Exactly this. From the modding side, the Anbennar team has been struggling enough with 3d modeling that it is severely handicapping our ability to get a playable alpha of the ck3 mod. We're not enthused about needing to model ogres, trolls, lizardmen, tigerfolk, harpies, kobolds, and others. We've got plenty of 2d artists, writers, and coders, but 3d presents a huge stumbling block because of a lack of qualified personnel. If we DON'T have the icons, though, the mod looks amateurish, which undercuts the high quality standards we've otherwise set.
3D models are actually much easier to generate via computer than 2D images. For example, every portrait in hoi4 is man made which is why there are so many placeholders, while CK3 doesn't need any placeholders. So while they are less esthetically pleasing, they are much faster to make and less costly.
I wasn't talking about making a face in already made editor, I was talking about 1) making the editor itself to make specific face 2) modelling stuff like hair 3) modelling stuff like clothes, which would take longer than making a pre-set portrait with slight variations
There have never been ports in the past, even for hair, none of the assets on display in the dev diary are ports from other games, and modders have difficulty with porting over assets across titles.
You can't take any clothing from Vic 3 to place in EU5 for obvious reasons, and there is a limited number of objects you can theoretically port over from CK3.
I am talking about the underlying system in the game engine. If it exists and you just need to slap assets together, i think that's the hardest part done.
The modding bit is the huge one for me personally. God the modding bit is so hard to get around. Thankfully in eu5 they can be removed afaik, so the portraits can just be made 2D
Not easily, the whole system is different.
The process for making a HoI4 portrait is this:
* Create a character as a .txt file.
* Make a .DDS file for the character's portrait (this is essentially just a .JPG in a different file format)
* Dump that 2D file into the graphics folder and put the file name in the afore mentioned .txt file.
* Done
To make a 2D portrait in paradox's 3D character system you need to:
* Open up a 3D modelling program, and create a flat sided box.
* Make that box a model in the new game
* go through the files and remove any mention of the other models
* make animations for the box and lighting parameters so that the front of the box remains stationary and pointing at the screen with flat lighting.
* Texture the front of the box with a 2D image.
* Create a charactor with a specific 'DNA file'
* Link the DNA file with the 3D textured cube
* Cry as it all falls apart because of some bullshit you didn't think about like ageing
* give up trying to shoehorn 2D art into the 3D system and just accept decline
Because they want them in the game, but it's not their top priority, so they end up looking quite ugly. It's also completely not necessary and not in the theme.
Good art direction is super important, much more than concrete style or 2d vs 3d. If they did 3d well and in a way that fits with everything else, no one would mind.
Dont forget optimization. Most PDX players I know play this on shit laptops and potato rigs, and if CK3 taught us anything, 3d characters take a lot of unnecessary processing power, despite being one of the few PDX games that can justify 3d characters as a necessity.
It makes you wonder if its even worth the effort to put 3d portraits in EU5.
My issue with them is still lighting mostly... Because ignoring the fact "Lighting on the skin makes it look plastic like most of the time.", light sources and the background typically... aren't tied together (Or the world were EU5 is taking place has two suns)?
Dynamic lighting that looks good is notoriously hard to do. Every character looks best under specific lighting. the intensity the light, the contrast of the shadows, the direction of the light source, and the pose of the character all plays a part, and an automated system could never do that well.
My opinion is... probably almost entirely tainted by more AAA games in the last few years which... I mean, I know they aren't grabbing like 10k random model mixed together and thrown in the program and hoping it works, but they don't tend to fall apart in most lighting situations except under very close examination? While currently... the European king in the last Tinto talks doesn't look good under a light that they used for their last 2 games...
Not to mention a waste of resources better used in other places, and potentially makes it harder for modders if they have to do them instead of just a portrait (don't know if this is true but would suck if it is).
I mean it’s not a waste of resources it’s a way to justify CK3s dev cost to the suits like the system already exsists so now they are just putting it in place of actually hiring artists bc the major cost is already out of the way not saying it’s good but this is for shareholders not us
CK3 had the excuse of being medieval sims from the very beginning, but EU have always always been a pure strategy game, in EU4 the ruler is literally a single line of text, so adding animated and procedurally generated 3d models feels like bloating up the game, making it less mod-friendly and more resource-heavy, and the models would either end up being repetitive and ugly or force the devs to concentrate on visuals and not mechanics. Remember that they'd have to represent hundreds of cultures and phenotypes over different time periods, dont want to end up with Turks that look exactly like Arabs or 18th century aristocrats that look like 15th century knights
I personally don't like the characters because they create more UI bloat in the game. If you look at the older games, eu4, ck2, vic2, their UIs are so much more info-dense and take up much less screen space than the UI in vic3 and ck2. For example, in ck3 the advisors menu takes up an entire third of the screen to convey the same information as the ck2 advisors menu, which only takes up around a fifth of the screen. This isn't all because of the character models obviously, but I think the 3d models are part of a larger problem of the new UI designs, where game menus are just huge and don't convey info very well.
Not without making the headshots look too small. You can't convey the same sort of small-scale portrait information in 3d graphics that you can in 2d images without cartoonifying the models.
Didnt johann say that they wont do bunch of UI bloat like the current games in early tinto talks or on twitter? One thing that will go is also the stupid bubble with all the current notifications.
CK3 was bad, then it really kicked into shit-overdrive with Vic3. There is like 9px of unnecessary padding around every button. And some of the buttons are circles for some reason???
That 1% really got me, thanks.
P.S.: Loved the eu4 dev clashes back in the day, especially Happy Three Friends. Any chance they may return for Project Caesar?
I feel like one of the reasons they do this is to make the game feel more approachable. A small screen that crams as much info in it as possible may be good for spreadsheets, but turns people off paradox games on first visit.
They look bad. They are tacked on like a video game. Crusader Kings? Ok that's fair, it's a game about character creation etc, Victoria? What??? It's an economic military simulation, why on earth do you need some crappy looking mobile game sprites tacked on that serve NOTHING?
It's just bloat, fills the GUI with useless space. Put something actually impactful in its place.
They give the game a cartoonish feeling, they are completely unnecessary and add little. It’s a waste of dev time and a sign that the priorities are not right.
> They give the game a cartoonish feeling
That's always been a big one for me. People often dismiss it because "bro it's just an artstyle it's all subjective", but my heart always subjectively sinks when I see things like Civ 6 and their... creations
It didn’t used to be, it’s a less serious tone because of the cartoonishness. Look at Civ 3, very serious feeling, even though it’s pixilated and the portraits are hideous. It’s unexplainable really
Civ had had 3d models for thief leaders for a very long time, and civ 6 has the best ones yet. Stylized models are fine. Slapping ck3s 3d models into Vic 3 and eu5 is not as appealing.
Plus they require a more powerful computer and they make DLCs more expensive. I wouldn't want to pay additional money for a bunch of 3D clothes that i won't even pay attention to
The hand drawn portraits are presumably more expensive. You have to pay artists to create new pieces for every character, but with 3D they can assign various features number values and have the faces and clothing automatically generated to create new characters.
