The Citadel

Wolfgang Pauli wrote:*edit*
For my own personal feelings about the portrait set and the offensive and personally insulting comments made during the discussion about it.

At paradox plaza? I've not seen it.

Wolfgang Pauli wrote:Peuri, are we really going to use those African portraits that the Plaza community produced for Summer Islanders? They look atrocious and they're borderline racist.

Wolfgang Pauli wrote:I am absolutely not okay with them being used. I think we should contact the guy who made the Cumans and other community artists and see if they'll paint a proper africangfx set for the community - and this mod - to use. Until then, I think the non-inclusion of a specific summerislander set, or going back to what we used in 0.1.1, is the best option.

*edit*
For my own personal feelings about the portrait set and the offensive and personally insulting comments made during the discussion about it, I cannot be a part of this mod should they made it into the next public release. Using them internally as a placeholder is one thing, releasing them to the public is another.

As I recall the discussion yesterday I was specifically asked to include the "african" faces I doodled a month or so ago whilst finding out how to edit portraits. I am sorry if they hurt your feelings in any way, such a thing was never a goal, and to be frank, I do not see what you mean. They don't look a lot like the nineteenth-twentieth century racialist picture of africans I have in mind, so I don't exactly know they would be racist/racialist in the meaning that they portray some nineteenth-twentieth century notion of africans with big red lips etc. You were also a bit ambiguous with you assertions. Did you mean that the skin colour is offensive, or the facial characteristics? I also don't understand why you have to get so worked up about this. You could have voiced your opinion in a more civil manner without invoking racism and had pretty much the same outcome: your views heard. I personally have not attacked you, or if I did, it would have been really out of character for me. If I did, for that I am deeply sorry. If someone has attacked you regarding this matter, I can not apologize for them, although such a thing is silly, since we all have the common goal of making this an enjoyable mod for people interested in ASoIaF to enjoy. So could we please calm down? Again, I want to deeply voice that I am sorry if you felt offended in any way. Could you, for example, PM me with a more detailed criticism about what you see as racist, or more generally, atrocious about the faces? I can surely try to rectify this horrid atmosphere this incident has suddenly caused. I thank you for voicing your opinion.

The faces are simply the vanilla CKII muslim faces with slightly edited hues, that's all. Drawing a completely new set of facial features (hundreds of frames) is quite beyond my free time and skills, to be sure. Seeing now that, when you (I assume it was you, can't remember) were talking about purple space aliens yesterday, you were talking about these faces, they might indeed be lifeless and purple. Surely I can take them out if they stir so much hatred and fervent images of some kind of racial struggle. Wouldn't want to make this grand mod appear racist since that is a a can of worms and full of unproven biological falsehoods.

On a side not, I do not see how a face could be racist, since racism means that one, races exist and second, that there exists a hierarchy of races, where some races are better than others in some measurement. How a face portrays racial superiority of one race over another, is quite beyond my reasoning capabilities. Racialism on the other hand means simply that races exist and they exhibit some indentifiable characteristics. So, to be a racist means that you also have to be a racialist, but to be a racialist does not mean that you automatically are a racist. If someone draws a face, with some particular ethnicity specifically in mind, the face is most likely going to portray racialist stereotypes of the drawer. I think that it would be fair to argue that the vanilla CKII faces are racialist too, portraying the stereotypes of what it looks like to be, socially, a white person of european descent or a middle eastern person of arabic descent.

Now that I've been basically called a racist for all the world to see, I would like to defend myself by saying that I do not think that there exists a hierarchy of races where persons of one or some races exhibit qualities inherently, by virtue of their race, that are superior to persons of other races. So I would say that I am not a racist. I would go as far to argue that in the deepest meaning of the word racialist, I am not even a racialist, since I do not think that races exist in any meaningful biological way to distinguish between people. We are all just part of a huge genepool with varying DNA. But I would also be lying if I said that I don't have stereotypes about social races, since races are embedded into western culture since at least in the eighteenth-nineteenth century. Our thinking is permeated with racial stereotypes (how ever small), no matter how false they are or no matter how fervently we hope to not have them and learn away from them, as they are permeated by other social steretypes of what it is to be a republican or a democrat (US reference since Finnish politics wouldn't probably carry what I am meaning to anyone) or a christian or a muslim, no matter how false and short sighted they are. Also, when it comes to filling 13 frames with eyes, necks, noses etc. those frames are bound to be racialist, since they can never fully exhibit the huge amounts of variety in the human species. So calling me lazy, incompetent, unskilled, careless and ignorant would be more fitting. I personally am disgusted at the ease by which people nowadays flaunt the word racist at most everything, degrading the disgusting meaning of what it is to really be a racist: to think that a person is inferior to another simply by birth. Making people who are for example ignorant and careless, like myself in this case it seems to me, appear to hold vicious truthclaims about the nature of our material bodies in contrast to some other person who happens to have some external qualities that hold social meaning to some, and claim that they have a biological meaning aswell.

Now I hope that I have cleared the stigma of racism from my person, I would like it that we could resume a civil discussion of what is broken, how it's broken, and how do we fix it. I would never want anyone to leave for such matter like this, which can be fixed or taken out completely. I would rather leave myself than cause anyone so much distress than to make that person stop working towards the betterment of this mod. Peace?

