Bendy vs Blocky Character Debate

Thanks again for all the feedback! Lots of controversy which makes it harder to decide one way or the other, but perhaps we can reach the best of both worlds.

Replying to questions:

This has mostly been a consensus particularly with regards to the feet. I do want the character to remain distinct from Minecraft and Roblox. Personally I recollect on the original Roblox character fondly. Ironically considering this topic I agree that the newer ones do not have the same charm. As Rain pointed out, constraints can be helpful for creativity. Does anyone have thoughts on what would make the feet less of an issue?

Perhaps I am misinterpreting, but the glove design I want to return to are the meshed gloves from earlier in the beta which had a cutout for the “fingers”.

FWIW, the current bendy character on the 4 beta version should not have the gun in their shoulder. The main improvement that helped reduce that was allowing the upper body to rotate 30-45 degrees away from the hips. Both the bendy and blocky character should benefit from this.

Theoretically I would love to program a game with character designs like those, but cannot imagine modeling without exact measurements and dimensions. For Unturned I think that might stray too far from the art style as well. It reminds me of this post: Interesting character style concept art

Interesting idea. I think this really changes the feel of the hands though, whereas proposed cube design holds items in a similar manner to the old design. Here is the rotated hand:

True, it would be possible to keep the hips and shoulders connected to the torso. Those connections are the cause of some hideous distortions however, like the Bluntforce example.

In case it impacts your opinion, I would like to note that a “final” modeling of the blocky character would have similar gaps, but might have slightly adjusted dimensions.

Agreed! I think it would be especially useful to separate the eyes and mouth for aligning eyes with masks and glasses.

It does have promise. At one point I did experiment with that rather than feet. In my opinion it felt wrong for the arms to have hands without the legs having feet. Something like the detail level being inconsistent across the character, whereas all the current characters have a similar level of detail throughout the body.

To clarify: it was not the gloves themselves that were in the awkward position there, it was the inner forearm, elbow, and outer shoulder that did not make sense.

Unfortunately this works best with a single axis of rotation like elbow and knee, whereas the hands need to rotate freely.

Yeah my bad. I have been too fussy with 4 since the beginning. :griefer:

I briefly experimented with a thinner even blockier character:


As a messy example of why I am hesitant to taper the arm, I do not like how the intersection between upper and lower looks:

Interesting point. This was more true in the early days, but there are a lot of smooth-shaded props in 3 now. e.g. at a PEI farm the silos, well, logs, and trees are smooth-shaded. The player, zombies, and animals are the only smoothed weighted meshes though, and I suppose that would be lost if the character was blocky.

Stretching the arm could be supported, but the main issue is that the arm rolls 180 degrees which twists the connection to the body. One of the benefits of detaching the shoulder from the body is that there would be no distorted mess there anymore.

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I don’t think I explained it properly, what I suggested was an arm where the top base is larger than the bottom.

For example The arm starts with an area of 10cm² and ends with 7cm², while the upper arm has the same 7cm² as the end of the arm and ends with 5cm².

This would solve the intersection problem, I think.

Remembering that these values are pure examples, I do not understand much about proportions :sweat_smile:.

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There are differences in opinion, but judging by the comments, i think the winner is blocky character. I’ll recommend a poll to be made in this post (if that’s possible without making another post) and have straight Bendy/Blocky options and see what the numbers tell us. As for getting a middle-ground, that’s pretty much a given that doesn’t need a 3rd option or reconsideration. Making it too blocky will harm the aesthetic, while making it too bendy will harm the functionality.
As it looks right now, blocky model seem to be preferred over the bendy model.

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Did some experimenting with the 3.0 body.

Here I made a bone from the knee and here is when it doesn’t effect anything


parent(has weight paint)

elbow bone parent( Has a weight paint)

Shoulder bone weight paint change

Here is a pose of how these bones affect model



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It is an improvement over the current model, but the arms are still contorting a lot. Especially at pic 5, the side of the arm is almost twice as slim as the actual size of the arm, along with the crooked twisting that goes on when the arm is rotated at the shoulders. Or anywhere, for that matter.

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Your back is against the wall, Rain.

I know new doesn’t equal better, but when new means fixing fatal errors in the joints, adding dismemberment possibilities, better animations and so on, then yes, it’s an improvement. There’s no denying it XD.

And asking me “What bugs” makes me see that you are lying to yourself. So this is my answer XD.

Zbohom, človiečik.

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Hey Nelson can you explain why dismembrent woudln’t work on bendy playermodel i just curious

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Unironically this is the best path forward, minus the block head of the character. Firefights in the game will always be wonk af as long as there exists these bizarre blockheaded creatures shooting. I could care less if the game’s artsyle is “ruined”, it was never good in the first place so it’s impossible to ruin it. With U2 in development it’s a perfect time to make a damage system that is somehow more basic than Phantom Forces.

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at least someone likes it.

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Yup, I’m generally just sick of these children’s playermodels and want to see playermodels that actually bare some resemblance to a human.

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@Lance @MrKoix This, I want to dismember zombies n’ shit.

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Yeah like blocky looks like more human than bendy also “children’s playermodels” as you said meaning behind this is that you don’t like playermodels that aren’t capable for dismembernt gore?

In general I’m just saying the blocky and bendy playermodels create a childish style because they are reminiscent of ROBLOX and Legos, which is one reason why 3.0 currently has an abundance of children.

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I remember when the Unturned II Vehicle beta came out, The Denizens were Very thin, a little taller. I think it need to be less blocky, a little thinner and taller and have the ability to bend more.

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I prefer that model

Good point! I would like to see how that model performs with a bluntforce or with other animations, such as crawling.

So i have a idea lets just make a levitating beans instent of these two’s

Everyone keeps talking about how the blocky playermodel looks like Roblox. Honestly, I don’t see it.

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@AstronautPug Same here, I really don’t see it.

image
i mean if you close your eyes it’s kinda hard to see

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