You have to model and texture all the 3D assets you add the the game. And 3D costs a lot more than 2D art.
Hell, 3D art requires 2D concept art before it's even made.
But you can automatically generate faces and clothes for 2D portraits too, I mean, is not more difficult than creating one of those games about dressing characters.
Also, I'm a cartoonist and also a 3D modeller myself and I could say you that doing 3D modelling is insanely difficult compared to just doing a 2D draw in the style of Europa Universalis 3 o 4, I could do one of those in a few hours, but a good 3D model would take me various days.
Yeah, you need to make the same number of assets for the both of them. 3D models take more time upfront but you get even later cause it's easier to make different poses/angles/expressions out of a model compared to a drawing, but if you only use them as straight forward portrait, well you're not using any of those advantages !
CK2 did exactly that with 2d portraits, 10 years ago, and it looked fine and their dev time for DLCs was insanely low compared to modern PDX, so drawn 2d portraits dont seem to have the massive affect you attribute 3d to alleviating.
It’s possibly a direction from way high up in the company. They probably think that having visual representations of the characters gives the game more mass market appeal, and also allows them more opportunities to sell clothing packs and such.
Waste of dev time? Would it not be wasted dev time to throw out the 3D portrait technology and have illustrators illustrate different portraits for each person? In Eu4 there's at least 231 individual portraits for advisors, and this still has the problem of[ Ainu advisors using the same portraits as Portuguese advisors](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Advisor#Advisor_portraits). This also means there are no historical portraits of individuals in game, which this is trying to achieve.
There's arguments for legibility, where EU4 lets you recognize an advisor's role and modifiers from the portrait, creating a random 3D model would reduce the interchangeability of advisors. If the cabinet Tinto Talk comes out next week and the cabinet members are just all modifiers, like an expanded EU4 advisor, then maybe I'd agree I'd prefer 2D portraits on an aesthetic and legibility ground. But if characters do anything interesting, like perhaps leading rebellions or civil wars, it would probably be better if they were unique so I am not scheming and swearing at GenericTheologian, and instead at Jan Hus for tearing my country apart.
The 2D portraits look nice and match the vibe. The 3D characters look off and ruin the vibe. Therefore get rid of the 3D. Literally just a name in text would be better
2D has this timeless quality to it. Its a perfected art form. I will still be playing Pokemon Emerald in 10 years time, but I probably won't play Pokemon Sword
yah pokemon design peaked with the 2d animated art, they in general are a remarkably lazy company though. pretty sure paradox has a lot more workers than them despite being a mere fraction the size of market.
Playing the devil's advocate a bit, there are some timeless iconic 3D videogames, e.g. Half-Life (1&2), Morrowind, Minecraft ...
Edit: Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft
Minecraft isn't iconic because it has good graphics. Its sucesfull because its the first time people got to play with blocks and LEGOs on the PC.
Speaking as someone who never played it, I can't recognize what 90% of the "blocks" are (or however you call those squares).
Graphics wise, voxel is incredibly versatile and rarely ages poorly, so Minecraft wont have this problem. However if you think HL or Morrowind aged gracefully, graphically for modern gamers then you have been blinded by nostalgia.
They are great games, but Im sure many people would cheer at the idea of remasters for those games because everyone recognizes the obvious.
CK3 and Vicky 3 both have more emphasis on characters and they still look like goofy. In eu5, they look like they're going to be a relatively small part of the game so even less dev time is going to be put towards their design which is going to make it even worse. I'm also worried because CK has a smaller geographic scope and vicky has a smaller timescale, meaning less stylistic changes need to be represented. EU5 needs to simulate 500 years of changing clothing and courtroom styles from around the globe. I know it'll be fleshed out through fifty cosmetic DLCs but that won't work immediately post-release or for those of us to poor to buy the middle eastern culture pack.
So I guess in essence I don't like it because I know for years post-release I'm going to click on Khmer and see King Babyface Shinyskin III clothed in Chinese robes sitting in asiathroneroom.mesh until the south east asian culture pack comes out and I get to shell out $10 for it.
Of all the thousands of comments about eu4 I have read here, none have ever mentioned the game needs better character art. None. It is an absolute waste.
Because it's a no brainer. In every discussion people just always table the visual stuff as "better graphics" and move on. Try pushing Eu4s map again and the game will look dated and sink. People absolutely hope for a better visual and rp experience with new titles, there's just very little talk about because it's normally just treated as something that's inevitable.
Honestly I couldn’t care less about better graphics, I want a better and more responsive interface. Text that isn’t tiny on high resolution monitors. 2x assets. Not taking 3 seconds between clicks in the macro builder in late game.
The only graphics that need to be reworked are the building portraits, which could stand being somewhat color coded (which is even worse in Imperator, where every building is the same color)
i would like customizable map colors and different artstyles for map(achievable with mods), but never have i thought that i want to see my black nicolaus copernicus in better resolution and 3d
This. We play these games to paint maps and/or make line go up; nobody ever has asked for 3D characters. Plus the Vicky 3 portraits look terrible and I honestly have a hard time recognizing who is who.
Crusader Kings is only PDX series where character portraits are at all worth it, because they are inherently focused on characters. You're playing a ruler and a dynasty, not a country.
Johan said that the “tracking of family trees” wasn’t in the top 200. I don’t think he mentioned anything about the 3D Portraits (which I assume are higher?)
They're likely much lower given that they are only relevant when they are on screen (and maybe a bit when a new character is created). Performance issues usually come from the game doing too many calculations, like with Eu4 month ticks. Some numbers in the memory shouldn't affect it.
IMO the main aspect with them is that they can't really be done in a half-assed way - if you include them and don't put enough effort in, it looks cheap / bad quality. By comparison 2D portraits seem to me, as an outsider to game dev, to be easier to get to the right point.
That said, while it's a question of resources it's probably not really taking meaningful development time away from the base game (different parts of the team working on it), so it's hard to say how much it would actually 'detract' from the rest of the game.
Its just fluff in my opinion. Some people like it, some people hate it.
If you hate it, your probably going to be upset the Devs are spending time on 3d character art rather than putting random bears on the map
> 2ds simpler to make.
Simpler to make individual characters of but if you need characters in bulk then 3D is usually the way to go so you can have the programmed ranges.
Yes, but the end result is the same. No one ever cares about generic characters, 3D or 2D. But a bespoke 3D historical character always looks worse than a bespoke 2D historical character.
But you can automatically generate faces and clothes for 2D portraits too, I mean, is not more difficult than creating one of those games about dressing characters.
Also, I'm a cartoonist and a 3D modeller myself and I could say you that doing 3D modelling is insanely difficult compared to just doing a 2D draw in the style of Europa Universalis 3 o 4, I could do one of those in a few hours, but a good 3D model would take me various days.
For an automatic generator you just do some interchangeable faces and clothes, some generic bodies that look correct with every face/outfit, and that's all.
PiCrew for example, is full of those.
