Blizzard and their bad modeling/UW mapping.

First of all, i didn't know if i should have put this in off-topic, general development or not post this at all here since it mainly not about a model or Warcraft 3, but about all Blizzards models/games and i am sorry if it is in the wrong place. The reason behind this rant is that i started playing WoW a while ago, and when i don't really have anything to do. I just fly/ride around watching/inspecting Blizzards models/textures. Mainly how they made them but also for inspiration. I started noticing bad modeling and UW mapping. It were all over the place, wherever i went i noticed more and more.

So as you can notice in this picture below i have highlighted some areas where i think blizzard made bad decision, bad modeling or if they just didn't have enough time to finish what they did. So when did Blizzard start dropping in graphic quality? WoW is the first game i have really thought about inspecting and that i haven't noticed anything in their other games. How can Blizzard get away whit this stuff? Maybe i am the only one who really cares about such "pointless" stuff. But these things i pointed out in the picture are easy fixes and would not take more then a few seconds to fix or alter. So what do you think, have Blizzard dropped in graphic quality? Should they be able to get away with such easy fixes? If it did ever drop, when did it drop and why?


I apologize to Mike Morhaime and heres the real quote by Bobby Kotick: We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.

LOL! you noticed. the terrain and doodads is pretty meh but the people look pretty good. especailly the nelfs and belfs and nm...

i hope you're not paying for your exploration given the number of free servers out there

Well i noticed a long time ago, but since i started modeling a while ago i knew what were wrong. Most stuff in WORLD of warcarft just seems rushed and mass copied over and over. Yeah their character models seems to have a really higher standard compared to the rest of the models/texturing/UW maping. Maybe everyone who did not get a hang on doing animation applied for the environment modeling jobs. No i am not paying for it, playing on a private one.

If you read the requirements for their job description for 3D environment artist which is the guys who created those buildings. I don't really see any of those qualifications in that building. In fact it seems like someone who just started 3D modeling made that building and UW maping. I can understand that these guys are under a lot of stress and don't really have a lot of time to make every model and put all the details to their models that they would like too. But the extra time it would take to make those highlighted things look good ain't much or anything at all, it would probably be a time increase of 1-5%. And even if they didn't have that much of time to create everything wouldn't you take that crap model home and finish it? I would never let that crap be in such a huge game.

Hidden information: * 2+ years experience in game development modeling and texturing environments using Maya and Photoshop (or equivalent 3D and 2D programs) * Experience working with unique modeling and texturing styles for environments * Superior eye for light, shade, color, and detail in creating texture maps * An exceptional understanding of form, shape, structure, and silhouette in regard to modeling * Self-motivation, good communication skills, and a great team-player attitude * Skill in one or more of the related creation tasks: illustration, modeling, texturing, animation, or concept drawing * Understanding of Blizzard's visual style and a passion to push it to the next level

A funny quote taken from their job search page.

Hidden information: You will work with some of the industry's most talented, driven, and creative people, and together you will create the most epic entertainment experiences ever.

i would in fact like to encourage anyone who got a model approved on wc3c.net to apply to one of Blizzards 3D or 2D jobs if they ever wanted to join them since wc3c.net seems to have higher standards.

Edit: I just emailed Blizzard about this asking for answer regarding what they really did or what really happened. Hopefully i will receive and answer, maybe even an answer in this thread since i linked it.

Thats some pretty damn old terrain you are looking at though. I haven't looked much at say... Icecrown but I'm pretty sure it gets better as you look at newer models.


Edit: Are you sure Morhaime said that? That sounds more like Kotick.

I know the terrain itself is very old, but just because its old don't justify the laziness done to it. If you view the comparison below, its an fast an easy demonstration on how the UW maping is done to the roof. Yes i have to agree that Blizzard have improved overall with the graphics as the expansions gets released, but its mostly only in the new contents thats shown and you can still find badly done UW maping and modeling if you look a little bit harder. It seems like they didn't even try making the old terrain/model look good at all.

