I think it's just better facial capture, and I'll tell you why. The black woman who plays her is that ugly in real life. That's why it looks like she's made of wood, that's why she's so uncanny valley even in the first game. Because they stuck a ginger's color palette on a black woman's face.
Also, for those of you who don't know. Face capture is 1:1. There is no such thing as the technology doing weird stuff to the mesh.
Any and all of the distortions/deformity come from the clean-up crew. The tech only captures exactly what's there.
Here's how photogrammetry works (which is what it's called when someone is photo-scanned into a game):
(EDIT: This video gives you a very quick 3 minute overview of the process from scan to in-engine asset) https://youtu.be/99NO_wzg9Qc
Indie devs oftentimes use photogrammetry/LiDAR to drastically cut down on costs instead of having to manually generate/design models/assets/sculpts.
Big companies also use it for the same purposes as well.
This myth that the tech is screwing up the faces is more bullcrap spread around to mitigate the blame from developers purposely making the women hideous. It's why the male model in Mass Effect Andromeda came out looking like a 1:1 of the real actor and the female model did not. The mesh/modeler team purposely made the female look hideous after scanning in the mesh data.
In reality, the clean-up crew should literally only CLEAN UP and remove excess vertices before sending the model/mesh through the retopology phase. With woke designers this isn't what's happening, instead they're going in and purposely making the females look worse than they do in real life. Widening the jaw, bloating up the cheeks (like in Aloy's case), broadening the forehead, shrinking the eyes, protruding the lips, etc., etc., etc.
Anyone who knows anything about model design knows what they're doing is deliberate.
Wow! I don't know who to blame more, the disgusting SJWs that wish to corrupt beauty, or the idiot consoomers who eat their shit up.
I know it's "just a game" and we shouldn't take it too seriously, but it feels like there's a primitive evil behind the desire to take something pleasant, and warp it into something "bleh". It's like what Tolkien's bad guys would do.
Honestly I bet if someone tried, they could make an hours long youtube video on all the subtle wokeness of the first game. In my short time playing, I also remember two sidequests, one of which involved a commie-esque character stealing from the rich, and a priest who doesnt want a gay-coded character to enter their order, who you punch in the face. Im willing to bet there was tons more if I had kept playing
The flawed matriarchy and Rost being an amazing mentor and father figure kind of allowed me to shrug off a lot of the other stuff. I think it was really well written for a modern gaming script.
I mean, for one thing the matriarchal tribe she came from was pretty much wrong about everything. Only one of the ruling matriarchs wasn't a frightened, old, curmudgeonly idiot. And the last wasn't exactly smart she was just an old free spirit hippy type.
And the big bad Roman Empire analog turned out to be ruled by a benevolent king and was clearly the most advanced and knowledgeable civilization. I kept expecting them to pull a "Surprise, the western civilization people are actually the big bad imperialists and we should all seek to be more like the noble savage." but it didn't happen.
Yeah, some people did videos breaking it down. There was also a comparison between Horizon and Nier Automata that outlined why one was feminist propaganda and the other wasn't.
I wouldn't call the first game "subtle" in the woke / sjw bullshit - but I still liked the game cause the story was good, specially the setting.
Now that the big mistery is gone, I don't think ill care bout this game. I fully expect then to go full woke now that the setting opened up.
That and the fact the ending rubbed me the wrong way when she is listening to the convo between Gaia ( who is black, of course ) with Sobek and she was like "if you had a boy or a girl, what would you tell her or him" or something like that.
And Sobek made it clear she wanted it to be "HER".
I think it's just better facial capture, and I'll tell you why. The black woman who plays her is that ugly in real life. That's why it looks like she's made of wood, that's why she's so uncanny valley even in the first game. Because they stuck a ginger's color palette on a black woman's face.
That's not how face capture works.
The clean-up crew purposely made her look hideous.
Here's a comparison picture between Hannah and Aloy: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5accc51696e76f10e151d123/1551788029054-B7FYSYR2BE88WYUTRQWT/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kO6t_FIigFZlD-2ukJs68NZ7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1UdQnRCmyfmE32mt8hf8jTbpNOvskeoRv-ygqK_y0NLe3pygZMNSAPtQr-kV0SxGO-A/0E4B36EF-5056-4414-9119-F38ED595B2C1.JPG?format=1500w
Notice how even with a wide jaw Hannah still looks very feminine and does not have that bee-sting look that they gave to Aloy in the game.
