[To DE] Banshee's Deluxe Skin - An Open Letter to the Art Team

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

@SilentCynic well considering that there are many popular posts revolving around this, its safe to say that its a pretty popular opinion

[Aearie]

1 minute ago, Eureka.seveN said:

@SilentCynic well considering that there are many popular posts revolving around this, its safe to say that its a pretty popular opinion

Again though, for every 1 post on this topic there are probably thousands of people who aren't posting their opinions, for or against it. So, rather than discuss how popular the opinion is, we should instead just focus on our personal preference.

I fully understand and agree that customer feedback is important, and I'm not suggesting DE should just ignore it. Obviously the middle ground on these kinds of matters is the best place to be. I just assumed we all already considered that to be the case, which is why I didn't add that into an already long post. What I was saying is that when DE makes changes to a concept art, they are making changes so that the skin is more in line with what they are trying to go for, and they should be able to make those changes as they see fit. Just because they didn't make the concept art doesn't mean they shouldn't have a say in the matter. Artistic expression doesn't end at the concept art.

After that, they can consider customer feedback and decide how willing they are to deviate from their original idea. That, however, doesn't mean they should submit to everything the community asks for either, and whether or not they are selling the skin isn't even a factor. It's whether or not you see the feedback and either agree with those changes, or the changes are insignificant enough in your artistic vision that you are willing to compromise.

Otherwise, you basically become a sell out, which as an artist myself is the last thing I ever want to become. And I imagine I'm not the only one.

[YasuFox]

Personally I like the skin as is. I see no issue with her proportions...speaking of which. thats the one thing Ive noticed in alot of complaints that makes me very angry. the fat shaming. its not cool..and its not nice and kind of disrespectful to real women with real figures...your hourglass thing waist is not a real proportion. unless you stop eating and throw everything up. I like the fact that shes a little thick.

[Hesyol]

15 hours ago, Thursley said:

After that, they can consider customer feedback and decide how willing they are to deviate from their original idea. That, however, doesn't mean they should submit to everything the community asks for either, and whether or not they are selling the skin isn't even a factor. It's whether or not you see the feedback and either agree with those changes, or the changes are insignificant enough in your artistic vision that you are willing to compromise.

I don't think that's just community's opinion. I just looked at the concept art for Trinity's deluxe skin and it didn't change that much.

Anyway, they may or may not listen to feedback but what matters is - do they want this skin to sell? So I think it would be good if they take our opinion into consideration.

[tsubasakuroi]

Imagine the rage and salt from the Rhino fans if the Palatine skin had a body type much closer to Volt/Loki/Excalibur.

Pretty understandable to me why some people aren't happy at all with Banshee deluxe skin. OP pretty much covered what was wrong and more with the deluxe skin when it was shown off at devstream 68 and 72. I still feel like the body type itself is the number one reason that caused so much uproar on it, with the textures just making things worse.

But, at this point all we're likely waiting on is the alternate skins for weapons or whatever else they want to throw in with the package.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2016 by tsubasakuroi
adding on extra

[Lijka]

On 2.04.2016 at 9:25 PM, Eureka.seveN said:

We have PBR now, it should be hell of a lot easier to support more texturing types other than glossy plastics yet here we are now.

Trying to dye Saryn Prime into autumn-y colours makes her look as if she was made of plastic. I wish texturing on other frames was revisited as well.

[kubbi]

3 hours ago, YasuFox said:

Personally I like the skin as is. I see no issue with her proportions...speaking of which. thats the one thing Ive noticed in alot of complaints that makes me very angry. the fat shaming. its not cool..and its not nice and kind of disrespectful to real women with real figures...your hourglass thing waist is not a real proportion. unless you stop eating and throw everything up. I like the fact that shes a little thick.

The figure in the skin isn't fat. Its a healthy figure. Though I can understand why people see it as "fat". You see the triangular armor shape at her belly? That gives it an illusion of being wider than she is. Though I disagree about the part about being disrespectfull to real women. Women come in all sorts of shapes. Women can be naturally thin as well.

Not that any of that matters. Warframes aren't people but are most likely husks of infested flesh in armor. The main issue here is people wanting the skin representing the concept art as close as possible. The current skin shown in the devstream is far off the original concept.

Edited April 15, 2016 by kubbi

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

3 hours ago, YasuFox said:

Personally I like the skin as is. I see no issue with her proportions...speaking of which. thats the one thing Ive noticed in alot of complaints that makes me very angry. the fat shaming. its not cool..and its not nice and kind of disrespectful to real women with real figures...your hourglass thing waist is not a real proportion. unless you stop eating and throw everything up. I like the fact that shes a little thick.

