Graphics: An analysis of the Footman

General Discussion
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I wanted to do this thread to make a quite extensive comparision on SD Footman to Reforged Footman, and try to disclose why some of us are not convinced with the new graphics, what I think should be the redesing philosophy, and why.

So let’s take a look at the Footman.

Footmen are:

The vast ranks of the Alliance armies have diminished over the years due to the incessant infighting amongst the former Alliance nations. However, many of the strong-hearted citizens of Azeroth have volunteered to defend their lands as Footmen. Though these fierce warriors lack the shining plate mail and specialized training of their noble predecessors, they still fight with bravery and honor on the field of battle. (From xhttp://classic.battle.net/war3/human/units/footman.shtml

Have this quote in mind, because it says everything. But let’s continue.

Comparison

Summary

Let’s have a look at the SD Footman:

https://imgur.com/BModNXQ

Every unit in WC3 has a background, a lore. But giving Warcraft 3 was an old RTS game, it didn’t have too many ways to show us this lore. Who are this footmen? Why are they fighting? They like to fight? Or are they afraid? What’s their personality?

A big part of these stories of Warcraft were tailored in our imagination.

This is why the faces of the units, the portraits, were so important. It was the only way the game had to show us something more about its characters and units.
And you can cleary see the differences in the grade of detail comparing the face and the rest of the model of whatever Warcraft 3 unit.

Let’s have a look at SD Footman portrait:

https://imgur.com/OFpMgbx

Not let’s have a look at the HD Footman and his portrait:

https://imgur.com/e4FDlgL

What’s the problem with the new HD Footman then?

Analysis

  • The valorous attitude: As we said before, footmen were strong-hearted citizens…, but not heroes. Not champions, nor warriors. They were simple soldiers.

  • The big, shiny, heroic armor: …lacking the shining plate mail and specialized training. But their armors now look too expensive, detailed, and like their belong to champions. Surely citizens did not have this much money.

  • The lean appareance: They now look too dexterous and lean. But they lack (…) specialized training of their noble predecessors

  • No more portraits, no more stories: We cannot see the character clearly now, what we said before about imagination, can’t happen now.

  • Visual clarity: Lots of players were pointing this out. The new textures, shiny metal effects, and slender units are not so easily recognizable as before.

Last image comparision for you to make your conclusions:

 https://imgur.com/VTmxql2

 https://imgur.com/EpECtUh

What to do?

Conclusion

My opinion is, taking an approach resembling something like this:

https://imgur.com/cSLGuPs

(By Triceron)

More simple armor, stout, rough face and general looking. It still looks like an untrained bruiser. Easy to recognize in the battlefield. (Obviously these textures are too simple and rough because it’s an amateur job).

This was a long post. If you read all through here, thank you very much.
If you like to see more of this posts, make me know.
And please comment what are your opinions on this matter.

11 Likes
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Good analysis, it is a nice article.

New footmen are no longer conscript, but full-time soldier. They resemble footmen from this cinematic

It is post-Pandaria art direction. I really would like for them to look for distinguishable in the field. But I dig them.

4 Likes
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this flavor text was to justify why footmen were no longer equivalent to the orc grunt.

new models were too big so it caused distinguishing unit problems.

Alliance then has no heavy infantry. What needs changing is armor thickness because it is power armor from SCII kind of thing. Men carrying armor thickness like armored fighting vehicles. Normal plate armor is 2-3 milimeters thick where it needs most protection. Less vital parts are lighter and gauntlets - a proper hit would break fingers regardkess of elaborate design unless you have no-finger plate gloves.

Tournament armor ws thicker, war armor was lighter because it needed to be worn, you had to move on foot. Apart from knightly plate armor, there was brigandine. And a well-made one for better-off people actually both a clothing and an armor. And the rivets on the outside gave for a great visual style.

So while I like the plate of footmen, I dont like too thick that reforged is planning.

A great alternative for the plate would be brigandine. IRL a brigandine + sallet gives for awesome.

No studded leather armor :smiley: but brigandine for lighter troops.

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It was a nice and somewhat informative read. That said, I have my own thoughts on the matter.

While it’d be cool for the nod to the lore of the unit, I’m not sure what type of armor the original footman could be described as wearing if its not plate mail. Personally, I like how the new footman looks, but, I’d be okay if they made the armor simpler, rougher, and made him look less professional as long as we could use the current one as a hero. It currently reminds me of the heroic footman in Thrall’s Vision (I think, might have been a different one) without a cape, and that guy looks awesome, but probably not your everyday soldier.

Also, and perhaps I’m bad at reading expressions through helmets, but to me the footman’s face looks ready to fight, and combined with his quotes he doesn’t seem afraid at all, but rather he seems eager to fight for his home; their lore says they are fierce warriors who fight with bravery and honor, after all. This is just my interpretation of it, though.

That said, I definitely agree that the portraits need to go back to how they were in default Warcraft 3, as in being up close and personal with the unit’s face. It seems weird they took the old Warcraft 3 approach in Starcraft 2, Blizzard’s most recent RTS, Starcraft: Remastered, which was created by the same team as the one doing the Reforged, and even Heroes of the Storm, a Moba, which all handle portraits very similarly to Classic Warcraft 3, yet they aren’t doing it here. It helps make the units seem less like throw away and more like characters, which makes sense due to how Warcraft 3 is played, as well as giving the iconic Blizzard feel. Perhaps what we have been shown currently has only consisted of placeholder portraits, but we can only hope.