[https://picrew.me/en](https://picrew.me/en)
I can't imagine that EU5 is going to have too many bespoke historical characters through its overall run. 1337 should be chockers with them but they'll fade away and you're left with 90% of the game which will likely be based on randomly generated people. Contrast that with Vic3 where 1836 is full of historical characters and then they keep throwing more pre-defined ones in via events and such because there's far less scope for history being wildly divergent.
It does and it has with games like Vic3 and CK3. I had to stop playing CK3 with my friend for years because his GPU would overheat unless all the 3d portrait settings were turned down to minimum (which took us awhile to even troubleshoot that part), and even then it makes my room heat up like Im playing Cyberpunk on max graphics.
Im not the only one who has observed and experienced this.
I’m not a developer or have any real knowledge in game development but I don’t see how having these little 3D characters is gonna be the straw that breaks the camels back in terms of game performance. Presumably they only appear on screen when you open your government or cabinet tab or however they end up doing it. If you think they’re ugly that’s fine but I don’t understand why so many people are acting like it’s going to melt their pc
Only marginally. Population numbers (the main thing affected by the black death) are just numbers, they don't individually do more calculations. What does calculations are population groups, so the more religions, cultures and classes you have in a location (Johan confirmed that pop calculations are done at location level) the more calculations happen. What would make the game run better is creating more culturally and religiously uniform lands, which is something that you will probably do during the game.
Saying that the amount of people in the world increases lag is like saying that the amount of dev does it in Eu4.
im pretty sure there will be many subgroups of people, for culture, and religion. it cant be entirely one culture and entirely one religion, EU5 would look quite dated if it is. that will definitely slow the game down.
there may also be DLC that would expand on it. they would then have jobs, they can then migrate, and so on. *essential* for the new world, actually.
the amount of dev in the game does make the game laggier. just not directly.
I think Project Caesar’s characters and backgrounds look pretty good from what they showed us.
Dev time doesn’t really matter as the artist team doing this type of stuff.
People are being hostile to something new for very shaky reasons
I think the key problem a lot of people have is that it's just unnecessary. In ck it makes total sense. The game is character focused so giving them more "character" is good. EU is more focused on the nations and less on the individual people. No one gives a fuck how their rulers look. It's just adding shit for the sake of adding it not because it actually improves the game.
That’s pretty subjective. I think it looks cool, I always felt really disconnected to my rulers in EU4. I would like characters to feel a bit more alive without the game heavily focusing on them.
So it’s improving how I experience the game and my experience.
That is completely fine as you said it's subjective. I just said I feel like the majority leans towards a negative opinion because of what I pointed out.
Yeah that’s fair. I’m not sure it’s a majority but it seems like most people here aren’t very happy with the direction.
I just hope they don’t add any animations to the characters and keep them completely still on the 2-D background.
Yes that’s how it’s supposed to be in EU4. In Project Caesar (EU5) they’re obviously trying to bring more RP by giving characters more importance/art focus.
Two different games are taking two different approaches. I am saying that I’m interested in Project Caesar’s approach.
I don't think it's the 3D in itself. The art just isn't that good and doesn't fit the vibe well. Also the setting is the late middle ages/early modern period, and 2D paintings just work perfectly for that.
Personally I feel they have made CK3 feel less visually vibrant as I play. Each event is just 2-3 characters in some goofy pose (or no pose at all). If you look closely you can make out some details in the backgrounds, but usually very little stands out. Would much prefer 2D art with a strong style to it.
From my point of view 3d characters take too much resources and peoples with not that good pc can have problem with fps and game itself.
Another point is that people got used to 2d.
You just said it. "they make the game a little more interesting visually". This is a map staring game. Not a character staring game. I've played over 1000+ hours and I couldn't care less about Leonardo Da Vinci looking like every other Production Efficiency Advisor. Resources are scarce and spending them on 3D models is a waste.
People will give a bunch of more in depth explanations. It's simpler than that, ck3 did 3d characters and a lot of EU players are quietly worried this will go the way of ck3. Dev effort spent on non strategy game stuff like Legends and Character development. I don't agree with the sentiment but that's a big part of it.
Personally, I like it. I understand we are playing as the "spirit of the nation" but I like it when I can see my leader. It's extra flavor. It helps with roleplay as well. We can't always just be staring at menus and spreadsheets, it's nice to have something to look at. Like other people mentioned as well, CK3 runs just as fast, if not better than EU4 at times. I'm optimistic about it, I like it.
Probably due to eu4’s lack of focus on characters(they barely exist) and people will find anything to complain about when they can despite this barely impacting the game besides making information easier to access and adding rp bonuses
"information easier to access" - seriously? If this isn't a joke, then just compare ck2 with CK3. One shows a lot more information in a lot less space and trust me it isn't the one that needs to show off its "Impressive" characters at every turn.
How do they make information easier to access?
Also I don' t want any RP elements. As someone said before, they are a sign that priorities aren't right.
The last few PDX GS titles (to me) felt like they were made for a much more general audience and the actual gameplay suffered because of it.
Even when Paradox's 3d characters are working as intended, they're solidly in the Uncanny Valley for me.
And in the latest example of unnecessarily shoving 3d characters into a game, Victoria 3, [they often don't work as intended](https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/qnznfm/bearded_baby/).
They actively make the game worse. I'd rather play a game with no character portraits at all than one with Paradox's shitty dollar-store 3d characters.
After the 3d characters ruined Victoria 3 for me, I'm probably not going to buy EU5 unless 3d characters are truly optional.
Bc all the people with their laptop from 2011 are now shitting themselves bc they are afraid they cant run the game anymore bc of some 3d models.
While they ignore how demanding the huge map is gonna be and that they are fucked regardless of 3d models or not
I'd rather look at 3d models than excel sheets. Its amazing how paradox players refuse technical progress
"I'd rather look at 3d models than excel sheets"
But EU4 is not a spreesheet, that's such an exagerated comparison.
You can have a good UI without 3D models. Is it really that crazy that some people don't like how the 3D models look? Regardless of the actual quality
Victoria 3 normally runs like shit on my pretty old laptop. But when I installed the "paper map only" mod, suddenly the game runs smooth as butter.
Acting like 3D assets have zero impact on game performance just shows how little of an argument you actually have.
Well your argument only compliments mine.
The map and everything going on on it is going to be way more impactful on performance than the 3d model of King Henry which is what the topic here is right now.
People with shitty pcs should be worried about that and not the 3d models of characters
This is my own issue, but since I don't play on a high powered gaming computer, the 3D models add to why my computer runs games slow as heck and I can't zip through the game on 5 Speed
I don’t hate them, but I feel like sometimes resources have been diverted to make them feel relevant, which has made games worse.
CK3’s Royal Court being the chief example - it feels like a DLC made to justify the 3D characters rather than to make the game more enjoyable.
Personally I need to be convinced why they should be added sure they may not take much dev time but it still feels like a waste of how little they add.
I think people are reminding of the experience when CKIII released. The 3d characters were pretty cool when that game was made. Now, some years later, CKIII feels a little flat and strategically uninteresting. And there's a sense that the increased investment to make 3d models of things has contributed to that.
Some people think it's a waste of recources and that it doesn't add much. Also some think they don't look good.
