Ghouls and their faces

[EspritAberrance]

I agree, but are you sure you are not confusing close to bone skin and face features? I mean the skin is melted. It pretty much showing you muscle, not skin.

I'm sure. Let me put it this way, say you take the skull no skin or muscle of two different people, both of the skulls should look different, still human but different. They do not look exactly the same. Facial reconstruction on those skulls will yield two distinctly different faces. The same should be said of ghouls in game, as it is it seems like all ghouls share the same exact skull which is theoretically impossible unless they are all twins but with the entire population... Perhaps I should take screencaps to more distinctly illustrate my point haha

[Boombro]

 

The same should be said of ghouls in game, as it is it seems like all ghouls share the same exact skull which is theoretically impossible unless they are all twins but with the entire population

Or as if they were in a video game ;)

That is just game limitations. Cool point though, you remind of main character of the man in the brown suit.

[tomomi1922]

Hm. It just seems weird because the face structure shouldn't change if someone became a ghoul. I figured that for Hancock at least they'd make his face more unique compared to other ghouls since he is a companion.

 

You should be aware that human evolution has a lot to do with faces too. We humans are born with ability to recognize and discern faces. We can "feel" the differences between 2 people even they may have extremely subtle difference. But it becomes way more obvious than ... the difference between the face of 2 dogs. Video game is a bunch of pixels, but as hardware advances, we can make it more life like and realistic. So you can easily tell the difference between Cait, Piper, Curie, and Deacon, MacCready, Danse, etc...

 

But the ghouls really do not have recognizable human faces anymore. With all that "mess" of melted skin, we aren't used to "read" their face, maybe only thing is the eyes. And since this is a video game with not a lot of facial expression, you can't "read" their gesture either. So you have to read hard to tell if they are the same or different, like a dog's face. The vets don't count, they see more pets than human they can tell which dog is which. Maybe Bethesda knows this, and simply don't really care about variations because players can't even tell to make a complain. On the flip side, if every single NPC has the same face, imagine the storm of complaints right now.

 

A few related stories from Japan:

- A lot of older people (who don't see the world often) often feel "all black people look the same" (as they can't tell who is who between 2-3 black characters in movies) because black people have the farthest skin complexion away from their own people.

- There are a few Japanese sex game shows that make a person chooses his/her own spouse with the selection of "private parts" and commit a sexual act with the choice. So if they choose wrong, they practically commit adultery with the spouse full knowledge (yet the game rule prevents them to speak up). I reckon a lot of those are staged, but it still plays on the principle that even long time married couples can't discern their spouses' body parts as easily as the faces.

Edited January 25, 2016 by tomomi1922

[EspritAberrance]

@tomomi1922

 

I'm already well aware, the differences in facial structures is something I've been self-studying for like 5 years or so because of art. If I wasn't aware I wouldn't have asked others if they noticed it too. And while I understood the intent behind the second "story from japan" it could have been left out and this discussion would have progressed just fine.

I was merely making a connection from real life to the fact that in-game there is minuscule differences if any at all in the way npc ghoul faces are put together, unlike for example, the nameless npc settlers. And these graphics are still not real life so the theory isn't super applicable to this situation.

[tomomi1922]

@tomomi1922

 

I'm already well aware, the differences in facial structures is something I've been self-studying for like 5 years or so because of art. If I wasn't aware I wouldn't have asked others if they noticed it too. And while I understood the intent behind the second "story from japan" it could have been left out and this discussion would have progressed just fine.

I was merely making a connection from real life to the fact that in-game there is minuscule differences if any at all in the way npc ghoul faces are put together, unlike for example, the nameless npc settlers. And these graphics are still not real life so the theory isn't super applicable to this situation.

 

I probably didn't just reply to your post entirely. I didn't try to make a presumption that you knew nothing of the subject. I just wanted to point out this fact because nobody else pointed out. But I did state that because Bethesda knows that most players have a harder time telling apart which ghoul is which (without looking at their names hovering on top), they wouldn't care about giving heavy details on the ghouls beside that melted skin. And as you can see, there is not a huge variations of ghoul faces (comparing to the existing settler selection) and Bethesda gets away with it just fine.

 

And since the game makes it so hard to change faces .... We are stuck with what we got. I got Better Seltter and New Settler mod. They did work fine and give me some good looking NPC (at least not dirty). But due to a save problem I restarted my game, and my settlers have dirty (and sometimes downright hideous faces). But they do look to have a decent variation.

[EspritAberrance]

@tonomi1922

I apologize for this being so late, I've been busy.

And that is a valid point, I simply wanted to simply say that it is most likely the reason why this topic stood out for me and because of it is why I made this post. Logically there should still be differences there, realistically, it would take time to make differences in the face like that, and time is the worst enemy of game devs it seems haha

And very true, I wasn't trying to say "Something should be done about it, right now!" I just wanted to know if other people noticed and did it bother them like it does me. All the more reason I cant wait for the creation kit!

[Zero7Sum]

Well... If you stand Tommy Lonegan, Kent Connolly, and John Hancock side by side, there are very discernible differences because Kent and Tommy DO have unique ghoul appearances. If you stand Hancock next to Wiseman, spotting a difference is much harder. I'm going to have to go in game and compare them with hard photographic evidence, but I'm pretty certain they use the same character model. I'm going to have to check on Daisy too, because her oddly pristine hair may lend a uniqueness to her face that isn't really there.

[BorrowedName]

Well... If you stand Tommy Lonegan, Kent Connolly, and John Hancock side by side, there are very discernible differences because Kent and Tommy DO have unique ghoul appearances. If you stand Hancock next to Wiseman, spotting a difference is much harder. I'm going to have to go in game and compare them with hard photographic evidence, but I'm pretty certain they use the same character model. I'm going to have to check on Daisy too, because her oddly pristine hair may lend a uniqueness to her face that isn't really there.

 

Edward Deegan also has a very unique face structure - notably his jawline.

[EspritAberrance]

Yeah I havent had the time to go compare everything with pictures due to some crashing issues but I figure that is what I would have to do to truly compare them. I haven't ran into Edward Deegan yet, or Tommy Lonegan, and I haven't really looked at Kent too much.

Thanks for all the input!

[Glycerius]

The named ones, at least, are unique. The ferals seem to be generic, but they're so degraded it's difficult to say.

 

There are named ferals like the managers in Dunwich Borer and those random encounter neighbours turned feral. They seem fairly identical.