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Hi all,
When you think of comic books vixens in classic comic books, they have perky breasts. City of Heroes/Villains had this and was a success.
Champions Online had kind of saggy breasts, and was a failure.
I'm just saying. >_>
Look at classic comic book art and make sure we can create that.
(Puts on flame-retardant vest and prepares to be quiet for a while...)
uh... options, I guess?
as per Petal's responses in the art questions thread... it sounds like the dev teams goal is a sense of "realism" in the game design..... and that means real bodies
Breasts are not uniform, and they generally don't look like they do in comic books...
and many, MANY players prefer to avoid "fake", "silly" or (what may be viewed as) "sexiest" renditions of breasts.
Me, personally, I dont think there IS one breast to satisfy all people..... perhaps the answer is a variety of body types (something I know is at least modestly in the works) that include more realistic or more comic breast configurations...
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
We should be able to have a slider that goes from perky to gramma Moses. Realistic. Not gravity defying. ;)
GP, this was a problem in Champions.... you had a rather broad slider... but it doesnt help to simply make them bigger or smaller if the geometry doesnt change. Pretty sure CO was actually trying to fix that problem from back in COX......
To really have that desirable spectrum of sizes, we really need a spectrum of shapes as well.
I'd suggest four as a minimum:
Flat/asexual (for non-mamarried characters)
Youthful (geometry suitable for smaller, perky breasts)
Heroic (geometry suitable for the comic book "ideal" (large perky breasts))
Adult (geometry suitable for larger, realistic breasts)
on each of these base models, there would be some ability to scale (perhaps not the flat model) so a player could have a range of sizes that fit the overall concept.
granted, this is hardly an exhaustive list, but I'm trying to keep the numbers low to make it feasable.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
I have long been in favor of games like CoH (and now CoT) provide us the whole range of "realistic" female chest sizes, even down to and including flat-chestedness.
But by the same token I completely understand that the typical superheroine in comics is much more like Power Girl in appearance...
[img=300x455]http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120206235112/marvel_dc/images/5/5f/Power_Girl_0001.jpg[/img]
and I'm totally in favor of being able to have that kind of appearance as well even if it could easily be labeled as "fake", "silly" or "sexist" as GhostHack mentioned.
Basically I want the option to have female chest sizes range from totally flat all the way to "OMG!?!?!" or anything in-between.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
and I definitely do not think you're in any way the minority, Lothic.
I think the problem has been, in the past, that beyond certain limits, the physical bones of the character models cant support "good looking" representations... no matter how "well shaped" the breast bit is.
So to even try for that broad, sweeping scale, we might need different versions of the female chest, whether we have awesome sliders or not.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Some shapes are just ... classic ...
[img]http://six.clubetchi.com/images/Lynda-Carter2.jpg[/img]
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I agree. I think it's obvious had the whole breast shape/size issue been an easy thing to accomplish CoH probably would have solved it years ago. I'm not going to assume CoT will have the entire situation solved either (because I suspect that would take a combination of multiple sliders and/or body model types) but I'm hoping it'll at least improve on what games before it had achieved in this area.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I wouldn't know, Red.... I was too busy looking at her face and considering her valuable opinions.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
As long as the default setting isn't 'huge' like I've seen before
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Yes. Variety, because I hate it when people say "realism" when it comes to character's bodies, it comes off as them saying they sport the love handles and double chin and would much rather have the character models look like that. :p
I agree with what you're saying about the difference between "realism" and "variety" when it comes to superhero-based games.
But even though I might not want love handles or double chins on a typical superhero character I think the ultimate goal of a character creator for a game like this ought to be to allow those kinds of things if you really want them. I'm not going to assume CoT will provide that much "realism" here, but perhaps someday some game will.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Artistic style aside, when realism is asked for, it's usually by people who forget, people with these bodies do exist. They're just not average out of shape (and why would they be, most supers have grueling work out routines) bodies.
hah... yeah.. mine doesnt. If i'm gonna fantasize, my hero is a lazy slob who eats constantly and still have 6-pack abs and smells like an axe comercial.... with puppy-dog eyes. :P
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Of course I could bring up the classic question as to why Superman is usually portrayed as being extremely physically fit. He's got superpowers based on exposure to certain kinds of solar radiation - why does he need "big muscles" in the traditional weightlifting sense? Or more to the point he'd probably have to benchpress tectonic plates just to have something that would provide enough resistance to make his muscles get bigger after a workout. Basically if any superhero could get away with being a little "pudgy" it'd be Superman.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
hah, I always figured that it was the energy of our yellow sun that made his muscles develop into peak physical condition, or that "Kryptonians" don't store excess energy as fat, like humans do.
