Radiac wrote:

Actually, that's another good question, will we be able to have different body sizes/types for different costumes? I don't know how difficult something like that would be or if it would wreak havoc in any way, but it would be nice. That way you could do a "Bruce Banner" costume with the lab coat, etc and a "Hulk" one with a much larger body frame.

Disclaimer: forward-looking statements, plans and intentions, subject to revision, content may differ from that presented on package, settling may occur during shipping. And so on.

[list]
[*]Full costume changes are expected to be able to swap pretty much anything about the character. And I do mean *anything*, here, constrained only by the bounds of "can you build it in the costume creator in the first place?"
[*]Rather than tightly binding changes in dynamic costume pieces to events in the game (for example, combat start / stop triggering changes in the holographic HUD from the Cyborg pack), we're looking at trying to rework it into a combination of:
[list]
[*]Expose dynamic costume behavior to player commands / macros / etc.
[*]Support firing of macros or an equivalent based on in-game events
[*]Providing a default implementation that links the two previous items so that players w.ho don't want something fancier don't ever have to worry about it, but those who do can opt to have more control.
[/list]
[/list]

Note that the second part of that list is still "experimental almost to the point of being theoretical," since we don't yet have concrete plans around exactly what we need to support in terms of commands and macros and such, other than knowing that we do need them in some reasonable and usable fashion. Right now all testing has simply been bound to console commands in Unreal, but that is unlikely to be a viable solution in the long term for various reasons (though I could well be proven wrong, too).

As for the first part, well, since I'm writing the code that drives it and it looks like it would require noticeable extra effort to *not* support more or less arbitrary costume changes, I can only imagine we would disable that if we ran into severe technical issues somewhere down the line. Certainly possible, but that doesn't seem too terribly likely from what I can see right this second.

I'm not sure if this goes here, but I really enjoy the challenge of getting things and pieces, I love costume packs, but I hate that you can get or use them without any knowledge or affiliation to the source. I think it would be fun to have the capability to find and do missions for costumes, be it a specific style of cape, a specific unique wing set, so on. It would be a great way to hide new content in the game, fill in spaces with things that reward those who explore and such. I would have loved to do a mission, track down the sky raiders jet pack provider and kick his butt. Subsequently my missions would have fewer flying Skyraiders, and I would have a neat new backpack :D

I love the dynamic costume pieces. It would be neat if we could have a lot of control over it, parsing together a line of costume animations to go off with a power, or having a generic run cycle mode. I love the scenes in Ironman and such, where we see panels and flaps open and stuff clicking into place... Probably hard to do, but really neat idea if possible....

LeadWanderer wrote:

I love the dynamic costume pieces. It would be neat if we could have a lot of control over it, parsing together a line of costume animations to go off with a power, or having a generic run cycle mode. I love the scenes in Ironman and such, where we see panels and flaps open and stuff clicking into place... Probably hard to do, but really neat idea if possible....

Depends on precisely what you mean by this. However, to clarify an additional couple of things, the current design-in-progress treats the following items as being on a par with what are normally thought of as "costume pieces":
[list]
[*]Full-body auras
[*]Location-specific auras
[*]Color selections for animations that support color variance (which I would expect to be 'almost all of them', but can make no promises)
[*]Animations selected for powers
[*]Animation variants for a variety of 'general purpose' and/or specialty emotes (idle, walking, running, /em wave, /em torch, and so on)
[*]Prop variants for animations that use props and support that
[/list]

While the internal name for "the collection of information that defines what choices the player has made about their representation in the world" is currently 'body', most of the other contenders for the term were more abstract: things like 'appearance,' 'style,' or 'image.' Unfortunately most of them were either taken by other engine systems or were a bit *too* abstract to really fit right. Point being, if it is something that is involved in how your character is represented within the game world visually, and it is open to player configuration at all the design intent is that it should be manageable through what is more generally thought of as the "costume system."

And yes, there's a reason that we didn't go with 'costume' — to narrow.

