Will colonists ever look different/more detailed in the future?

[elStrages]

I would only add some facial hair

This post fills me full of rimworld joy
Tynan put in new image tags for pawn for facial hair! the modders will do te rest

[chaouki]

oh, beards and stuff would be awesome other than that I really wish characters had a bigger variety in skin colours.

[Teovald]

The graphics are deliberately abstracted. This helps story generation because it allows your brain to create the images instead of trying to make the game do it. Your brain can imagine much better than any software system.

That, and I'd much rather put more effort into simulating interesting events rather than making more detailed pixels to express the simple events we already have. Lots of games have detailed graphics; almost no games have detailed simulation.

So yeah, the current graphics are final.

You could mod them to be more detailed if you wished, but I think you'd just be walking into a trap and making the game (paradoxically) less engaging.

For me, the problem isn't that the graphic are abstracted. It does indeed seems like a good choice for this kind of game. 
My problem is that for games that last more than a year, all my characters start to look identical. They all start to wear the same armor and helmets (with a few differences). Yeah, the color varies a little bit, so does the pawns builds, but not that much. 
At the start of a game, each colonist is identifiable at a glance. After a year, I need to look at their names in order to quickly id them.

I think that there are solutions to this problem though.
The first would be to let colonist store armors and weapons in a locker when they are safe. Another would be to add more variety in their equipment.

[OldVamp]

maybe we need a 'dye station' so that the colors of clothes can be customized.
There is something similar in the Edb prepare carefully mod where you can set clothes to custom colors.
synthread can be something other than the minty blue for example.

bill, dye powerarmor, set color, ingredients: power armor, berries

[DaPieGuy]

maybe we need a 'dye station' so that the colors of clothes can be customized.
There is something similar in the Edb prepare carefully mod where you can set clothes to custom colors.
synthread can be something other than the minty blue for example.

bill, dye powerarmor, set color, ingredients: power armor, berries

That would be pretty good. It would definitely help with telling colonists apart. Or maybe similar to engraving weapons in the changelogs clothes could have something stitched on them.

[hooc]

I made an account for this comment:

I love the art style and the characters are pretty diverse and distinct. The only problem is you can only really see it if you zoom in and carefully look. My suggestion would be add a close up facial icon or full body icon on the individual character sheets so you can see the differences every time you look at the character. Perhaps also a smaller icon for each colonist on the Overlook screen. Perhaps add subtle details like a joywire artist will wear her cowboy hat slightly eschew while a commissioner will wear his cowboy hat straight. Perhaps hair can peak out under hats in the close up icons. The facial hair suggestion will help as well. Can even work with women colonists. Thicker or thinner lashes and eyebrows.

Anyway the human mind has facial recognition hardwired in our brains. You can keep it abstracted letting our minds fill in the blanks yet still help us identify each individual colonist as unique and distinct.

As mentioned by others after the first few colonists they just become a blur of haulers and cleaners and even the first colonists grow less distinct with each addition to the colony. I need more unique identifiable visual information to help solidify these characters as individual characters in my mind.

[Eleazar]

My suggestion would be add a close up facial icon or full body icon on the individual character sheets so you can see the differences every time you look at the character. Perhaps also a smaller icon for each colonist on the Overlook screen...

I think that would be a good idea.

[pdxsean]

My personal preference is to not use mods, but I do have to say that the GUI mod that puts the colonist names/faces on the top of the screen is hugely appealing to me for this reason. I name my pawns a series of letters and numbers (like o7g4h3x4A8) to indicate their skills, but it also makes them even more anonymous to me. Being able to see faces might help me feel a little closer to them. 

Also I'm going to try not naming them in such a manner next game but that's aside the point.

[Shinzy]

My personal preference is to not use mods, but I do have to say that the GUI mod that puts the colonist names/faces on the top of the screen is hugely appealing to me for this reason. I name my pawns a series of letters and numbers (like o7g4h3x4A8) to indicate their skills, but it also makes them even more anonymous to me. Being able to see faces might help me feel a little closer to them. 

Also I'm going to try not naming them in such a manner next game but that's aside the point.

at one point I tried to name my colonists after their two strongest skills or traits or so "Ivysoothe" for the herbalist with medical and growing skills =P "Ragegrowth" for bloodlust brawer with double flame growing
and I can recommend the Snappy dresser mod for anyone who doesn't really like using mods
(it adds a single dresser that lets you recolour your pawns clothes)

you can make them all vibrant plotches of colour and name them after fruits

[akiceabear]

I can recommend the Snappy dresser mod for anyone who doesn't really like using mods
(it adds a single dresser that lets you recolour your pawns clothes)

you can make them all vibrant plotches of colour and name them after fruits

Can you link this please? Search isn't turning up any results besides this thread...

Perhaps also a smaller icon for each colonist on the Overlook screen.

+1

[jsteele726]

 Storytelling is the primary focus in this game, and I feel that a closer connection to my colonists would help those stories mean far more. I'm not going to shed a tear over Miner1 who died while digging a new tunnel, but I'm going to care about Johnny, the plucky and likable space miner from (Insert planet here). The problem is, if my colony is, say, deep in the arctic where everyone is wearing the same cold weather clothing, it gets difficult after a while to tell who is who. So many people mention names, but how do we recognize our friends on the street? Their face, their body, the clothes they wear, and their personality. If I'm in a room filled with people, and they're all white, have the same body style, are all wearing the same clothes, and have no features setting them apart, how am I realistically going to know who is who? "Bob, is that you?", I would ask, walking up to the first male I see. "Nope, it's Roger" he would say, annoyed because this is the fifth time today I've done this.

These colonists would actually mean something to me if I had a way to establish a connection with them, even if it was just a small visual element. That way, when I enlisted my entire town as an army and stood them in formation prior to the battle, I could notice blue hair poking out from under a helmet and know that it's Suzy, the cranky but hardworking chef, not Cook1.

[Shinzy]

Can you link this please? Search isn't turning up any results besides this thread...

Thar you go!
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=9279.msg92080#msg92080


I haven't had troubles with bonding with any of my peoples (but then I've used some "visual enhancement" mods since alpha 5 and my guys have been looking very different from eachother)
but I'm sure as the development goes on Ty's gna add some extra flair
with that stat system in place and almost nothing taking advantage of it in vanilla

[Tankh]

I don't quite see why pants must stay invisible?

Also, when it comes to headwear, why not let each colonist have 1 hat/helm they wear normally, and 1 hat/helm they keep in their inventory that they put on as soon as they are drafted.

That way you can have you mr. cowboy or whatever, but as soon as the battle starts he can get serious and put on the protective gear instead.

That or some designated locker that they store their equipment in when not drafted.

[warthurton]

Maybe we should go DF style

☺

[huyderman]

I'll join the choir here as well. The simple stylized look works well, but I'd like to have my pawns be more distinctive. They always end up all dressed in the same climate-appropriate clothing, and eventually power-armour. As pawns get killed and new ones join, it gets hard to tell them apart.