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

[Noble_Cactus]

I do miss the simple Guyver-ish look of the older frames. For those who don't know what the OP is referring to:

 

 

Which is interesting, since Nekros (who came many updates later) seems to be directly inspired by EVA. And I'm sure there are other influences from popular scifi anime in some of the frames that came after the originals that I'm forgetting.

 

 

But I don't think it's correct to attribute the oiled latex look to Mynki. Unless he outright specifies that he wants his frames to look shiny, I'm pretty sure that's due to some design shift in the modeling/texture making department. I mean, I'm sure he has a hand in seeing how his designs come to fruition in game, but I don't think it's entirely on him.

 

-

 

As for Zephyr, I like her design except for the fact that her colors all jumble together in what the OP called the melted ice cream effect. The overall idea of the suit is fine with me. Just the mesh itself is ugly.

 

Hydroid is okay except for the parachute pants. It just looks really bad in practice. I remember seeing the teaser that only showed his upper half and thought he looked great... until they showed off his model on stream. And then my excitement deflated like a popped balloon - which, incidentally, is what his pants look like.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[Draciusen]

I honestly love how Zephyr looks.

[Mak_Gohae]

No, they need to get rid of the dude who came up with the idea for the armor pieces.

Each frame has their own unique looks which are now being destroyed by generic bits placed all over the place.

Most of the frames lost their kick butt original shoulder designs just to accommodate this stuff. 

That's not the way to do cosmetics.

They should have given us all "generic" shoulders like they sort of did with Banshee.

[Cynick]

Agree with the OP so much it hurts. Have been wanting to say this for a long time but was fearful of the repercussions (aka the army of red/black/gold/white ice cream wearers).

Edited May 30, 2014 by Cynick

[Noble_Cactus]

Agree with the OP so much it hurts. Have been wanting to say this for a long time but was fearful of the repercussions (aka the army of red/black/gold/white ice cream wearers).

Unfortunately, you will see armies of red/black and black/gold color palettes in any game that gives you creative freedom over a character's colors.

 

No, they need to get rid of the dude who came up with the idea for the armor pieces.

Each frame has their own unique looks which are now being destroyed by generic bits placed all over the place.

Most of the frames lost their kick butt original shoulder designs just to accommodate this stuff. 

That's not the way to do cosmetics.

They should have given us all "generic" shoulders like they sort of did with Banshee.

Only problem is that this takes more work.

 

But really I do agree with you. Three alternate shoulders unique to that frame would have been fine.

[Zarozian]

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

 

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

Break Blade

 

Evangelion

 

Mynki is an anime guy so I favor his designs.

 

 

 

Though sometimes I feel that some concept certainly are better.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Zarozian

[Instinction]

 

Was this the fan concept or was it something else?

 

If the Zepyhr in game actually looked like this, I would keep it.

But considering how ugly she is, she is getting leveled then trashed.

This game sells itself A LOT on the aesthetics of design, and many weapons and frames are not very aesthetically pleasing.

 

The best example for me is the Grinlok.

Good lord is that thing ugly as hell, it looks like a repurposed tree branch.

 

But look at some of the original design concepts!

Almost all of the concept designs look badass! So how did we get a spindly little stick gun out of those?

 

I realize there can't be a community vote on every weapon put out there but man, there needs to be a second word on what is going out before it does, because I'm sure if the community would've voted from those concepts, the Grinlok would not have come out as it did.

[Ionus]

If the Zepyhr in game actually looked like this, I would keep it.But considering how ugly she is, she is getting leveled then trashed.This game sells itself A LOT on the aesthetics of design, and many weapons and frames are not very aesthetically pleasing. The best example for me is the Grinlok.Good lord is that thing ugly as hell, it looks like a repurposed tree branch. But look at some of the original design concepts!

Almost all of the concept designs look badass! So how did we get a spindly little stick gun out of those? I realize there can't be a community vote on every weapon put out there but man, there needs to be a second word on what is going out before it does, because I'm sure if the community would've voted from those concepts, the Grinlok would not have come out as it did.

I personally think the grinlok looks fine as-is. It fits the Grinder's gritty industrialist theme just as much as the other concepts there.

[(PSN)PillarOfWar]

Ugly guns? The Hind looks more like an infested weapon, but I like it. The Grakata looks like a Dewalt. I like Grineer stuff, but the Grakata looks so bad.

Edited May 30, 2014 by (PS4)PillarOfWar

[Dead_Rabbits]

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

If mynki made volt he would have some weird insect like appendages hanging off him some where.

[Tulzscha]

Moved to the proper section.