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[i]....Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...[/i]
Plus he'd have more surface area to absorb the solar radiation.
Yeah, I went there. >.>
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always wanted to make a hero with a pudge.
realism is more than looks. Even to the way outfits work and the way certain body parts move. Which I dont think games got down pact just yet.
Natural female chests usually on average dont sit like two bowling balls ala COX style on the chest. Most have some sort of natural sag (especially the more comic book larger sized ones) to them (not including implants) especially as a woman gets older. And with that as far as realism, therei great variety of all shapes and sizes in real life, and one thing games forget when pursing the perfect breast is proportion with the rest of the body. This is of course that is all but null in the comic book world. For males too and gotten increasingly so in modern era comics in the 80s-90s especially. Originally Superman wasnt super ripped. Just some average braod shoulder joe in blue tights looking with an overly perfect slightly out of proportion chin and various other unrealistic proportions.
In the chest department CO have slightly more realistic breast than COX, but the slider does it no justice even in CO with proportion shape and size i nthe realistic terms. One say some game will get the look AND physics right. Some games have the looks but the physics all jacked up.
This is why I said earlier the best way to handle this probably involves at least several sliders to get all of the various shapes/sizes accounted for. I was watching character creation vids of some of the newer Korean MMOs on YouTube recently and they provide literally 100s of sliders for everything imaginable. It looked as though they handled the breast situation very well by being able to adjust placement on the chest as well as overall size and perkiness to give you anything ranging between "natural" and "implant".
Unless we're given all of the adjustment controls for this we're going to have to settle for some compromise that'll be a variation of limits we saw in games like CoH or CO.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Comics are not realistic and a comic inspired MMO should not be bound by 'realism'. That being said, best way to satisfy everyone is to have plenty of options.
I think this would be a good idea. Customization is key to these games!
The problem with slider based systems is that somebody, somewhere, for simply technical reasons, has to place limits on what can be done. Having said that, I'm all in favor of giving players as much control as possible of their character's physical appearance, within reason. We are all familiar with games that have sliders for some ' interesting' purposes (CO's hand length sliders, anyone) that might be going a bit too far.
Wait until you see the... nope, that would ruin the surprise.
One of the more ... unfortunate ... aspects of how the Boob Slider(s) work(ed) in City of Heroes and now in Star Trek Online is that they only increase the geometry, and in so doing force the textures to scale up with them. So if you've got any kind of texture on your top (like a chain mail link "shirt" or whatever) what you wind up with is tiny little linked holes (really just dark spots in a checkerboard pattern) everywhere except on the breasts, where the same texture gets stretched out (like a really bad Breast Expansion photoshop job) to make Great Big Linked Holes there which is totally out of proportion and scaling with everywhere else. That's because the texture map has to expand with the geometry, instead of "wrapping" on the geometry in such a way as to simply repeat the texture on the geometry in a way that keeps the scaling of the texture constant with everywhere else on the torso. This can sometimes have the result of looking "wrong enough" to act as an even more unnecessary "Look at my Max Boobs Slider!" effect in a lot of cases, drawing even more unnecessary attention than really should be getting paid to these ... attributes.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I'd agree a superhero inspired MMO shouldn't be bound by strict "realism". On the other hand I've seen comics that have women who range all the way from flat-chested up to Power Girl sized and beyond. Using your logic a superhero inspired MMO should at least try to adequately handle anything that has appeared in comic books.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I just like upper costume pieces that let me show cleavage. Those newer ones in CoX that did, got a lot of mileage from me. Nothing looks stupider to my mind, than having a with-skin top that NEEDS cleavage, and you got.... nothin'. I do not like my female alts to sport giant breasts, but how 'bout some ladylike cleavage, please? Or even evil, villainous cleavage. I'm not prejudiced. :p
Indeed.
seen some people do some crazy interesting stuff with those hand sliders.
Have you seen The Grey that is running around in CO? I wish I had a pic and or came across him in recent times but it's an awesome job of creating the standard Grey Alien. Proportions I didnt even know was possible or even thought of to achieve that look.
I think I made a joke character with the bust slider all the way up, and the plated cyborg chestpiece that gave the region some odd angles, and called her "Portable Workbench."
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//3/3b/SB2_Female_Witch_Bare_Top_wSkin.jpg[/img]
Another combination that I liked doing because it worked so well was to use the Wedding Tuxedo Deluxe ...