I'll leave speculation on why exactly that would be as an exercise to the reader. :)

As for animation of the costume pieces themselves: they would need to have it built-in, due to the technical constraints of how meshes and animations work in the engine, but opening up the possibility of controlling exactly when and how they activate, at least to some degree (which is to say, "as much as we can without breaking gameplay") is part of the plan, if still a very vaguely defined part.

DeathSheepFromHell wrote:

notears wrote:
textures for chainmail, scalemail, human skin, bloated mutant skin with large veins, reptile scales, fish scales, feathers, metal, Kevlar, bio armour, insect chitin, feathers, animal, treated animal fur (fur coats ect), plastic paper and wood.
No matter what the costume piece is let the player choose the texture, I don't care if it's a model for a football helmet, a shoulder piece made from a tire that was cut in half or a sewer grate, if your going to let players choose their textures don't bake any in.

There are some technical limitations that may prevent this from being practical; it isn't entirely clear yet just how much those limits will constrain the "stranger" options. That said, one of the planned features (in the sense that if we eliminate it from the plan I will scowl at people and argue strongly that it be kept) is that there should be a costuming mode that is off by default (for sanity) but when enabled basically operates on the philosophy "do not prevent the user from trying to do anything that can be meaningfully expressed — but if it doesn't work, you get to keep the pieces."
Want to create a character with as much clipping as you can find? Sure, just don't be surprised if parts of the body literally go flying off into the blue when it spawns (and thereafter end up with physics partially disabled). At least if some of the cape tests are any indication… applying a maximum-value force in a single physics tick due to spawning collided produced some rather impressive acceleration in a few cases. Or sometimes just turned that part of the body off entirely. Some of those may, for obvious reasons, need to be detected and disallowed for use anywhere in the live game (because it could have unexpected game-play consequences) — but short of that, the eye-sporks should be the limit.

Alright... Fair enough I suppose.... champions online had the ability to apply any texture but it they only had 3 that just changed how lighting was affected rather than the scale you're going for. Still if I can get the various textures I stated as patterns rather than actual textures, I could live with that. Leather, skin and metal all need be able to be applied to everything though, if that crap show champions can do that on whatever their running on you can too with unreal, even if it just affects lighting.

I always wanted a in game symbol maker that works like MSPaint and lets you make custom chest emblems.
If people made offensive symbols they could be nerfed just like people who made copyrited characters. And don't ban religious symbols because that would be offensive.
You could still include a few stock symbols but this would mean you didn't need so many and players could still have more room to be creative.

Since apparently the Mesopotamian Beard was not understood, here is the most glorious depiction:
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COkbJmIBuUw] Assurbanipal of Assyria, as he appears in [i]Civilization V: Brave New World[/i][/url]

Hands for feet. I don't care if they can't grab anything, I want hand feet!!!!

you mean like that lady from that Aeon Flux Movie?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5BPFxcw-CY

Also since the god of sheep, swiss army knives and art up there said that this is the better place for animation suggestions. I'll put these right here.

Themed gadgets

Themed heroes and villains have been a big part of comics for a long time, batman has bats, the joker has clowns, and the green goblin has Halloween. As such themed gadgets should be a thing. I'd start with three major themes whimsical, gothic and animal. Whimsical would be based around more childish things. Toys, games and such. Gothic devices should be covered in spikes and skulls and anything you can find on a death metal album. For animal themes, I'd start with animals that have a lot of well known sub species. Birds, cats and dogs for example have a multitude of sub species that can all be represented with the same model and they ability to colour it. If you have time, I'd also put in insects and bears. I'd also put these themes in non gadget animation types, such as an aura that explodes into the silhouette of a snarling wolf upon when you first activate it, or energy blasts in the shape of birds.

Foradain wrote:

notears wrote:
Hands for feet. I don't care if they can't grab anything, I want hand feet!!!!

Like Silver, here, perhaps?
But be warned, once you repurpose feet as hands, they hurt to use as feet again.