I am not sure Morhaime said that since i haven't found any source for it, i just have a copied pasted interview and as you say it can be Bobby Kotick who said it and not Morhaime since its both of them who are being interviewed.

I wouldn't be surprised if that roof was never meant to be viewed from above and they just reused it for Orgrimmar. Capital cities would have been made around the same time as Wc3, and no doubt in a rush to build an entire world. It's not like their art team just sits on their hands all day, there's new content and critical fixes to severely whacked-out models to do. The old cat models used to wig out pretty bad in the jump animation for one. I guess building UV errors don't really rate a mention in the big scheme of things.

In any case, there wouldn't be much point fixing it now, since it'll more than likely all change in Cataclysm.

EDIT: If I had my beef with the WoW art right now, it'd be with the new fire effects... sure it's flashy but honestly the old particle system looked more like actual fire than... unshaded orange water.

I am probably a bit way to harsh on Blizzard and the guys who made World of Warcraft, but since they always talk about being the best and having top notch quality you gotta admit its weird they let things like this pass.

If you go by the wikipedia information that can be found the devo of warcraft 3 started at 1998 "The development started in early 1998" and the time it took to create WoW were "Development of the game took roughly 4–5 years" So if we add the beta testing, they did and the public beta testing (if there were one) that should probably have lasted half a year or something around that. Then we roughly get around that they started around 1998 the same year as they started Warcraft 3. So that is probably true.

But, if you compare the 8 different cities that existed in World of Warcraft they all have a different quality. Like different people worked on them (which is probably the right one) or that some places were made in a hurry and they had to sacrifice quality and cope pasted a bunch of models. Now i don't know if the 3D modelers are the ones who creates all the textures in Blizzard, since i have seen several job applications for 2D artists and the 3D artist jobs often includes having vast knowledge of photoshop and texturing. But if they 3D artist did not create the textures. That means they had roughly 3-5 years to make the World of Warcarft and that should have been enough time for a team of 10-15 persons which that knowledge Blizzard requires to make the 3D environment. If you go and search on their job website for 3D you will notice that they have different teams working on different things: "3D Character Equipment Artist, 3D Environment Artist, 3D Character Artist" meaning that even if the cat had bad animations, it wouldn't be the house creators problem fixing those. Hes/hers probably would be fixing the houses. But i am sure the teams helped each others out where they were needed.

But lets play along that the houses in Ogrimmar were never really made for Ogrimmar or never meant to be viewed from the top at all. Then we get several problems, Blizzard always praise them self for having the best artist and the are always working for perfect quality. Now how does that sound to lets copy paste one of the main cities and how does that sound if they didn't even spend time fixing the UW maping of these buildings? The conversation between the artist and the leader should have been something like these

Hidden information: Leader: James, i love your buildings. I want to use them in Ogrimmar so would you make sure Bob gets them so he can finish it? James: But i made these buildings to never be viewed from the top so the UW maping is poorly made. Leader: I do not care, get them to Bob ASAP.

Even if their conversation would not have been like that and James are the one to blame cause the leader told him to fix the buildings so they would be usable in Ogrimmar shouldn't he (the 3D artist leader) have noticed that they UW maping on the buildings were poorly made and have told James to fix them since you are gonna be able to view the rooftops in Ogrimmar. Since 1, most of the rooftops you are able to get on top of. 2, Even if you would not be able to get on top of the rooftops, you would still be able to view them with an out zoomed camera.


Maybe this is how they planned to fix it all the time?


Do you got any screenshoot to compare the old fire effects with the new ones, cause i wanna see it.

cataclysm won't "fix it", they'll just burn it all down and put every one in tents... that can be seen from above...

sure there may be some modelers for warcraft 3 who aren't good at their job, but it's probably cheaper to just go with it without checking their work...when it comes to WoW it's just a bunch of players who are addicted to mmorpg that want to play it for the most part so getting the game and expansions and everything out there and working must be more important than making it all totally fantastic. the replay value it seems is in the exploration and boundlessness, rather than the sort of replay value of what we see in blizzard's other games.