The Character models in the DOA series are DOLL LIKE almost cartoonish, this is a conscious design decision.(You can puch, kick, throw these models and they never cut, bleed, deform, bruise or loose teeth.)
A 10,000+ triangle character is going to look very similar to a 10,000,000+ model.
For example: a Barbie doll, it's VERY difficult to tell a low poly count model to a high poly count one, there is very little detail on a Barbie doll, just eyes, mouth, nose, hair. throwing large amount of triangles at these models has a diminishing return. Barbie on the XBOX will look similar to Barbie on the 360.....or the 720.
The DOA-series characters are similar to barbie dolls, they have NO wrinkles, cuts, stains, pimples, lines, nicks, bruises, very little detail beside the eye lashes.......not sure you can see up their noses?
they are perfectly smooth, hence little reason to waste triangles on them.
Gears Of Wars on the other hand, is going for a more 'real' look, their character models have wrinkles, cuts, stains, pimples, lines, nicks, bones, bruises. that is CLiffy B's DESIGN CHOICE I like the charater detail in the Unreal 3 engine and don't know home much better I would desire, they are nearing the 'uncanny valley'. seeing one of these character with half their face missing from a close quarter shotgun blast is going to be disturbing.
continuing........Bugs Bunny in the DOA universe is still a cartoon character, flat shaded , low detail, shiny........................in the GOW universe Bugs has hair, cuts, wrinkles, teeth, stains, pores, ect.. a mutant freak show Bugs Bunny.
Also a 1,000 triangle rubber ball looks nearly identical to a trillion triangle ball. a Xbox 360 rubber ball will look similar to a XBOX 22 rubber ball in the year 2105.
I've noticed Perfect Dark's Joanna is headed toward the 'doll' look, very interesting.......avoiding the 'uncanny valley' is probably a healthy road.
I fear the Same DOA3 v.s. DOA4 models will start again for DOA5, DOA6, DOA7............