8 Likes
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I can understand what people are getting at with wanting the footman to look more classic but in all of the WC3 cinematic’s and even some loading screens he does look similar to this reforged footman and I’m guessing they just couldn’t model him to that effect back in the day. But now they can model him the way they wanted to show him to be similar to the appearance in the cinematic’s. just what i thought about it all. I’m a fan of the new model.

7 Likes
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I agree, Triceron’s Model (xhttps://imgur.com/cSLGuPs) is way better as the standard footman than WC3R / Lemon Sky’s model (xhttps://imgur.com/e4FDlgL).

In some art camps there seems a desire to hero-ize and awesome-ize everything. WC3R needs to not do this. Ordinary units should look kinda ordinary.

3 Likes
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Yes, I agree. Maybe the word “afraid” wasn’t the best. I wanted to describe the feeling of not having complete confidence on what are going to be the results of what you are doing.

I wanted to talk about this too, but it was getting too long.
The footman in the cutscene indeed had that kind of bigger armor.
But it was just one footman in a cutscene, and because of that, ha had to look impressive.

But what they are remastering is the game itself not the cutscenes (sadly), and the footman we love and remember, and we are used to, its the footman with simpler armor. And I think they should be faithful to it

1 Like
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I agree that this is quite extravagant for a standard footman. However what IF armor upgrades played a role in how they were actually equipped in-game
They would start out without any shoulder-pads, a smaller shield and a weak looking helmet, and no gloves
with the first armor upgrade, they get gloves and a small set of shoulder-pads
with the second upgrade, they get a better shield.
with the third upgrade, they get the epic shoulder-pads and epic-helm
un-upgraded footmen shouldnt feel like much, but upgraded ones could still convey that epic sense this way.
The best part? this can already be done fairly easily with attachment points in the original Warcraft 3 engine.

1 Like
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In other words, more cartoony stylized look, less realistic and super pbr.

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I am planning on updating my old model, or editing the Reforged model, once the tools and game are available to us. I don’t think the Reforged footman is bad, I think all it needs are a few tweaks to bring it back into form.

2 Likes
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no offence but that image you showed (xhttps://imgur.com/cSLGuPs) is ugly, their current footman is better.

1 Like
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The model was created for SC2, so it was never meant to be used for closeups.

Xhttps://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/content_folder_media/0E4YO6FVX5371365785543125.jpg

This is what it looks like in SC2

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Your model has similarities to the WC3R one, especially the shoulderpads. Is that coincidence, is one based off the other, or are both based off some other art?

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I believe they may have based their model on the same concept I used, but also kept close to the Warcraft 3 Footman style

xhttp://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/File:Wc3-human-footman-large.jpg

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I don’t think their RG model is bad, I more likely think it can be improved.

Obviously that Footman, even while being a really good job, it’s an outdated model made by 1 person.
I just suggesting a design concept, what criteria I think they could use

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In my opinion the new one is great and only really has one flaw: The shoulder armor. It looks ridiculously big.

The model itself looks great, but i think they should seriously scale the shoulders down. The one used in the BFA cinematic is better in this regard too. Their shoulders aren’t bigger than their heads as the current model is. It looks ridiculous

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We talking footmen here? If there’s any Warcraft 3 design to take inspiration from, how about the one higher quality footman that they actually included ingame?

xhttps://d1u5p3l4wpay3k.cloudfront.net/wowpedia/0/04/Human_Campaign_WC3_wallpaper.jpg

On another note, I’d like to mention that I don’t think the idea behind the Reforged Footman is bad, but the proportions are irritating. The shoulders aren’t that tall even in the cinematics or concept art. It creates an effect where they don’t seem properly fitted to the armor.

2 Likes
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I don’t think asking for a rougher look is asking for cartoon style, they already done too many units to go back now…
Let’s shiny plate, and smaller shoulder pads would do the trick.

1 Like
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For me the changes are simple.

20% smaller pauldrons, so the top rim does not go beyond the top of the helmet. This could even be a simple scale in height.

Changed sword shape to match closer to the sword used in the Reforged cinematic. Right now it has a diamond shaped blade and an overly thick crossguard. I get this is fantasy and swords don’t have to make sense, but its not like the footman is the guy with the fanciest of swords. Simplify the crossguard to a slightly bent crescent, thicken the blade and taper it at the tip, not the other way around.

Then there’s the shield. I don’t mind it honestly, but I know a lot of people have readability issues so something could be done there.

4 Likes
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Agreed totally, from a logic point of view, it wouldn’t be possible to create this fancy armor and swords in mass, if u gonna make a million of these, u make simplier less, adorned, affordable armor and swords.
Even if they were trained warriors, not even half of these low class men would be able to afford them.
And I know this is fantasy, not the real life, but I’m more accostumed to the kind of fantasy where everytime makes sense and has a reason, except for magic…
Lord of the rings doesn’t get to be one of the best examples of this for nothing…
Is like the movies…personally I don’t like how armor looks in wow movie… It looks really fake, due the shinning they almost look like made of aluminum…
If you watch lord of the rings, not even the king has this very adorned fancy armor