Diablo 4 Without „Artificial and Bland” Characters
Blizzard revealed some new information about Diablo IV. Among other things, the devs discussed the appearance of characters, which will be able to customize more than in previous installments.
- In Diablo IV players will have many more customization options for the characters they see in cut-scenes;
- Blizzard took the cinematics from Diablo III as a template for visuals that will take advantage of the new technology, but will not result in "artificial or bland" characters.
The announcement of Diablo IV - albeit without a release date - has translated into quite a bit of activity on Blizzard's part. The company has just published another "issue" of quarterly update, revealing new information about the fourth Diablo. This time, art director John Mueller, with the help of lead character artist Arnaud Kotelnikof and deputy art director Nick Chilano, focused on the visual layer of the game, and more specifically: the designs of characters and monsters.
Clearly, the developers wanted to take advantage of the benefits of new technological solutions to deliver a virtual masterpiece. However, Blizzard did not want to fall into the trap of excessive realism, creating "artificial or bland" characters - everything is to be maintained in the style typical for the series. The reference for the creators were the cut-scenes from Diablo III and, although they will also be present in the fourth game, we will also see a lot of cut-scenes on the game engine, which are to be comparable to the "cinematics" from the third installment. An example of this we could see during the presentation of the rogue class a few months ago.
We had Fashions Souls, we had Team "Hat Simulator" Fortress 2 - now it's time for Fancy Diablo
Real-time rendering is so important, because Diablo IV will offer much richer character customization options. The new dye system will enable us to change the color of each piece of armor, and the players will also be able to play with different combinations of hair, beards, and decorative elements. We'll be able to see all of this not only in combat and in the new wardrobe menu, but also during some in-game cutscenes:
"Diablo IV has more in-depth customization for your characters than we’ve had in any previous Diablo games. You will be able to change the face of your character, the hairstyle, the facial hair (beards and eyebrows), and add jewelry (nose piercing or earrings), makeup, and body markings such as tattoos or body paint. You will also be able to change the color values of your character’s skin, eyes, hair/facial hair, and body markings. Some elements will be class specific, to support the classes’ unique backgrounds, but many will be shared between classes allowing more possibilities to mix and match."
This does not mean that players will have absolute freedom. Blizzard's idea, a good idea, is that even the most decorated barbarian or rogue still has to look like the character class chosen by the player. So characters will be unique, but we'll still be able to recognize their specialization. The developers are also working to balance out the higher detail in the models so that it doesn't detract from readability, which is aided by what's known as "detail mapping" (in the words of Arnaud Kotelnikoff: "small, repeating textures overlaid on top of material that increase the sharpness and detail of the main texture").
In addition to this and a handful of behind-the-scenes information about the development process the new quarterly report is also a presentation and discussion of the creation of new and old monster models, not only in artworks, but also in short videos. We encourage you to check out the new materials (and the whole article) on Blizzard's official website. Unfortunately, it doesn't provide any information about the release date - at least not yet.
