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Costume request thread

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Lothic
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Interdictor wrote:
Interdictor wrote:

After the Street Fighter 5 debacle - I really wouldn't mind it if the devs stayed FAR away from jiggle physics. I'm sure most superheroines would prefer to have them locked down anyway - just ask any real woman who does any kind of physical activity. Having cartoon boobs bouncing around the game is pretty much nonexistent in my list of features I'd want to see in the game.

The issue of "jiggle physics" for CoT has been talked to death in other threads on this forum - there are easily hundreds of posts on the subject sprinkled around. Most people have generally come to agree that most other games that feature it have OVERUSED it to a very excessive/stupid degree. On the other hand most people who want it here tend to agree that a relatively small/reasonable amount of jiggle would be both far better than the alternatives of "no jiggle" and "stupid fanservice amounts of jiggle".

Sure games like Street Fighter 5 might have handled it badly but that doesn't mean it always has to be bad in any game. If jiggle is actually handled resaonably/realistically here it would be good for CoT for many reasons. There's a huge diference between having your rack "locked down" while doing physical activity and having it remain absolutely static like a barbie doll.

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Lothic
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blacke4dawn wrote:
blacke4dawn wrote:

On a further note in regards to "jiggle physics". If they implement it (I don't see why not) then I hope they do it in a proper way and take the clothing's material and tightness into account. It's always disturbed me when a metal breastplate has as much jiggle as a loose hanging cloth.

This was kind of the point I was trying to make earlier. The degree of jiggle/cleavage should be dependant on the type of clothing worn. A bulletproof vest should generate a different visual effect on a moving woman's anatomy than say a loose t-shirt.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Venetian Plague Doctor Masks

Venetian Plague Doctor Masks (or hell masquerade masks in general)

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FLESH Colored bat wings! COH

FLESH Colored bat wings! COH never allowed for that. They were always a different color.
Wings made of your skin ought to be colored the same as your skin.

Here is an example. This is little Circe'. She is the Homunculous familiar for my old D&D game. She has wings the same colot as her flesh...and she looks great! This is less a costume option and more a player's color choice. Please give us that choice. Thank you.
Artist: FreeWingsS http://freewingss.deviantart.com/

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

FLESH Colored bat wings! COH never allowed for that. They were always a different color.
Wings made of your skin ought to be colored the same as your skin.
Here is an example. This is little Circe'. She is the Homunculous familiar for my old D&D game. She has wings the same colot as her flesh...and she looks great! This is less a costume option and more a player's color choice. Please give us that choice. Thank you.

I ran into this same issue with a few of my CoH characters as well. The main reason this happened was that CoH couldn't make any distinction for costume items between "body parts" and "clothing" as far as traditional skin colors went.

We all know why CoH prevented clothing items from using the basic flesh colors: it would have been trivially easy for anyone to wear "skin colored" clothes and walk around pretending to be nude. Obviously I doubt CoT will be any different in that regard.

But it would be great if CoT could flag some items in its costume creator that would be safe to have flesh colors such as wings, tails, horns, etc. Since these extra fictional body parts aren't important as far as what most people worry about in terms of human nudity in the real world there shouldn't be any problem with allowing them to be flesh colored in CoT.

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One thing I always wanted but

One thing I always wanted but was never able to get in CoH was tentacles. Extra limbs like that were definitely difficult or near impossible to do, but the Unreal 4 engine might make some extra allowances for that sort of thing.

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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Additional limbs that are

Additional limbs that are more than stuck-on costume pieces would require a new skeleton, which is a major piece of work. They'd then also require their own set of animations, emanation points, etc., etc. Given the resources required, from my understanding, I rather doubt that demand will ever be high enough for them to implement such a thing (ditto for shapeshifting).

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Odd request and I am not sure

Odd request and I am not sure if many people would use it but Plague Doctor masks would be interesting to see in a MMO....

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Here's a simple request:

Here's a simple request:

Having just seen the latest update with the pics of wall running and the model showing different height boots, I was somewhat dismayed by the shape of the left boot. PLEASE make shoes and boots shaped like shoes and boots. Not just amorphous thick-sock-looking blobs over the foot. I always disliked the clunky default boot shape in CoH. Later shoes that came out were much better, specifically the male "baron" style boots that showed a moderate heel and a squarish toe and some of the female patterns that had higher heels and pointed toes.

Please.

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But that was just a

But that was just a demonstration model! I doubt it was a 'reveal' of the actual styles we'll see in-game.

Be Well!
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OK, I love everything about

Artist: http://terrydodson.deviantart.com/art/OLD-TOWN-SAN-DIEGO-Print-543931265

OK, I love everything about this outfit. A shirt that loose and blousey but still shows serious curves, an odd style of corset that will fit on a 100 different concepts, the fur boots...I can take or leave...but everything about this outfit is to love!

and the whip! Love it, I need to talk the animators casual whip movement into non combat standing around play.
whips and guns...and boobs. This is awesome!

and by the way...do the artists peruse this thread?

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Man I love the Korean

Man I love the Korean characterization models those sliders tho.. are EVERYTHING

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

Man I love the Korean characterization models those sliders tho.. are EVERYTHING

It's hard to look at the character creation capabilities of some of these modern games and not expect that CoT will turn out to be just as good looking.

I think we can at least count on things being much better than CoH ever was and go from there. We may not get the thousands of sliders that some of these Korean games offer - but if we get a few hundred or so we'll be doing pretty good for game being developed by a rag-tag group of devoted volunteers.

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Yeah. Can UE4 do this?

Yeah. Can UE4 do this?

Trick question, actually. Bless uses UE3, so a "probably yes" is likely a bit of an understatement.

The real proof in the pudding is what the artists and animators can do with the engine. We already know that UE4 is a considerable improvement over UE3. However, that's a long ways from saying that it's easy or simple to use. The good news is that the tidbits we've seen show every indication that MWM has a good handle on getting the engine to do what they want it to do.

Most of the time. I've no doubt that sometimes dealing with UE4 must feel like trying to get a handle on a Special Tim Allen 300 HP Dishwasher.



ETA: For me, the whole face stuff - adjusting cheeks, jaw, freakin' eyelashes - is complete superfluous. If a game doesn't offer that level of customization I typically don't even notice that it's missing.