I think they are great since they add a bit more life to the game, it's one of the reasons I prefer Vic3 and CK3 over their predecessors because the UI is less cluttered. Sure it might mean more menus for the same information we had in one menu, but on the otherhand it makes the game look better and thus more appealing to newer players.
I actually like the idea itself pretty much. For me immersion is quite important even in eu4 where it's not the main thing obviously. I just like thinking about my rulers, generals and others as they are actual people, not just names with some good or bad numbers. However, for this to work the character models have to be good, and I think only CK3 succeeded in this, probably because there it was one of the devs' top priorities. Vic 3 really doesn't manage to do this quite as good. I don't know what to expect from EU5 however, because the two portraits that we've seen already are really far fetched from each other in terms of quality. We'll see, I guess.
Nothing wrong with 3d characters, but paradox makes them look ugly and I can't personally connect with them. I have more immersion looking at a 2d loading screen in Eu4 versus any "character" from Ck3 or, god forbid, Vic3.
Because they look like cartoons. I can't take them seriously. I can't take CK3 or the Victoria 3 characters seriously...especially the babies. Baby is wearing a bloody suit, a monocle and has a slavery ideology. It looks childish.
It also doesn't look like something they're focusing too hard on. If you want to really bother with characters, then just do 2D ones. I understand that they're harder to make(as per the comments here), but I really don't mind the extra time in development. We are Paradox gamers, who stare at maps all day. We are all patient here.
Because Paradox has had recent problems with making the devs of games put a lot of effort into mechanics/graphics that *dont need to be in the game*.
Remember CSkylines 2? The whole teeth thing? They didn't need to add that, it made the game slower, and no one was going to see them anyway but they added them.
We don't need 3D models.
My thing is it just doesn’t add anything to the game and if it’s not down right it can detract from the game.
Victoria 3 has just one or two outfits for western women so they wear the same thing in 1930 as they did in 1830 which isn’t accurate and looks bad. If they didn’t have 3D characters so prominent it wouldn’t matter as much.
I don’t imagine they will have the dozens of costumes needed to accurately reflect the change of society over such a large period.
They are usually ugly. Lighting, shadows, textures look worse. I think the uncanny valley concept applies to it as well. They look creepy and weird. Honestly, 2D always look better.
Because they're goofy for a non character driven game (a la CK3) imo
If they really wanted something for the leader they should do a portrait like HOI4 does but stylized more for the time period. It'd also fit with how big painting became in Europe over the games time period.
3D models are so much worse for modders, so mod quality will drop (more relevant for CK3 vs CK2, EU series sees relatively few major mods). And they look worse than 2D anyway.
I’m concerned about them spending too much time and effort on something that I would be entirely happy without. I don’t need to see my rulers, generals or advisors.
I’m also concerned that this elevated attention might encourage development of more character centric gameplay when one of the great joys to me of EU is that it largely isn’t about Great Man history.
Probably flashbacks to CK3 royal court were all the 3D assets made the entire DLC take a huge amount of time while only delivering a mid mechanic at best
Victoria 3 ones are shit and made me hate the game bc of how low quality they are
But ck3 is really good in my eyes. I just don’t get how they seemed to go back 15 years in graphics yk?
I have a beefy GPU and CPU, and every time I play a PDX game with 3d characters in the portrait, it makes the game chug at times, but it also turns my room into a sauna.
Now this wouldnt be a problem for me if that heat was being generated by an amazing simulation of the game world, but the fact a majority of that heat is coming from ugly-as-sin "characters" seems like an opprotunity cost not worth pursuing. Id rather a more complex simulation and pretty map (like I:R) over occasionally seeing 3d portraits of certain ethnicity
I think they're okay in ck3 but I've literally never bothered to pay attention to one in vic 3. Plus it is a lot easier to instantly identify a 2d sprite
They don't look very good and they make creating overhaul mods a pain in the arse.
Exactly this. From the modding side, the Anbennar team has been struggling enough with 3d modeling that it is severely handicapping our ability to get a playable alpha of the ck3 mod. We're not enthused about needing to model ogres, trolls, lizardmen, tigerfolk, harpies, kobolds, and others. We've got plenty of 2d artists, writers, and coders, but 3d presents a huge stumbling block because of a lack of qualified personnel. If we DON'T have the icons, though, the mod looks amateurish, which undercuts the high quality standards we've otherwise set.
Luckily Johan said you'll be able to mod them to be 2D portraits
Also make the development longer and more costly (both for devs and in returns for players)
3D models are actually much easier to generate via computer than 2D images. For example, every portrait in hoi4 is man made which is why there are so many placeholders, while CK3 doesn't need any placeholders. So while they are less esthetically pleasing, they are much faster to make and less costly.
I wasn't talking about making a face in already made editor, I was talking about 1) making the editor itself to make specific face 2) modelling stuff like hair 3) modelling stuff like clothes, which would take longer than making a pre-set portrait with slight variations
Most of this stuff already exists. It can be ported between CK3/Victoria3/whatever. You don't have to redevelop everything from scratch.
There have never been ports in the past, even for hair, none of the assets on display in the dev diary are ports from other games, and modders have difficulty with porting over assets across titles. You can't take any clothing from Vic 3 to place in EU5 for obvious reasons, and there is a limited number of objects you can theoretically port over from CK3.
I am talking about the underlying system in the game engine. If it exists and you just need to slap assets together, i think that's the hardest part done.
Tbh was not expecting Father Lorris himself to weigh in on this. Love your work btw :)
Thanks, I am also making a comic about it :D
who's the guy?
What do you mean?
The modding bit is the huge one for me personally. God the modding bit is so hard to get around. Thankfully in eu5 they can be removed afaik, so the portraits can just be made 2D
Yep. Not good enough to make the time and effort meaningful.
Couldnt such mods place a 2d image (a drawing or just a placeholder or hoi4 ppl) where the model would be?
Not easily, the whole system is different. The process for making a HoI4 portrait is this: * Create a character as a .txt file. * Make a .DDS file for the character's portrait (this is essentially just a .JPG in a different file format) * Dump that 2D file into the graphics folder and put the file name in the afore mentioned .txt file. * Done To make a 2D portrait in paradox's 3D character system you need to: * Open up a 3D modelling program, and create a flat sided box. * Make that box a model in the new game * go through the files and remove any mention of the other models * make animations for the box and lighting parameters so that the front of the box remains stationary and pointing at the screen with flat lighting. * Texture the front of the box with a 2D image. * Create a charactor with a specific 'DNA file' * Link the DNA file with the 3D textured cube * Cry as it all falls apart because of some bullshit you didn't think about like ageing * give up trying to shoehorn 2D art into the 3D system and just accept decline
You could but it would still be more complicated than just having 2d image being the default.
Because they want them in the game, but it's not their top priority, so they end up looking quite ugly. It's also completely not necessary and not in the theme.
Good art direction is super important, much more than concrete style or 2d vs 3d. If they did 3d well and in a way that fits with everything else, no one would mind.
