acting and dialog for futher proof of this. It clearly was important for Valve and Troika and that's part of what makes Half Life 2 and Bloodlines such great games.

 

[Jennacide]

The problem wasn't the tech. It's just very poor design.
HL2 and VTM came before Oblivion and had much better faces and animation.

They also used newer and better built engines. Oblivion is run on a hotwired version of Gamebryo, the same engine they powered Morrowind with, and it was built originally back in late 1999. Source was built from the ground up by Valve with a major focus on doing proper faces, Gamebryo was built as an all purpose engine for doing just about anything you wanted.

Skyrim looks to resolve the durpy faces and need for face modding, which is a good thing. Learning to use WyreBash was one of the worst aspects of playing Oblivion.

 

[Supertask]

Similar to the fact that they had like a thousand faces to make, I think it might be because the face editor allowed such a wide variance in the faces you could create. If they had used a much more restrictive system, say one that gave you 5 face choices for each race, then they could have hand crafted each one to look nice, using more complex tools than the in game face editor. In this case I think visual appeal may have been the price for uniqueness.

 

[Arina Love]

Yeh oblivion and fallout faces are horrible, but skyrim one looks good! i say they learned on mistakes.

 

[Woodsey]

Oblivion tried a large number of new technologies and some of them, like FaceGen and voice acting, were a bit rough around the edges. Both of these were noticeably improved in Fallout 3, and I suspect they'll be much better in Skyrim.

Voice acting wasn't new in 2006.

Oblivion was poorly optimized and threw resources and large textures at things that don't need them at all. Much like forks, plates, and crap like that which leaves everything else with low-res/crappy textures, like faces.

If its wrong to demand thoroughly well-textured forks, then I never want to be right.

 

[Smeggs]

Bethesda's always been shitty faces, a problem that has (weirdly) got worse as tech has progressed. I think the problem is they just didn't really try with the faces. I'm sure I read somewhere that a rock has 1000s of polygons, but the faces only have a few hundred.

Presumably they're scared of making them complicated, because if you give Bethesda something more complicated than a potato (which all the faces look like) then they'll figure out a way to make it glitchy as hell, and the company had to make the difficult choice between Pretty and Broken or Ugly but Working (mostly).

I think it's that they're trying too hard with the faces. Facial expressions should not be a stark contrast between just ", D:<, :I" like pretty much all of them were in Oblivion and the Fallouts. Facial expressions are a soft, subtle thing. I can't ever remember when someone making a smartass remark in the game smirked, only "SUPER HAPPY FUN TIME " smile which did not fit with their tone. Bethesda goes oerboard and makes the faces some form of grotesque blob rather than a face with a mouth, two eyes, and a nose.

 

[shasjas]

I defy anyone to look at the beautiful carrots in Oblivion and claim that Bethesda doesn't know where people want their polygons!

Hot damn, those are some beautiful carrots. Who really cares about 'faces'?

just wait till you see skyrims salmon. damn thats good looking salmon

 

[Hungry Donner]

Oblivion tried a large number of new technologies and some of them, like FaceGen and voice acting, were a bit rough around the edges. Both of these were noticeably improved in Fallout 3, and I suspect they'll be much better in Skyrim.

Voice acting wasn't new in 2006.

Neither were faces, but TES IV was the first time they had full voice acting for all dialogue and there were a few areas that were a bit rough around the edges with its implementation. Chiefly people were unhappy with the variety of voice acting, something that was improved upon in FO3. I also can't recall any odd voice changes in FO3 similar to the beggers in TES IV.

TES III had some complaints about faces, generally repetition and texture detail, but it didn't come close to the complaints about Oblivion. But here again FO3 refined the process considerably.

 

[Wintermoot]

I agree my first thought I had when I saw my dad in FO3 was "holy crap! it,s a fishman!"

 

[Hojou]

I defy anyone to look at the beautiful carrots in Oblivion and claim that Bethesda doesn't know where people want their polygons!

Hot damn, those are some beautiful carrots. Who really cares about 'faces'?

And let's not forget the cheese wheels. Fantastic!

 

[poleboy]

I gotta be honest here, I think the Skyrim screenshots are just a bit over the top. Everyone is screaming with rage or brooding, and everything is dark and brown and gritty. This isn't Vvardenfell dammit, it's Skyrim!

Faces look great however, especially the beastfolk and orcs. Wood elf looks kinda weird though. maybe it's just the hair/beard combo that makes him look like a biker.

I think it's that they're trying too hard with the faces. Facial expressions should not be a stark contrast between just ", D:<, :I" like pretty much all of them were in Oblivion and the Fallouts. Facial expressions are a soft, subtle thing. I can't ever remember when someone making a smartass remark in the game smirked, only "SUPER HAPPY FUN TIME " smile which did not fit with their tone. Bethesda goes oerboard and makes the faces some form of grotesque blob rather than a face with a mouth, two eyes, and a nose.

Another thing that may have influenced this is the persuasion mini-game. The setup of this mechanic requires easily recognizable facial reactions, sometimes in poor or shadowy lighting.

 

[The Dutchess]

So glad other people agree with this. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like Oblivion!
The open world is gorgeous and amazing but the NPCs are a blight on the landscape. Horrible to
look at, horrible to talk to ... for me it makes the game unplayable.
Skyrim looks improved but I've got to be more convinced before I buy!

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I agree. Oblivion was the first 360 game I played, and while I loved it, the graphics never impressed me. It's almost impossible to make a decent looking face.

I say "almost" because while fidling around with the sliders, I was somehow able to make a pretty damn good-looking female face, at least in Oblivion standard.

 

[veloper]

The problem wasn't the tech. It's just very poor design.
HL2 and VTM came before Oblivion and had much better faces and animation.

They also used newer and better built engines. Oblivion is run on a hotwired version of Gamebryo, the same engine they powered Morrowind with, and it was built originally back in late 1999. Source was built from the ground up by Valve with a major focus on doing proper faces, Gamebryo was built as an all purpose engine for doing just about anything you wanted.

Skyrim looks to resolve the durpy faces and need for face modding, which is a good thing. Learning to use WyreBash was one of the worst aspects of playing Oblivion.

Screenshots of Skyrim do look alot better and Fallout 3 already was a step in the right direction when it comes to faces and characters in general.
Maybe Skyrim won't be all that bad. Some design choices from Morrowind wouldn't hurt either. Time will tell.

 

[XMark]

Here's a thought exercise...

Open up any game in which you have a significant amount of control over your facial features when generating a character. Try to make a decent-looking male character, and a decent-looking female character. Then try to make another decent-looking male character who doesn't bear too much of a resemblance of the first one you made. Now do likewise with a female character.

Then imagine having to do that a thousand times. Yeah, I would imagine that would drive the game developers insane.