..... is that Bruce Willis cuddling a monkey girl on a space station?

If possible I would also like to pick a shape for my projectiles and power auras separate from auras effects, such as fireballs in the shape of skulls or butterflies, Flaming bear claws over my character's fists as he punches people or giant skeleton hands that wrap around my target for a hold. There should also be something done about redraw. A lot of people said that redraw was a flaw, if only a tiny one. Having the ability to choose between a weapon with redraw and a simple power that doesn't have redraw could have a lot of people favouring non weapon animations over weapon animations, to counter this I suggest doing what DCUO did and just have the weapon appear as it's attacking rather than have an animation before hand. You could even do something where people could choose how their weapons come into play like appearing in an aura that represents teleportation and magic, grabbing it out of a nearby portal or a quicker version of taking it out of a holster that takes a millisecond rather than a whole second. Also I want a portal gun animation for teleport powers.

Don't restrict power animation customizing by "what makes sense", just by what works with the system. Trust you're players creativity rather than saying that we can only pick fire, electricity and acid for our burning sets. If you think it will cause people to use damage type confusion to their advantage in PvP just colour code the numbers coming off the player being hit, blue numbers for cold, red for burning, grey for physical etc. Chances are if you do this the players will make combinations you never thought about in creative ways. Also the ability to throw kitchen plates. The day I can throw a plate at a gang member, is the day my life is officially complete.

Captain America style shield bashing and throwing animations. Also auras that represent swarms of small creatures like bugs, birds and rodents. Gun animations for melee attacks. Also don't limit costume pieces by gender, there have been many times where I wanted to make a wizard character with mage robes but couldn't while a female toon could with dress options. The whole male characters wanting mage robes could have been solved by porting dress type options from female toons to male toons like they did with skirts and kilts for men.

One thing I'd like to see is a lot of the ranged attacks merged into a single power set, (since they do pretty much the same thing) allowing the damage type and appearance to be selected seperately
Damage type would effect which defenses worked against the ability, and the type of secondary effects (stun, freezing, knock back, etc..)
Appearance would include lighting, fire, ice, rays, arrows, stars etc, (anything you would have seen as a different power set in CoH) and of course everything would come in a variety of colors

Invisible limbs and head options. Don't do this option for torsos or else people might make completely invisible characters in PVP.

RottenLuck wrote:

notears wrote:
Invisible limbs and head options. Don't do this option for torsos or else people might make completely invisible characters in PVP.

The Phantom Limb! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZHL5wtY5iI

Now if only we had a power aura that make our arms glow with a skeleton overlay when we punched something then we could make him for real?

Also animations that look like you're insulting the target, giving him orders or inspiring him. I always wanted a support power set in CoX that represented either insulting your target or inspiring them. Also animations of you thinking and formulating plans. Also Holographic screens and displays animations. Like Tony stark in iron man 2 when he discovered that new element.

Xnarl wrote:

1. This has nothing to do with costumes.

Wrong: I'm talking about taking things that were previously part of power sets and making them part of the appearance. If that's not about costumes What is it about.
2 What makes me think powers will be realized this way in city of titans?
How about the fact that that's what the powers do. They shoot something at people to cause damage, and or a secondary effect. Everything else is cosmetic and it would streemline any game to treat it that way instead of having 12 power sets that do pretty much the same thing.
3 "Damage type": One recent update mentions Augments for this. However, this is not part of character creation.
That's a shame because it totally should be
4"Appearance": Unprecedented customisation of power appearance has been an major selling point from the very beginning.
Good but the appearance of the powers should be included in that.

Overall I guess the reason I thought this fit into this thread is that the power customization in city of heroes was part of character creation and is included in my offline costume creator which I still use for fun. So it made since that this was the place to discus that kind of thing.

Brain in a jar head piece.