I understand your frustration, but this thread is not a question of that. Also many people have different perspectives on what is unattractively "fat" or "skinny". Yes, skinny shaming is a thing.

Some people think a little bit of glorious chub n tuck is great others don't, thats just individual preferences of people and no one can change that. My desire to change the skin is solely for the sake of being representative of the concept. Although I have very controversial views on this subject especially now with the increasing number of "fat acceptance" movements (i mean obese not curvy), but I rather keep that topic for another time and not here.

[Aearie]

3 hours ago, Hesyol said:

I don't think that's just community's opinion. I just looked at the concept art for Trinity's deluxe skin and it didn't change that much.

Anyway, they may or may not listen to feedback but what matters is - do they want this skin to sell? So I think it would be good if they take our opinion into consideration.

Right. They didn't change much because it didn't deviate from what they wanted with the skin. But they shouldn't feel obligated to obey the concept art in a game they created. That would be seriously put a damper on the creative process.

By the end of the day, if you are making something creative, you have to decide what you are willing to stick with and what you are willing to change. It isn't a matter of just blindingly following feedback, that completely misses the point of feedback in the first place. Especially when they couldn't be sure what the popular opinion really is with some required poll to log in to Warframe (which they wouldn't do obviously because that would be ridiculous). And even with this, whether it will sell or not shouldn't be the absolute answer to everything when you make creative products. If that IS the case for you, you shouldn't become an artist. There are better professions where you don't have to worry about having any artistic vision at all. However, making a video game is art, and Warframe clearly is one with a distinct style the art department is trying to go for. So in matters where a concept art deviates from that vision, you then sit down and decide what you will keep and what you won't. Sure, you'll keep in mind that deviating to much from the concept art may cause people to not buy it. But you also consider how much you are willing to give up in order to please other people.

Listening to criticism is very important, and it's the best way to improve your craft. However, listening to feedback to the point where you no longer have a unique feel to you art makes the whole process pointless. You might as well not bother if you are just going to regurgitate what everyone expects you to do.

And with that, I'll don my fedora and ride into the hipster sunset. Although a top hat would be more apt.

[Konachibi]

I also agree with the OP on nearly everything.  I was sooo happy when I saw the concept art of Banshee back in January and have been looking forward to her deluxe skin ever since, but when the first development image was shown I felt a little put-off as it lacked the character of the concept art, and then when Rebecca showed the rendered model with the colour changes in devstream 72, I just kinda felt a bit 'meh' about the whole thing.  I can understand not wanting to make warframes look too robotic because it'd look strange with their very human movements, but I feel like they're making the same mistake here as they did with Saryn deluxe, giving female frames a very... 'wide' waistline.  Saryn deluxes waistline is almost identical to my own, and whilst I'm not one to say I'm fat to any degree (I consider myself a happy 'average'), I certainly wouldn't consider myself fit enough to be able to sprint around swinging swords and leaping through the air, whilst original Saryn was significantly curvier, which is why after a short time using the deluxe skin I reverted back to her original look.  You have no idea how thankful I was when I found that Saryn Prime's figure and appearance was based on her original appearance rather than the deluxe skin.

With that said I do have a couple of theories on some other points.  

Firstly, the helmet lacking the wires from the concept art.  This I would imagine would be a difficult thing to put in, not just from a clipping issue but also from the player's ability to equip that helmet on a normal or immortal banshee skin.  Given they have a different shape for their torso (original Banshee being a little larger in the chest area), the connection of the wires to the chest would likely pass inside original Banshee's frame which to some would be considered a minor issue that could be ignored but to others would be a really big deal.  Along with that, there's also the issue of trying to have two connecting points with some degree of physics inbetween them which is much more complex to impliment over a single connecting point and free physics from then on.  I don't think it'd be completely impossible to put the wires on, but they'd need to reshape deluxe Banshee's torso to be more similar to original Banshee's, which is kind of what people want anyways, and probably make the wires very static to get around any physics issues.

Secondly, in regards to her dress.  A lot of people may notice when playing as frames like Equinox and Trinity Prime, or using syandana's like the Izvara, that the loose cloth physics have a nasty tendency to clip through objects regularly.  Along with that they have a severe lack of physical object detection, so when those physics objects collide with a part of the frame, they will normally pass through that part of the frame rather than be pushed back by it.  To render Banshee deluxe's dress in the same manner as something like the Izvara would likely require a lot of reworking the game's physics engine for much more simulated cloth collision detection so as to prevent the dress constantly clipping through her figure, which is also why I think Saryn deluxe and Saryn Prime have skirts that act in a very 'plastic' manner like the Banshee Deluxe models appears to.

