Blocky is my pick, but ditch the weird feet.
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I’m surprised how quickly everyone is able to ditch the classic unturned look.
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Yeah me too! i think its the best decision for the game!
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I don’t see the blocky design straying too far from the original its just better, and i guess its better for newer players as they are not too attached with the og 7 year old character.
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I think blocky characters just look a lot better, to me the soft edges just dont look like they belong in unturned.
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I feel like the new proposed player model doesn’t really fit the Unturned artstyle. I know that the old model might be a bit wonky but this is what was always somehow charming to me about Unturned characters.
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I pick a bendy because for me it fits a game also i’m think it could have dismemberment gore and could be fixed in my opinion also blocky it’s kinda weird like a doll like and doesn’t resemble a human to me and reminds me a minecraft buttleg typical character.
Maybe we could for some time give chance for blocky and see if it sticks to game.
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So, I want to bring up the question of proportions.
I ripped the original model from the game (sorry Nelson 
) and adjusted it to look about the same as the one in the blogpost.
Here’s my mockup (without the feet) vs the original:
The blocky one looks fine from this angle, but if I look from somewhere else… those arms are pretty big!
It immediately looks off.
This blocky model with hands and feet will need adjustments to the proportions so it won’t look like this.
I understand this debate isn’t about proportions, but this is something we should consider.
I mean, look at this chonkey!
Here he/she/it is with more “realistic” proportions…
It’s probably going to take a lot of effort to make the model look right, but I think it’s worth it.
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Ok now this is one topic I am highly passionate about so lets do this.
First off I think with the direction Unturned II is heading with the less blocky (Compared to Unturned 3) style with the guns, items, and buildings, I kinda fell like the character itself somewhat got left behind with everything else as the game evolved. (Ignore the tank trap that hasn’t changed since 1.0)
I’m not saying we should go back to the blocky look of 2.0, I’m saying this character upgrade is a good thing that will help II feel more complete, and have the character fit into the world better. And as long as the character feels like it fits into the world I see no problem at least trying this out whether it be permanent, or even just for a year, see how it works, see if people begin to see it as the positive change that it is, and tweak it in the areas necessary. The old character rig/model is nice and classic and the II rig improved on it heavily, but I agree many of the issues are still relevant no matter what’s done with the bendy rig. and with my experiments that I have done trying to fix those issues (And failing horribly), having the character blocky makes the most sense, and still fits without drifting from the Unturned look.
I also find with how broken and messy the bendy rig is, there’s no point sticking with it if there’s a better way. The game will continue to have to evolve around these issues, and that’s no fun for the people having to work around them too. I can see this rig not working in 3.0 with how simple everything is, though it can easily fit into Unturned II, as long as everything else fits with it of course. With just the blank character It may be hard to see that, and I believe if there was more to show like it working with the clothes, faces, hair/beards, and seeing it in the world, It could be better judged to see if it still fits into the Unturned world, which I believe it will very nicely.
On that note, I notice many people (Including myself at times) will quickly dislike examples/changes as big as these with only seeing the incomplete version first and comparing it to the already completed variation, the devkit being a good example. Compared to the legacy editor it looks janky and incomplete. (Which it might be, idk If you ever said it was completed). And despite it having better features in many regards and having much more control, the legacy editor out shines it due to when it was released, it was in a much more completed state, and people got the full gist of how it worked. We never truly got that with the devkit editor due to it releasing in an incomplete and hard to understand state. Point being, it would be good to show more examples, even just concepts of the final thing. This for example, like I mentioned earlier it could have used pictures with clothes/faces/hair, even if its not the final look and you just imported the 3.0 hair, that little bit extra would make it much easier for people to decide with something as big as this.
Finally with the rig, I have to 100% agree, the feet truly look like the ugly Roblox joint model they made for WHATEVER reason.
It just kinda looks bad and doesn’t serve as big of a fix the arms desperately needed, and I know there’s probably no other good way to do it, and possibly with shoes on the character It won’t look too bad, but I HAVE been messing around with a way to do this with the 3.0 rigs for my animations, and I think I know a good way it could work, with keeping the new blocky aspect. This Minecraft rig is a very good example although I’m not 100% sure if it could work with an Unreal foot IK, though if it can this would be a nice thing to try at least.
Its all controlled with the foot bone rotation and blender shape keys like you are already using for the blocky bends so it could be a very cool approach if possible, the one issue most likely being texture stretching like on the 3.0 rig, though to be real a tiny bit of texture stretching is not an issue that should be worried about unless its just absolutely broken of course. It may also be tricky to do with the 3D shoes, though if it can work, I believe it would be a much nicer and cleaner approach, the hands and limbs being separated I fully understand and that’s a good call, I just don’t think the feet being separate is truly necessary.