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Yeah. Can UE4 do this?
Trick question, actually. Bless uses UE3, so a "probably yes" is likely a bit of an understatement.
The real proof in the pudding is what the artists and animators can do with the engine. We already know that UE4 is a considerable improvement over UE3. However, that's a long ways from saying that it's easy or simple to use. The good news is that the tidbits we've seen show every indication that MWM has a good handle on getting the engine to do what they want it to do.
Most of the time. I've no doubt that sometimes dealing with UE4 must feel like trying to get a handle on a Special Tim Allen 300 HP Dishwasher.

Yeah that's the real question here. UE4 might be one of the best sets of "paints and brushes" ever given to game artists but we're still at the point waiting to see if their artistic ability will put those tools to their best possible use. Time will tell of course.

Darth Fez wrote:

ETA: For me, the whole face stuff - adjusting cheeks, jaw, freakin' eyelashes - is complete superfluous. If a game doesn't offer that level of customization I typically don't even notice that it's missing.

I'm probably somewhere in the middle on this for faces. I don't need a million sliders for every freckle or eyelash but I would like something a little more flexible than what CoH provided. I'm reasonably sure CoT will provide a decent GUI presentation. I'm just more cocerned about the "art" side of the whole thing like I mentioned earlier.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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You know, there's something i

You know, there's something i always wanted in CoH that I never really got the chance to use because the base form sort of thing wasn't available to screw around with.

A skeleton body.

Because of the way the MWM team has managed to make applying clothing over strange bodies work (that is, anything can work over anything), then a Skeleton base body should actually be decently easy, resulting in me being able to make that robed lich character I've always wanted. I don't think it'd even be that difficult; just an extra level of mesh and texturing, since they'd have to make it; the system they have in place means clothing will be applied naturally to the body as it would normally fit and the character creator and power sets should be able to take over from there.

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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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

ETA: For me, the whole face stuff - adjusting cheeks, jaw, freakin' eyelashes - is complete superfluous. If a game doesn't offer that level of customization I typically don't even notice that it's missing.

These options typically do well with the Euro-centric faces but if you're desire is to have true racial diversity representation often the "standard" is to ignore Asian, African, Native and Middle Eastern representation.

My friend who is Filipino complains often to me that he can't make a face that looks like his in most games. Sliders like you see in BLESS make this much better, and it makes the game world we see much better resemble our own lives.

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For costume requests, I'd

For costume requests, I'd like a few choices of world-wide/multi-ethnic clothing, both historical and modern. Nehur jackets, kaftans, cheongsam/Chinese dress, hanfus, saris, kimonos, burnous, guthra, turbans, Russian hats, etc (Google them).

For contemporary, some various modern hipster options would be cool.

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And Japan, please just give

"TRUST ME."

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We need a chainmail texture

We need a chainmail texture

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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we also need costumes from a

we also need costumes from a wide variety of cultures, in CoX we seemed to have mainly eastern and European influences on costume designs when ever they tried to do something out of the usual super stuff.... it would be awesome if I could give my guy a turban and scimitar

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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Arr, we be needin' Piratey

Arr, we be needin' Piratey outfits! Space Pirates! Steampunk Pirates! Traditional Pirates!.

We be needin' to be able to have sword in one hand an' a pistol in t'other!

Happy ITLAPD!

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Or you could get with the

Or you could get with the times and begin dual-wielding gunswords.

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.


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It's been a while, so I might

It's been a while, so I might as well just repeat myself.

HELMET CROWNS. Large, sexy metal crowns with points that one can add onto their helmets or hats. The only thing that kept my CoH appearance from being perfect was the lack of this.. though Organic Horns looked beyond amazing and had they been implemented I might not have ever changed from the horns.

In fact, just add something similar to those horns if you can.

Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...

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I'm sure this has been

I'm sure this has been requested, but I did a search and it didn't come up and I don't have time to look through the 476 posts on this thread :P.

A "plant" or "nature" costume/pattern--but especially with fairly subtle options.

In other words a way to give a Hero/Villain a hint of plant/nature theme without hitting everyone over the head with it. Not a high collar of flowers and a tree growing out of their head, just some subtle plant-nature options.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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Empyrean wrote:
Empyrean wrote:

I'm sure this has been requested, but I did a search and it didn't come up and I don't have time to look through the 476 posts on this thread :P.
A "plant" or "nature" costume/pattern--but especially with fairly subtle options.
In other words a way to give a Hero/Villain a hint of plant/nature theme without hitting everyone over the head with it. Not a high collar of flowers and a tree growing out of their head, just some subtle plant-nature options.

Maybe they could provide a set of tights with a sort of subtle bark-like texture to it. Or maybe they could provide a few dreadlock type hairstyles which (when you look at it closely) are actually little vines with little leaves on them. Stufff like that perhaps.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Given the "Multi-gender"

Given the "Multi-gender" friendly attitude that the devs have shown so far, I hope to see Thigh High Boots and "Opera" Length Gloves for males as well as females.

Also, I hope to see a multitude of coats and jackets (for both/all genders) in a variety of lengths:

Bolero - Reaches to just below the rib cage

Hip - Like a motorcycle or jean jacket

Suit - basically a CYA length :)

Trench - Reaches just above the knees

Duster - calf to ankle length

And I'd like to have some choices of sleeve type: Tight, Baggy, Flared, Short, or None! Maybe even detail elements like Buttons, Buckle, Zipper.

Ooh! And COLLARS! Lapels, Turned Up, Standing/Mandarin, Flared(Ming)

Haha. Basically I want to pick "Jacket" then be faced with a dizzying assortment of options. :)

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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Given the "Multi-gender" friendly attitude that the devs have shown so far, I hope to see Thigh High Boots and "Opera" Length Gloves for males as well as females.

Given all the hints about how the new costuming systems will work in this game it's going to be really hard to see how they'll be able to reasonably justify that, from an engineering point of view, any particular costume items will need to be restricted to "male only" or "female only".

In the past Devs could reasonably claim that it would take "significant extra work" to be able to make given items fit over different body models. This is because there really was non-trivial artistic/engineering work needed to custom modify each item to fit over each body model. I suspect this extra work for each model allowed the Devs to essentially side-step any questions of "political correctness" and/or gender equality issues because they could always make the realistic excuse that they didn't allow thigh high boots or opera length gloves for men because "it would have taken too much work to make them fit multiple body models". Essentially games like CoH could hide behind the limitations of the technology to explain why, for instance, men couldn't have bras or why women couldn't have cigars.

