Blizzard’s ongoing overhaul of World of Warcraft’s character models has wound its way towards the majestic bovine class known as the Tauren.
This is a standard female model, shown in a post today on the studio’s Artcraft blog by senior art director Chris Robinson. On the left is what she once was. On the right, what she soon shall be. Neat, right? Also, very furry.
“The original female Tauren had a lot of issues with too-angular geometry and stretched-out textures,” Robinson wrote. “It’s not her fault — it’s just what we had available to us at the time. Our new process has allowed us to add a lot of detail to her hair, fur, horns, and hooves, to build a far more detailed and expressive face, and to add a lot of definition to her musculature (while retaining her shape and silhouette).”
Much like the revamped humans, the incredible improvement here shows itself in the little details. Instead of fur that looked like it was drawn on a flat surface, there’s real fur. Gary Larson must be so excited.
Robinson made one other interesting comment about how the technical improvements being made in the game are slowly dialling back some of the cartoonish elements that have come to define the game’s aesthetic.
“Warcraft character design is commonly known for its stylised long arms, large hands, and big feet, but the female Tauren’s hands were just completely out of control,” he said. “We brought them down to a more consistent size with the other updated models, and were also able to add a ton more detail and dexterity in the process.”
Artcraft — Body Moovin’
Comments
13 responses to “Here’s What World Of Warcraft’s New Tauren Will Look Like”
So we went from ‘terrible masoplasty procedure’ to ‘nice perky boobs’. Well played, Blizzard.
Hmm, I think we may have different definitions of ‘nice perky boobs’. >_>
Yeah, personally, I don’t like them to be furry and so close to some horns.
It’s all about the fur, buddy! 🙂
Probably the best upgrade so far, most of the others have been good improvements, but this is the first that’s made me really stop and think “wow, the original was THAT bad!”
Yeah. I’ve never been a big fan of the Tauren but this is the first one that really highlighted the difference for me. I guess it’s because the other non-human races all look human. The Tauren are arguably the most detailed and least human of the original races.
I sure am glad that the Tauren female now has breasts and is noticibly more feminine.
I still can’t believe people are playing this game, but at least they are actually making an effort this time to update it graphically instead of just having Pandas…
Should have given the lady Taurens udders imho
Lindsay Lohan is definately gonna sue.
Hrm. I’m not quite so keen on this direction.
While it’s undeniably a technical improvement, I think the shagginess of the original design works better (Belly button? Really?). I’m not so sure about the face detail either. I suspect some of the texture variants will look better than others though.
It’s really nice work, just not particularly to my taste.
I wish I could experience first year WoW again. You know the wow without the narcissistic community, without gearscore and perks, and back when if you joined a guild people would actually talk.
(Back when getting top level was that enduring random people would pst gratz to you.)
Those undies seem like they would be a hassle to take off for a dump, or just in general.