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.
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.
Two things.
It's not just a game. If this happened in a vacuum then you would be totally correct and none of this would matter. It's our ENTIRE Western culture that we're seeing this happen to.
You're absolutely right that this is a primitive evil taking what we enjoy and warping it into something ugly. It's happening across the board in comic books, movies, video games, and streaming content.
You can blatantly see the difference in design/creative philosophy when you compare Western abominations to Japanese, Korean, and even Chinese media, where they still appreciate beauty and continue to produce huge selling products based on that idealistic aesthetic appeal, as evidenced with MiYoho's huge success with Genshin Impact.
A perfect example of this is Remedy Entertainment's Control. It took that game nearly two years to sell 2 million copies across 7 platforms. Remedy considered it a success, though, even though most single-A and double-A companies would consider those abysmal numbers:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-12-09-control-has-sold-more-than-2m-units
Compare that to Iron Gate's Valheim, an indie project that has no wokeness, no agendas, no SJW bullcrap. Just a classic Viking survival game, what people wanted from Assassin's Creed: Valhalla but didn't get. How much did it sell? 5 million within three weeks:
https://archive.is/c1NOv
For Western ideologues, it's not about the money, it's about the message.
Yep. She looked like she could have been a fun character to play with the original design.
I also thought them including limited use of a flintlock pistol would have been pretty cool, too. But someone on staff was very much against Aloy carrying around guns and they said that they shouldn't include anything reminiscent of Resistance, so they axed her being able to have pistols (even though near the end of the game she can still carry around a heavy machine gun for a limited amount of time).
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.
Two things.
It's not just a game. If this happened in a vacuum then you would be totally correct and none of this would matter. It's our ENTIRE Western culture that we're seeing this happen to.
You're absolutely right that this is a primitive evil taking what we enjoy and warping it into something ugly. It's happening across the board in comic books, movies, video games, and streaming content.
You can blatantly see the difference in design/creative philosophy when you compare Western abominations to Japanese, Korean, and even Chinese media, where they still appreciate beauty and continue to produce huge selling products based on that idealistic aesthetic appeal, as evidenced with MiYoho's huge success with Genshin Impact.
A perfect example of this is Remedy Entertainment's Control. It took that game nearly two years to sell 2 million copies across 7 platforms. Remedy considered it a success, though, even though most single-A and double-A companies would consider those abysmal numbers: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-12-09-control-has-sold-more-than-2m-units
Compare that to Iron Gate's Valheim, an indie project that has no wokeness, no agendas, no SJW bullcrap. Just a classic Viking survival game, what people wanted from Assassin's Creed: Valhalla but didn't get. How much did it sell? 5 million within three weeks: https://archive.is/c1NOv
For Western ideologues, it's not about the money, it's about the message.
Excellent comment
Wow that concept art is beautiful. Such a shame.
Yep. She looked like she could have been a fun character to play with the original design.
I also thought them including limited use of a flintlock pistol would have been pretty cool, too. But someone on staff was very much against Aloy carrying around guns and they said that they shouldn't include anything reminiscent of Resistance, so they axed her being able to have pistols (even though near the end of the game she can still carry around a heavy machine gun for a limited amount of time).
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.