This second case of course may also account for Banshee deluxes wider waist.  I'm not saying I'm any kind of expert on how video game physics works, but it could be that there is a limitation to how wide an attached physics object can be and how it will act depending on it's size, when attached to a frame in such a manner in order to render good simulation.  Looking at a lot of different cosmetic items as well as some of the newer frames, it would appear that larger loose cloth simulated objects have issues with clipping constantly and acting somewhat erratically, and aren't often curved around an object (such as the Izvara), whilst the more 'plastic' physics objects can be more freely shaped and will often have better collision detection, but have issues with smooth movement when being made larger (such as the Yomo).  As a result, this could have had an impact on their decision to give Banshee a larger waistline, in order to achieve the necessary size of the physics part of her dress to make it act correctly without having to drastically flare out her hips and make her look unnatural.  Also from a more realistic viewpoint, the thing with dresses is that if a woman has a thin waist with wider hips, the classic hourglass look, then dresses, even short ones, will be very tight near the upper thigh which restricts movements such as running or even taking long strides, and attempting to do such things will often result in either the dress tearing at the hip or rising and bunching up at the waist.

I do have my own criticism for the Banshee deluxe skin though that others don't mention, but I feel the need to voice it because of what the Oberon deluxe skin seemed to imply.  Whenever we see Banshee, or read her description on both the wiki and the codex, she is described as 'silent and deadly'.  As a result, she's often shown or drawn wiedling a bow, since those are silent and deadly.  Because of this, I dissillusioned myself into believing that Banshee deluxe would likely come with a skin for a bow, most likely the Paris, as that's what she is shown using in her in-game icon.  However, the Oberon deluxe skin then came out, with a Paris skin, and I'd be lieing if I said I didn't feel... quite angry about it, as bows really aren't Oberon's thing, and I would be the first to say he most certainly shouldn't possess a weapon skin for a weapon that hardly any Oberon player would use.  This has got me wondering as to what Banshee deluxe's weapon skins will be, it would only make sense to make it either silent or precise (the precision of course to compliment Sonar), so if she were to come with a skin for something ridiculous like a Braton, Tonkor, Ignis or a Gorgon I would be seriously confused as to what DE are thinking.

On a final note, I will be getting the Banshee deluxe skin, as a friend has offered to buy it as a belated birthday present, but if I were to buy it with my own money, I'd likely have to have someone display it to me in-game before making that decision.

[Plushy]

Maybe DE should stop releasing concept art altogether. It doesn't seem to be doing anything but cause problems.

I still don't see enough of a difference between the concept art and the final product to deserve so much attention.

[yoanguila]

On 2/4/2016 at 4:25 PM, Eureka.seveN said:

If you frequent the forums, you are aware of the heated arguments and frowned brows amongst many patches around the warframe community revolving around the body type and shape of the banshee deluxe skin releasing this April. Because of this many people have been going around in posts saying "ah she is fat" others saying "ah it does not match the concept" and of course the "omg stop fat shaming crowd".

But in this post I hope to remove all of those irrelevant topics, and give you guys (the art team) a clear, concise and unbiased (as much as I can) case as to why people are so flustered over the banshee deluxe skin. In this post I will point out all the qualms that the community has with the skin to the tiniest complaint. This is not to give you guys a hard time, as an aspiring artist at my local college, I understand the drive of further improving my technique and my creations. Although since you guys have a much broader stroke and a larger audience than I ever will as a student. I hope that this post will neatly point out the issues that people are having over this skin, so if possible further improvements are made. Also many people want to buy this skin, they really do, and they wouldn't be complaining if they didn't care about it. This is merely an act of love by myself and maybe if the community approves of it, the community as well.

I dont mean to start any flame wars, so allow me to just equip my flame repellent mod on:

Now let us begin shall we:

A) Lore

Around two months ago Francois Cannels a independent artist, creator of the trinity strega skin, released a banshee deluxe skin concept art. This would later be posted on reddit and of course creating the hype amongst the community

 

This would be the first iteration of the concept art which would later finalize into this

You can clearly see why Francois work was praised by many members of the warframe community.

Later on, Digital Extremes modeled the skin and it would be show on devstream #68, this is where it gets messy

The model freaked out warframe players and were basically angry over the fact that the 3d model did not retain the sleek features of the concept. Creating many forum posts like "would you prefer a thinner banshee skin?" on the warframe forums

 

The same model with animations would be shown on devstream #72 and with no visible changes compared to the previous devstream this created more pointless controversy and bickering.

B) The Issues

We will now examine why the community is upset over this, hopefully I will go into as much detail as I can.

