Dead State Design Update

The latest Dead State design update has the character model Joey explain some of the work they’ve done to improve both look and performance, and shows us some improved character models that you can find in our gallery.

The old version consisted of 16 objects: a torso, a head, hair, a left arm, a right arm, a left leg, a right leg, the vest, two seperate bracelets, a choker, the crotch of the trousers, a trouser’s left leg, a right one, and two shoes.

The new one consists of 2 objects: a body and a head. We’ll still need separate arms and legs for dismemberment, but this time, we’re only going to use a special dismemberment model (consisting of 6 objects) when it’s actually happening; the chances are *really* small.

Companions will use these two objects, generic people will have separate head and hair, so 3 objects total.

A couple of reasons why we made this decision:

– It runs faster. Less objects is easier for the computer.

– Less seams. You can see a bit of a lighting issue on old R____’s right arm, near the shoulder. That’s the point where the arm would be taken off if it were cut off.

– Less wasteful textures. Before, we had to load the texture information for the entire naked body, even if you only saw the head and arms. Now, there isn’t any!

– Unique textures. Every pixel of the texture can now be unique to that companion, which, for example, allowed us the tattoos, and the personalized face. That means every companion gets his/her own face, and other NPCs will get a few options as well, whereas this was just one male and one female before.

– Unique models. As long as we keep to the standard skeleton, we can vary the proportions. R____ here is a bit chubbier than other women might be, and we can make others thicker still. Nothing too radical, but but a bit of character nonetheless.