They went out of their way to make her look that hideous. Here's how Aloy was supposed to look in the concept art before Ashley Burch came in and suggested they ugly her up: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/e5/70/48e570b93ea2fbbef9a6fcf3a2c0cf3b.png
Here's Burch talking about how she (re)influenced Aloy's design: https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2018/07/06/horizon-zero-dawn-aloy-changed/
Also, for those of you who don't know. Face capture is 1:1. There is no such thing as the technology doing weird stuff to the mesh.
Any and all of the distortions/deformity come from the clean-up crew. The tech only captures exactly what's there.
Here's how photogrammetry works (which is what it's called when someone is photo-scanned into a game): (EDIT: This video gives you a very quick 3 minute overview of the process from scan to in-engine asset) https://youtu.be/99NO_wzg9Qc
(another video for additional reference) https://youtu.be/1D0EhSi-vvc
If you scan in a fugly model then the model will come out fugly in the mesh, as evidenced here: https://youtu.be/8D40VEyoFxo
Newer tech now uses LiDAR, which is what a lot of devs now use to very quickly and easily generate content and assets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exeagQ4g3-I
Indie devs oftentimes use photogrammetry/LiDAR to drastically cut down on costs instead of having to manually generate/design models/assets/sculpts.
Big companies also use it for the same purposes as well.
This myth that the tech is screwing up the faces is more bullcrap spread around to mitigate the blame from developers purposely making the women hideous. It's why the male model in Mass Effect Andromeda came out looking like a 1:1 of the real actor and the female model did not. The mesh/modeler team purposely made the female look hideous after scanning in the mesh data.
Otherwise, if you scan someone in it will look like this: https://youtu.be/A9UO49WUjig
In reality, the clean-up crew should literally only CLEAN UP and remove excess vertices before sending the model/mesh through the retopology phase. With woke designers this isn't what's happening, instead they're going in and purposely making the females look worse than they do in real life. Widening the jaw, bloating up the cheeks (like in Aloy's case), broadening the forehead, shrinking the eyes, protruding the lips, etc., etc., etc.
Anyone who knows anything about model design knows what they're doing is deliberate.
Wow! I don't know who to blame more, the disgusting SJWs that wish to corrupt beauty, or the idiot consoomers who eat their shit up.
I know it's "just a game" and we shouldn't take it too seriously, but it feels like there's a primitive evil behind the desire to take something pleasant, and warp it into something "bleh". It's like what Tolkien's bad guys would do.
Excellent comment
Wow that concept art is beautiful. Such a shame.
Look up Ashley Burch. Aloy's face, especially the weird jawline, looks like her.
I don't care what they say they based it on as cover. I care what it actually looks like.
Honestly I bet if someone tried, they could make an hours long youtube video on all the subtle wokeness of the first game. In my short time playing, I also remember two sidequests, one of which involved a commie-esque character stealing from the rich, and a priest who doesnt want a gay-coded character to enter their order, who you punch in the face. Im willing to bet there was tons more if I had kept playing
The flawed matriarchy and Rost being an amazing mentor and father figure kind of allowed me to shrug off a lot of the other stuff. I think it was really well written for a modern gaming script.
you clearly don't remember well enough, considering everything you just listed is a mortal wound on the game.
Wasn't quite as bad as I thought.
I mean, for one thing the matriarchal tribe she came from was pretty much wrong about everything. Only one of the ruling matriarchs wasn't a frightened, old, curmudgeonly idiot. And the last wasn't exactly smart she was just an old free spirit hippy type.
And the big bad Roman Empire analog turned out to be ruled by a benevolent king and was clearly the most advanced and knowledgeable civilization. I kept expecting them to pull a "Surprise, the western civilization people are actually the big bad imperialists and we should all seek to be more like the noble savage." but it didn't happen.
Yeah, some people did videos breaking it down. There was also a comparison between Horizon and Nier Automata that outlined why one was feminist propaganda and the other wasn't.
She's not ugly.
That's how leftists actually look. See: Greta Thunberg
Greta is ugly too.
HOW DARE YOU!!!
Her face is a moving goalpost. The third game will triple her chins and halve her sales.
I wouldn't call the first game "subtle" in the woke / sjw bullshit - but I still liked the game cause the story was good, specially the setting.
Now that the big mistery is gone, I don't think ill care bout this game. I fully expect then to go full woke now that the setting opened up.
That and the fact the ending rubbed me the wrong way when she is listening to the convo between Gaia ( who is black, of course ) with Sobek and she was like "if you had a boy or a girl, what would you tell her or him" or something like that. And Sobek made it clear she wanted it to be "HER".