A Message To The Dev, Design And Art Team Regarding The Design Of Frames.

[ValhaHazred]

I dissagree with your assesment. GOOD DAY SIR!

[(PSN)luminousvoid26]

Just to clarify that my post was not being stated as fact but as opinion. I do agree though that we need more options stylewise for all the frames really and a totally different approach for alt helms. One of Vaubans looks like a beret with a fan in it...if we are expected to want to pay 75 play for an alternate helmet, they should be better than that.

[Brahmastra]

I just pity the fact that the concept looks so clean and sleek.. while in reality it's just a mess.. sorta..

 

[SJunior]

I just pity the fact that the concept looks so clean and sleek.. while in reality it's just a mess.. sorta..

 

 

I'm pretty sure any frame would look bad with the color scheme in the middle.

 

The one on the left looks fine.

[KeepOnFlowing]

Zephyr is pretty hot in my book. LAY OFF MAN!

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

I like the original concept better also (the one by Inuzuka) due to its clean lines and more Asiatic design, but hey, everyone likes something or other, and all have a right to express themselves. However, I don't mind Zephyr as she currently is because of those legs! Trinity also! I can't decide between one or the other!

Edited May 29, 2014 by -SLX-J3tAc3

[Dead_Rabbits]

At least they got away from putting horns on all the helmets.

 

seriously? horns? what made that seem like a good idea?

[Archistopheles]

seriously? horns? what made that seem like a good idea?

 

Dark Sector.

[MrMitchel]

I understand that Mynki has the idea of implementing ugly designs or parts of the design to give the frames character. And this I can agree with in principle. I also believe it's an artists choice and judgement to what he produces.

 

 

Dunno, they've give weapons a work over, some of the warframes need it too for sure.  I can understand wanting to stand by your work, but it's not just art, it's also a product.

Edited May 29, 2014 by MrMitchel

[drMightyPotato]

I got nothing wrong with Zephir, in fact the only frame i have qualms with is Exalibro and thats only cause of the fact that his ''armor'' (seriously Volt looks like he has more ''armor'' that Exa) makes him look like a guy in a spandex with a beer gut.

[Ionus]

"Beauty is in the eye or the beholder."

[Divine-Seraphymne]

Just to reiterate. My main aim is to provide alternatives to Mynki's design work that is more inline with the original 4 frames and the original designers ideas.

 

Not to scrub out Mynki's take on it.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Divine-Seraphymne

[Ionus]

Just to reiterate. My main aim is to provide alternatives to Mynki's design work that is more inline with the original 4 frames and the original designers ideas.

Not to scrub out Mynki's take on it.

DE already kinda said they're messing with the idea of complex skins like the Proto skin. The armor is probably a forerunner to this.

But currently it falls in the same category as gender swaps and isn't worth the work put into it for the minority that can't deal with Trinity's lobster tail.

Also, as I said in another thread, stop bringing up champion skins from League. Warframe takes WAY more polygons to create.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Ionus

[-SLX-J3tAc3]

Just to reiterate. My main aim is to provide alternatives to Mynki's design work that is more inline with the original 4 frames and the original designers ideas.

 

Not to scrub out Mynki's take on it.

That's all I heard here, really, nothing more than that.

[Grascen]

I feel like the design team lost focus on their Warframe design. Helmets and suits no longer look sleek, but instead have odd shapes, non-functional bits, big bulky parts, rough textures, and a lot less flow(I'm looking at you, Oberon, with your funky bib).

 

I understand not having everything look pretty, but if something is entirely non-functional and ugly, the what is the point of it?

 

"See we have this new Warframe and he has this huge disgusting boil coming out of his right shoulder."

"Oh... gross. Does it do something? Does some sort of acid shoot out of it or does it have to do with his theme?"

"Naw. It's just a boil. We put it there because someone said it might add character. We also thought it might look neat if it glows while you channel."

[LoopStricken]

I do feel like some of the recent frames seem a little... busy.,a little cluttered.

 

Zephyr, I like her legs. I like her alternate helm. But her chest design and her arms, there's just too much there, too much going on. Her 'plumage' is just, there's just too much going on there. Too much detail.

 

Hydroid is just a bloody mess in my opinion. I like the idea of the frame conceptually, but in practice it's like someone stapled a mass of pillows onto his legs.

 

The newer frames just feel overdesigned for design's sake.

 

I mean, one of the first warframes is still one of the most aesthetically-pleasing - Nyx

 

Yes I know it's one of Ember's poses, but still (and when are we getting those Warframe stance unlock options, DE?). Simple clean design, but you can't deny it's a good one.

 

=====

 

So I took a screencap of my Zephyr;

like I said, other than the overly-busy chest area, I like the design. But as I was curious, I took the exact colour scheme and put it on some other frames.

 

Nyx:

It's not that bad.