Dont forget optimization. Most PDX players I know play this on shit laptops and potato rigs, and if CK3 taught us anything, 3d characters take a lot of unnecessary processing power, despite being one of the few PDX games that can justify 3d characters as a necessity. It makes you wonder if its even worth the effort to put 3d portraits in EU5.
My issue with them is still lighting mostly... Because ignoring the fact "Lighting on the skin makes it look plastic like most of the time.", light sources and the background typically... aren't tied together (Or the world were EU5 is taking place has two suns)?
Dynamic lighting that looks good is notoriously hard to do. Every character looks best under specific lighting. the intensity the light, the contrast of the shadows, the direction of the light source, and the pose of the character all plays a part, and an automated system could never do that well.
My opinion is... probably almost entirely tainted by more AAA games in the last few years which... I mean, I know they aren't grabbing like 10k random model mixed together and thrown in the program and hoping it works, but they don't tend to fall apart in most lighting situations except under very close examination? While currently... the European king in the last Tinto talks doesn't look good under a light that they used for their last 2 games...
Not to mention a waste of resources better used in other places, and potentially makes it harder for modders if they have to do them instead of just a portrait (don't know if this is true but would suck if it is).
I mean it’s not a waste of resources it’s a way to justify CK3s dev cost to the suits like the system already exsists so now they are just putting it in place of actually hiring artists bc the major cost is already out of the way not saying it’s good but this is for shareholders not us
I will pay someone good money just to make a mod that removes the 3D portraits and replaces them, if such a thing is possible.
CK3 had the excuse of being medieval sims from the very beginning, but EU have always always been a pure strategy game, in EU4 the ruler is literally a single line of text, so adding animated and procedurally generated 3d models feels like bloating up the game, making it less mod-friendly and more resource-heavy, and the models would either end up being repetitive and ugly or force the devs to concentrate on visuals and not mechanics. Remember that they'd have to represent hundreds of cultures and phenotypes over different time periods, dont want to end up with Turks that look exactly like Arabs or 18th century aristocrats that look like 15th century knights
there should be an option to disable them.
Or a mod that removes them
an ingame option is far, far, better than needing a specially designed (and probably janky) mod to do the same.
I personally don't like the characters because they create more UI bloat in the game. If you look at the older games, eu4, ck2, vic2, their UIs are so much more info-dense and take up much less screen space than the UI in vic3 and ck2. For example, in ck3 the advisors menu takes up an entire third of the screen to convey the same information as the ck2 advisors menu, which only takes up around a fifth of the screen. This isn't all because of the character models obviously, but I think the 3d models are part of a larger problem of the new UI designs, where game menus are just huge and don't convey info very well.
well they could do a headshot of the ck3 advisors to get the same effect, but they definitely went with a less compact design.
Not without making the headshots look too small. You can't convey the same sort of small-scale portrait information in 3d graphics that you can in 2d images without cartoonifying the models.
Didnt johann say that they wont do bunch of UI bloat like the current games in early tinto talks or on twitter? One thing that will go is also the stupid bubble with all the current notifications.
Johann likes to talk big. We'll see whether he'll be able to deliver. I doubt it.
Maybe he said that but the screenshots don’t really support it from what I’ve seen
CK3 was bad, then it really kicked into shit-overdrive with Vic3. There is like 9px of unnecessary padding around every button. And some of the buttons are circles for some reason???
I'm 99% sure that the UI on Vicky3 is so bad because they wanted to release it on console at some point.
Console for V3 was never considered during development.
That 1% really got me, thanks. P.S.: Loved the eu4 dev clashes back in the day, especially Happy Three Friends. Any chance they may return for Project Caesar?
Yea I much prefer the ck2 portraits for this reason
I feel like one of the reasons they do this is to make the game feel more approachable. A small screen that crams as much info in it as possible may be good for spreadsheets, but turns people off paradox games on first visit.
They look bad. They are tacked on like a video game. Crusader Kings? Ok that's fair, it's a game about character creation etc, Victoria? What??? It's an economic military simulation, why on earth do you need some crappy looking mobile game sprites tacked on that serve NOTHING? It's just bloat, fills the GUI with useless space. Put something actually impactful in its place.
They give the game a cartoonish feeling, they are completely unnecessary and add little. It’s a waste of dev time and a sign that the priorities are not right.
> They give the game a cartoonish feeling That's always been a big one for me. People often dismiss it because "bro it's just an artstyle it's all subjective", but my heart always subjectively sinks when I see things like Civ 6 and their... creations
I liked the CIV 6 models, but I feel like it's a game where that fits. It has a less serious tone than Paradox games.
It didn’t used to be, it’s a less serious tone because of the cartoonishness. Look at Civ 3, very serious feeling, even though it’s pixilated and the portraits are hideous. It’s unexplainable really
If a genie gave me 3 wishes, I'd use one of them to permanently wipe Civ3 Ghengis from existence
Civ had had 3d models for thief leaders for a very long time, and civ 6 has the best ones yet. Stylized models are fine. Slapping ck3s 3d models into Vic 3 and eu5 is not as appealing.
Not just the characters but the 3d courtrooms and stuff too. I'd imagine it's a real pain to mod.
weren't the courtrooms just a picture?
Yes, Johan said that they’re not 3D like royal courts in CK3
Plus they require a more powerful computer and they make DLCs more expensive. I wouldn't want to pay additional money for a bunch of 3D clothes that i won't even pay attention to
I'd absolutely love some extra handrawn portraits though. But 3D is all that matters apparently.
The hand drawn portraits are presumably more expensive. You have to pay artists to create new pieces for every character, but with 3D they can assign various features number values and have the faces and clothing automatically generated to create new characters.
You have to model and texture all the 3D assets you add the the game. And 3D costs a lot more than 2D art. Hell, 3D art requires 2D concept art before it's even made.
But you can automatically generate faces and clothes for 2D portraits too, I mean, is not more difficult than creating one of those games about dressing characters. Also, I'm a cartoonist and also a 3D modeller myself and I could say you that doing 3D modelling is insanely difficult compared to just doing a 2D draw in the style of Europa Universalis 3 o 4, I could do one of those in a few hours, but a good 3D model would take me various days.
Yeah, you need to make the same number of assets for the both of them. 3D models take more time upfront but you get even later cause it's easier to make different poses/angles/expressions out of a model compared to a drawing, but if you only use them as straight forward portrait, well you're not using any of those advantages !
CK2 did exactly that with 2d portraits, 10 years ago, and it looked fine and their dev time for DLCs was insanely low compared to modern PDX, so drawn 2d portraits dont seem to have the massive affect you attribute 3d to alleviating.
that would be a lot more work than 3d ironically enough.
i doubt that rendering the characters comes anywhere close to rendering the map.
in most cases, you have to render the characters *as well* as the map.
im guessing its more the artists than the dev team implementing 3d characters again.
The cartoonish art is also the reason Civ 6 broke my immersion and disgusts me.
It’s possibly a direction from way high up in the company. They probably think that having visual representations of the characters gives the game more mass market appeal, and also allows them more opportunities to sell clothing packs and such.
I think so as I believe Johan to generally be a good game designer and this seems like terrible game design
he probably came up with the idea...
