BlizzCon 2011 World of Warcraft Art Panel
by Allison Robert 
Oct 22nd 2011 at 5:00PM
As you'd expect, the art panel contained a number of previews of the characters, locations, dungeons, and props we'll be seeing in Mists of Pandaria. If you're only interested in a peek at the male pandaren's model and animations, well, you can get that here, but there were a number of interesting observations made. Two of the things that really jumped out at me:
- They're experimenting with tier and item set models. Rather than pasting a design onto the standard-issue flat chest and leg pieces, for example, we may see swinging chains, ribbons, and other three-dimensional objects on more gear in the future.
- Technical advances in very recent months have made it easier and faster to add more detail to the environment. New texture tools have made it possible to add snow or lava between cracks in a road, or pooled in the nook of a hill, much more quickly than they could earlier.
The news is out -- we'll be playing Mists of Pandaria! Find out what's in store with an all-new talent system, peek over our shoulder at our Pandaren hands-on, and get ready to battle your companion pets against others. It's all here right at WoW Insider!Filed under: BlizzCon
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Knob Oct 22nd 2011 5:20PM
This was a great panel. Very informative but very light-hearted and fun as well. Chris Robinson was great, especially with the translation of the Pandaren language.
Dreyja Oct 22nd 2011 5:25PM
He was a total hoot. He's my new favorite blizz staffer. :)
Knob Oct 22nd 2011 5:47PM
Oops, I made a boo-boo. It was Eric Browning I described, not Chris Robinson.
Jully Oct 22nd 2011 5:56PM
He should replace Jay Mohr next year, seriously.
Dreyja Oct 22nd 2011 6:28PM
Well, I meant the last guy who was so funny. :)
HappyTreeDance Oct 22nd 2011 5:21PM
Out of all the panels at BlizzCon, this is the one I'm most bummed about not getting to see. I love the art and design of games, and getting into the artists heads during a panel like that is just awesome. Looking forward to the gallery. :)
Iirdan Oct 22nd 2011 5:22PM
The lava in the road demonstration was incredibly impressive. That small thing made me more excited for Mists of Pandaria than any other panel so far, and the art panel as a whole blew me away as always. The new lighting and shadow engine especially struck me. Beautiful, beautiful work.
Felix_NZ Oct 23rd 2011 8:55PM
New Lighting engine? Ooh can't wait to see what this brings. I wish for a decent Ambient Occlusion featur, its just one of those things that just add so much depth and a hint of realism, especially to very stylised art design.
Iirdan Oct 24th 2011 12:16AM
The thing they demonstrated was mostly a shadows thing, about representing depth better than the current engine which makes them appear rather flat. Some before/after images they showed made a stunning difference, with the new engine absolutely beautiful.
Frase32 Oct 22nd 2011 5:23PM
Will watch when I get home from work, but was anything mentioned about updating older character models?!?!
Dreyja Oct 22nd 2011 5:26PM
Just the same thing as always. They want to do it, they hope to do it, they have no timeline to do so. :(
Frase32 Oct 22nd 2011 5:31PM
I'm trying not to rage, but I'm finding it hard to understand how they have the tech to completely reshape the world and produce beautiful looking new models and environments yet updating what is widely considered one of the games glaring eyesores is somehow just too much of a resource hog. I'm just so deflated by this. I KNOW it's important to me and I want to believe it is important to a lot of other players. :(
PeeWee Oct 22nd 2011 6:09PM
"They want to do it, they hope to do it, they have no timeline to do so."
They could just as well reply with "STOP EFFING ASKING, WE WON'T DO IT, K?", but they all lack the guts to say the truth.
Iirdan Oct 22nd 2011 6:14PM
They have the tech, but they don't have the time. Given the choice between a new continent and race like what we're seeing in Mists of Pandaria, or new character models, I think most people - and certainly I - would choose the former.
Frase32 Oct 22nd 2011 6:28PM
@Iirdan, I don't buy that line anymore. Going from Vanilla to TBC, sure I bought it. Going from TBC to Wrath I brushed it aside as a luxury request. Going from Wrath to Cata I began to get pretty irked that the one thing I spend the most time staring at in the game world looked the least polished. Scratch that, it looked downright shitty. It's not as if they have not had 5+ years to at least TBC-isize them.
Deathknighty Oct 22nd 2011 6:48PM
Actually. guys, since the art panel there have been a LOT of questions regarding new player models, specifically referencing the pandaren faces, and Blizzard say that they are actually working on it!
Sadly they haven't given any indication of when to expect it, so it's hard to tell whether it's something for next (6.0) expansion or whether they'll actually have them ready for MoP and it just completely sailed over their heads how much this matters to people and they didn't bother making a big deal out of it.
Akawaka Oct 22nd 2011 5:31PM
Agree with you Allison 100 percent. Adding 3d elements to gear is exactly what wow needs to be more fresh. I love the hard work bliz can put into this stuff.
BUT if we yet again have nobody asking about updating vanilla races in these Q and As so we can see exactly what bs Metzen will give(love the guy but this really is irksome.) my head might explode. I mean puttting so much detail into such honestly trivial aspects when the character models that we see for every single monet of playtime have been left unchanged for over five years?????
I just cannot see how hard it would be to add a big patch to give them more ploygons even just to smooth out limbs, get rid of breadstick fingers and fix up human and orc faces on par with Varian and Thrall's face. Tis all I ask.
Otherwise I will stick with my wonderful Worgen probably Pandaren (Hope they slim down a bit or get longer legs.) and those wonderful space goats. I so gotta role a Draenei Monk so I can punch and hoof kick orcs in the face! Even better tail slap....a guy can dream.....
PeeWee Oct 22nd 2011 6:16PM
If I could afford it, I would've gone to Blizzcon solely for the purpose of throwing underwear with "WE WANT NEW PLAYER CHARACTER MODELS NAUW!" written on them at the panel crew.
Spider Oct 22nd 2011 5:30PM
This panel blew me away. You really get a feel for the hard work and dedication the team puts in. You can FEEL the excitement and love they pour into their work, and that's made me appreciate this even more than I did originally (and I've been awestruck since it was announced).
I can't imagine watching that panel and then criticizing WoW for being lazy or out of ideas. These people are brimming with creativity and love for the content, and I think that really shows through in the world they create. Every rock and texture and tree was placed with care and I think you can feel it.
ElrithCC Oct 22nd 2011 7:02PM
That's what blew me away about WOW back in 2004. Every MMO had very sterile world environments compared to the action games of the day. If you wanted an interesting world to look at, you had to be confined to a single road or path in an action RPG that offered an illusion of a vista that was painted on a skybox.
I wish WOW got more credit for this, but people seem blinded by the simple shapes and low polygons, ignoring how even through the trees and bushes were simplistic, each and every one was individually placed in the world with care and an eye for composition and space that made every part of the world feel like a real scene from an illustration.