Umbrellas and parasols for Radiation Accident survivors, people from underground civilizations and red sun planets, or anyone else who might be shy of a little UV. Bonus points if they can be used as Power emitters a la the Penguin's trick umbrella. Or shields or bludgeons.

(image of Hulk on a unicycle holding a dainty parasol with posies on it)

Avengers reference FTW!

We need penguin style animations for our walking stick and umbrellas where we shoot someone with a gun hidden in the umbrella top/ bottom of the walking stick and slashing someone with a blade that came out of the top. Also sword canes...

AmbiDreamer wrote:

notears wrote:
Invisible limbs and head options. Don't do this option for torsos or else people might make completely invisible characters in PVP.

Why not just disable all invisibility in PVP? Due to.. um.. plot goggles!

Well warcrabbit said that having the torso included in the true invisibility would also be a detriment to social situations as well such as actively blocking someone's path while their moving. Just having the ability to make the head and limbs truly invisible would give a lot of potential already. We don't need something that could potentially be very disruptive.

Redlynne wrote:

I'm rather partial to this double wings look that just showed up in the Claymore manga.

This idea could even be modular in that the lower wings could be separate from the upper wings (maybe implemented as a special kind of "belt" or "tail"). This would allow more options to mix-n-match different versions of upper and lower wings or maybe for lower wings combined with "head wings" like this:

[img=200x300]http://i46.tinypic.com/25k5y7l.png[/img][img=150x300]http://images.wikia.com/villains/images/5/50/Lilith_Cross_Edge-1-.png[/img]

Different types of weapons for hands and chainsaws!!!

Fireheart wrote:

How the heck do you wipe... er, Comb your Hair, with a Chainsaw-hand?

Interns.

What?

Fireheart wrote:

How the heck do you wipe... er, Comb your Hair, with a Chainsaw-hand? I always thought replacing hands with 'things' was the dumbest idea.

Well the smart ones turn their off hand into a chainsaw while leaving their main hand, while the dumb and/or crazy ones turn both their hands into chainsaws. Remember the freakshow?

Chainsaw Hand ROCKET PUNCH !!!

It could happen ...

Also Kabuki masks and greek theatre masks. I'd also like the ability to choose an emote as either an attack animation or hold animation.

MacThulhu wrote:

Good political insignias are a must, comrades!

Just aslong as they keep the swastika out. Even the 5th column and council didn't have swastikas and putting in might make us look really bad.

notears wrote:

MacThulhu wrote:
Good political insignias are a must, comrades!

Just aslong as they keep the swastika out. Even the 5th column and council didn't have swastikas and putting in might make us look really bad.

I don't know about that... For one, swastikas used to be a Hindu symbol for good luck, so they're not entirely evil. For two, if swastikas are so evil then they'd go hand-in-hand with villains, just like all those fancy skull ornaments and shadowy auras. For three, the game consistently talks about the freedom to create the character you choose; if you can do something as unorthodox as cross-dress, then surely something equally as controversial like a hammer-and-sickle, inverted cross, or other visually unsettling imagery (in the eyes of the viewer, at least) would be all acceptable.

AAlbusUUmbra wrote:

notears wrote:
MacThulhu wrote:
Good political insignias are a must, comrades!

Just aslong as they keep the swastika out. Even the 5th column and council didn't have swastikas and putting in might make us look really bad.

I don't know about that... For one, swastikas used to be a Hindu symbol for good luck, so they're not entirely evil. For two, if swastikas are so evil then they'd go hand-in-hand with villains, just like all those fancy skull ornaments and shadowy auras. For three, the game consistently talks about the freedom to create the character you choose; if you can do something as unorthodox as cross-dress, then surely something equally as controversial like a hammer-and-sickle, inverted cross, or other visually unsettling imagery (in the eyes of the viewer, at least) would be all acceptable.

Even if things like the hammer-and-sickle or an inverted cross are "unsettling" symbols to some people they aren't specifically illegal like the swastika is in modern-day Germany.