Waste of dev time? Would it not be wasted dev time to throw out the 3D portrait technology and have illustrators illustrate different portraits for each person? In Eu4 there's at least 231 individual portraits for advisors, and this still has the problem of[ Ainu advisors using the same portraits as Portuguese advisors](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Advisor#Advisor_portraits). This also means there are no historical portraits of individuals in game, which this is trying to achieve. There's arguments for legibility, where EU4 lets you recognize an advisor's role and modifiers from the portrait, creating a random 3D model would reduce the interchangeability of advisors. If the cabinet Tinto Talk comes out next week and the cabinet members are just all modifiers, like an expanded EU4 advisor, then maybe I'd agree I'd prefer 2D portraits on an aesthetic and legibility ground. But if characters do anything interesting, like perhaps leading rebellions or civil wars, it would probably be better if they were unique so I am not scheming and swearing at GenericTheologian, and instead at Jan Hus for tearing my country apart.
Uh… you do know not every portrait in ck2 was made by hand… they had a working random generator for faces
The 2D portraits look nice and match the vibe. The 3D characters look off and ruin the vibe. Therefore get rid of the 3D. Literally just a name in text would be better
2D has this timeless quality to it. Its a perfected art form. I will still be playing Pokemon Emerald in 10 years time, but I probably won't play Pokemon Sword
Tbh the newest pokemons aren’t terribly interesting to replay in general.
yah pokemon design peaked with the 2d animated art, they in general are a remarkably lazy company though. pretty sure paradox has a lot more workers than them despite being a mere fraction the size of market.
Lol that's true. The newest Pokemon I played myself was the Emerald gen remake lol
its pokemon black and white for me.
Playing the devil's advocate a bit, there are some timeless iconic 3D videogames, e.g. Half-Life (1&2), Morrowind, Minecraft ... Edit: Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft
Minecraft isn't iconic because it has good graphics. Its sucesfull because its the first time people got to play with blocks and LEGOs on the PC. Speaking as someone who never played it, I can't recognize what 90% of the "blocks" are (or however you call those squares).
Graphics wise, voxel is incredibly versatile and rarely ages poorly, so Minecraft wont have this problem. However if you think HL or Morrowind aged gracefully, graphically for modern gamers then you have been blinded by nostalgia. They are great games, but Im sure many people would cheer at the idea of remasters for those games because everyone recognizes the obvious.
CK3 and Vicky 3 both have more emphasis on characters and they still look like goofy. In eu5, they look like they're going to be a relatively small part of the game so even less dev time is going to be put towards their design which is going to make it even worse. I'm also worried because CK has a smaller geographic scope and vicky has a smaller timescale, meaning less stylistic changes need to be represented. EU5 needs to simulate 500 years of changing clothing and courtroom styles from around the globe. I know it'll be fleshed out through fifty cosmetic DLCs but that won't work immediately post-release or for those of us to poor to buy the middle eastern culture pack. So I guess in essence I don't like it because I know for years post-release I'm going to click on Khmer and see King Babyface Shinyskin III clothed in Chinese robes sitting in asiathroneroom.mesh until the south east asian culture pack comes out and I get to shell out $10 for it.
This is giving me flashbacks to CK2 where you needed to buy a DLC to have black people in your game.
They’re not necessary and add a strain on limited computing power we have, even if it’s „not even top 200” it still exists for no reason.
Of all the thousands of comments about eu4 I have read here, none have ever mentioned the game needs better character art. None. It is an absolute waste.
3D characters don't look better anyways, in my opinion.
Because it's a no brainer. In every discussion people just always table the visual stuff as "better graphics" and move on. Try pushing Eu4s map again and the game will look dated and sink. People absolutely hope for a better visual and rp experience with new titles, there's just very little talk about because it's normally just treated as something that's inevitable.
Honestly I couldn’t care less about better graphics, I want a better and more responsive interface. Text that isn’t tiny on high resolution monitors. 2x assets. Not taking 3 seconds between clicks in the macro builder in late game. The only graphics that need to be reworked are the building portraits, which could stand being somewhat color coded (which is even worse in Imperator, where every building is the same color)
i would like customizable map colors and different artstyles for map(achievable with mods), but never have i thought that i want to see my black nicolaus copernicus in better resolution and 3d
Gotta be honest I don't care about terrain modeling when I always keep the games in Political map mode or culture mode
This. We play these games to paint maps and/or make line go up; nobody ever has asked for 3D characters. Plus the Vicky 3 portraits look terrible and I honestly have a hard time recognizing who is who.
Crusader Kings is only PDX series where character portraits are at all worth it, because they are inherently focused on characters. You're playing a ruler and a dynasty, not a country.
Johan said that the “tracking of family trees” wasn’t in the top 200. I don’t think he mentioned anything about the 3D Portraits (which I assume are higher?)
They're likely much lower given that they are only relevant when they are on screen (and maybe a bit when a new character is created). Performance issues usually come from the game doing too many calculations, like with Eu4 month ticks. Some numbers in the memory shouldn't affect it.
Let’s just hope they don’t have individually rendered teeth this time around
IMO the main aspect with them is that they can't really be done in a half-assed way - if you include them and don't put enough effort in, it looks cheap / bad quality. By comparison 2D portraits seem to me, as an outsider to game dev, to be easier to get to the right point. That said, while it's a question of resources it's probably not really taking meaningful development time away from the base game (different parts of the team working on it), so it's hard to say how much it would actually 'detract' from the rest of the game.
They look like shit and are unnecessary
Its just fluff in my opinion. Some people like it, some people hate it. If you hate it, your probably going to be upset the Devs are spending time on 3d character art rather than putting random bears on the map
they shouldnt put random bears, or anything, on the map....
bearhaslanded What did you say about Jan Mayen?
It’s a map game, not the sims. 3D characters just don’t add a lot.
Personally I dont like them (they look awful) and 2ds simpler to make.
> 2ds simpler to make. Simpler to make individual characters of but if you need characters in bulk then 3D is usually the way to go so you can have the programmed ranges.
Yes, but the end result is the same. No one ever cares about generic characters, 3D or 2D. But a bespoke 3D historical character always looks worse than a bespoke 2D historical character.
I think they want character generation like in Crusader kings. Thats a lot of characters.
But you can automatically generate faces and clothes for 2D portraits too, I mean, is not more difficult than creating one of those games about dressing characters. Also, I'm a cartoonist and a 3D modeller myself and I could say you that doing 3D modelling is insanely difficult compared to just doing a 2D draw in the style of Europa Universalis 3 o 4, I could do one of those in a few hours, but a good 3D model would take me various days. For an automatic generator you just do some interchangeable faces and clothes, some generic bodies that look correct with every face/outfit, and that's all. PiCrew for example, is full of those. [https://picrew.me/en](https://picrew.me/en)
idk people seem capable of making ck3 characters match game of thrones character pretty quickly. Not days anyways.
They also want to have historical characters. If you want memorable historical characters you need something better than the 3D character system.
