Wowhead to add character models

by Eliah Hecht Mar 27th 2008 at 10:00PM

A couple of months back, we relayed that Wowhead gained 3D models. Now, they're set to become better. We mentioned in the previous post that player models were in the works, and I'm here to bring you an exclusive preview. Users will be able to see items on any race and gender character model, so if you're trying to figure out how those boots look on a female Tauren, you're in luck (although it's a good bet that they'll look odd). Wowhead sister site Thottbot will be receiving this improvement as well.

Competitor WOWDB has had the ability to preview items on a character model since they launched a bit over a month ago, tying into their profile system. However, they seem to lack Wowhead's impressive high-quality mode.

In fact, the quality of Wowhead's 3D renders will be increased in the upcoming update, especially in the high-quality Java version. See the gallery below for some examples and comparison shots; the image above is also a Wowhead render (not a screenshot). This has got to be the most accurate preview I've seen on any database site.

Gallery: Wowhead's new 3D system

Tags: 3d, al'ar, database, database-sites, models, wowdb, wowhead

Filed under: Items, News items

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Tim Mar 27th 2008 10:33PM

Wowhead and WowDB seem almost exactly the same. Are we sure they aren't owned by the same company?

Eliah Hecht Mar 27th 2008 10:36PM

Positive. Wowhead, Thottbot, and Allakhazam are all owned by ZAM, but WOWDB is run by Curse. If you go back and read my other article about WOWDB, I talk a little bit more about their...similarities.
http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/02/04/curse-launches-oddly-familiar-wow-database/

Xioyn Mar 27th 2008 10:45PM

the High Quality stuff crashs my Fire fox

Calaana Mar 27th 2008 11:12PM

Sure you can see what it looks like on the wowdb version... but it's a butt ugly human male, and about the size of a small childs fist. Not worth mentioning honestly, but I guess it saves the invasion of the OMG UR WRONG posts.

Dakira Mar 28th 2008 7:39AM

Not that its really important or relevant but I used to use Thottbot all the time, I recently switched to using WOWDB simply because it has an suggestion drop down when typing in your search query which is fantastic if your old like me and forget how to spell that ridiculous NPC name.

With Thottbot I always found myself switching back and forth and get the correcting spelling.

Specter Mar 28th 2008 7:48AM

Well, actually they ain't as advanced as they might think ;-)

see for example: http://www.speedydragon.de/item?id=34365#t=3

(german database site which was overall obviously inspired by Wowhead, but it already has character models with fully equippable characters, items/characters/npcs with full animation support and doesn't even need a 3D graphics card (let alone ask every time if you want to allow its use) because it's entirely based on software-rendering. They've had all this since over a month, and have even released the first web-based 3D model viewer just a week before Wowhead added 3D stuff in the first place)

Sanklovich Mar 28th 2008 1:28PM

actually, that was not the first 3d preview system, wowdb was the first, we had ours in beta(where select curse users could see) months before wowhead had it, and although both wowhead and speedy-dragon's 3d is impressive, they took the easy way out: java. so yes it looks impressive, but somewhere along the line they forgot a DB site is supposed to be fast, and there's is slow slow slow slow, but congrats nonetheless, im flattered that all my hard work has so many imitators :)