Same Head in Baldur’s Gate 3 Can Be Unrecognizable with Different Presets

Faces of Faerûn are pretty varied, but it can easily be an illusion if you see how different one head looks with a couple of switched elements in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Alena Dubrovina, the art director at Larian Studios, demonstrated various head customization examples, which can drastically change a character's appearance. Skin tone, freckles, hair, and makeup – all of this can make faces unrecognizable. (Despite that, I still saw a couple of Auntie Ethels in the game.) The company included as many changeable materials as possible, which made the world more realistically diverse.

The image was brought up during Adobe Substance Days at GDC 2024 where Dubrovina talked about the character creation process for BG3. She covered the tools and processes that helped the team make high-quality characters and build a customization system for players and NPCs. Aside from texture customization techniques, she discussed ways to speed up production, so watch the whole presentation here if you're interested.

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