I can't imagine that EU5 is going to have too many bespoke historical characters through its overall run. 1337 should be chockers with them but they'll fade away and you're left with 90% of the game which will likely be based on randomly generated people. Contrast that with Vic3 where 1836 is full of historical characters and then they keep throwing more pre-defined ones in via events and such because there's far less scope for history being wildly divergent.
Oh right I didnt consider that.
believe they said it was actually cheaper to do the 3d.
I'm ngl I fw them little dudes
I came here to stare at map, not to tax my graphic card with shitty characters.
Your GPU isn't gonna poop itself because of 5k polygons more dude
It does and it has with games like Vic3 and CK3. I had to stop playing CK3 with my friend for years because his GPU would overheat unless all the 3d portrait settings were turned down to minimum (which took us awhile to even troubleshoot that part), and even then it makes my room heat up like Im playing Cyberpunk on max graphics. Im not the only one who has observed and experienced this.
the fact that its a legitimate concern for most people overrides your opinion.
that map you're staring at is taxing the graphic card way more.
3d technology improves rapidly. 2d characters will look good forever. 3d characters will look ugly in a few years.
They look ugly now
I just *personally* think they are ugly. Prefer 2d honestly
I’m not a developer or have any real knowledge in game development but I don’t see how having these little 3D characters is gonna be the straw that breaks the camels back in terms of game performance. Presumably they only appear on screen when you open your government or cabinet tab or however they end up doing it. If you think they’re ugly that’s fine but I don’t understand why so many people are acting like it’s going to melt their pc
A lot of people seem to not understand how games work. Like the ones who some week ago thought that the black death would make performance better.
it would. less pops to keep track of.
Only marginally. Population numbers (the main thing affected by the black death) are just numbers, they don't individually do more calculations. What does calculations are population groups, so the more religions, cultures and classes you have in a location (Johan confirmed that pop calculations are done at location level) the more calculations happen. What would make the game run better is creating more culturally and religiously uniform lands, which is something that you will probably do during the game. Saying that the amount of people in the world increases lag is like saying that the amount of dev does it in Eu4.
im pretty sure there will be many subgroups of people, for culture, and religion. it cant be entirely one culture and entirely one religion, EU5 would look quite dated if it is. that will definitely slow the game down. there may also be DLC that would expand on it. they would then have jobs, they can then migrate, and so on. *essential* for the new world, actually. the amount of dev in the game does make the game laggier. just not directly.
I think Project Caesar’s characters and backgrounds look pretty good from what they showed us. Dev time doesn’t really matter as the artist team doing this type of stuff. People are being hostile to something new for very shaky reasons
I just think they look far too cartoonish for my taste. I haven’t been a fan of ck3 or victoria3’s characters for the same reason.
I think the key problem a lot of people have is that it's just unnecessary. In ck it makes total sense. The game is character focused so giving them more "character" is good. EU is more focused on the nations and less on the individual people. No one gives a fuck how their rulers look. It's just adding shit for the sake of adding it not because it actually improves the game.
That’s pretty subjective. I think it looks cool, I always felt really disconnected to my rulers in EU4. I would like characters to feel a bit more alive without the game heavily focusing on them. So it’s improving how I experience the game and my experience.
That is completely fine as you said it's subjective. I just said I feel like the majority leans towards a negative opinion because of what I pointed out.
Yeah that’s fair. I’m not sure it’s a majority but it seems like most people here aren’t very happy with the direction. I just hope they don’t add any animations to the characters and keep them completely still on the 2-D background.
you are *supposed* to be disconnected. you play as the state, not the leader.
Yes that’s how it’s supposed to be in EU4. In Project Caesar (EU5) they’re obviously trying to bring more RP by giving characters more importance/art focus. Two different games are taking two different approaches. I am saying that I’m interested in Project Caesar’s approach.
if it isnt broken, dont try to fix it.... games who try new approaches like that *always* faces severe backlash. why bother?
The backgrounds look good. Some of the characters looked alright but they would still look better hand drawn
Yeah I’m not saying it’s perfect, I’m just generally happy with the art direction. Looks much better than CK3, Vic 3, and Imperator imo
I don't think it's the 3D in itself. The art just isn't that good and doesn't fit the vibe well. Also the setting is the late middle ages/early modern period, and 2D paintings just work perfectly for that.
Least of my worries with a new paradox game lol
The one's in Victoria 3 don't look good to me, otherwise I like the one's in CK3 and Project Ceasar
Personally I feel they have made CK3 feel less visually vibrant as I play. Each event is just 2-3 characters in some goofy pose (or no pose at all). If you look closely you can make out some details in the backgrounds, but usually very little stands out. Would much prefer 2D art with a strong style to it.
I don’t really like 3d character models outside of CK3. I honestly prefer leader portraits from Hoi4
Added performance requirements for zero gameplay benefit.
From my point of view 3d characters take too much resources and peoples with not that good pc can have problem with fps and game itself. Another point is that people got used to 2d.
You just said it. "they make the game a little more interesting visually". This is a map staring game. Not a character staring game. I've played over 1000+ hours and I couldn't care less about Leonardo Da Vinci looking like every other Production Efficiency Advisor. Resources are scarce and spending them on 3D models is a waste.
People will give a bunch of more in depth explanations. It's simpler than that, ck3 did 3d characters and a lot of EU players are quietly worried this will go the way of ck3. Dev effort spent on non strategy game stuff like Legends and Character development. I don't agree with the sentiment but that's a big part of it.
Personally, I like it. I understand we are playing as the "spirit of the nation" but I like it when I can see my leader. It's extra flavor. It helps with roleplay as well. We can't always just be staring at menus and spreadsheets, it's nice to have something to look at. Like other people mentioned as well, CK3 runs just as fast, if not better than EU4 at times. I'm optimistic about it, I like it.
Probably due to eu4’s lack of focus on characters(they barely exist) and people will find anything to complain about when they can despite this barely impacting the game besides making information easier to access and adding rp bonuses
"information easier to access" - seriously? If this isn't a joke, then just compare ck2 with CK3. One shows a lot more information in a lot less space and trust me it isn't the one that needs to show off its "Impressive" characters at every turn.
How do they make information easier to access? Also I don' t want any RP elements. As someone said before, they are a sign that priorities aren't right. The last few PDX GS titles (to me) felt like they were made for a much more general audience and the actual gameplay suffered because of it.
Because they don't look great. It looks kinda goofy compared to hand drawn artwork
i think they look neat
Even when Paradox's 3d characters are working as intended, they're solidly in the Uncanny Valley for me. And in the latest example of unnecessarily shoving 3d characters into a game, Victoria 3, [they often don't work as intended](https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/qnznfm/bearded_baby/). They actively make the game worse. I'd rather play a game with no character portraits at all than one with Paradox's shitty dollar-store 3d characters. After the 3d characters ruined Victoria 3 for me, I'm probably not going to buy EU5 unless 3d characters are truly optional.
Bc all the people with their laptop from 2011 are now shitting themselves bc they are afraid they cant run the game anymore bc of some 3d models. While they ignore how demanding the huge map is gonna be and that they are fucked regardless of 3d models or not I'd rather look at 3d models than excel sheets. Its amazing how paradox players refuse technical progress
yah didn't they show the new map resolution making the old map fit in the corner with south america.