With the weird sitting you mentioned with the butt, sure it looks weird but Minecraft manages with it, and lets be real its not much weirder than these two.
The 3.0 one is just a mess and with the current II model, it looks like its shins are bending which is absolutely disturbing lol. Also one tiny suggestion while on the subject of the character changing, I think it would be awesome to change the eyes/mouth separately, would add much more customization when it comes to facial expressions!
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Have you tried playing with topology. Like having a triangle on a pivot point to keep the weights from destroying the model?
With the bends that can take place in Unturned, crawling and aiming a gun simultaneously, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid noticeable stretching and overlapping. It’s not the weights that are at play, it’s the model itself.
Here’s standing Unturned man. We want him to swing his arm up like this (for crawling maybe).
Here it is.
It looks dogass. Rotating it slightly like this can work for holding something like a gun or a bottle, but…
…for crawling u gotta swing it sideways.
(back side)
This is good for crawling, there’s still a bad spot but it’s not as horrible as the other example.
Now, what if you want to crawl and hold a gun at the same time? You give up and accept the mess that comes of it.
Unless you create a million shape keys and figure out the math that would drive them all, maybe you can make it look good, but right now, detached is better at avoiding the mess.
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Self-Necro’d because this is a massive importance post.
I honestly think that bendy model should stay in U3.
And blocky model should stay in Roblox and LEGO games.
The entire artstyle and amount of detail has improved greatly for almost every object within the game, but the player model. There’s an issue besides all those already mentioned.
People dislike the idea of changing too much the model because “legacy looks” but tbh there’s a whole slew of problems that those looks carry along that just can’t remain untouched, provided that the end goal is to clearly have a game as polished and highest quality possible; I clearly understand why this buggers Nelson.
My approach/suggestion? I gotta agree with @TigerSurvivor that if we want to remain loyal to legacy artstyle (at least when it comes to the player model, since anything else hardly remains legacy anymore) we might have to think about a decent mixture of both if possible, that tackles most if not all existing issues with current model.
However… That’s if Nelson decides the player model has to remain “legacy-looking”. I personally wouldn’t like if after so much work and evolution on every sense the player model got stagnant into old schemes. This is why I have to second @AnimaticFreak and @Leprechan12 iterations on the addition of a few more poligons to the model so it’s not entirely flat, squared and roblox-like.
I’m pretty sure that it’s possible to use the poligonal approach for the player model, while still preserving some blockyness and doing proper adjustments to have adequate proportions so it all fits into the new world building and animations nicely, plus still maintaining some uniqueness to our player model.
I wish I or someone else could help to make some example models or prototypes that take my points into consideration. I do really want to leave my 2 cents with more than just my opinion.
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i did not read but i think i agree cuz of the cool comparisons n stuff. Also ngl 2.0s character looks pretty dope, its like a customized block person cuz there are little changes, like the trapezoid torso instead of a straight up block
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How about keeping the guy blocky, but increasing the detail anyway?
Something like this:
This doesn’t look Unturned at all, but that’s my idea of “increasing detail”. Go full blocky and just add more cubes.
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Ok, that is NOT unturned, that is not pretty, that looks bad.
And about this post, it makes no sense, u really expect that model to be the final one? Bruh its just a test that nelson is giving us to see what are the new possibilities for this new model.
And it will have changes and improvements, for sure, so…
In my opinion, its kinda dirty to copy a model and change the angle to see that is bad, because u cant copy it perfectly, its like lying.
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Of course I don’t expect the model to be the final one, this is a debate, I’m just saying that If the Unturned model is going to have hands, the proportions of the model will probably need adjusting. The rest is just my brain storming.
I do admit, that reading it with your additude makes me sound super arrogant, probably should’ve thought about that so, sorry! I just don’t like the feet man.
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I fully agree that having cheaper folds that look less distorted is very good, but I find a character model made entirely of blocks very ugly and doesn’t match the current item design, I wouldn’t mind using a more basic system for the hand position, perhaps hinges that are not noticeable? what I mean is I like it:
but not of this:
I want to keep the current model, but with tweaks that make the positions less distorted without having to make unturned have a roblox character, I didn’t see any problem with the old finger gloves, even if they were in a somewhat awkward position.
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Thanks for all the feedback so far! I will wait a couple more days before weighing in, but I would like to clarify about the arms. The proposal arms are longer, but not as much longer as they may appear. Currently in 4 the arms are 75cm from shoulder to end of hand. The proposal arms are 60cm from shoulder to wrist, and the hand is 26cm long.
It does not have a rig or anything but here is the proposal Blender file: https://smartlydressedgames-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/nelson_smartlydressedgames_onmicrosoft_com/ER6VNBk6EZNGm1tzOxtpKgcBlo1CkkHmRCq49P1DcPJb6w?e=nHi1XT
And here is how the characters appear from above:
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