Now with tools like Unreal Engine 4 clothing items in general are much more dynamic and able to "stretch" over various body shapes with essentially no extra programming effort. This means that once any specific item is created it should be useable with relatively little trouble on either the male or female body model regardless of their individual "curves" or sizes. Without the old school technical limitations the only reason a CoT Dev might make an item be "male only" or "female only" now would be for purely arbitrary meta-game reasons.

It'll be interesting to see if we still end up with any gender-restricted items in CoT because if we do the Devs are going to have very little justification for it other than some kind of conservative political correctness or other "non-game required" social tradition reason.

WarBird wrote:

Also, I hope to see a multitude of coats and jackets (for both/all genders) in a variety of lengths:
Bolero - Reaches to just below the rib cage
Hip - Like a motorcycle or jean jacket
Suit - basically a CYA length :)
Trench - Reaches just above the knees
Duster - calf to ankle length

There was another recent thread on this forum that talked about how they could easily adjust the overall length of a boot on a leg so that they could provide anything ranging from thigh highs, to knee highs, down to ankle boots. If this is true then it may be a fairly simple matter to create a coat/jacket that could be set to any custom length you want, or at least have many specific length options.

WarBird wrote:

And I'd like to have some choices of sleeve type: Tight, Baggy, Flared, Short, or None! Maybe even detail elements like Buttons, Buckle, Zipper.
Ooh! And COLLARS! Lapels, Turned Up, Standing/Mandarin, Flared(Ming)
Haha. Basically I want to pick "Jacket" then be faced with a dizzying assortment of options. :)

I would think as time goes on after launch many options like this will become available. :)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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http://steamcommunity.com

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=533060071

Shown is one of the mini-bosses from F.E.A.R. (omg f%$# those!), but similar is seen in Splinter Cell.

I'd like to see multi-eyes goggles, be they night-vision, thermal, or whatever. They make great additions to mercenary, soldier, or tech-based toons.

On another note, why the hell are there so many lenses on them? :p


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Filters for different

Filters for different wavelengths of EM radiation. Could also be differing focal lengths to alternate near/wide views versus far/narrow views.

Tabula Rasa tended to do this too on its grey quality Stealth Armor Helmets.


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Quote: Now with tools like
Quote:

Now with tools like Unreal Engine 4 clothing items in general are much more dynamic and able to "stretch" over various body shapes with essentially no extra programming effort. This means that once any specific item is created it should be useable with relatively little trouble on either the male or female body model regardless of their individual "curves" or sizes. Without the old school technical limitations the only reason a CoT Dev might make an item be "male only" or "female only" now would be for purely arbitrary meta-game reasons.

That's not necessarily true. A latex glove will fit over just about anyone's hand. A leather glove will only fit one sized hand. The point being if the glove is made too large or too small it's not going to fit everyone the same. The fact that it can stretch means it will fit more hands but there may be outlier cases where it just wont fit or will fit very strangely. A glove isn't the best analogy. What I'm trying to get at is that a design might not scale and stretch well. It might clip or wig out if stretched or shrunk too much.

The Unreal engine will dramatically speed up item design and porting from one model to the next. So much so that more time can be spent on "problem pieces" But it doesn't rule out every conceivable problem.

I hope I am undervaluing the Unreal engine. I want to be able to take every piece and place it on every character. But I am tempering my expectations.

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Grimfox wrote:
Grimfox wrote:

Quote:
Now with tools like Unreal Engine 4 clothing items in general are much more dynamic and able to "stretch" over various body shapes with essentially no extra programming effort. This means that once any specific item is created it should be useable with relatively little trouble on either the male or female body model regardless of their individual "curves" or sizes. Without the old school technical limitations the only reason a CoT Dev might make an item be "male only" or "female only" now would be for purely arbitrary meta-game reasons.
That's not necessarily true. A latex glove will fit over just about anyone's hand. A leather glove will only fit one sized hand. The point being if the glove is made too large or too small it's not going to fit everyone the same. The fact that it can stretch means it will fit more hands but there may be outlier cases where it just wont fit or will fit very strangely. A glove isn't the best analogy. What I'm trying to get at is that a design might not scale and stretch well. It might clip or wig out if stretched or shrunk too much.
The Unreal engine will dramatically speed up item design and porting from one model to the next. So much so that more time can be spent on "problem pieces" But it doesn't rule out every conceivable problem.
I hope I am undervaluing the Unreal engine. I want to be able to take every piece and place it on every character. But I am tempering my expectations.

I suppose it would be possible that an item that "fits" the male body model perfectly might not fit the female body model and vice-versa. But remember your "latex versus leather" glove scenario is only an issue in the REAL world. In the virtual reality of this computer system the "texture" of the item is merely simulated so that what might prove to be limitations of real materials in the real world won't apply here. Generic items should be able to "stretch" as I described far easier than real life would allow - simulated texture qualities can then be added afterwards.

Still you do bring up a more valid point about possible "clipping" issues. There may always be cases where that might happen. But again UE4 should minimize that compared to what CoH provided and there's always the possiblity that we'll gain "constructive clips" that the Devs might allow regardless.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Quote:
Quote:

I suppose it would be possible that an item that "fits" the male body model perfectly might not fit the female body model and vice-versa. But remember your "latex versus leather" glove scenario is only an issue in the REAL world. In the virtual reality of this computer system the "texture" of the item is merely simulated so that what might prove to be limitations of real materials in the real world won't apply here. Generic items should be able to "stretch" as I described far easier than real life would allow - simulated texture qualities can then be added afterwards..

I am not sure what method the devs are using to make clothing objects fit all body sizes.... but I personally cannot think of a method that allows for a 3d article of clothing that can be used across various body types without hands on tweaking. Sadly there just is not a 'simple' way to stretch things without them losing any shape they have to begin with.

Take this glove

Notice the shape of it, especially around the fingertips....the squarness of it that is common in leather type gloves.

Well if a simple stretching program (such as draping) was applied and the glove was put on huge hands, the glove would loose that distinctive shape. And that's assuming that odd clipping or bunching would not occur.
This would also result in any applied texture likely being distorted oddly making it look unnatural.

Even gloves like this

Would see odd things happen when applied to larger hand sizes....the wrist part of the glove would essentially shrink and go lower and lower eventually hitting the part of the hand that is wider than the wrist before stopping.

As I said I am not sure what method they are using to make clothing that scales or fits alternate body types but it is unlikely to not need hands on attention. Pardon the pun.