B-1) Thickness of her robes

If players use predominately female/male frames with dresses, cloth, kilts, etc... , you may have noticed that in most cases cloth goes from the hips/ waist down where the breezing animations begin. Although (and i think this is why many people got excited over this) banshee's concept showed the significance of a full body robe/dress. So clearing we were expecting use of warframe's cloth physics to create a full body robe. Another thing to point out was that the robe was implied to be thin cloth. Which is none of the traits that were shown in the devstream. Here is a representation of what we have been shown for the 3d model.

Now this is important because this is probably where the "oh shes fat" stands out. You can clearly see that banshee's dress is thick, it's not thin at all. This gives the illusion that she is "fat" but in reality she is not. Her physique is perfectly normal. The issue at hand here is the thickness and form of the dress that is creating the illusion of precieved largeness. This is a huge problem for this particular subject because it's clear that the artist's intention was to make the dress very thin and sleek, but because of the modeling it is not. 

Now one may say "well maybe the engine cant support thin cloth physics" and to that I answer you are completely wrong. What if I told you that there is a clear example in game of thin cloth physics. The Izvara Syndana, if you own this syndana I implore you to check it out in game or, refer to this video by " Lilliannette " who showcases it.

It is now clear that Warframe's engine can support dramatically thinner cloth physics, the issue her is why weren't these cloth physics applied to the entirety of the deluxe skin's dress. Why is the dress so thick when the concept implies other wise.

B-2) The animation of her robes

If you refer to the devstream 72 video, at the time stamp I provided. You will see rebecca play around with the animation and cloth physics of banshee's dress. And if you observe closely the dress is only wavy from the waist down. But if you observe the concept (refer to segment A), because of 1) the lines that run down from the breast area to waist 2) the implied break in the 3d model at the waist (no break in the concept) to imply that there is a divide when there shouldn't. The dress is clearly supposed to be a full body dress, there is no denying it whatsoever, you can tell from the concept art that the artist clearly intended to make this a wavy full body dress or else he would of added information explaining the contrary:

Based on the devstream this are the areas which seem to be animated

 

And this is what people seem to want animated

And I can understand where people are coming from when complaining about this. Many frames follow this fashion of "waist down dress-like physics". But it seems to be a repeating trend fror many frames. Atlas, Ivara, Trinity Prime and many other frames just have these waist down cloth physics. I'm not saying that its not cool, but it would be nice if there were more uses of the newly implement cloth physics and banshee's concept provided an avenue for that change. Which is why I sincerely  suggest that you guys change it.

C-1) Upper Shoulder Area

Referring to the concept art in segment A. You can clearly see that there is a divide between the actual dress and some sort of separate cloth on the skin, based on the variation of color on the skin. This is important, that change of color indicates a change in fabric or cloth and in the 3d model it seems that the modelers unified the entire piece to the dress. This in my opinion reduces the value and detail of the skin, people are spending around 16$ CDN worth of plat for this. For people to want this skin, they want to be able to play around with it. Simplistic designs are always welcome but in this case, it's clear that that divide is mandatory. Because as we can see in the 3d model and product the skin becomes monochrome. I know you guys are limited to a few tint masks, but there has to be a way to either make it fit or simply add another color option. We should not be limiting our artists to 5 tint masks, if some frames need 6 or 7 then 6 or 7 should be provided to them.

In essence that shoulder area thats colored darker than the rest of the dress needs to be a seperate area to color. This is another qualm that many people have with this skin.

D-1) Materials

Its clear in the concept that the robes are silky but not shiny. Because of this the majority of the skin is a plastic sort of shine. This is a huge complaint that I see often concerning this. We have PBR now, it should be hell of a lot easier to support more texturing types other than glossy plastics yet here we are now. This is also EXTREMELY relevant for the stocking areas. (If you want to see what I mean refer to the 3d model or even the devstream link above)

Im my opinion, it would be much more intuitive to get a more matte look to the stocking and maybe a more materialistic look to the dress. Mesa is the best example for this:

She's not this glowing disco ball. She' nice, matte and the reflections are very discrete. Once again the Evolution engine have proven to successfully generate not only thin cloth physics but matte-like textures. I believe that using mesa as a reference for this skin would solve many of the issues that pockets of the community have.

TL;DR less shiny more poppy darks and matte.

E-1) Nitpicks / Smaller Changes

1) There is details missing on the face

2) The headphone wires are gone, i don't think people care if they clip they just want them there, because seriously they look damn awesome.

3) Bigger more rounder headphones. (yea people were bottom of the barrel for this one)

4) More detail on tights. Its all black in 3d model.