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//7/76/Female_Tux_Delux_F.jpg[/img]
... over Witch Leather Top and Bottom ...
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//1/1c/SB2_Female_Witch_Leather_Top_Colored.jpg[/img] [img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//7/7d/SB2_Female_Witch_Leather_Bottom_Colored.jpg[/img]
... and use Rocket Boots for the feet ...
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//2/2c/Rocket_Boots_01.jpg[/img]
... to create a really good looking Formal Wear (when done in the right colors!). The best colors I had for this on my Grav/Trick Controller ... Topheavy Gs ... (guess where the boob slider was set) ... where I used the darkest purple available and the whitest white on the trim, piping and embroidery on the coat. Worked beautifully as Formal Wear and actually looked rather dashing (on a female character, of all things).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well if the results are what the human minimum and maximum.
The height slider is going to have to go from 1 foot 9 and half inches to 8 feet 11 inches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height
The breast slider may have to go into bowling ball range to match what human augmentation
and very few naturals have reached.
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/18.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
[URL=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knhgv6lgbrs/UA_riCKAHNI/AAAAAAAATxE/u-sgh23bZhc/s640/wonder_women_by_penichet-d47up0l.jpg [/IMG][/URL]
It's not the size as much as the shape that I am worried about. I want the classic comic vixen shape to be possible. It was not possible in CO. I might be shallow, but that made me want to play the game less.
(Player of CoX since the beginning by the way. I had Smoke, Luck, Mist, Ail, Occult, Pure, Pixy, and a whole bunch of other characters on Freedom. Long live Freedom! It was like NYC: Whatever you wanted to be going on, was going on in Freedom.)
I just hope to the incarnates that I we'll get a flat-chested option. One of my main toons never felt quite right being as busty as even the smallest end of CoH's sliders.
Zombie Man already mentioned in another thread that they are going to allow us to create "flat-chested" females in CoT. Hopefully while they are allowing that they'll also be mindful that we still want to make other characters with the more traditional superheroine "comic vixen" shape and avoid whatever went wrong in CO.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
As long as there are options for everyone, from flat to small to medium to huge, I think we should be alright. It's when we get into the realm of only having perky, unrealistic breasts that we have problems.
::sigh:: If only I had this problem.
Once again Redlynne you....I....*snif* . You're awesome.
Linda Carter was very important during my 'formative years'. :)
Kinda funny. When the Asian MMO came out with all those breast sliders it was "OMG! This isn't needed!" then you see the "We should do that!" And wasn't this for B&S from NCSoft with complaints from ex-CoHers? :p
I see your Wonder Woman and raise you an Emma Frost
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
Pardon me for preferring the 3D to the 2D in this instance ... ^_~
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Hey you know anything dealing with COX gets a pass, even if it was considered the dumbest idea on the planet when it's in another game. But say "well it's in COX" Then it's all of a sudden the greatest idea since sliced bread :p
No offense to the OP and all but with all the hurdles this project will face, bewb size is WAY down on my list to worry about.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I know. I just never had a problem with additional sliders myself. One million breast sliders? Sounds like overkill, but it's totally more options!
Admittedly character breast size/shape probably isn't the most critical thing the Devs need to worry about at this point.
But (and as no offense to you) there have already been several comments from the Rednames in other threads that have made it clear they are going to try to fix some of the long standing problems games like CoH and CO had in this area. Go figure...
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If we have as many sliders as Blade & Soul, maybe we could have a similar aesthetic style to the character avatars!
This is what i prefer in my characters
[img]http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/113/2/9/tank_girl_by_danielauhlig-d62pukr.jpg[/img]
With this costume option
[img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8VppXQMpMwk/SuLtsvRhPjI/AAAAAAAAA78/yaC8k0eSfck/s400/tank_girl.jpg[/img]
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
It's about issue number 2 for me, right behind number 1 which is that they better have a powers system like CoX and not a boring one with homogeneous powers like CO.
I just want to say .. I'm surprised at how many comments this thread has
Crowd Control Enthusiast
well, while breast in itself seem miniscule but it leads to the bigger picture of more realistic proportions and avatars. And breasts is the most touchiest subject. On one end of the scale you have, "is that a female, male or a Bieber?" on the other end, "geesh, I know her back must be hurting lugging those 50 lb bags on her chest everywhere."
*looks around for perky beasts, but then realizes that she's the perkiest of them all!*
*RAWR!*
[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]
But..don't cat's have more than two...