Yes it's true that historically the swastika was used as a good luck symbol in many cultures and religions. Native Americans used them in their rituals and even pre-WWII pilots in Europe wore them as good luck charms. But it's pretty clear that the use of the swastika by Nazi Germany in WWII has forever tainted people's general perception of the symbol and its use as anything other than a symbol of genocidal hate is effectively unknown to most people today. This is why if MWM is going to want people to be able to play CoT in Germany they are pretty much going to have to ensure that swastikas (of any kind or shape) are not allowed.

Xnarl wrote:

The Swastika is illegal in Germany.
And trivialisation of National Socialism - and using the swastika as a fashionable villain accessory is trivialisation - is utterly inacceptable and irresponsible.

This. period.

Redlynne wrote:

Four arm swastikas like we all learn in our early 20th century history books ought to be out ... but three armed swastikas of the triskelion variety ought to be just fine without the political references.

Obviously it would depend on how such a triskelion is drawn. Unfortunately there's a notable South African white-supremist group that's taken the basic block styling of Nazi swastika (using the red, white and black colors) and modified it to only have three arms (making it a triangular triskelion shape). I assume if CoT includes anything like a triskelion symbol that care would have to be taken to make sure it isn't anything like that.

CallmeBlue wrote:

Lots of great ideas! I have no doubt that the costume creator will be awesome.
How about a strange sort of request? It may not be possible, but...
What about copycat costumes? Some of my magicians, in RP, like to wander around looking like, "Joe Average." What about a meta-costume that applies an NPC costume at random to one's player character, based on the types of NPCs that normally hang out in that area. So, one looks like a normal passerby in city districts, or a grotesque mutant in Mutantville, or whatever.
I am NOT asking for immunity from aggro. Actually, it makes perfect sense that, for example, a street gang would attack an unknown person wearing their colors. This is strictly for cosmetic/RP purposes. As long as the name of one's character remained the same, identifying player characters should not become too difficult either.

CoH had a large number of "Halloween costumes" which were basically toggle powers that switched out your character's body model for exact clones of various preexisting NPCs (even switching sex, size, etc.). Sounds like what you're talking about is something that would use your own player-defined body model but have them get dressed up in the clothes of various NPCs. That kind of thing might be harder to do given than the body models available to players may not exactly fit the size/shape of the NPCs in question. It's still an interesting idea that would probably be more "doable" in CoT (using UE4) than it would have been back in CoH.

Redlynne wrote:

Considering that the NPCs and PCs will be using the same costume parts, and the "civilian" NPCs will all be getting made with the PC costume creator ... um ... Mission (already) Accomplished in City of Titans?
This was NOT true in City of Heroes where quite a lot of the NPC costume parts simply weren't available for PCs. So ... yay?

Yep I agree that having a PC be able to dress up like a NPC should be more "possible" in CoT because the body models should be more similar.

But the remaining questions would be what percentage of clothing is still going to be arbitrarily defined as "NPC only" and would the suggestion CallmeBlue made be some kind of "power based" thing (like the CoH Halloween costumes were) or would we only need access to the NPC costume items in the costume creator?

AAlbusUUmbra wrote:

Xnarl wrote:
The Swastika is illegal in Germany.
And trivialisation of National Socialism - and using the swastika as a fashionable villain accessory is trivialisation - is utterly inacceptable and irresponsible.

In the sense that it would limit the market base for CoT? My, that is unacceptable! Fortunately, there is a simple way to get around this Just make German copies of the game unable to display swastikas. All we would have to do is delete the decal file for the game from the German download file and nobody would have to see that. Heck, they could even replace the swastikas with some other symbol, like the triskelion. Problem solved!

What!

There aren't going to be German "copies" of this game. This game very likely won't have physical retail "copies" at all. And besides I already mentioned the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_Weerstandsbeweging]South African white nationalist group[/url] using the triskelion - problem hardly "solved".