[Snilah]

Was Mynki ever briefed on the previous designs of Warframes? Or asked to show any consistency? The designs made by Mynki certainly are... Interesting? But they are completely different to the older Warframes designed by the likes of Keith Thompson. It throws up all kinds of inconsistencies among the already present ones. These newer Warframes could almost be from another faction entirely, they don't look like Tenno hardware. Even the Tenno weapons, such as the most recent elegant Sybaris, just do not match with the likes of Zephyr and Hydroid. The original concept of Zephyr by Inuzuka was completely butchered in my opinion. His concept showed all the design subtleties a themed Warframe has had in the past, like Rhino. While yes, this may be subjective on my part, the inconsistency of the designs has got to objectively bad, right?

 

It almost seems like the current Warframe artists have just gone and done their own thing without any pointers or direction by DE, and it feels to show a lack of respect to the artists who have designed Warframes in the past. If Warframes like the current ones continue to be produced the others will be nullified. Unless the idea is in fact to phase out the original Warframes in order to make the newer designs the standard, I don't see why these made it out the drawing board. If that is the case however I doubt I'll be playing for much longer.

 

To be blunt, I don't like Mynki's designs. There are people on here who do and I guess that's fair. I'm not gonna go above my station and use this first post on the forum to ask for someone to be removed. But I will at least ask if there's any chance of more subtle and sleek alternate designs in the future? And if Mynki's designs and the most recent Warframes are to set a standard for all upcoming Warframes?

[Divine-Seraphymne]

I just can't help thinking it's a huge shame that DE stopped getting concepts from Keith Thompson. Especially since his work is incredible. Or atleast brief the design team to try and stay on track with the original warframes.

It's rather jarring to have rhino up against Zephyr with both of them looking as though they are from completely different games.

Someone brought this to my attention recently and how great it would look as an Orokin enemy rather than the normal enemies with hats on we have now.

http://www.keiththompsonart.com/images/full/seraguardian.jpg

Although as before I don't believe in getting rid of Mynki's designs even though I don't like them personally. I just would enjoy some alternatives to them that are more inline with the original warframe designs even if they are for a premium.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Divine-Seraphymne

[REDACTED]

Well we may be getting a look at some new Corpus/Infested enemy designs in the coming event. Hopefully they show a little more consistency than the warframe visual progression.

[tloid]

The original frame designs by Keith Thompson were one of the main reasons I started playing this game. I'm a big fan of his work, but when I first saw the warframes I didn't even know he was involved. Excalibur, Volt, Rhino, the three first frames I remember, were all gorgeous.

 

And there are a lot of gorgeous frames. Frost, Ember, Ash, Loki, Nyx (femscalibur), Nova. The others don't live up to it.

 

Note that most of the frames I note as gorgeous are mostly early frames.

 

And looking at them they all have a simplicity of form that the newer frames fail to encompass (the melted ice cream look you so aptly call it). Mynki doesn't seem to have a good understanding of what made Thompson's designs so great. But I can't blame him for not being able to live up to such a master artist as Thompson. Few can.

 

But he tried and failed, on several occasions. Thompson's designs have an elegance to them. If you look at the older frames' helmets, you might notice that most of them are very simple in shape. With a lot of newer helmets and alternate helmets, there's a serious issue of over-detailing. Dangly bits here and there, streaks of melted ice cream running into other streaks... They try to do too much with too little. But to their credit, Valkyr's body design I would classify as Good. It's not a very interesting design, only really spiced up by the presence of corpus tech, but the balance between the different coloured surfaces could not be much better. If only the helmet was that good.

 

Let's take a look at volt, my all-time personal warframe. There are three main coloured parts. The helmet is almost a featureless drawing of a human head with a horn and a spoiler tacked on, and three "eyes". It looks good regardless, it manages to to work with the simplicity. Then look at the chest bit. It's smooth, triangular, it tells you that it's a hardened piece of armour, opposed to the upper legs, which look soft because the texture is very much like the soft tissue of some insects. It's a lovely touch by the modellers. With volt, you get a good idea of what is armour, and what is soft tissue. There's balance. It's a great design. And frankly, I think the model doesn't even live up to the concept art, which has a lot more tiny colourful details.

 

So Mynki, if you're reading this, I can say Mynki, right? I'll just call you Mynki, because this is a forum post and by the time you might respond I've already written the entire thing. So, Mynki.

 

Your designs are cluttered and noisy. You did a good job with Valkyr and Nova, they're gorgeous, and Vauban wasn't half bad, but the current designs are too blotchy. There needs to be more intent in the designs. They need to be slick and deliberate. No more stuff like Hydroid, who looks like he's wearing massive deflated latex pants. Try to look at the original artwork by Keith and try to figure out the common elements that made his designs great. Then apply them in your own way to new frames.

 

And the grineer. Oh god I haven't even touched on the grineer and I've already addressed Mynki. Look, the grineer look great, their art direction is absolutely gorgeous. But what have you DONE with the prosecutors? You get the idea they're supposed to be elite grineer units, but they just look goofy. Their legs, their hips, their size. They're not very imposing, they don't give off an aura of danger (at least not one made of particle effects)

[Innocent_Flower]

So... Who made saryn's look? 