Oh, I thought Wolfgang was referring to some incident that had occurred in the Paradox Plaza or some other place I hadn't seen. Peuri, I can't see how anyone could make the assumption that you are or have made racist comments

With regards to my comment about the derogatory racial stereotyping, I was referring to the thick bushy eyebrows and hooked noses, which is almost reminiscent of nazi anti semitic propaganda etc, but of course those graphics are vanilla and I am by no means accusing you of being racist or anything of the sort, Peuri. I guess I was trying to make sense of what Pauli was referring to. Just thought I'd clear that up.

Anyway, perhaps there will be some DLC for actual African looking characters in the near future?

Peuri wrote:The faces are simply the vanilla CKII muslim faces with slightly edited hues, that's all. Drawing a completely new set of facial features (hundreds of frames) is quite beyond my free time and skills, to be sure. Seeing now that, when you (I assume it was you, can't remember) were talking about purple space aliens yesterday, you were talking about these faces, they might indeed be lifeless and purple. Surely I can take them out if they stir so much hatred and fervent images of some kind of racial struggle. Wouldn't want to make this grand mod appear racist since that is a a can of worms and full of unproven biological falsehoods.

The problem is that by including them in the mod we insinuate that this is what we think black people look like, which is to say, a poor and uninformed caricature. I don't think that you're a racist by making them nor were you privy to the discussion I was a part of, but my criticism of them stands: they look weird and nothing at all like a dark-skinned person of African ancestry. It's ridiculous to suggest that they do, and I'm against their inclusion.

On a side not, I do not see how a face could be racist, since racism means that one, races exist and second, that there exists a hierarchy of races, where some races are better than others in some measurement. How a face portrays racial superiority of one race over another, is quite beyond my reasoning capabilities. Racialism on the other hand means simply that races exist and they exhibit some indentifiable characteristics. So, to be a racist means that you also have to be a racialist, but to be a racialist does not mean that you automatically are a racist.

1. Races do not exist in nature as such. Races do exist in society. And the elements that these constructs are defined by (melanin concentration in skin, lipid content in hair, presence or absence of apocrine sweat glands, etc.) do exist in nature.
2. I don't think you know what racism is. It's more than just racial hatred and Nazis and stuff, that's too easy and not nearly subversive enough.

If someone draws a face, with some particular ethnicity specifically in mind, the face is most likely going to portray racialist stereotypes of the drawer.

Or they could just use models and references like most artists.

I think that it would be fair to argue that the vanilla CKII faces are racialist too, portraying the stereotypes of what it looks like to be, socially, a white person of european descent or a middle eastern person of arabic descent.

I'm pretty sure if by racialist you mean "geographically diverse people of different ancestry and ethnicity tend to look different" then, yeah, they are.

*edit*
Your african_male_base_1 vs. my modified male base. Literally all I did was throw #3b3100 over it on 53% multiply. It took me all of a few minutes. I'm not even happy with mine.

Edric Storm wrote:Oh, I thought Wolfgang was referring to some incident that had occurred in the Paradox Plaza or some other place I hadn't seen. Peuri, I can't see how anyone could make the assumption that you are or have made racist comments

With regards to my comment about the derogatory racial stereotyping, I was referring to the thick bushy eyebrows and hooked noses, which is almost reminiscent of nazi anti semitic propaganda etc, but of course those graphics are vanilla and I am by no means accusing you of being racist or anything of the sort, Peuri. I guess I was trying to make sense of what Pauli was referring to. Just thought I'd clear that up.

Anyway, perhaps there will be some DLC for actual African looking characters in the near future?

Saying that something a person has made is racist carries to me the notion that the person who has made them is, atleast subconciously, a racist. I didn't know those were stereotypes characteristicly ascribed to people of african descent. The bushy eyebrows especially don't look very african to me.

Wolfgang Pauli wrote:The problem is that by including them in the mod we insinuate that this is what we think black people look like, which is to say, a poor and uninformed caricature. I don't think that you're a racist by making them nor were you privy to the discussion I was a part of, but my criticism of them stands: they look weird and nothing at all like a dark-skinned person of African ancestry. It's ridiculous to suggest that they do, and I'm against their inclusion.

Sure, I can agree with you that they don't look a lot like people of african descent. Then again there are many kinds of people with darker skin hues. A random dude from Mali and a dude from Somalia tend not to look very much the same.

1. Races do not exist in nature as such. Races do exist in society. And the elements that these constructs are defined by (melanin concentration in skin, lipid content in hair, presence or absence of apocrine sweat glands, etc.) do exist in nature.
2. I don't think you know what racism is. It's more than just racial hatred and Nazis and stuff, that's too easy and not nearly subversive enough.

1. I agree.
2. How would you go about defining a racist then? From the little literature I've read I've gathered that a racist is a person who holds it true that there exists a hierarchy or races in nature and that some of these races are superior to others. It could be added then that this person goes about acting in society as it were true. With this definition a person who thinks that all "blacks" (to use the vernacular) are X, where X is an undersireable quality is a racist.

