[OFFICIAL] Base Necris Designs

[Chris Perna]

Hey Guys,

Figured it was about time to post an official thread on these guys. Keep in mind these are the base designs. The idea will be to create multiple variations off of these designs. Some will have more armor, helmets, clothing, gear...etc. This is the base figure before getting too fancy.

Feel free to paper doll them yourselves and create hundreds of variations, attachments, decals, markings... etc.

I feel like this is good place to start with the Necris. In the next few weeks we will be modeling and texturing this character here at Epic. This should allow us to get a workflow down so we can be more informative on character specs and attachments.

[Saiboat]

Jesus christ that second 3D model. May I ask who provided this? It's the best official artwork I've seen yet for this game tbh. Phenomenal.

[code187]

its a actual statue, very cool indeed

[Sly.]

Saiboat, Chris made it himself, it's a real sculpture. Rewatch one of the last streams (I think it was the second before the last one).

[Fartuess]

Personally i'm not convinced by this design direction for necris. UT'99 Vampire/Goth direction suggested that Necris are people with strongly developed individuality. Current direction makes necris into an army of characterless zombies where single one of them is not very different from other one. Faction 'essence' too rigid, not much space for concept variation. Good for meatshield enemies for next Gears but not very much for character people would play as. Anyway... here is copypasta from other thread.

For me necris shouldn't be mindless zombie-punk-cyborgs made by big corporation to fill their army and start a cult. For me Necris should be small group of inviduals who were rich enough or who made deals with phayder corp, so they could go through very expensive process of bringing them back to live after death causing accidents. Phayder could actually be company completely made from alive non-necris people who are making crapload of money on bringing people back to life without any religious theme behind it. Members of Necris in such scenario would be people coming from different places with main thing connecting them being debt to phayder corp which they are paying by participating in tournament (Unless they were rich enough themselves or had someone else wishing to pay for their reincarnation. In such case we can have Necris people in such team as Thunder Crash or Juggernaut as well).

Other thing worth consideration is how fact of being Necris affect peoples mind. We could assume that their hormone system is not working in normal way, so they can't feel passion to something "from heart" and lack of it annoys them and forces it to emulate it "from mind" which lead them to develop different obsessions. Thats why they are into goth or tribal or punk or medievalistic (Nercis who is into swords and such wearing chest platemail ftw) or militiary or whatever interesting you can figure out. This would make the diverse group of strong interesting individuals instead of army of clones and allow wide range of designs which could satisfy more people. Give them some character and individuality.

For the nanoblack affecting their appearance beyond white skin, black blood and changed eyes. Adding nanoblack tinted skin limits freedom of interesting designs. I would rather create one Necris with skull like tattos. For cybernetics - i would add them to some of them because their bodies were heavily damaged in incidents which cuased their death.

For aspect of mystery of Necris. I would keep nanoblack as most noticeable part of Necrifying someone. The mystery would come from rest of aspects of turning someone into necris (in lore give questions, but not answers), way how it changes people personality and motvation and details of phayder corp (why alive people are doing it and what they want from people who they are having special deals with).

Also not all of necris have to wear black and be an outcast (i guess people would be rather afriad of them). There could be one who have rich and colourful personality and is a cool dude. Just to add more depth to this subrace and show that there are always exceptions.

[Saiboat]

Saiboat, Chris made it himself, it's a real sculpture. Rewatch one of the last streams (I think it was the second before the last one).

Wow, he got me fooled! That's incredible! I guess I got confused because I've seen some pretty detailed 3D work recently of some cyborgs / combat armor that looked nearly photorealistic.

[MΛuL]

Really liking the direction on these, especially the first image.

[Irsh]

Personally i'm not convinced by this design direction for necris. UT'99 Vampire/Goth direction suggested that Necris are people with strongly developed individuality. Current direction makes necris into an army of characterless zombies where single one of them is not very different from other one. Faction 'essence' too rigid, not much space for concept variation. Good for meatshield enemies for next Gears but not very much for character people would play as. Anyway... here is copypasta from other thread.

I have to agree with this.

This is what Loque was to me. I could almost imagine this guy chatting with Malcolm on some hill overlooking a city plotting matches or something over a cigarette in the dark hours.

And I loved to be part of that fantasy and control the guy as my character. I cannot do that anymore as the new Necris all seem to be zombie clones running around with no personalities.

[Majki]

Won't black characters be invisible basically in game?

[Psychomorph]

I like the concept. I like the industrial fashion style. I imagined a more medieval-ish inspired design, but I like that it's a more industrial cyborg type of thing a lot. No shame in progressing character concept from the original.

Won't black characters be invisible basically in game?

Original Necris have been dark, too.

[Wail]

Personally i'm not convinced by this design direction for necris. UT'99 Vampire/Goth direction suggested that Necris are people with strongly developed individuality. Current direction makes necris into an army of characterless zombies where single one of them is not very different from other one. Faction 'essence' too rigid, not much space for concept variation. Good for meatshield enemies for next Gears but not very much for character people would play as. Anyway... here is copypasta from other thread.

I agree with this.
For me the UT3 influence is still too strong on these guys. Really speaks more to Doom / Quake style characters than UT, to me. Hopefully the base models are even more minimalistic, leaving all the grafts, tubes, wires, shunts and plating as modular add-ons, so that artists can take them in a more traditional Necris direction without much trouble.
And my greater concern is that the visual design here is going to stomp on the interesting thematic elements of the Necris from past games by turning the Necris into just robot-zombie armymen. Getting the lore and the feel of the game right is way more important to me than the appearance of any particular characters, but I'm just not sure if there's a good consistent vision for the Unreal universe at the moment.

[Majki]

Original Necris have been dark, too.

What that proves? Black objects in FPS games are basically invisible

[Chris Perna]

They will show up in game just fine.

They will not be "mindless or characterless".

They will have unique and powerful personalities and will be fun to play and play against.

-Chris

[Saiboat]

As someone who is more on the sci-fi futuristic side of things and doesn't like medieval stuff, I wanted to voice my oppinion for this design approach, if it matters to anyone.

[TheoRiginal]

First I must say that's an amazing art design for a zombie army.
They look like dead serious undead army soldiers.
They just dont match my ideal image of the Necris.

For me the UT3 influence is still too strong on these guys.

LOL? There is absolutely no UT3 influence visible which is breaking with consistency for me!
UT3 Necris were kind of like the Ori of Stargate SG1 to me: intelligent, unemotional/apathic, cultist/religious, arrogant attitude of supreme beings.
I'll regret if this gets lost. I also very much liked their organic, slightly oriental technology design in UT3. Too bad we're going for retro and industrial military with everything.
Some things should stay futuristic and alien in UT imo!

Hopefully the base models are even more minimalistic, leaving all the grafts, tubes, wires, shunts and plating as modular add-ons, so that artists can take them in a more traditional Necris direction without much trouble.

Because they also have wires, that makes them already too UT3-like for you? Well, at least to set the UT99 fanatics happy, that is a good idea with keeping the gear rather optional and making the default chars more normal pale humans like UT99's Necris.

And my greater concern is that the visual design here is going to stomp on the interesting thematic elements of the Necris from past games by turning the Necris into just robot-zombie armymen. Getting the lore and the feel of the game right is way more important to me than the appearance of any particular characters, but I'm just not sure if there's a good consistent vision for the Unreal universe at the moment.

I also agree with that, just that for you UT3 with its unique Necris design is no past game to be respected, which is equally inconsistent to me.