characters with the beauty trait look actually pretty ugly

[Drukaris]

i know its not a major problem but it kinda bothers me
they all look somewhat ugly and fake, almost like aliens wearing human skin mask and way too much makeup

the weakest trait is still in the realm of acceptable but the stronger versions of the trait are progressively worse

edit

i think the symmetry is the easily worst aspect and the one thing that makes their faces so uncanny - even highly symmetrical faces irl are not mirrored to that degree

close second one is the progressive lack of skin complexion

[Twelvefield]

What you are getting at is extremely subjective. There's a lot to unpack. First of all, there's a thing called The Uncanny Valley, which is a mathematical descriptor of how the closer you get to making an artificial person, the stranger they will look, exactly like you say as in an alien wearing a skin mask.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Second, you're not taking into account how difficult it is to model features across cultures in a character that can age. Instead of hiring an artist to create a custom character on the spot every time there's a change in your game, the devs chose to rely on stock injectable digital assets that they can use to morph and mod their base characters. This saves on time, money, and file size, but it also limits the amount of things you can realistically do. This is a good thing if the per-unit retail price of the game is to be kept under a quarter million dollars.

Third, you're not taking into account the biases of the art team in the first place. Nobody lets them out to see daylight (if you let the art team out of their crate, they would run away! It's not hard to hire new artists as they are a dime a dozen, but it is very difficult to fit them all into the crate and get the lid sealed again) so the only people they ever see with their own light-sensitive eyes are themselves and porn. Maybe they come from a culture where the people aren't as pretty as you. Not arguing that American smut is the greatest in the world, but checking out dirty pictures from other cultures can be even more depressing. To the point: the artists will have their own biases, and unless you become an artist yourself, you just have to live with them or find another artist that you do like. Even if you do take up a career in the arts (so long, liver), you just end up hating everything anyway. So maybe you are on the right path after all.

Last, have you seen what medieval people look like? Ana de Armas they are not. You are trying to project your modern values of beauty on a time where people ate grease because it made them fat. There's lots and lots of pictures you can hunt for; if you need a starting point, put Holbein in your search engine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger

I do know the art team strove for period authenticity. I don't know what their biases are towards beauty, but my guess is they used the simplest, plainest human character base models they could find because that would be the easiest to morph.

[Drukaris]

@Twelvefield

i appreciate your thoughts and agree a lot but youre aiming somewhat high

i think the symmetry is the easily worst aspect and the one thing that makes their faces so uncanny - even highly symmetrical faces irl are not mirrored to that degree

close second one is the progressive lack of skin complexion

now i dont know how difficult it is to fix that but considering that normal character are mostly fine i assume its not as complicated as youre making it out to be

[Celestial]

I noticed some characters start looking better once they are given rank titles like Duke/King including their female counterparts. The fancy clothes/jewels really do change/improve how they look.

However in general, I do want more pretty looking characters in game. Sometimes I search for suitable partners for my children, and even thought they have good stats, if their partner looks like a donkey I have to pass, can't consciously do that to my kids.

There are very few cases where the Alliance benefit was a must for war, in which case, I'm sorry my son/daughter, your partner is not very pretty, but hes a good guy according to his traits.

The positive congenital traits are great though, something like "Genius" is well worth the investment in family future.

[Drukaris]

Originally posted by Azure Tempest:

However in general, I do want more pretty looking characters in game. Sometimes I search for suitable partners for my children, and even thought they have good stats, if their partner looks like a donkey I have to pass, can't consciously do that to my kids.

same and thats whats so annoying to me - at some point you almost always inherit the positive traits, which includes the 3 beauty traits and then your dynasty is doomed to look like fake hollywood stars having undergone too much surgery

i just want normal looking people man

[Raingnome Noir]

Interesting post by Twelvefield, but i think he's missed out on something. CK3's portraits were kind of awesome (and more accurate/varied) before the Royal Court update, if it was possible once and isn't any longer, then something obviously went wrong.

[Twelvefield]

They did make changes to the models and more importantly the rendering in the Royal Court update. This was to be able to make the models wear greater varieties of outfits and to eliminate some of the stranger morphs. As well, some people with lower-end video cards were having problems seeing some skin and hair types properly.

So there was greater variety, but a less stable rendering system before RC. The devs made the change so that the foundation models could support more DLC in the future. It's not so much that something went wrong, it's more like you appreciated the flaws in the old system but the new system is more stable at the cost of losing those endearing defects. Then, too, the dev gained experience and levelled up, learning from their mistakes.

I want to be fair: there's nothing wrong with preferring the old models, or different models, but you have to recognize that this is just your subjective opinion, and you're not backing it up with anything more than how you personally feel. It's not so easy to expect to get any of those old flawed models back, though, given how the system works.

[Doe_36]

I think the same, in the game: Chicks with beauty traits look ordinary. Is there a mod that only makes the women with beauty traits look like total hotties?

[JC]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Stuff

You forgot the most important aspect, Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm not going to go into a long rant about this aspect, but the fact is what someone thinks is the most beautiful person they have ever seen another might not even give them a second look.

I can't tell you how many times i am baffled by what people think is the standard. No one is right, it's all personal preference.



OP, your going to have to mod or adjust things if you want them to conform to your ideal's, that's the only way it's happening.

[Ordinary Cat]

Beauty is subjective. In context of the game, they are Beautiful. You may not agree that the character beautiful but your opinion is not what's being measured via the trait.

As far as symmetry or appearing uncanny, this just happens regardless of traits because of the way the models are designed. Sometimes you get a weird combination, and sometimes that weird combination also has the Beauty trait. I've come across, imo, very average looking characters with the Beauty trait and very beautiful characters with no Beauty trait. Some characters look better in certain types of lighting, so some event settings can do a character dirty.

[The Impractical Engineer]

i dont care what anyone says, the women are good-looking.

[The Impractical Engineer]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3020463421

this is an exception

[Dizzy Ladybug]

Originally posted by The Impractical Engineer:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3020463421

this is an exception

there's beauty hidden under there some where XD

[CrUsHeR]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2507209632
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2783349674
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2783343921

1) EPE: Reduces the effect of the Beauty traits. Makes ethnicities and faces look so much better and diverse.

2+3) Fair Lords / Ladies: Changes the skin textures to look less like coal miners or crack junkies. So the difference between beauty- and non-beauty trait characters becomes even less apparent.

[PDX-Trinexx]

Originally posted by Doe_36:

I think the same, in the game: Chicks with beauty traits look ordinary. Is there a mod that only makes the women with beauty traits look like total hotties?

Please don't bump old threads; it's preferable to start a new one if it's been more than 6-8 months since the last reply.