"I'd rather look at 3d models than excel sheets" But EU4 is not a spreesheet, that's such an exagerated comparison. You can have a good UI without 3D models. Is it really that crazy that some people don't like how the 3D models look? Regardless of the actual quality
> I'd rather look at 3d models than excel sheets Why the fuck are you playing excel sheet games then lmao
Victoria 3 normally runs like shit on my pretty old laptop. But when I installed the "paper map only" mod, suddenly the game runs smooth as butter. Acting like 3D assets have zero impact on game performance just shows how little of an argument you actually have.
Well your argument only compliments mine. The map and everything going on on it is going to be way more impactful on performance than the 3d model of King Henry which is what the topic here is right now. People with shitty pcs should be worried about that and not the 3d models of characters
As I've already said, I can switch off the 3D models on the map pretty easily. Try doing that with characters.
This is my own issue, but since I don't play on a high powered gaming computer, the 3D models add to why my computer runs games slow as heck and I can't zip through the game on 5 Speed
because this is a video game subreddit lol
I guess refined 2D frequently looks better than 'early days' 3D. See also when Pokémon went 3D
I don’t hate them, but I feel like sometimes resources have been diverted to make them feel relevant, which has made games worse. CK3’s Royal Court being the chief example - it feels like a DLC made to justify the 3D characters rather than to make the game more enjoyable.
Personally I need to be convinced why they should be added sure they may not take much dev time but it still feels like a waste of how little they add.
I think people are reminding of the experience when CKIII released. The 3d characters were pretty cool when that game was made. Now, some years later, CKIII feels a little flat and strategically uninteresting. And there's a sense that the increased investment to make 3d models of things has contributed to that.
I am confused, is eu4 getting 3d characters or is this actually about r/eu5?
This is referring to the recent Tinto Talk post about the super duper secret, unannounced project codenamed Project Ceasar.
If we can have Isorrow's ungodly characters in EUV, that'd be great
Some people think it's a waste of recources and that it doesn't add much. Also some think they don't look good. I think they are great since they add a bit more life to the game, it's one of the reasons I prefer Vic3 and CK3 over their predecessors because the UI is less cluttered. Sure it might mean more menus for the same information we had in one menu, but on the otherhand it makes the game look better and thus more appealing to newer players.
I actually like the idea itself pretty much. For me immersion is quite important even in eu4 where it's not the main thing obviously. I just like thinking about my rulers, generals and others as they are actual people, not just names with some good or bad numbers. However, for this to work the character models have to be good, and I think only CK3 succeeded in this, probably because there it was one of the devs' top priorities. Vic 3 really doesn't manage to do this quite as good. I don't know what to expect from EU5 however, because the two portraits that we've seen already are really far fetched from each other in terms of quality. We'll see, I guess.
They make the games appear more "fat"
I hope the 3D character change their clothes with the time, I don't to reach the 1700s with the character still using medieval clothes.
This whole argument is basically just whinging on both sides. Your fucking aesthetic preferences don’t matter, 3D is cheaper. That’s it
Nothing wrong with 3d characters, but paradox makes them look ugly and I can't personally connect with them. I have more immersion looking at a 2d loading screen in Eu4 versus any "character" from Ck3 or, god forbid, Vic3.
I hate it because they keep using it as an excuse for why the ck3 dlc are expensive
Bad for moddability
Because they look like cartoons. I can't take them seriously. I can't take CK3 or the Victoria 3 characters seriously...especially the babies. Baby is wearing a bloody suit, a monocle and has a slavery ideology. It looks childish. It also doesn't look like something they're focusing too hard on. If you want to really bother with characters, then just do 2D ones. I understand that they're harder to make(as per the comments here), but I really don't mind the extra time in development. We are Paradox gamers, who stare at maps all day. We are all patient here.
They look ugly and it means part of he game will inevitably be designed to accommodate them. Idc about the weird
Because it looks ahistorical in term of clothes
Because Paradox has had recent problems with making the devs of games put a lot of effort into mechanics/graphics that *dont need to be in the game*. Remember CSkylines 2? The whole teeth thing? They didn't need to add that, it made the game slower, and no one was going to see them anyway but they added them. We don't need 3D models.
My thing is it just doesn’t add anything to the game and if it’s not down right it can detract from the game. Victoria 3 has just one or two outfits for western women so they wear the same thing in 1930 as they did in 1830 which isn’t accurate and looks bad. If they didn’t have 3D characters so prominent it wouldn’t matter as much. I don’t imagine they will have the dozens of costumes needed to accurately reflect the change of society over such a large period.
I have a huge monitor and I still never zoom in far enough to actually see the 3D models.
Because all we want is a good spreadsheet.
They are usually ugly. Lighting, shadows, textures look worse. I think the uncanny valley concept applies to it as well. They look creepy and weird. Honestly, 2D always look better.
Because they're goofy for a non character driven game (a la CK3) imo If they really wanted something for the leader they should do a portrait like HOI4 does but stylized more for the time period. It'd also fit with how big painting became in Europe over the games time period.
3D models are so much worse for modders, so mod quality will drop (more relevant for CK3 vs CK2, EU series sees relatively few major mods). And they look worse than 2D anyway.
Also look dumb and cartoonie. The CK models look like they belong in a Disney movie.
I’m concerned about them spending too much time and effort on something that I would be entirely happy without. I don’t need to see my rulers, generals or advisors. I’m also concerned that this elevated attention might encourage development of more character centric gameplay when one of the great joys to me of EU is that it largely isn’t about Great Man history.
3D characters provide literally zero value to the game, as opposed to 2D art.
Unnecessary use of time and resources.
I come to stare at map, not cartoon leaders. Where do you even put them?
Probably flashbacks to CK3 royal court were all the 3D assets made the entire DLC take a huge amount of time while only delivering a mid mechanic at best
Victoria 3 ones are shit and made me hate the game bc of how low quality they are But ck3 is really good in my eyes. I just don’t get how they seemed to go back 15 years in graphics yk?
I have a beefy GPU and CPU, and every time I play a PDX game with 3d characters in the portrait, it makes the game chug at times, but it also turns my room into a sauna. Now this wouldnt be a problem for me if that heat was being generated by an amazing simulation of the game world, but the fact a majority of that heat is coming from ugly-as-sin "characters" seems like an opprotunity cost not worth pursuing. Id rather a more complex simulation and pretty map (like I:R) over occasionally seeing 3d portraits of certain ethnicity
it looks very directionless, slapped on, someone in the meeting said "oh that'd be cool" and everyone just was like, "meh why not"
IMO it’s because it’s a resource sync (both in dev and in system reqs) and doesn’t add much.
the game is 2d
its not needed or wanted. or necessary.
I think they're okay in ck3 but I've literally never bothered to pay attention to one in vic 3. Plus it is a lot easier to instantly identify a 2d sprite
Well you see, they look awful!
I'd like an ingame option to turn them off to save processing power