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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

Quote:
I suppose it would be possible that an item that "fits" the male body model perfectly might not fit the female body model and vice-versa. But remember your "latex versus leather" glove scenario is only an issue in the REAL world. In the virtual reality of this computer system the "texture" of the item is merely simulated so that what might prove to be limitations of real materials in the real world won't apply here. Generic items should be able to "stretch" as I described far easier than real life would allow - simulated texture qualities can then be added afterwards..
I am not sure what method the devs are using to make clothing objects fit all body sizes.... but I personally cannot think of a method that allows for a 3d article of clothing that can be used across various body types without hands on tweaking. Sadly there just is not a 'simple' way to stretch things without them losing any shape they have to begin with.
Take this glove

Notice the shape of it, especially around the fingertips....the squarness of it that is common in leather type gloves.
Well if a simple stretching program (such as draping) was applied and the glove was put on huge hands, the glove would loose that distinctive shape. And that's assuming that odd clipping or bunching would not occur.
This would also result in any applied texture likely being distorted oddly making it look unnatural.
Even gloves like this

Would see odd things happen when applied to larger hand sizes....the wrist part of the glove would essentially shrink and go lower and lower eventually hitting the part of the hand that is wider than the wrist before stopping.
As I said I am not sure what method they are using to make clothing that scales or fits alternate body types but it is unlikely to not need hands on attention. Pardon the pun.

Again I appreciate that it might not be absolutely trivial to make a costume item that initially fits one human shaped body fit another human shaped body of different proportions. But I think you guys are either getting too hung up on my use of the word "stretch" and/or you're still thinking about these scenarios as they would apply to real world clothing and not realizing what could be done in the virutal world of the computer.

For instance let's say they design a specific glove costume item. There's nothing stoping the system from being able to automatically scale that item to be bigger or smaller so that it could fit the hand of either the male or female model. In that case there's no literal "stretching" involved.

We also know that the UE4 system will be able to handle "clothing animation" so that we can have things like realistic robes and dresses. Because of that natural "draping" over arms and legs we know that almost by default these things would have to be able to work across variously sized human shapes. Because the human male and female have relatively similar dimensions and symmetry a skirt that works for one ought to work for the other without a huge amount of offline artisitic alteration. In fact I suspect the system would once again be able to do it dynamically.

As a hypothetical if this game was going to allow us to play with both human shaped bodies and elephant shaped bodies then yes, I might agree it would probably be hard to make one costume item designed for the elephant be able to automatically fit the human without being drastically altered by an art Dev. But in our case where you're dealing with making sure costume items work between a generic human male and a generic human female the overall structures of human-shaped items are going to be very similar if not identical.

Back 12+ years ago when they were working on CoH they were limited by the software technlogy of the time. Costume items had to specifically designed for each body model and they couldn't even manage to have one single male model be both "normal" sized and "huge" sized so they had to settle for having two different models. None of those limitations exist for CoT so we need to stop thinking in those limited terms.

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Again I appreciate that it might not be absolutely trivial to make a costume item that initially fits one human shaped body fit another human shaped body of different proportions. But I think you guys are either getting too hung up on my use of the word "stretch" and/or you're still thinking about these scenarios as they would apply to real world clothing and not realizing what could be done in the virutal world of the computer..

Really I am not trying to be argumentative. But I am not thinking in terms of real word...I am thinking in terms of 3D design. I probably should have made it clearer that you can't just simply scale things as well as stretch (for lack of a better term) them. And yes they are both different methods to manipulate 3d objects.... stretch is probably better know as morphs.

Either the clothing item is designed with many morph points to allow for proper scaling/stretching by automated programs or they will all need individual manipulation by actual designer. Most likely both will be required to allow for all body types. Regardless.... its not as simple as just clicking go on a script to make it fit.

That being said...making all clothing fit all body types is a good idea and worth the extra time invested....with the understanding that they may not all be completed at the same time....one body type or gender may have to wait to get certain clothing.

Quote:

We also know that the UE4 system will be able to handle "clothing animation" so that we can have things like realistic robes and dresses. Because of that natural "draping" over arms and legs we know that almost by default these things would have to be able to work across variously sized human shapes. Because the human male and female have relatively similar dimensions and symmetry a skirt that works for one ought to work for the other without a huge amount of offline artisitic alteration. In fact I suspect the system would once again be able to do it dynamically..

This is true. Scripts that allow draping (an actual 3d term for those not familiar meaning realistic cloth movement) will allow for clothing to transfer easier between body types. But even something as simple as a skirt can do strange things when simply scaled and draped. Especially when you consider that textures would also be stretched. I hope you understand what I mean as to fully explain these things is not something I personally can do quickly. Basically all I am trying to say is its unlikely that even simple clothing will not require individual treatment by a designer.

Maybe one of the designers could come in and either explain the process they intend to use so we can understand this process better, if for no other reason than to show how I am mistaken because they have designed things in such a way as to make my (amateur) skill in 3d modeling and animating not applicable.

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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

Quote:
Again I appreciate that it might not be absolutely trivial to make a costume item that initially fits one human shaped body fit another human shaped body of different proportions. But I think you guys are either getting too hung up on my use of the word "stretch" and/or you're still thinking about these scenarios as they would apply to real world clothing and not realizing what could be done in the virutal world of the computer..
Really I am not trying to be argumentative. But I am not thinking in terms of real word...I am thinking in terms of 3D design. I probably should have made it clearer that you can't just simply scale things as well as stretch (for lack of a better term) them. And yes they are both different methods to manipulate 3d objects.... stretch is probably better know as morphs.
Either the clothing item is designed with many morph points to allow for proper scaling/stretching by automated programs or they will all need individual manipulation by actual designer. Most likely both will be required to allow for all body types. Regardless.... its not as simple as just clicking go on a script to make it fit.
That being said...making all clothing fit all body types is a good idea and worth the extra time invested....with the understanding that they may not all be completed at the same time....one body type or gender may have to wait to get certain clothing.
Quote:
We also know that the UE4 system will be able to handle "clothing animation" so that we can have things like realistic robes and dresses. Because of that natural "draping" over arms and legs we know that almost by default these things would have to be able to work across variously sized human shapes. Because the human male and female have relatively similar dimensions and symmetry a skirt that works for one ought to work for the other without a huge amount of offline artisitic alteration. In fact I suspect the system would once again be able to do it dynamically..
This is true. Scripts that allow draping (an actual 3d term for those not familiar meaning realistic cloth movement) will allow for clothing to transfer easier between body types. But even something as simple as a skirt can do strange things when simply scaled and draped. Especially when you consider that textures would also be stretched. I hope you understand what I mean as to fully explain these things is not something I personally can do quickly. Basically all I am trying to say is its unlikely that even simple clothing will not require individual treatment by a designer.
Maybe one of the designers could come in and either explain the process they intend to use so we can understand this process better, if for no other reason than to show how I am mistaken because they have designed things in such a way as to make my (amateur) skill in 3d modeling and animating not applicable.