[Divine-Seraphymne]

So... Who made saryn's look? 

Mynki I believe.

[[DE]Draice]

Mynki is the Art Director for Warframe, and has been since development on Warframe began. His artistic vision is what has lead Warframe to become the popular game it is today. Both Mynki and Keith worked on many of the earliest Warframe concepts, and all weapons, skins and other art assets are run by him for approval before they are released into the game. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on his work, but please remember that we are targeting a broad audience with the design of our Warframes. What you might view as massive travesty might be the perfectly realised concept for someone else.

 

I know Mynki designed the original Excalibur and he remastered the Excalibur Proto-Armor skin that was resurrected from Dark Sector assets. That said, we do occasionally outsource Warframe concepts to Keith, in fact Hydroid and the next Warframe to be released are born from his imagination. The Immortal skins are all concepted by various in-house concept artists, while a significant portion of other concept requests are outsourced to Studio Qube, who have worked on alternate helmets, weapons, the UI and a number of other things.

 

So in short, we do have other people designing Warframes, but please remember to be respectful to Mynki and the other artists working on Warframe. Everyone is working hard to make this the best looking, uniquely styled Free-To-Play game around.

[Snilah]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on his work, but please remember that we are targeting a broad audience with the design of our Warframes. What you might view as massive travesty might be the perfectly realised concept for someone else.

 

Maybe trying to please everyone is whats causing the massive inconsistencies that are apparent in the game.

[Caernarvon]

but please remember to be respectful to Mynki and the other artists working on Warframe

 

Please tell them to stop it with gun designs that don't make any sense (firearms without anything to hold the ammo/no magazines, gunsights obstructed by the weapon's own body, physically impossible mechanical features etc).

Please.

I don't mind Warframes having all kinds of magical powers, but guns need to either make sense or go full wacky, no in-betweens.

[PsychedelicSnake]

Well that didn't last long.

[Divine-Seraphymne]

Mynki is the Art Director for Warframe, and has been since development on Warframe began. His artistic vision is what has lead Warframe to become the popular game it is today. Both Mynki and Keith worked on many of the earliest Warframe concepts, and all weapons, skins and other art assets are run by him for approval before they are released into the game. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on his work, but please remember that we are targeting a broad audience with the design of our Warframes. What you might view as massive travesty might be the perfectly realised concept for someone else.

 

I know Mynki designed the original Excalibur and he remastered the Excalibur Proto-Armor skin that was resurrected from Dark Sector assets. That said, we do occasionally outsource Warframe concepts to Keith, in fact Hydroid and the next Warframe to be released are born from his imagination. The Immortal skins are all concepted by various in-house concept artists, while a significant portion of other concept requests are outsourced to Studio Qube, who have worked on alternate helmets, weapons, the UI and a number of other things.

 

So in short, we do have other people designing Warframes, but please remember to be respectful to Mynki and the other artists working on Warframe. Everyone is working hard to make this the best looking, uniquely styled Free-To-Play game around.

Thanks for weighing in Draice and I really honestly didn't mean any disrespect to Mynki. I hope it isn't taken in that sense by anyone over at DE.

 

But your post brings up so many other questions.

 

What was the concept for Hydroid like? Especially since the concept for Zephyr (The fan art) and the final product are so vastly dissimilar.

 

In addition the style of the warframes have changed so much since the game started. The earlier warframes are far more detailed and have a great Guyver-esque look to them whilst the later warframes appear more latex and plastic.

 

Is there a reasoning for this? Are there plans to go back and redo the past warframes if the plastic/latex style is what the design team want the warframes to look like now?

 

But not to stray too far from my OP, I just hope that if you guys find time that someone might think of implementing the original fan art concept for zephyr even if it's for platinum like the proto skin for excal.

 

Unfortunately I know a lot of people that refuse to play zephyr because of how bad she looks and this seems like a huge waste but I can emphasize with them. I think a remesh/retexture even for plat would help people play zephyr and help people get into the game who can enjoy the designs rather than the very outlandish and hard to understand stuff we are getting recently.

[Zeromanicus]

Of the newer crop of frames, Valkyr and Oberon exemplify extra detail without being overburdened by detail like i feel Zephyr is. I still like Zephyr though, it's just rather different from other frames and that's alright for me, unique is cool.

 

Having had a closer look too, i'd like to just say Banshee is excellent. From a distance you never really get a good luck at her, but i really think she has a cool mix of detail and smoothness.

[Katakuna]

Well that didn't last long.

 

I'd say it was shocking how short it lasted, but..

[White_Raven]

Uhm... i got not much to say but only one thing, a messege to Mynki and other artists: Keep the design simple, and smooth (like Excalibur, Mag,...).