Call me crazy, but I'm fairly certain that's not a typo.
Miracle Max: "Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world, except for a nice MLT. Mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe - they're so perky, I love that."
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Personally I don't care how big, small, perky, saggy, or artillery they are. As long as I can achieve an overall image for the character that feels right; I'll be happy.
This coming from a player whose main only had costumes based off of Blackarachnia starting with Beast Wars and going up to her Animated incarnation. The Default Crab Uniform slot was even used to represent her original toy, which was just a recolored Tarantulas, and therefore male, toy.
The original Lady of Ysgard. -Virtue
[img]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/203/c/5/Updated_Homage_by_Voldine.jpg[/img]
In the last few weeks I've been spending some time looking at character creator videos from some of the latest Korean MMOs on YouTube just to get an idea of what games are becoming capable of. For instance some of them let you choose from among dozens of different eye shapes and sizes where you can then go on to adjust them (and other barely noticible facial features) with literally dozens of sliders.
It made me think with your list of "big, small, perky, saggy, or artillery" why this same attention to detail with the eyes hasn't carried over to breasts in games like this yet. You'd think, especially in superhero-based settings where "exceptional" female characters are the norm, that those important character "assets" would get top priority detailing treatment in any character creator.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This all seems to be a perfectly reasonable topic of conversation when discussing the core functionality of the costume creator. Sliders for various attributes, legs, arms, shoulders, chest/breast, waist etc. I don't think it is a misplaced priority to give due consideration to ALL body parts when designing the core mechanisms of the creation engine.
also
[img]http://images.wikia.com/dragonball/images/archive/7/78/20110528203912!Roshi_nose_bleeding.jpg[/img]
I kamehameha'd your mom
You are correct. It is not a typo. Thank-you for being the only Furless One to discern the difference!
Some of my bestest friends are beasties! I am the perkiest of them all!
*RAWR!*
[center][color=purple][size=16][b][I][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78N2SP6JFaI]Just a cat from another star![/url][/I][/b][/size][/color][/center]
I just wanted to say how excited I am about this game.
And: Please no Champions Online breasts! They were yucky and the game failed. We all want City of Heroes/Villains breasts, because that was a successful game!
Nice... necroposting to your own thread 8+ months later to once again warn us that badly rendered female breasts would single-handedly ruin CoT...
I've heard of "single issue voters" but now you're proof there can be "single issue MMO players" as well. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
[b]Rule 8008 of the Internet:[/b] The boobery will continue until the thread is locked.
<==========)===O|TtDd|O===(==========>
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Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
Lol Blue footed boobies. Interesting bird
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Oh ya!
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We have decided boobies for everyone is going to be flat footed and blue. Or is that no boobies for anyone and everyone is just going to be flat? I jest! Honestly your art director is a girl. I happen to have real ones I would like to think that my girls will influence the direction in a more realistic to the a bit of the okay super hero/comic females tend to have more pinup style curves. Believe me it's a very serious eyes up here type issue. :P
Honestly reading back thru the pre necro thread Lothic and Ghosthack pretty much hit the nail on the head. :) We are going for a range from flat to tastefully plump and perky superpower pinup girl. Not all women are built the same and not all want the same look but keeping with realistic or just to the side of real. :)
[color=#ff0000]Art Director[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Pictures or it never happened :-)
Why....why would anyone create this thread...I'm not even going to read the beyond the OP. Nothing good can come of this.
:::backs away slowly, avoiding eye contact with thread:::
No, no, you're *supposed* to make and hold eye contact to show you're not staring at the rest of the thread!
Spurn all ye kindle.
*failed*
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
One Breast to rule them all, One Breast to find them,
One Breast to bring them all and in the darkness jiggle them
Sic Semper Tyrannis
[url=http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/9043/KungPow-photo_11.jpg]One Breast to rule them all?[/url]
[B]Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...[/B]
Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain
[img]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/5.jpg[/img]
Hi all,
I just wanted to say that I think this is a great >_> thread!
So sue me!
Best,
Nennafir
Though I was generally satisfied with the breast ranges in both CoH and CO, I do appreciate a good range of options, since I make a lot of alts and what works for one body doesn't always fit another. Each game did manage to frustrate me regarding one female body part though. In CoH it was the shoulders. Female shoulders had almost zero difference between minimum and maximum on the slider. That annoys me greatly. Not only because you had to find a shoulder pad or jacket to add any perceived mass to a gal's shoulder, otherwise they just hung there like they were marionette arms. CO jot the shoulders right, but in its case, the waist slider is the problem. Every female has wasp-waist, and all the waist slider modifies is butt width. I know this makes me a silly person, but I don't want every female character I see in game to look like they're wearing an overtightened corset.