I'm not trying to be "argumentative" about this either. If anything I'm simply pointing out that the software technology available to our Devs today for clothing items in 2015 is without question much more capable than what the CoH Devs had to work with (and were more or less stuck with since about 2002) for CoH.

With that said I have continued to say/imply/agree that I know making sure that "all clothing items can fit both the male and female body models in CoT" would not be an absolutely 100% trivial/automatic task in all cases. But when compared to how hard a goal that would have been to achieve in CoH I can't help but to think the chances of actually accomplishing that has never been better. And I still maintain the position that at least some amount of what would have required "individual treatment by a designer" in CoH will be able to be handled by the UE4 system in a dynamic in-game fashion.

To be perfectly honest even as a best case scenario I suspect there will still be at least a few items in CoT that would remain "male only" or "female only" because of all sorts of reasons that might not have anything to do with software limitations or lack of time/skill by an art Dev. There might even be story-based reasons for that or other political/legal reasons that aren't apparent for the purposes of this thread.

Obviously it would be helpful to the conversation if one of the art Devs could drop a bit of info on us. But regardless of that I think we can agree the overall likelihood of any one single item being available to both body models is far, far greater in CoT than it ever could have been in CoH simply because the tools available will make the time/effort to do that much more manageable and feasible.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Obviously it would be helpful to the conversation if one of the art Devs could drop a bit of info on us. But regardless of that I think we can agree the overall likelihood of any one single item being available to both body models is far, far greater in CoT than it ever could have been in CoH simply because the tools available will make the time/effort to do that much more manageable and feasible.

I love reading your comments Lothic +1111

If you watch any video on Unreal the packages they contain are literally mind blowing. Take this Tech demo for instance

This was all UE4 standard, if all these particle effects come standard in UE4, imagine what the options for clothing are, as well as tools to help. And programs like Maya are just as amazing,

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Hmm, one thing tat occurred

Hmm, one thing tat occurred to me now to suggest (and cba to see of already suggested) is armor clothing and other forms of apparel for tails, especially at the base of the tail since there is nothing that shows it "accommodating" the tail. From what I can remember all games that I have tried that has an "optional" tail component just have it poke through, and in many cases makes it look like it's attached on the armor/clothing rather than being part of the body.

Would also be nice if such apparel options would be extended to non-human feet.

Two quick examples:

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I'm not trying to be "argumentative" about this either. If anything I'm simply pointing out that the software technology available to our Devs today for clothing items in 2015 is without question much more capable than what the CoH Devs had to work with (and were more or less stuck with since about 2002) for CoH..

What I am trying to say is that its the design choices that will make the most difference and not the software. Essentially the same software is available. Its faster can handle bigger chores...but it does pretty much the same thing.

The reason why initially CoH did not have as much cross model clothing was because the choices they made in design. They decided to build 3 separate models instead of one and applying morphs which meant that there was no unifying aspect between the models that allowed for a single item of clothing to be used by all of them without major work in applying the morphs to the clothing. Later they did put that effort in and designed clothing with additional morphs to allow for the crossover or simply made separate items that were the same for each body type.

But I am not talking about CoH when I say its not a simple chore. I am talking about current software and its capabilities. There just isn't a program that can take a clothing model designed for one model style and apply it to another without significant hands on manipulation either during the design or after.

Unless the current Maya or UE4 has a script that I have not heard of (its possible), the software will allow for clothing items to be made much more elaborate and detailed but its not going to make transferring clothing between men and women require less work. It will be the fact that the designers and artists have taken cross model compatibility into the design choice and did the extra work in the initial design phase instead of the extra work to make a square peg fit a round hole later.

The point I am trying to make is that software can help make the clothing look a lot better...but to make it work amongst the body styles is a fairly big chore and its the designers/artists who will do the lions share of that work.

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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

Quote:
I'm not trying to be "argumentative" about this either. If anything I'm simply pointing out that the software technology available to our Devs today for clothing items in 2015 is without question much more capable than what the CoH Devs had to work with (and were more or less stuck with since about 2002) for CoH..
What I am trying to say is that its the design choices that will make the most difference and not the software. Essentially the same software is available. Its faster can handle bigger chores...but it does pretty much the same thing.
The reason why initially CoH did not have as much cross model clothing was because the choices they made in design. They decided to build 3 separate models instead of one and applying morphs which meant that there was no unifying aspect between the models that allowed for a single item of clothing to be used by all of them without major work in applying the morphs to the clothing. Later they did put that effort in and designed clothing with additional morphs to allow for the crossover or simply made separate items that were the same for each body type.
But I am not talking about CoH when I say its not a simple chore. I am talking about current software and its capabilities. There just isn't a program that can take a clothing model designed for one model style and apply it to another without significant hands on manipulation either during the design or after.
Unless the current Maya or UE4 has a script that I have not heard of (its possible), the software will allow for clothing items to be made much more elaborate and detailed but its not going to make transferring clothing between men and women require less work. It will be the fact that the designers and artists have taken cross model compatibility into the design choice and did the extra work in the initial design phase instead of the extra work to make a square peg fit a round hole later.
The point I am trying to make is that software can help make the clothing look a lot better...but to make it work amongst the body styles is a fairly big chore and its the designers/artists who will do the lions share of that work.

We're not even talking about Orcs versus Elves versus Dwarves here. We're talking about a game that will only have human males and human females. Obviously there are still clear anatomical differences between the sexes of the same generic race like humans. But those differences are far less severe than most other multi-racial MMOs will ever have to face.

Obviously one area that could be significantly different between human men and women clothing-wise would be in the upper chest areas. But the CoT Devs have already specifically mentioned that unlike CoH we are going to be able to make females with relatively flat chests. What does that mean you might ask: If we are going to be able to have fairly flat-chested females then that means any clothing items that will "fit" them will also very likely be so close to "flat-chested" males that the differences will be negligible and suitable for dynamic on-the-fly processing.