 

Vauban:

... meh. It's not terrible, but it's not great.

 

Valkyr:

... it's not overwhelming.

 

Oberon:

I actually like this.

Now obviously, these are quite contrasting colours - the brightest White, the most vibrant Red - but they could look better if I'd also changed which channels each were applied to. For consistency, I did not.

But then we get to Hydroid...

... no.
He just looks melted and... urgh.

 

I understand Hydroid is based off water, and is almost piratical, but his face tendrils (or what passes as a beard on his alt helm) do little else than clip into his chest. Those... things on his lower legs, whay the hell are they meant to be? What imagery are they meant to invoke, what aspect are they meant to represent?

And he has four great bloody spikes sticking out of his hips, for no apparent reason.

 

====

 

Edit: just to try and save my reputation a little, I still feel that this is the greatest Warframe design;

 

... because the default Excalibur Prime 'jogging suit' design is bloody silly.

Edited May 29, 2014 by LoopStricken

[Deicul]

Daily reminder that volt, the best frame by far, wasn't even made by mynki.

http://blog.keiththompsonart.com/2013/07/volt-from-warframe.html

Edited May 29, 2014 by Deicul

[Divine-Seraphymne]

DE already kinda said they're messing with the idea of complex skins like the Proto skin. The armor is probably a forerunner to this.

But currently it falls in the same category as gender swaps and isn't worth the work put into it for the minority that can't deal with Trinity's lobster tail.

Also, as I said in another thread, stop bringing up champion skins from League. Warframe takes WAY more polygons to create.

If that is the case I find it a real shame.

 

Especially considering how polarizing Mynki's design decisions are as this thread obviously shows, there really should be some sort of cosmetic alternative to the frames he's creating.

 

Even more so when the original four frames look so incredible and have inspired the design aesthetic of warframe completely as space ninjas/guyvers.

 

It would be nice if there was at least a premium cosmetic option to go back toward that starting point rather than further down the road of latex bibs and melted ice cream textures.

[Kyte]

I like Zephyr's general shape but it's unbelievably busy. There's no need to stuff all four channels onto the chestplate, and there's way too many grooves and bumps all over.

 

And the melted ice cream textures, of course.

 

And the inevitable Immortal Skin won't fix it, because many of the problems are in the mesh itself.

 

(Incidentally, Frost Prime looks bad with light colors because the very nice etching in Frost's coat is still there in Frost Prime's even though the pattern itself is different. Frost Prime really needs a new mesh with an updated etching.)

Edited May 29, 2014 by Kyte

[Cabadath5]

Well spoken op.

 

Most newer frames certainly lack the same feel that the older ones have....

 

If you show most of the newer frames next to the original ones to someone that is not familiar with the game I doubt they would believe they are from the same game.

In my opinion the last few ones don't even look like warframes at all.Sure some frames such as Vauban (clown shoes) and Banshee have some ugly bits that "give them character" and will stay(still don't understand how that works when most people would gladly have some of those parts removed) but they still felt like a warframe.The newer ones now?They lack the somewhat futuristic, sleek and eldrich/mysterious feel to them that the first frames in the game have.

 

Zephyr, Hydroid and Oberon at least feel like something pulled out of a fantasy MMO.

 

My hope is that they will eventually decide on changing designs for certain warframes.

[Ionus]

If that is the case I find it a real shame.

 

Especially considering how polarizing Mynki's design decisions are as this thread obviously shows, there really should be some sort of cosmetic alternative to the frames he's creating.

 

Even more so when the original four frames look so incredible and have inspired the design aesthetic of warframe completely as space ninjas/guyvers.

 

It would be nice if there was at least a premium cosmetic option to go back toward that starting point rather than further down the road of latex bibs and melted ice cream textures.

 

TBH I'm content with Mynki's work so far. Call me biased.

[Othergrunty]

I agree with OP.

 

Before i go into this long comment, i'd like to reinforce that i appriciate all the hard work of the design and art team and they are still producing a lot of good work. Still...

 

It feels to me like the art team has lost some "focus" on their designs over the months the game went Open Beta. Which is especialy notable on the Warframes. The originaly early Frames have a nice simplicity to them while still being very unique looking.

Frames like Excalibur, Rhino, Volt (who is also a product of the artist mentiond) and Loki especialy find a great balance between being detail rich, fitting their theme and staying simple enough. They also incorperate both technological elements while having an outer layer that looks like an armored fabric with cloth designs.

 

They have set a standard for how all other Warframes should be measured.

 

Sure not all of the early frames hold up to that standard either, especialy the armored suit part is lost on most of the female frames (Banshee actualy comes close to having it and Ash is a male frame guilty of it), but that doesn't make them look bad.

 

This simplicity feels lost on some of the recent designs. Specificaly Zepyhr, Hydroid and Oberon who are so meshed together that their overall appearance become a bit of a lost weirdness.

