Seriously, it ceased to amaze me about 5 minutes after I first started making a character in it. Granted, I never was all that much into playing with dollies...

Have you seen the Oakley website animated "Character" modelling the sunglasses? The Eve character creator has nothing on that lol. It is so realistic it is scary.

http://uk.oakley.com/products/6099/21820 and click "MALE" at the bottom.

Is EVE about making up virtual dolls? Not in your book, but in mine this is a sandbox, i pay for it, and i feel entitled to draw flowers and ponies and rainbows on the sand if i as much as please to...

I tried, it, but she looks better with short hair that doesn't obscures her cute face. When i made her, actually, I sculpted her face on the bald model, because when a woman looks pretty without hair, then it means that she actually is pretty.

I always do the same thing when creating characters in games. I also tend to "print screen", modify character, "print screen", alt tab, compare before and after, alt tab fairly often for each feature. The sheer amount of time I have spent on the EVE character generator is a bit ridiculous but I have noted a few oddities that many of you might already know.

If you twist the torso instead full character rotation you create the weird twisted neck issue which can be spotted by how even your collar is. This is quite acceptable if done in moderation, but can result in strange neck contortions if overdone.

The lighting and shadows are based of the body/face position. I find it easier to first move your character around (head position, torso twist, head tilt) to capture the shadows you desire. Then you can left click drag to re-angle your character into your desired position with the desired lighting.

If you want less shadows look upwards, or conversely look down for more. This could become awkward in relation to the body if overdone and you are not doing a close up.

It might be my imagination, but I feel as though the facial geometry gets a bit off center if your character is turned to the extreme edges. It might just be a natural effect of the angle/lens, the fact that the lighting is designed for the neutral position, or something even more subtle, but I find the best results are actually gotten when the character is near reset.

Is it my imagination or are the screenshot female avatar portraits a cup size larger than their character creation WIS versions? The smallest option (which is close to what I use) in the character creator seem like a modest B, which in turn translates into a fuller C. I find it a bit interesting that CCP decided to make the smallest option "average" and go up (way up) from there.

Despite all the poses and lighting choices I notice the same ones being used by players. Hairstyles to a lesser degree tend to favor a few. The outlandish choices are fun, but are not used very often.

I really enjoy the character creator and have spent too much time on it. I am getting close to a full wardrobe (need monocle, Quafe shirt , and Red/Gold Executor) and hope to see more classy items in the future. I just hope Team Avatar takes a more moderate approach since the listed non-available clothes in our current inventory (not counting the dress) seem as exciting as the "free" starter clothes, and the images I have seen from SiSi look like they belong in a S & M club.

Seriously.

If there is a single feature that puts EVE ahead of everything else in the videogame industry, it's the character creator.

Just look at what 20 minutes and some experimentation can achieve:

Before and after

Same character, same pose, only changed make up, hairdo and put a coat on her. And yet she looks a different person, expressing a different emotion.

i just love this stuff. I wish it to be developed further, more options, more power, to achieve greater goals. I am not an artist in no way (neither education nor hobby nor talent), and yet being able to create this sort of stuff just makes me feel proud in a personal, amateur way.

I just wish the avatars were somehing else than portraits...

Why do games never give you the option of playing a fat character?

because Eve is at end of life

Is that a videogame? No, it is not.

Is that something a user can modify/customize? No, it is not.

I was talking about video games.

Why do games never give you the option of playing a fat character?

Wow, calm down.

Thank you for this post... you guys have no idea how happy it makes me to read such a positve thread on something I really care about
(I modeled my character after myself and I think it almost looks more like me than some pictures of me )

Well, the second part of the OP is about how awful it is that the avatars aren't being used. As much praise as deserve for doing them, it's a shame they're not puting them to use, and how the plans to use them are fuzzy to say the least.

Sooner or later EVE will have to begin to offer new stuff as the ongoing cannibalization of features from hisec to feed them to the nullsec whiners can only take CCP so far before killing 75% of their income.

i'm glad that you liked it, i guess that it's a difference from the usual "I hates it, rollback it" and the "Where's my redskin dudes?" threads...

BTW, today i was tinkering a bit more and recalled that apparently each hairdo has got its own way to apply color, that is, a same color from the palette will have different effect depending on the active hairdo. I wonder, how is this achieved? Do each combo of hairdo + palette color have a pre-rendered texture, so different hairdos = different textures thus different color is rendered? Or it's some kind of post processing? So we could, potentially, choose different ways to shade the hairdo with each palette color? Maybe even have a color intensity slider like the one used for make up?

I mean... look at this GORGEOUS orange...

Could we have it for every hairdo? Or it's a pre-rendered texture specific to that bob?

Speaking of "whiners", didn't you say you cancelled your subs because Crucible offered nothing to you?

Before and after

Same character, same pose, only changed make up, hairdo and put a coat on her. And yet she looks a different person, expressing a different emotion.

Speaking of "whiners", didn't you say you cancelled your subs because Crucible offered nothing to you?

My main still is cancelled, and this account was resubbed because of the high prices of minerals and me fancying to mine during Hulkageddon. Dunno what will happen on June 29th (May 30th payment is sure to go), now that The Secret War defintively is not going to cut it for me, but as soon as tomorrow and the next days after Hulkaggedon V is mercifully relieved from its misery I may figure out wether i'll keep paying CCP past June.

Certainly Crucible did nothing for me, and Inferno just managed to remove stuff from me... but i still can mine a few millions an hour and tinker with the CC, and that cuts it for now.

Video games use the same tools as artists. Wacom's, modellers etc. Video game, movie, arnimation etc,, all the same big cost tools.

I mean who wants new missions, ships, game play, bug fixes and better balance between existing ships when you can have such a great character generator.

Sure thing - we got all those things you've mentioned during last year of focused FiS development. Frankly, I've started to believe Miila is correct about EVE is in the end of life cycle according to CCP and company is trying to get away from this game while distracting subscribers with missile smoke and ship trails.

Meanwhile I've seen message somewhere in the thread about blog post related to captain quarters planned on 29th - where is it?