I've been thinking about all the possibilities with aesthetic decoupling and I have to say, I am super curious about how much work is required for this. Perhaps I don't fully grasp how the coding behind this works, maybe it can be applied to more than one prop at a time, I don't know. But if you can use the same prop for any power set you choose, does that mean that the CoT design team has to go through and create each animation for each prop and each attack one by one and manually create them? There is going to be, what...like dozens if not hundreds of props to choose from, right? That is a lot of animations to make for every possible power.
Thinking about it...perhaps the animations themselves don't need to differ much no matter which prop you choose if you go through and just place emanation points on each prop? That would be a lot less work I imagine. There might be exceptions to this.
I can't wait for the update that explains and shows this better with vids. Some awesome vids are overdo IMO :P
Compulsively clicking the refresh button until the next update.
Once the character creator is out and we can play around with it I think showing will be easier than telling.
I imagine you could, say, have a “one handed melee swing” animation that works with any rigid one-handed weapon (knife, sword, mace, frying pan, spatula) and a “one-handed point and shoot” animation that works with pistols, wands, hand blasts, etc. Not every animation will work with every prop but there’ll be a lot of flexibility.
Just think about almost any MMO you’ve ever played. They all have examples of attacks using the same animation for different weapons. Does a Warrior in WoW need a different animation to swing a hammer, axe, or sword? Heck you can attack with a beer stein with the same animation.
From what I have heard each prop once chosen to be part of your character will unlock a set of animations appropriate to that prop (reuse as much as possible), so characters/costumes with no props selected will probably have a little bit more "limited" selection of animations compared to those with props selected. What they also said is that you will be limited to two visual themes (at least at launch) so that will drastically reduce the amount of option you'll have compared to if you could choose truly freely from all options suitable.
However the "full" aesthetics of a power is selected from several "components":
First one is emanation point, although it may not have that much effect on available animations for that emanation point pretty sure it has some.
Second one is the characters animation, that is the bodies movement including possible prop.
Then you have the effects of any "trails" left behind the prop or a projectile moving.
For ranged powers you have the projectile itself, not sure if solid beam would be the projectile or the trail but don't think it really matters.
And lastly there is particle effects that is primarily (only?) the hit effect for successful strikes.
Also of interesting note, MWM have bought a module for generating at least melee type props, maybe ranged ones as well, from components. The basic type is limited to swords when buying it by dividing them into hilt, crossguard, and blade components that can then be mixed and matched for a final sword, but the maker of that module made it highly extensible so other types of weapons can easily be added.
This (both the aesthetics as whole and props specifically) shows that MWM is trying to make everything as modular as they can to maximize reuse-ability and to minimize duplicated work.
MWM has hinted at that power aesthetics won't be in until the second or even third "release" of it which probably won't be until beta testing of game itself. Initial release of chargen will be character costumes only iirc.
As I understand it, the way it might end up working is like this:
1. You pick a class (archetype, whatever). That choice determines what power sets you have access to (or at least narrows the list down a lot).
2. You pick a primary and secondary set. That choice nails down which lists of powers you may choose from when you level up and get a new power. Of course there are other options, like travel powers and tertiaries.
3. You pick a power, whether at character creation or when hitting a new level.
4. That power comes with a short list of different aesthetic options that are appropriate for it. For example, if it's a melee attack, you probably get to choose an animation of your toon punching, kicking, or headbutting the target, your choice which you use. Maybe it has particle effects too, maybe you can pick those from a short list, and maybe you can choose colors for the particle effects from a palette.
5. If your toon has a prop of some kind, you probably automatically get to use the prop animations that the prop came with, assuming they're anything the devs considered appropriate for the power in question. Let's say the prop is a gun. You might have a "whack the guy upside the head with the handle of the gun" animation, as a gun would probably have that. You probably DON'T get to use the "slowly line up the shot with the gun's boresight and pull the trigger, then blow on the gun's muzzle to cool it after successfully hitting the bullseye" animation for this melee attack, because the devs didn't code it up such that you could select that animation for that prop for the attack in question.
So every power will likely make you choose from a short list of possible animations for it, and you might get more options to choose from if you have a prop, but then the prop might actually cause you to lose some in the exchange too. E.g. if your gun is held in your left hand, you might lose the "left hand punch" animation and it get's replaced with the "left hand gun whack" animation instead, etc.
I seriously doubt you'll be able to bind any animation to any power.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This is true, I was told I cannot use guns with massive melee.
[img]https://s15.postimg.cc/z9bk1znkb/Black_Falcon_Sig_in_Progess.jpg[/img]