It would be far, far easier (for almost too many reasons to count) to simply not allow swastikas in the "game" period than to worry about having multiple builds based on which country they are legal in or not. Regardless of legality there really isn't anywhere in the western world where you can display a swastika and do it in good taste. Like I said before swastikas are now (in 2014) more or less unequivocally associated with a group of people who were universally accepted as "evil" regardless of the symbol's overall history.

For what it’s worth I usually fall on the side of games like this allowing/providing for as much "player freedom" as possible. But where I can easily draw the line is with symbology that's synonymous with real life genocidal holocaust. I don't personally find the shape of the swastika (when taken separately from its Nazi associations) to be overtly offensive. But I have enough empathy as a human being to know that it's simply too offensive to enough other people out there that I can easily live without seeing it in video games.

[url=https://my.news.yahoo.com/rising-sun-flag-game-angers-koreans-035005416.html]Rising Sun flag in game angers Koreans[/url]

To us, it's just the flag of the Imperial Japanese Army. Heck, the symbol is still used in Japan, today, and incorporated in American military insignia. No big deal, right?

To the Koreans and Chinese, who suffered under Japanese imperialism/expansionism (the flag was used from 1870 to 1945, so hardly restricted to WWII), it's pretty much akin to waving about the Nazi flag.

AAlbusUUmbra wrote:

notears wrote:
Well first of all I know that and you know that but most of the world doesn't and are still going to assume it's the Nazi swastika. second, cross dressing isn't the same thing as Nazism. Put a man in a dress and the only people who would disagree with that are hate groups like the AFF and the KKK. Put a swastika on someone in a teen rated game and that's a whole other can of worms coming from everyone from the left to the right.

All good points, until you realize almost the entire right wing hates crossdressing, not just a few hate groups.
But yes, social norms would see nazism as a much more universal evil.

I'll grant you that the basic idea of cross-dressing is still seen as "controversial" by some people but at least I'm glad you realize there's a world of difference between trying to compare it to overt references to Nazism. The occasional boy wearing girl's clothes is hardly equivalent to the deaths of millions of innocent people.

On a related tangent one has to wonder if your "entire right wing" boycotts stage productions of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_based_on_Peter_Pan#Stage]Peter Pan[/url] given that "he" is traditionally played by a "she". Cross-dresssing in entertainment circles has been more or less accepted for centuries (Shakespeare anyone?) so I really don't see much problem with it in either the modern world of comic books or video games about them.

and now we have a political argument in the costume thread.... what have I done....

Oh yeah tattered clothes would be awesome.

notears wrote:

Oh yeah tattered clothes would be awesome.

islandtrevor72 wrote:

I only asked because as I understand it there will be a variety of costume parts that will have physics and would love it if ....say a battle damaged shirt blows in the wind

I think in general if it would make sense for a piece of clothing to be able to "blow around in the wind" then it's going to be able to do that. We may get "pre-torn clothing" (including torn shirts) as options for our costume slots but the real question's going to be will there be dynamic damages to costume items DURING combat or not. That feature may remain one step beyond what CoT will be able to provide.

We need animations for various tendril/whip type animations, I'd start by letting us pick a "body" (ie: leather whip chain, tentacle, tendrils made from various elements such as fire or water etc) and the choice to add a "head" (ie: grappling hook, robot claw, snake head, reptilian claw etc) and have the option for various origin points such as a whole bunch coming out of you're back, using it as a whip, shooting it out of your hand or shooting it out of your gun.

Ability to have multiple fluffy independently moving tails. At least 8 at a time!

[img]https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzxAwr_L45FrYkRqOEtKZlNWTVU/view?usp=sharing[/img]

The abilities to have tails be the source of your attack.

notears wrote:

We need extremely cinematic martial arts moves, like the kind you see in street fighter games or in big trouble in little china. I want to use a helicopter kick as an animation for a dash attack yo!!!!

Yes! I wish they'd look to Street Fighter for some nice looking moves! I figure we can't/won't get throws, but here's hoping for some nice looking melee attacks and lunges!