Those silly humans and their silly assumptions.
Assumptions made by characters within a narrative can be both great fun and an utter bother to work with. Not only do you have to set up a situation where the assumption makes sense to the character while still being wrong, but there’s also a greater barrier in that people often seem to expect that characters – especially the closer to a lead role they have – are right and speak objective truth unless explicitly noted as not doing so.
Advertisement
RSS feed
i was just thinking about beyond the tree when i got the update email…
Is it me or are the new eyes of Hani and Te’len a bit too bright in the shady environment of the cathedral?
Heh, and I like the ‘oh shit, we have a problem’ expression of Te’len in the last picture. :D
Night elves have glow in the dark eyes =P
well not really glow in the dark, they are more like light bulbs
NE eyes are meant to reflect light, similar like a cat’s eyes do. So you should expect them to be a bit dimmed in darker places and not stand out like they do now. Aside that, great update as always. :)
I’m sorry but this sounds very much like complete and utter fanon to me – while illogical from nearly any kind of scientific or biological standpoint, Night elven eyes have pretty much always been visually depicted as directly emitting light, not just reflecting it; something that I very much suspect is meant to hint at their magic-related origins.
So unless you can directly point to a strong canonical source that explicitly backs up your point, I simply don’t believe you. As much sense as it might make for them to just be reflective, that isn’t how Blizzard have visualized them.
Heh, yeah that’s all too true. Bliz visualizes the NE eyes with a glowing haze in front of them. Your version is far, far more realistic compared to that. And more beautiful imo.
Okay, you’ve convinced me. Seen from the magical point of view rather than the biological, NE eyes can emit light instead of reflecting it. =)
This: http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=94
Oh oh oh! If we’re going to talk biomechanics of the races, can I start a “WTF is up with re-curved bipeds in general, and female Draenai in particular” dialog?
I love me some space goat, but holy EFF, that’s some screwed up biology right there.
Not really. Like goats, horses, sheeps etc., Draenei are walking on their “nails”. The Ossa tarsi and the Ossa metatarsi are stretched so that they often reach the length of the tigh and the lower leg. That looks a bit like recurved but it is anatomically correct.
The problem lies in the design: everything about it is silly. Especially given that all the races with it are huuuge. Almost all the weight (regardless of the armor) is right on the knee joints, you’re begging for serious leg injuries just from running around.
Female Draenai are especially goofy. The elongated hooves would be like trying to walk in swim fins and of wood. All the weight comes down on the base of the back of the hoof, so trying to move any faster then a moderate shuffle would make you very unstable.
Then, at the hips, the torso kinks forward, putting more strain on the spine joints and muscles, before the back aaarrrchhs back around, up to the shoulders which swing back like defunct wings.
TL,DL: They’re built like a Jenga tower 20 moves in, and just standing around would very quickly tire them out
Looking at female Draenei, they’re not all that off, if you look at them in the modelviewer, their forward-thrust torsos seem to distribute the weight more evenly over their hooves in standing and walking animations. As for the spine, a lot of the female Draenei’s mass is in the legs and hips, so the spine is only supporting the shoulders, arms, and head. During the run animation, the torso is shifted forward, and the spine straightens out some, which would seem to place less stress on it due to the run dynamics.
Like Foggy said, plenty of RL creatures use a similar leg layout, and their joints seem to be at no major disadvantage.
Additionally, remember that the Draenei are a completely alien race, so there may well be differences in bone, muscle, or other connective and structural tissues that help to prevent stress injuries.
Finally, the Draenei are also magical in nature, and that inherent magic may do more for them than just immortality and glowing eyes. Notice that male and (especially) female Broken tend to be thicker and more angular than their cousins.
I don’t see any problems with the knee joints. If the muscles of the tighs are well trained and build then these are carrying the weight. I practise Taiji for more than 6 years and we are using these muscles for this. I had knee problems many years before practising Taiji and now they nearly vanished.
All in all the whole body of the female Draenei appears to me like a huge spring, good for get a long with weights.
By the way, it is the female BE who will have big problems one day i think. They are spending a lot time standing with a flexed hip. ; )
My money’s on arcane chiropractice.
Yeah, but all the animals with hind legs like that have… non…hind (?) legs, so they are not carrying the weight of 90% of their body mass right there on the joint. Well, except birds, but they’re light as hell by design, and don’t count. And the larger quadrupeds have legs much more similar to humans, with in-lines bones, and much small feet bones (Me = not a bone doctor).
Re: Taiji: yeah, absolutely, using those muscles/tendons regularly will strengthen them, but you got to stop doing it after a while, and go back to using the normal configuration.
Although, I take it back; model viewer shows that worgen and tauren have it way worse then draenai.
I guess my main complaint is this: why the hell are worgen heaving around F cups?! They look ridiculous. Hrumph!
That’s all I’m trying to say.
To be honest, if we’re going to move this on to the Worgen female model, then I feel inclined to point out how that’s probably the most fundamentally flawed player model Blizzard has done to date; between the outright crazy polygon placement and usage, the inconsistent facial expression and the fact that the pelvis is actually partially in the wrong place on the texture (to the point where it causes problems with certain leggings).. I’d go so far as to say that model is simply broken, possibly as early as by design.
Let’s not forget all these races are aliens and/or mutants so it’s normal to have them be the way they are, in the end it was an evolution spread over thousands of years rushed much more in some cases by magic.
This reminded me on a 150 long thread I read once about the night elf eyebrows if they’re just that or they’re whiskers like cat whiskers or some other type of thing that lets them “sense” things like magic or something. I incline between second and third option to be honest.
About worgen… don’t get me started, their model is horrible. Even putting the mutant argument they still don’t make any sense and the females especially are ugly as hell in worgen form. Males are ok-ish, although they are a bit too haunched for my tastes, I like more straight races for playing, that’s one of the reasons I could never play a male tauren even though I like them… the other reason was the constant scratching when idle.
Damn you now I have to listen to the assumption song like, 20,000,000 more times =P
Is it just me, or does Te’len look different?
I thought so too but most likely it’s because of the way the light falls on her cheeks.
I predict another case of ‘The Archdruid is under attack!’
One o’ these days, fandral, one o’ these days: POW , RIGHT TO THE MOON!. /shakes fist
Ah humans. So ready to assume they can handle any threat that comes without anyones help.
I wonder if the eyes are all that glows on a Nelf male? We never see them fully naked, so…use your imagination. Just remember John Ritter.
….do I have to? *shudder*
I love that touch of greying hairs the paladin has. Adds a nice, realistic touch.