You still seem to be stuck to the idea that since we are going to have two separate "male" and "female" body models that the only way they could share all the costume items in the game would be for there to be two fully separate sets of male items and female items. In reality I suspect that a very huge number of these items will actually only have to exist once in the game data and that they'll be functionally sharable between the sexes. As I've continually conceded there very well might be SOME items that are so complex they will literally need to be independently made as "male" and "female" versions in order to work properly. I simply don't suspect the number of "dual" items like that would be very large.

In any event any items that need "extra Dev intervention" to apply to both sexes will be far easier to do in CoT than it was in CoH. The main excuse the CoH Devs gave for having male only or female only items was that it would take "too much time and effort to port item X, Y or Z from one model to the other". I simply contend the ability for the CoT Devs to legitimately use that excuse will now be heavily reduced if not outright eliminated by the current sofware technology.

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You still seem to be stuck to the idea that since we are going to have two separate "male" and "female" body models that the only way they could share all the costume items in the game would be for there to be two fully separate sets of male items and female items..

I am really not. What I am saying is that the work to make clothing items cross compatible will be done by the artists and designers on a case by case basis.... it won't be done by the software.

Give me some time to do some quick and dirty examples and I will try and show you what I mean.

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Quote:
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But I am not talking about CoH when I say its not a simple chore. I am talking about current software and its capabilities. There just isn't a program that can take a clothing model designed for one model style and apply it to another without significant hands on manipulation either during the design or after.

This was the whole point of the kickstarter ring on the ball demo. To make it easy to put a ring "clothes" on any sized ball "body form" without it looking weird or changing base character of the ring.

Like I said before a glove is not the best example. Probably something more apt would be a jacket with a notable detail at the bicep. There is a substantial difference between the bicep diameter of a female body form and a male and even monstrous body form. Still I suspect the simple jackets shirts pants and so forth will easily port and allow for more time to be spent on that troubling jacket. And really I have only my experience with the resulting end product and not the design process so any reservation I have should be taken with a grain of salt. I probably should not have posted that comment and it doesn't really fit in with the thread. Nor does this discussion.

Back to the topic. I wonder if changing shoe sizes would be something possible in this game. I liked the look of the witches boots in COH but had trouble switching from that to the "DC comics" heels and boots found in most other options. It bothered me. So suggestion adjustable or multi part shoes and boots. The foot could be matched with a calf and even thigh section to form a completed piece of foot wear. And I think they mentioned asymmetric options to further mix things up.

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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

Quote:
You still seem to be stuck to the idea that since we are going to have two separate "male" and "female" body models that the only way they could share all the costume items in the game would be for there to be two fully separate sets of male items and female items..
I am really not. What I am saying is that the work to make clothing items cross compatible will be done by the artists and designers on a case by case basis.... it won't be done by the software.
Give me some time to do some quick and dirty examples and I will try and show you what I mean.

OK, I'll certainly read whatever you have to say about it. In the meantime I'll describe a reasonable hypothetical to demonstrate why I think most of the costume items in CoT can and will be dynamically "unisex" in nature:

Let's first focus in the male body model's arm length. I think we can safely assume we'll have at least one "slider" control in the character creator to adjust how long we want our guy's arms to be. For the sake of argument let's assume the game lets us adjust it from say 40 to 60 units in length (the "units" in this case are just arbitrary based on how that's established for the skeletal system of the game). Now let's say they have a costume item named "Shirt Sleeve A" we want to use. Now this shirt sleeve is going to be automatically adjusted so that it'll fit arms of length 40 all the way to 60. The game handles that dynamically for us.

Now let's introduce the female body model's arm length into this situation. Let's say, again for the sake of argument, we can adjust the female's arm from say 35 to 55 units. This range is different because we can assume there are fundamental range differences between the male and female models. Now let's say we want that same "Shirt Sleeve A" to work for the female - it'll have to stretch dynamically between 35 and 55 units.

OK, here's where the rubber meets the road: Why would we not want the single costume item "Shirt Sleeve A" be able to stretch all the way from 35 (female minimum) to 60 (male maximum)? If it could then we've effectively created ONE single item that would be useable for BOTH sexes that could adjust itself DYNAMICALLY as needed. This is exactly what I suspect a majority of the costume items will be able to do for us in this game.

One more time: I'll concede to you that SOME costume items might require completely unique implementations by the art Devs to work effectively for both the male and female model. I simply believe those would only ever be very special one-off cases. In no way would they (or should they) have to literally hand-make individual male/female pairs of items for every single item in the game. That was CoH's limitation back in 2004, not CoT's in 2015+.

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OK, here's where the rubber meets the road: Why would we not want the single costume item "Shirt Sleeve A" be able to stretch all the way from 35 (female minimum) to 60 (male maximum)? If it could then we've effectively created ONE single item that would be useable for BOTH sexes that could adjust itself DYNAMICALLY as needed. This is exactly what I suspect a majority of the costume items will be able to do for us in this game..

Thats the point I am making...its not as simple as allowing a 3d item to simply be able to fit both. There are a lot more things to consider. Not the least of which is that there are 3 dimensions that all change depending on the character model shape.

Before I go into what I am trying to show a bit further I want to ask you if you have a background in 3d design. I am also going to pre-apologize if I come across as insulting in any way....that is not my intent at all. I am just trying to explain my view. You seem to know something about 3d modeling but sometimes your use of terms that are in 3d modeling is odd to me.

For example...your use of 'dynamic'. When used to describe 3d clothing it usually means its a high polygon prop item that can be used in a draping or wind script to simulate the natural movement of whatever cloth you set the script for. Creative designers and artists have of course found other ways to use those scripts. These clothing props do not tend to have morph targets beyond simple x y z scaling.

Dynamic clothing tends to be simple in design and made for specific body types. It is not used to make clothing and its seldom used to make clothing cross compatible. This is what happens when you take a dynamic clothing model designed for one body type and use a drape script to apply it to another body type.

All of these models are from the same model base with morph targets used to simulate different musculature. Basically they are the same model with different dials tweaked just as you would in a character creator program.

This is a dynamic clothing prop designed for the female body type and applied to the male body type. As you can see Dynamic clothing does not 'change' the prop to fit the male model. I left both slightly oversized to emphasize the issue.

This is a tight fitting top prop designed for male musculature.... as you can see it does not work when applied to a female body. Again I left them over sized for emphasis.