In a related matter, while I found the "body types" a little more limiting than I liked in SWTOR, I really appreciated that one of them was thick. We just don't see enough bodies that aren't copied off a fitness magazine cover. My favorite character in that game used the fat body, he was an Imperial agent, and between the body and the voice, he reminded me a lot of The Equalizer (from the TV show, not the movie). Having a good range is important for every body part, for every body.
Wow this thread never seems to want to stay dead - at least it's understandable given the tantalizing subject matter. I think the main take-away from your post is that the more capability we get for adjusting the shapes of our character's bodies in games like this the better.
I'm sure there's a point where if we were given thousands of sliders for every square-inch then it would be massive overkill. But in general I think if we had greater control over the various details than we got in CoH (as a hypothetical let's say the equivalent of 100 body sliders instead of the roughly 30 or so we got total in CoH) then that would probably satisfy the largest number of people who care about this kind of thing without making it overly complicated/tedious for those that don't.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Sorry, it was near the top of the forum when I found it, and going by many of the points raised in the discussion it seemed like the appropriate venue to add my comment rather than creating a whole new thread.
As for the sliders, my opinion of "optimal" would be for each piece on the body to have 6 sliders, 3 for scale, 3 for location. The location ones might not work so well, with some costume builds, because they'd make it easy to push something totally out of whack... but that could also make for a truly marvelous costume in some cases. A 7th slider for opacity could also be nice, and would eliminate the need to create extra parts and pieces in order to accommodate ghosts and amputees and self-wielding magic weapons.
It is funny though, some games have tons of sliders but still you can't seem to make anything of it. I am thinking of games like the Elder Scrolls (offline, haven't played the online one...) series, and not even talking about breasts for once! They have lots of sliders for faces, but still there are several mods for faces because it is so difficult to get anything good out of it.
With faces in particular, sliders are fine, but I hope there are a few "pre-set" options that are made just to give people a starting point.
I, in turn, have always been somewhat baffled by the extent to which some games allow faces to be customized. Perhaps it's a thing in some countries/cultures to regularly zoom in close enough on faces to appreciate the effort others have put into such subtleties (always assuming the effort was made)?
For my part, I'll catch a glimpse of any character's face prior to logging in. That's it. The likelihood that I'll use a PoV that allows me to see much detail of any other PC's face, assuming the character isn't masked, will hover around zero.
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Maybe, to keep it simple, an additional slider to adjust height?
*leaves topic, walking into conveniently placed sunset.*
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Well having a huge number of body/face sliders for most MMO games is semi-questionable anyway because once you throw on your typical suit of full plate armor it doesn't really matter exactly how super ripped or slight chubby you made your character look. ;)
But in a superhero game I think it's much more important to have meaningful slider controls over the character models because almost by definition the "standard" superhero outfit is skin-tight spandex. At the very least the types of clothes typical superheroes wear are far more varied than in other genres so it will be important to see exactly how CoT handles it.
Even CoH had preset options and a "randomizer" for characters. I'd be amazed if CoT doesn't account for something like this.
If I had to guess I'd bet a lot of games focus on face customization not only because I'm sure some people out there like it no matter how "noticeable" it ends up being but also because it's relatively easier to support because for the most part they don't have to worry about putting tight-fitting clothing directly on that part of the body. Getting things like good breast/belly type sliders involve areas of the body that the Devs have to worry about "covering up" with clothing that looks OK without excessive clipping and so on.
So maybe that's why games sometimes seem to go overboard with faces. Even CoH dedicated over half of its total available sliders to the face/head region. Maybe it was simply easier to do at the time than the rest of the body. Hopefully things like UE4 will make focusing "only on the face" seem less obvious in future games.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Even CoH allowed for height adjustments of sorts although it was clearly less friendly that it could have been.
This point leads towards the often requested idea of getting specific numerical values for each slider position so that if you wanted a character to specifically be 5 foot, 8 inches tall you could set it directly to that value. Even if we had to settle for sliders that only gave us abstract numeric positions of say "1 to 100" at least we could duplicate those exact settings we liked across multiple characters. Hopefully the CoT Devs will be mindful of this and give us some way to account for it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
In regards to height, I'd really like if the height slider was linked to the leg length sliders, or at least the label on it. Max height at 7 feet, then short, stubby legs because it gives the overall bulk your looking for, but height still "reads" as 7 feet even though in actuality you're about 5'10"... very annoying. Also, if height is given in a measurement rather than an arbitrary number on a scale, it would be nice if it read in both inches/feet and in metric, or at least had an option to switch between the two.
