Fascinating — models in software games have some subtle but intentional design features. There is a game character in Overwatch (which looks like a fun game, but since it’s PC only, I’ve never tried it) named Tracer who was the focus of some controversy a while back because some of the promotional materials emphasized her lovely, shapely butt maybe a bit overmuch. Now there has been a detailed analysis of the design of her character to identify what makes her butt so nice in every view.
Wu discovered that the primary cause of Tracer’s plump backside is an inhumanly deep buttcrack. In fact Tracer has a butt crack so deep that regular humans could not possess similar physiology and survive. Such a crack would inevitably interfere with organs and the body’s structural integrity.
As a result of this bizarrely deep posterior, Tracer can be put in literally any pose, under any lighting, and her butt will still cast a shadow implying depth, plumpness and tautness. The way Tracer’s bottom is emphasised in any situation is a genuine feat of engineering.
On top of that, there’s more. Another aspect of Tracer’s butt that plays a big part in its eternal visibility is the fact that her outfit is either impossibly tight or glued to her ass cheeks.
Take a look at the image on the far right. Natural fabric would find a resting point between the peaks of the two cheeks, naturally bridging the gap. If the material pulls in to show cheek definition, this would be the result of both cheeks physically trapping the fabric. This is different, in that the fabric follows the contours of the cheeks and buttcrack without the two cheeks making contact. For the titillation of boys and girls worldwide, Tracer suffers a permanent wedgie that is literally designed to make her individual butt cheeks shine.
Wait, but what about realism? What about ethics in gaming?
We’ll get to that once I’m done marveling that there is such a thing as virtual butt analysis, and that there are game designers and artists working hard to maximize butt exposure.
Nature is also working on it. Check out Jon Snow’s butt.
“permanent wedgie” made me laugh a bit, but The “Jon Snow’s butt” story had me howling.
Your fellow Minnesotans are being spectacular asses.
Once we had Lit Crit.
Today we have Hip Crit.
Progress never ends.
The ability of the arse-cheeks to occasionally grab material and hold it in a tight grip: Anal Retention Syndrome. Or, yes you guessed it, ARS.
Sorry…
This is off-topic, but you absolutely must read it.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/German-mayoral-candidate-Otfried-Best-Arabic-numerals/2017/09/03/id/811447/
This doesn’t make sense to me. There are plenty of people out there with incredibly muscular butts (either from exercise or genetics), so I don’t see what is so special about Tracer’s.
Mostly from head, stuffing up.
Well, it’s one thing to say they gave the character exaggerated or unrealistic features, and that they did so for obvious reasons.
But from a technical point of view, it’s understandable that game designers wouldn’t bother implementing separate geometry and physics for the fabric, in addition to the body, since that isn’t a critical part of the gameplay. I mean, it’s easy enough to say “make the fabric stretch/shrink/slide/etc. the right way” if you have no appreciation for how this stuff is made, but not so easy when you do actual programming. It’s much simpler when there aren’t so many things that need to “move” independently, and you often just have a skeleton with everything else associated to that.
Granted, my understanding of the subject is fairly limited, and I have no idea what kind of system they used in this specific game. But it’s certainly not as if you need to manually paint each pose separately (or even the same pose from every possible perspective, in different lighting, etc.) after thinking hard about how it’s supposed to look and behave in all sorts of different situations. That would make things far too complicated and time-consuming; and even if you tried to do it that way, computers or consoles wouldn’t be able to load/use all of that data fast enough anyway. You need to give them less to calculate if it’s going to work, so tons of information that would make it all more “realistic” was never a part of the process. This happens all of the time in video games, and I wouldn’t say they should’ve resolved the issue in this case, by coming up with some extremely complicated system for their character models. That’s a silly argument to be making. A much easier approach, if/when you realize it looks ridiculous, would presumably just be to make her have less cartoonish curves (meaning the “fabric” would still behave the same stupid ways, since you’re not fiddling with such things or even treating it as a separate object).
Off topic, but Overwatch is not PC only. It’s also available on PS4 and Xbox One.
Looks like the cosmetic sorcerers have been working overtime on Jon Snow and Tracer to give them arses that you can bounce coins off (credit to Oglaf in New Model Army: https://oglaf.com/newmodelarmy/ )
Has the person who wrote this not seen the new very tight style of yoga pants?
Only one explanation: not cloth, spray paint.
How many actual humans have a leg/torso-length ratio as high as Tracer’s?
Since Owerwatch was announced I think I’ve seen far more comments about Tracer’s butt than the topic really deserves. That said, the best example of the genre is probably Daniel Floyd’s video essay “Tracer & Pose Design 101” at Extra Credits:
This is a very common practice in both computer games and comics; render the shape of the person as if naked, then apply a colour to that shape and call it a bodysuit.
Any chance that butt isn’t Kit Harrington’s (aka Jon Snow)? Body doubles…in this case butt doubles…are just part movie magic.
@Pierce R. Butler #13
I am an actual human with about the same leg/torso ratio, so at least one.
There are annoying character designs in overwatch but I think they are trying to improve. They have Mei and Zarya who don’t follow stereotypical female body design in gaming at all, Pharah is always fully covered in heavy armor, Ana is 60 something years old mother (of Pharah) and in the lore it is revealed that Tracer is actually gay. But they also have sexualized characters.
The sculpting of perfect bottoms, both human and artificial, is an ancient art form. It is discussed in Greek treatises on physiognomy, and in Athens there were beauty contests alongside sporting contests where the most beautiful body parts were awarded ribbons – arms, thighs, torsos, bottoms, and so forth. There are plenty of ancient statues with exaggeratedly round posteriors of just this sort. The Greeks even had a word – callipygian – which we have inherited, to describe someone or something with beautiful buttocks.
All on men, of course. Whatever women had under their chitons and peploi was anybody’s guess. Greek public sculpture looked a lot like the more nefarious regions of my laptop’s hard drive.
Completely left out of the discussion: If her bodysuit were that tight, she would have such a camel toe. THAT however would be too revealing! A back wedgie that bad would absolutely result in a front wedgie too (personal experience included)–as only us ladies can do.
I don’t know… the unrealistic digital butts may be sexist, but they certainly beats true-life asses I’ve encountered, especially mine. I mean, my ass looks like I have two partially deflated balloons filled with curdled milk affixed to my backside. Gender aside, I’d kill to have a taut and toned rear-end like Tracers’ no matter how anatomical incorrect it appears. ;)