The CG market seems to favor slender youthful white people. Someone should come out with some asset collections that reflect a broader range of appearances.
4 Likes
Reallusions Character Creator is a good example. All textures and hair assets are white youthful people. There is a weight setting though.
3 Likes
Itâs not just the asset market- 3D productions (ranging from animations to games) suffer from the same severe lack of diversity:
There are of course some notable exceptions- Into The Spiderverse stands out both for a more diverse cast and also for giving their non-white characters appropriate hair texture. Arcane is another example of this that comes to mind. Still, weâve got a long way to go generally.
To your âslender youthful white peopleâ, I would personally add âcisgenderâ; I honestly canât think of a 3D character Iâve ever seen or encountered that had ambiguous gender or a more fluid gender presentation.
If you really want to see this in action, just pull up Steam, or watch something like the Game Awards. As of 2009, 85.33% of video game characters are male and 80.05% are white (according to this study: http://dmitriwilliams.com/VirtualCensusFinal.pdf) By February of this year, we see some good improvement:
- 79.2% of main protagonists in games are male, 20.8% female.
- 54.2% of main characters in games are white (Caucasian).
- Just 8.3% of main characters in games are females of non-white ethnicities.
https://diamondlobby.com/geeky-stuff/diversity-in-gaming/
But those numbers still arenât great
7 Likes
I do not get all of this pre-occupation with diversity, is it really to be called injustice when characters in various games and other media do not wind up being a perfect reflection of census data? Unless you plan to model some minority characters on your own, the best you can do is promote titles with such characters (that would also include not giving bad reviews on titles with too little character range, which some critics unfortunately are actually doing now).
Check Steam, new franchises by indies are literally a dime a dozen now and you will find devs. from every continent except Antarctica (though even that place may have developers too).
5 Likes
Youâre entirely welcome to educate yourself about why representation matters on your own time. I have no interest in expending emotional labor on this.
@Modron if youâre looking for diversity, donât go to TurboSquid, I just checked out of curiosity and the first three pages of characters are exclusively young slender white people
7 Likes
There are a ton of different rabbit holes we can explore here, but creating a more diverse set of characters sounds like it could be your job, especially since Blenderâs asset handling is a bit more fleshed out now compared to a year ago.
If they animate well and export well to game engines, people may look at them and use them for their work as well.
I like to think itâs everyoneâs job to make the world better. Not everyone needs to be working on the same problems, but there are real problems in the world, and as long as people are working towards solving them, I see no reason to oppose their efforts.
If increasing diversity isnât of value to you, as a white male, then find some other way to make the world a better place. Work on those issues that you think are more important, rather than trying to get other people to think the same way that you do.
7 Likes
HumanGen has good non-white characters. Textures are excellent quality. Body diversity is not as granular as CC, but it allows some diversity.
3 Likes
edit: wait, hang on. Mistake on my part
It really depends on whether they are well-written characters or whether they are just there to check a box. For instance, Into the Spider-Verse did a great job with Miles Morales picking up the Spidey Suit without denigrating Peter Parker or minimizing his contribution to society.
People download and play games for instance because they are fun, not because they found a way to see themselves in it. At least that is how things used to work.
And this forum has never been the best place to try to solve the worldâs problems anyway, there are plenty of news sites and videos with comment sections for that purpose.
1 Like
true that. I messed something up.
Never mind me.
Exactly, and if seeing yourself isnât the goal, thereâs no reason to not include a diversity of options.
People like choice, after all. and if the choices are just âwhite, thin, normatively attractiveâ itâs pretty boring.
3 Likes
https://www.daz3d.com/ has a lot of different characters. While most figures are of courese white and female, you still get a lot of other types.
And the Genesis 9 series is even genderfluid - both genders share the same basemesh and you can easily mix them.
3 Likes
here an very interesting figure
which got gender flipped by a user
I donât think thatâs true. Playing a character that looks like you makes a world of difference. I am a white dude, so this isnât necessarily intuitive for me either, since I never suffered from a lack of representation -still, I am able to project myself into a reality where it isnât the case, so that I can appreciate that difference a lot better. You can listen to stories/testimonies about representation on youtube. The most recent example I can think of is kids being totally ecstatic after watching the new The Little Mermaid because the actress looked like them. Weâre a species that tells stories, storytelling is embedded in us. These stories help us model the world, find purpose, communicate morals, and it all becomes much more obvious if we can relate closely to the characters.
As for checking a box, thatâs probably true, I mean companies will chase trends, and if the current trend is representation, then⌠why not ?
3 Likes
How do you know whether theyâre there to check a box? And if they are, why canât a character be a different demographic than you for no reason other than they exist in real life? Why should characters that arenât straight white men only be portrayed when they are interesting and appealing to straight white men.
Why isnât it enough if the character appeals to their own demographic? And if theyâre poorly written and donât appeal to their own demographic, why isnât the solution to improve how theyâre written, instead of removing them or replacing them with a character like you?
2 Likes
I agree with everything youâve said here except that ârepresentation is a trendâ. Iâm taking it out of context and definitely missing some of your intent, but I just wanted to add- representation is a privilege for straight white men who have dominated media with their own representation since the invention of the written word. Representation isnât a new concept, nor is a nebulous thing, every piece of media has some kind of representation. Usually, itâs straight white men. More diverse representation is a step towards more equality in the world; itâs no different than men being paid more than women (they are), unequal representation is ethically, morally, and socially wrong. If we want a better society, we have to have more equality. If we want more equality, that includes representation
2 Likes
Part of what I mean is that I have not heard of cases where classic and modern games alike get a lot of bad reviews from players because the character did not have a way to at least be customized to represent hundreds, if not thousands of possible identities. For instance, everyone loves the Nintendo characters and other heroes from the 16-bit/early 3D eras.
Do you have evidence for this? Unequal pay suggests women are being paid less for a single unit of work (ie. the total work quota and not the number of days on the employment rolls).
1 Like
Yes. Go look it up. I donât need to Google things for you.
Wanting more options for games that have characters like in specific demographics is not the same as hating all games that do not. People arenât asking devs to stop having protagonists that are white men, or to always include complex character creation systems, merely for there to also be games with other demographics too.
Everyone who wants more diverse games also has games they love with protagonists that are white or male or white males.
2 Likes