President Jimmy Carter once said that the USA would be fully converted over to the Metric system (that now something like 95% of the rest of the world routinely uses) by 1980. I guess we all know how that turned out... ;)
For what it's worth it would seem pretty trivial for like a game like this to be able to display measurements in either system as desired.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The slightly harder part is making sure that the UI doesn't screw up whilst doing so ;)
By this, I mean that if you move the slider 1 or 2 pixels it is easy to say for the metric system that that is 1 or 2 cm. For the imperial system though, each pixel is 0.3937 inches...
So what is *generally* better is to change the measuring scale (ie the marks on the UI) so that they line up correctly and instead keep the slider as an *abstract* slider that the player themselves doesn't know directly what it is referencing (it could well just be relaying 1-378 for all we know internally). Instead it is just the UI that we are using that will do these changes.
The downside is that for any costume saving files, the code might not be human readable. Although that is another problem to be honest here....
If there's something like a height slider that controls the overall scale of the character as in CoH, it would change the cubits per pixel of every other slider. As in Starhammer's example of a character with short legs, some other sliders would affect the real number scale of the height slider at the same time.
Resizing the application window would change the pixel scales of all the sliders, but not the ranges.
So I agree, the numeric values stored in the sliders should be at least somewhat abstract. My preference is to store scales in the sliders and in costume files as proportions of the pawn's original size. Ideally that would let you show a tick mark on the slider at the default (100%) position.
Making the control that lets you read or type in a 'real' measurement in light-nanoseconds or whatever separate lets the sliders concern themselves only with the character's proportions, and the real number displays concern themselves with the net effect of several factors.
I wonder if it would be good if you could lock one real-number control at a time. So you could for example fix the character's height at 1.0 [s]mile[/s] fathom and dial the legs up and down, making the rest of the character resize itself to fit into the fixed measurement.
It would be kinda neat if the Character creator had a "arrest photo" style measurement background available, or something else to help check perspective.
There's absolutely no need for either "measurement system" to be tied directly to the exact number of pixels or whatever. As Pengy mentioned the "internal scales" could easily be abstracted and all the UI would have to do is present "values" that are approximates in either real world scale.
If worst came to worst and the Devs actually used one of these real world systems as an actual scale system for their internal processing then they could just have the GUI make quick conversion calculations to present different numbers on the screens of those who were "weird" enough to want to see the numbers in the other system.
Bottomline the game doesn't have to be scaled to actually directly relate to either real world system. The GUI numbers on the your screen are simply a bit of fluff that could easily be extrapolated to approximate either set of simulated real world values. Effectively no one's going to be able to tell whether their height is being misrepresented on the screen by a fraction of an inch or centimeter here or there even if they were to stand two characters side-by-side for comparison.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I have a sense that this comment refers to a 'perky breast height' slider, though I could be mistaken.
A 'character height' slider seems like a given.
Be Well!
Fireheart
We could have separate traverse and elevation controls.
Sure, but we need to remember the important question: will the mouse and keyboard control scheme be as responsive as the joystick?
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[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I have always loved creating custom characters, but many games seem to give the wieght/fitness sliders nothing but extremes. You get characters with perfectly sculpted abs, characters who look like twigs, and characters that are overwieght, but no happy medium. Anybody can be anything in MMOs, but there never seems to be happy mediums. In terms of IRL fitness, many professional athletes have a layer of fat which hides their rock-hard muscles, because they know that the fat is important since it is energy that they'll need whilst competing.
lmao.....I love these forms...
Long live the Survivors.
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While the genre (comics) loves big boobs and thus most of the community.. I wouldn't mind not perky more realistic (not shaky tho) breasts.
I like that women aren't being barbies anymore. The curvy girls and booty girls are finally back in fashion, and women like Serena Williams can be celebrated for their talents AND objectified for their beauty.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I think, as many have said, that versatility in design is the key here. having options that go from flat to fake to realistic are all good choices, and on body types having something that isn't stock standard hourglass is a good idea - I've got a few concepts that don't work properly with that, not the least of which is a reptilian girl that doesn't even have mammary glands, much less big breasts, and another who's chubby because her summoned demons are the ones doing all the work rather than her.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
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