5) THE ARMS, give choice between DJ arm and Spiky Arm :(

F) Final Words

This is my case on how using some of the assets we already have, to make the banshee deluxe skin more desirable and more in tune to Francois' concept. Francois you are a great artist, your deluxe skins are fantastic and I hope you make more in the future. I hope that this post keeps the intention and integrity of the original concept. Please Digital Extremes, it's not a question of "fat "skinny". It's a question of doing it right, I love all of your warframes regardless of body type, they are all pleasing to the eye but this should not pass. I think many players would be overjoyed if you reworked the 3d model of this skin it's really nice and if the following problems are fixed, it will be a guaranteed buy for me, hell Ill even gift another one to a friend.

So please DE from the bottom of my heart even if you have to postpone the release, I don't care. Ill wait another 2 months if I have to, but please do it right.

 

 

 

 

I agree, DE try to stick to the concept of Francois like Oberon, Trinity, Rhino and so on.

[Alexstraszo]

The problem is actually the waist though... I'm not a fan of the stupid DJ theme for a SOUND frame not a music frame. I'll still buy it just to have all Banshee cosmetics, and hopefully it will grow on me.

[FoxyKabam]

6 hours ago, Mislich said:

hopefully it will grow on me

same feeling here

I'm worried I'll buy it and hate it later

unlike trinity's skin where I bought the pack for the bo skin and ended up loving the trinity skin more than any other

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

6 hours ago, Mislich said:

The problem is actually the waist though... I'm not a fan of the stupid DJ theme for a SOUND frame not a music frame. I'll still buy it just to have all Banshee cosmetics, and hopefully it will grow on me.

 

3 minutes ago, FoxyKabam said:

same feeling here

I'm worried I'll buy it and hate it later

unlike trinity's skin where I bought the pack for the bo skin and ended up loving the trinity skin more than any other

I respect your opinions, but by doing so you are telling DE that it is okay for them to release a product that you don't like and you will still give them your money.

[FoxyKabam]

1 hour ago, Eureka.seveN said:

 

I respect your opinions, but by doing so you are telling DE that it is okay for them to release a product that you don't like and you will still give them your money.

oh I agree with you

I won't be buying it because I'm worried about it

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

29 minutes ago, FoxyKabam said:

oh I agree with you

I won't be buying it because I'm worried about it

I doubt they changed anything anyways, and chances are its comming tomorrow. c

[FoxyKabam]

22 hours ago, Eureka.seveN said:

I doubt they changed anything anyways, and chances are its comming tomorrow. c

you called it

[Eldnacpeek]

Nothing has changed.

[sotvrna]

I don't want to be a bish but... Oh who am I kidding, of course I do.    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Guys. She looks F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S and I'll make sure to use the skin at all times. 

Thank you DE and thank you Art team specially <3

Edited April 20, 2016 by AntifaHooligan

[NovusNova]

Skin in game (Animation Stance: Banshee Noble):

Spoiler

 

[NightmareT12]

Doing a quick comparision, her legs are quite close (to not say the same) proportions to the original body.

So... *shrug*?

If you guys see her fat, I guess it's because the cloth "layer". Because her basic body proportions seem to be the same.

[FoxyKabam]

19 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

If you guys see her fat, I guess it's because the cloth "layer". Because her basic body proportions seem to be the same.

cloth layer, the V shape and the fact that her torso is wider

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

31 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

Doing a quick comparision, her legs are quite close (to not say the same) proportions to the original body.

So... *shrug*?

If you guys see her fat, I guess it's because the cloth "layer". Because her basic body proportions seem to be the same.

ITs not that shes fat, idc personally. The problem is the dress physics, if they were done like it was implied in the concept that no one would have this problem. I wholeheartedly suggest that DE, revamps their cloth physics engine so that artist have more freedom with concepts like this one. Because honestly everything that made the new skin appealing was scrapped....

[-dicht.ThanksFrost-]

52 minutes ago, NovusNova said:

Skin in game (Animation Stance: Banshee Noble):

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Thank you for that, since you are here i would like to ask some questions @NovusNova (if you happen to know the answer)

1) Do you know of any upcoming changes or decisions to upgrade the cloth physics engine to support thinner and more full body cloth?

2) Why was a shinier pbr texture used for banshee's dress?

3) Do you guys know or have heard of any plans concerning the possibility of more coloring options? And of course more tintmasks for frames that need it eg. nyx, banshee's deluxe, etc..?

 

Personally I think that alot of changes should be implements to diversify and give the artists more freedom and a tad less restrictions (due to the engine) when designing warframes.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Eureka.seveN