 

I hate to say it, but the Zepyhr fan concept as shown by Sasquatch is simply quite ahead of the "birdy" Zephyr we got in the game. The bird theme simply feels too forced, especialy after Rhino has set a basic standard for how animal themed Warframes should look like. There are hints of the Rhino animal in his design, but he still looks like a human in an armor designed for heavy combat. Meanwhile Zephyr looks like she is wearing a bird costume in style of Condorman, not having a bird theme in a high tech suit. It becomes very busy as Kyte calls it.

The Zephyr fan concept meanwhile is more in line with Rhino, he has bird elements incorperate in an otherwise human design. It's also not overblown with little bits that distract the eye, but fit together nicely. This guy nailed the design philosophy of the early frames.

 

Oberon suffers similary having an animal theme hit in with a crowbar rather than finely mixed into a more reasonable base design set with Excalibur and co. Infact he pretty much looks like someone quickly mixed Excalibur with the popular image of a satyr.

 

Hydroid finaly tries to hard to incorperate a Pirates of the Caribbean theme (Davy Jones specifically), rather than being a Warframe designed with water manipulation in mind. It makes me dread to think how Volt would look if he would be designed nowdays. Most likely based on Electro from the Spiderman comics having a helmet with lightbolts slapped on and being overal yellow and green colored by default.

 

I wouldn't be suprised if an artist pitched Hydroids design as a joke and everyone loved it so much that they wanted to share this great joke with the rest of the players. And now we have a Warframe in the game who looks like a fat pirate rather than a cybernetic high tech suit that happens to be able to manipulate water.

 

It feels like something similar happend with Valkyr. Her overall design is actualy quite good, but the logic behind it gets lost quicky. Like they got so focused on the "escaping prisoner" design, which seems inspired by Wolverine escaping Weapon X, that they begann to ignore the logic issues behind it.

Valkyr looks like a character in a specific situation, not a type of "exo-suit" you would mass produce and hand out to other similar individuals.

The design such as it is, makes no sense, since it would imply either that the Tenno send a half damaged Warframe back into battle without even attempting to fix it a bit or that they replicate it completely with restrains and spikes through the arms.

Valkyrs design should have rather been focused on giving her "fixed" parts which imply the previous damage or restraints, rather than showing them still on. Perhaps the escaped prisoner skin could have been giving to players similar to now the Proto-Excalibur skin, but it should have never made it into being the official appearance.

 

Now i'm not against creative freedom, it's great and helped giving this game it's unique visual style, but perhaps without some restraits it can go out of controll..

 

In the end, that's just my point of view. I assume a lot of other players like the birdy Zephyr and the ARRR MATEY Hydroid a lot more than the "boring" Excalibur or Loki and might even hope we get a more "updated" appearance for them instead. But i think it's important to remind the designers to consider their focus again.

 

Either way i don't want to tell the design team how they should do their job, which they are actualy doing very well, but that their recent designs don't fully feel there anymore, having lost what a Warframe should look like in it's most basic.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Othergrunty

[Sparrohawk]

I don't have a problem with most of the frames. I have thought that Hydroid and Zephyr are a little on the graphically busy side, which is not to my personal taste; I just rarely play those frames. Warframes like Nyx and Valkyr are more to my liking.

 

One thing it's probably important to remember is that an Art team are still primarily artists, and artists (good ones, at least) tend to explore new techniques, new concepts, new ideas quite regularly. If I had to make a guess, Mynki and his team may have decided that the next few 'frames could be higher on the polygon count to let them test out how more detailed designs would fit into the graphical style Warframe has. Whether or not that has been a success is ultimately opinion.

 

For myself, I'd encourage them to try a more sleek, smooth-lined approach with the next 'frame or two; I would be curious to see how their experiences could help with that kind of design. Perhaps in the future we might see Warframe-specific cosmetics (like Valkyr's Bonds) that let people have a more graphically detailed Warframe, yet allowing others to keep a cleaner-lined version of the same thing.

[(PSN)PillarOfWar]

I like the in game Zephyr way more than the fan concept art. But she is kinda hard to get a good color combo on.

I like the Hydroid but it is spoiled by the extra bits that make no sense. Like the four things sticking out of his waist and he is bulky in weird places around the thighs and crouch. His coat tails are fine but why the front. I hope he trips on it to exstration. And he is a pill to put nice colors on.

[(PSN)CrimsonShinku]

I agree completely. Some frames have good design, like Vauban (leaving aside clown shoes) and Volt (seriously, my first and most liked frame yet, style-wise). And then, we get lobster-behing frame, "dangly bits" frame and Cone-eater frame, which, with Zephyr and Valkyr, make the horrendous five (though some could be improved with small tweaks, some are just disastrous).

i'm pretty sure volt was made by richardson too