Thats a very basic way that dynamic clothing props work. They are used to simulate natural cloth movement....it is not even close to the most efficient way to make clothing cross compatible.

To make use of a drape script and dynamic clothing the prop first needs to be modified by hand to 'fit' the model shape. Usually it is much quicker and simpler to just make a separate prop for both when using drape scripts as opposed to manipulating polygons or applying morph targets.

All In all dynamic props are seldom a shortcut to clothing design.... its a way to make the clothing move naturally after its designed.

Now let me show you two other issues you find when you try to simplify cross compatability with morphs and scaling.

In this image you see that the 3d model is fairly easy applied to each body style. But the inclusion of a texture show how this can distort the original design. On the left we have a rectangular black and white pattern but on the right they are clearly square. Whats more as you get further from the center you notice how the patterns no longer line up. This isn't dealing with inhuman shapes...its a muscular man and a toned man....both very reasonable to assume will be options in CoT. Not Orcs or elves....just one male body shape and another.

This image shows that multi part props have just as many issues.

The bottom one is a glove designed to fit a female arm the top used the dials (morphs) to make it fit a male musculature. As you can see the string element gets distorted the more the glove prop is changed. On the upper arm the strings clip into the glove part and on the forearm the strings begin to bunch unnaturally. At the end of the glove you can see how the seam is no longer straight...it has odd bends in it that ruin the original design.

All of these examples are of very simple clothing props designed from a model that has the ability to be male, female, muscular, voluptuous, skinny, toned, athletic or any variation therein. In essence what the CoT character creator is promising to offer.

Clothing props run into these problems constantly. There is no program or script (that I know of) which will remove the need for designers and artists to actively fix these issues. They need to go in and manipulate the prop to make it work. As I said before these are 3 dimensional objects that are applied to body shapes that are not changed uniformly. What I mean is while part of the arm (for example) may lengthen by 2 cm (for lack of a better measurement) the bicep may expand by 4 cm....now think about muscle definition and how it causes certain aspects of the bicep to expand more than other aspects of the upper arm. Like in this picture...

This image shows how muscle shape can be VASTLY different. Trying to make a clothing prop that is applied to both in a way that maintains the original design is not a small task. Even traditional shortcuts like bump maps often run into problems when trying to apply them to extreme differences like these.

What DOES help the artists and designers make clothing easier to transfer between body shapes is to design with that in mind to begin with. This is extra work still but not nearly as much as if they try and make a clothing prop fit a different body shape after the prop is sculpted or texture is applied.

Thats what I am saying...the software makes the designs possible...but the artists and designers are the ones who do the work. The amount of work just grows as we expect more from them. We want more realistic textures, its extra work...we want more elaborate designs,its extra work...we want that realistic texture and elaborate design to be available to all body shapes that a whole lotta work. Its just less work if they design the clothing props with cross compatibility to begin with rather than after....they still do the work though.

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One more time: I'll concede to you that SOME costume items might require completely unique implementations by the art Devs to work effectively for both the male and female model. I simply believe those would only ever be very special one-off cases. In no way would they (or should they) have to literally hand-make individual male/female pairs of items for every single item in the game. That was CoH's limitation back in 2004, not CoT's in 2015+..

The last post got long.

I am not saying that each body shape will require individual props.... I am saying that making clothing props that do fit all body shapes requires a fairly significant amount of work. There is less work when designed with that in mind as opposed to after a prop is modeled.

There just is no script or software (that I know of) that does all or even some of that work. Either they design the prop with morph targets that allow it to fit all body shapes before hand (lotta extra work) or they manipulate polygons after the prop is modeled (lotsa lotta extra work). In most cases it will require both before modeling work to include morph targets and after modeling manipulation to make it fit right.

It would have to be a very simplistic (even simpler than my examples) clothing prop that wont require a decent amount of work to make it cross compatible.

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Hmm, adding 'shadow' to the

Hmm, adding 'shadow' to the texture of the clothing makes for weird effects, when you change the model. It seems clear, that such would have to be added on a separate layer?

Be Well!
Fireheart

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I am not exactly sure what

I am not exactly sure what you mean by 'adding shadow'. I am assuming you mean the idea of simple light sources that cast shadows in the image.

I used basic render setting to provide the images... I could have removed the shadows by adjusting the render setting... but as the post took me 4 hours to make I figured the shadows were not interfering with the point I was making(and that's just because I had many of those clothing props and models already, otherwise it would have been much longer).

What 'weird effects' concern you exactly? I ask because they may be ones that I naturally ignore having been involved in the entire process but may change the way others see the image and as such should be fixed.

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Very good conversation.

Very good conversation.

How difficult is it to make high heels? In the real world, heels alters the shape of the legs and adds a few inches to height.
COH had heels from the start.
I know you can't chase a perp in heels, but in virtual reality the rules are different-so all my female toons wore heels.

I really wish one of the artists would comment from time to time on this thread.

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Run in high heels is a skill

Run in high heels is a skill in Macho Women With Guns.

Just sayin' ...


Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.
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Quote:
Quote:

How difficult is it to make high heels? In the real world, heels alters the shape of the legs and adds a few inches to height. .

Making heels behave as they do in real life is a daunting task in a game where they allow players to choose heels or no heels. Trying to convey all the aspects of real world heels in the game would require a separate animation for both heels and no heels. In essence doubling the work of the animators. The reason for this is any animation has every body part assigned a specific positioning. The angled foot of a heel is a change in the animation over the flat position of the foot....it would affect pretty much any animation the character has would need an alternate (including just standing). There is actually a lot more to this than I am going into but in an effort to not post pages of poorly written tutorials of animation I hope you get the idea.

The far easier way to treat heels is like how they did in CoH....with the use of transparency maps. Basically instead of changing the models positioning, they would make parts of the foot and leg transparent and either apply a texture/bump map to create the shoe or apply a physical heel prop. I hope that makes sense.

I'm not sure if you were asking me directly about this but honestly I am not good at explaining these things. I am self taught in 3d modeling and animating. The very definition of an amateur.

Quote:

I really wish one of the artists would comment from time to time on this thread..

I would assume they were fairly busy considering we are nearing the expected release of the character creator. But yes....I would love to get a read on the ways they are doing things....

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My apologies if this has been

My apologies if this has been requested, but I did a search and didn't come up with anything, and I looked back a couple of pages and didn't see it, and this is a looooooooooooooong thread and I can't look through the whole thing.

Good "bald with long hair" a la Maestro Hulk. Especially one that meshes well with a beard (a la Maestro Hulk).