Or they could just use models and references like most artists.

But my point was, that if we are going to do a set of faces and say that a group of people look like this, it is invariably racialist if it is insinuated that the group of people so portrayed are a part of a race. That is, that these people constitute a race. But my argument missed the point when you said that it wasn't that these portraits are racist because they portray some racialist notion of what africans look like, but that they look nothing like people of african descent in the first place.

*edit*
Your african_male_base_1 vs. my modified male base. Literally all I did was throw #3b3100 over it on 53% multiply. It took me all of a few minutes. I'm not even happy with mine.

So you would feel more comfortable with an edited version of western faces? If you like, you can do the faces to a state that you like, and I can incorporate them to the code, if you do not know how. I would rather not touch the subjet at all since this seems to be so touchy, in fear of doing unconciously something offensive.

Btw, did I discuss with you about races on paradox plaza some months ago in a Sengoku thread and then in briefly in private messages? Your way of argument is very similiar to a person I discussed atleast.

(Sorry for the double post, had some problems with the quote thingy )

Edit:
Looking at the discussion, I wouldn't say that the portraits are racist as such, but that they are just simply wrong. Not even capturing racial stereotypes.
Edit 2:
Reading the discussion you were probably referring to, I like your brutally honest in your face kind of argument. Seeing the kind of criticism you said, I can not fathom how you think that the dornish people look any better for the very same reasons of simple hue changing, or indeed, that my other doodlings on this thread don't make the mod look bad either.

Peuri wrote:1. I agree.
2. How would you go about defining a racist then? From the little literature I've read I've gathered that a racist is a person who holds it true that there exists a hierarchy or races in nature and that some of these races are superior to others. It could be added then that this person goes about acting in society as it were true. With this definition a person who thinks that all "blacks" (to use the vernacular) are X, where X is an undersireable quality is a racist.

Racism is discrimination based on race, however a society may choose to define that. Broad, simple, inclusive.

So you would feel more comfortable with an edited version of western faces? If you like, you can do the faces to a state that you like, and I can incorporate them to the code, if you do not know how. I would rather not touch the subjet at all since this seems to be so touchy, in fear of doing unconciously something offensive.

Therein lies the problem. We can pick and choose through vanilla stuff and modify, but it will never really look right.

I wasn't aware that you were the one who made them. I'd have been more constructive initially otherwise. I'm all for helping fellow artists hone their craft.

Wolfgang Pauli wrote:I wasn't aware that you were the one who made them. I'd have been more constructive initially otherwise. I'm all for helping fellow artists hone their craft.

I'm all for honesty, no matter how brutal. And it was brutal. And honest. Not here, but on skype. Why would you have to lie to save my precious little feelings if you think it's *excrement*.

ps. I wouldn't call myself an artist, since that's too pretentious for my doodlings.

Edit:

Wolfgang Pauli wrote:Racism is discrimination based on race, however a society may choose to define that. Broad, simple, inclusive.

Discrimination would fall into my definition, since a person that discriminates based on a race acts in accordance with his belief that races exist in nature and that there exists a hierarchy or races. Still, using your definition of discrimination, I don't see how a simple portrait could be racism. It's probably racialist, sure, but it doesn't discriminate against people with darker skin. Perhaps calling them nonrepresentative could be a better word for it than racist?

Hi guys,

I have the program DAZ which I think many of this portraits are made with. If there's a problem with any of the individual character sets, I'm happy to see what I can do?

mongrel wrote:Hi guys,

I have the program DAZ which I think many of this portraits are made with. If there's a problem with any of the individual character sets, I'm happy to see what I can do?

What is DAZ?

Can I just say please don't edit the hues of the westerners as that would just look like Victorian Blackface performers (They existed at one time, it's not racist to mention them! ). Light-hearted post people...

And unfortunately Minstrels were still around in the 20th century. And you're right, just changing the skintone would look weird.

Edric Storm wrote:

mongrel wrote:Hi guys,

I have the program DAZ which I think many of this portraits are made with. If there's a problem with any of the individual character sets, I'm happy to see what I can do?

What is DAZ?

It's a character model creation/editing tool. It's like Spore, but vastly more complicated and expensive.

As an example, I knocked this one up in a couple of minutes. No idea if it is the type of thing you are looking for, if it is any better than what is being argued about, or how to do any of the cool adjustments you've done, but here's vaguely what it'd look like.

Definitely looks good, it just needs to keep the same offset angle as all the others (which is something around 25 degrees I think)

*edit*
When I was pondering this, I was thinking that having some Melanesian blonde hairstyles might be cool for Summer Islanders.

That looks absolutely awesome. DAZ Studio 4 seems to be free.

Peuri wrote:That looks absolutely awesome. DAZ Studio 4 seems to be free.

It even works on a Mac which is unusual for 3D software.

Will see what I can do about the angle.

DAZ itself is free, but most of the content for it isn't. I think you can make some pretty decent stuff for free. I've got a pretty decent library, so if anyone wants me to have a crack at something just ask.

I always assumed they used FaceGen

http://www.facegen.com/

How have I never heard of this wondrous tool before?