Watched the new demo and it's so exciting! Amazing flexibility and variety... and the possibility of 'accidental monstrosities'.
So, I'd like to suggest the addition of Numeric input on those sliders.
That would allow us to have easily repeatable presets and shortcuts to a desired look. It's an issue I've seen with character creators in other games, as well. If one lacks hand-eye coordination, or precise control of the computer-pointer, it can be very difficult to nudge a slider just the right distance to get the desired effect. Also, one can't, reliably, put the slider back to 'neutral' or 'zero', or any other target.
These numbers don't need to correspond to any measuring system, they could be percentages on the slider's scale, or completely random - as long as they're repeatable.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Actually I think this point has been talked about several times on this forum. Most people (from what I recall) tend to agree that having some kind of "numerical representation" of the position of the sliders would be helpful for repeatably as well as an alternative to manually adjusting the slider itself.
As one suggestion perhaps the slider ticks can range from "-100" on the far left to "+100" on the far right with "0" representing the dead-center neutral default of the slider. As you point out these numbers don't actually have to correspond to exact lengths/measurements but rather just be arbitrary tick settings on the scale. If having that many ticks on the scale is too many for some sliders the scale can always be adjusted on a case-by-case basis (like say -10 to +10 or whatever).
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
I don't see any reason to not do this, better fine control and repeatability are always nice.
As an addition I would suggest adding being able to "step" with the mouse wheel, and possibly even arrow keys, both over the slider itself as well as the number field. Yes, I know that there with high certainty will be buttons at each end of the slider to step with, but more options are nice.
Sure from a GUI point of view you could click on a given slider button and that could enable all of the following:
Now depending on the "screen real estate" it might be easier to have one general field for ALL slider number values to be displayed instead of every slider having its own number field. If that's the case then clicking directly on the number field should NOT enable the arrow keys or scroll wheel but it still should be able to accept a new number to change whatever slider is currently selected. I'd leave something like that up to however the Devs decide to handle it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
Stepped numerics are THE way to go for sliders, because without the numbers the results can't be easily replicated and communicated short of a data dump to txt file which would set up copy/paste cookie cutter duplications.
That means that the UI needs to support an EASY way to replicate results just by recording values from the UI.
Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.
I'm trying to add a number box to all sliders allowing you to directly input values. The first hint you might see of that is those rotator arrows on the floor (I had fun making those) with the degree value in the center (I set it to 15 degree steps as part of my debugging but I'll probaby remove that limit later).
The save format that Unreal uses is a binary thing. I hope to figure out a way to import/export XML text files as well.
-----------
Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.
Thanks for spending some effort on this. Like I implied earlier this issue has been talked about for years and was easily one of the "Top 10" things people wanted back in CoH when it came to improvements to the costume creator.
As you might recall the Devs of CoH tended to be very "anti-number" as far as showing players any of the "values" related to things. That philosophy might have had some advantages when it came to powers, but one of the clear disadvantages was that it made being able to replicate character body settings needlessly difficult.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
I'd also like to have an easy way to save and re-load those values from a library of sorts. If possible, I'd like the 'model' files to be separate (or seperable) from the 'costume' files. So that I can load a preset 'body' from the library with no costume rather than having to bring in an entire costume design and delete/swap all the pieces, if you see what I mean.
There was also talk of having some 'pre-set' body types. (fat, thin, athletic, etc.) I think that would be helpful.
The button to 'zero out' each slider, or all of them, is important as well. If there are pre-sets as mentioned above a 'return to default' button would work.
We already expect they'll provide some kind of costume slot save/load feature like CoH. While your idea of being able to save off body slider info separately from costume info is an interesting one it seems like you'd effectively be able to do that anyway even if we only get a "full costume slot" save/load feature. The workaround is to create the body you want and then just save off a version of that without any costume items (or just get it down to the standard default underwear). With that saved off that would become a "body template" file that could be reloaded anytime you want.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
Thanks for reminding me about the "return to default". The "Import" option you saw in the lobby screen was connected to saves of templates. I'm hoping to have certain costume and body patterns saveable and portable. The idea is for personal reuse as well as people sharing templates (like for a supergroup).
-----------
Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.
I didn't realize I hadn't hit "Save" on my post above. :p You replied before then. Good call.
-----------
Senior Developer/Project Manager/Co-Founder... and then some.
Well it's cool you're considering making these chunks of data separately savable. :)
Probably goes without saying but just make sure these "costume files" and "body files" are completely unique and complementary so there are no items in the files that overlap or rely on each other. Basically make it so that loading a body data file onto a clean costume slot and loading a costume data file onto the same new slot would be the sum total effect of loading a full "costume file" from CoH (which included everything).
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
I thought of that myself and if that's what I have to do, so be it. What I was kind of (selfishly) hoping for was the ability to create a costume then easily swap out the body *under* it, if you see what I mean.
Well in the last couple of posts avelworldcreator jumped in and made it clear they are already considering having a way to have separate body and costume templates so it looks like you might get your "selfish" way with this after all. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
Great idea!
Mine was a great idea when that was basically what you forced to do in CoH. But since the Devs jumped (in the last few posts) and confirmed that they in fact want to try to do what Warbird suggested I'll leave it to see if that's actually what we get in CoT. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012