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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STEAMPUNK! I want this too.

STEAMPUNK! I want this too. But mostly the wing design below. I think these wings are way too cool not to have at launch.
Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please

The back pack ought to have a pair of steam powered arms for that pile-driver punch.

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Hey, could I get a character

Hey, could I get a character with a transparent plastic skin and a variety of visible interiors, including:
Mechanical parts
Internal organs
just bones
sparkling energy
liquid with bubbles or fish swimming around
etc...
This option would be best if it could be selected for specific body parts as well as for the whole body

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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

Thats what I am saying...the software makes the designs possible...but the artists and designers are the ones who do the work. The amount of work just grows as we expect more from them. We want more realistic textures, its extra work...we want more elaborate designs,its extra work...we want that realistic texture and elaborate design to be available to all body shapes that a whole lotta work. Its just less work if they design the clothing props with cross compatibility to begin with rather than after....they still do the work though.

[...]

There just is no script or software (that I know of) that does all or even some of that work. Either they design the prop with morph targets that allow it to fit all body shapes before hand (lotta extra work) or they manipulate polygons after the prop is modeled (lotsa lotta extra work). In most cases it will require both before modeling work to include morph targets and after modeling manipulation to make it fit right.

Sorry it's been so long since I responded to this thread - been on international travel with limited Internet connections over the last few weeks.

I certainly appreciate all of your fine examples and explanations. I will simply have to say that what you're talking about, while it may be applicable to how virtual clothing is created using methods of software technology you are familiar with, seems ludicrously convoluted and needlessly time consuming. The idea that you believe we are still, in 2015, stuck with creating clothing objects as "independent 3D models" that have to be shoehorned and/or tinkered with to fit over multiple body models seems grossly impractical and frankly something out of the playbook of game creation from 20 years ago.

I have decades worth of general computer software and engineering experience but I will readily admit I only have a passing knowledge of what you might call "state of the art" when it comes to 3D modeling. Still if you are absolutely certain that UE4 and the other software technology the Devs of CoT are using is still going to limit them to the level of time-consuming artistic doctoring/tinkering that hampered the ability of the CoH Devs back in 2004 to give us more than we ever got then I'll just have to shake my head and wonder at how antiquated and out-of-date this area of software design really is.

Basically I never would have realized or imagined that the means of clothing creation in games today would still be as tediously time-consuming as it was when CoH launched. *shrugs*

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Cyclops wrote:
Cyclops wrote:

Very good conversation.
How difficult is it to make high heels? In the real world, heels alters the shape of the legs and adds a few inches to height.
COH had heels from the start.
I know you can't chase a perp in heels, but in virtual reality the rules are different-so all my female toons wore heels.
I really wish one of the artists would comment from time to time on this thread.

I'm not an artist but I've read that drawing the proportions for feet/shoes/boots can be among the hardest areas to get "right" in comic books so I assume that translates into games like this too. There were actually several instances in CoH where there was enough negative player feedback to motivate the CoH Devs to "redesign" existing shoe/foot options to make them look better.

For what it's worth I would assume that CoT will have at least a handful of high-heel options at launch. There has already been talk on other threads where they're experimenting with a "boot height" slider that would allow us to customize a "basic" boot to be anywhere from ankle boot sized up to thigh-high. Apart from that I assume will get a basic pump (like we had in CoH) and maybe a few other standard options.

Redlynne wrote:

Run in high heels is a skill in Macho Women With Guns.
Just sayin' ...

Yeah I think we've already covered whether or not it would actually be "practical" to have comic book superheroines in high heels in "real life" or not. I'll probably end up making several "realistic" characters with flat soled shoes but I'm sure I'll have others with ankle-breaking mile-high stilettos regardless just for fun. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

islandtrevor72 wrote:
Thats what I am saying...the software makes the designs possible...but the artists and designers are the ones who do the work. The amount of work just grows as we expect more from them. We want more realistic textures, its extra work...we want more elaborate designs,its extra work...we want that realistic texture and elaborate design to be available to all body shapes that a whole lotta work. Its just less work if they design the clothing props with cross compatibility to begin with rather than after....they still do the work though.
[...]

There just is no script or software (that I know of) that does all or even some of that work. Either they design the prop with morph targets that allow it to fit all body shapes before hand (lotta extra work) or they manipulate polygons after the prop is modeled (lotsa lotta extra work). In most cases it will require both before modeling work to include morph targets and after modeling manipulation to make it fit right.

Sorry it's been so long since I responded to this thread - been on international travel with limited Internet connections over the last few weeks.
I certainly appreciate all of your fine examples and explanations. I will simply have to say that what you're talking about, while it may be applicable to how virtual clothing is created using methods of software technology you are familiar with, seems ludicrously convoluted and needlessly time consuming. The idea that you believe we are still, in 2015, stuck with creating clothing objects as "independent 3D models" that have to be shoehorned and/or tinkered with to fit over multiple body models seems grossly impractical and frankly something out of the playbook of game creation from 20 years ago.
I have decades worth of general computer software and engineering experience but I will readily admit I only have a passing knowledge of what you might call "state of the art" when it comes to 3D modeling. Still if you are absolutely certain that UE4 and the other software technology the Devs of CoT are using is still going to limit them to the level of time-consuming artistic doctoring/tinkering that hampered the ability of the CoH Devs back in 2004 to give us more than we ever got then I'll just have to shake my head and wonder at how antiquated and out-of-date this area of software design really is.
Basically I never would have realized or imagined that the means of clothing creation in games today would still be as tediously time-consuming as it was when CoH launched. *shrugs*

Black Desert used Marvelous Designer... More Here

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Yeah, even the pros get feet

Yeah, even the pros get feet wrong. Case in point, Stargate Worlds:

Their feet are huge and flat.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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OMG, they all been

OMG, they all been transformed into Ducks!

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Izzy wrote:
Izzy wrote:

Black Desert used Marvelous Designer... More Here

Again I'll freely admit I'm no expert where it comes to 3D modeling or creating clothing items for in-game avatars but I really have to believe that the technology has to exist in 2015 that makes it easier to "fit" items to different models than what the CoH Devs had to work with 12+ years ago. Now it's always possible that the "bleeding edge" of this technology may require tools that are effectively too expensive or otherwise out of reach of the CoT Devs and if that's the case that would be a shame. But assuming these tools (like your "Marvelous Designer" example) are available to the CoT Devs I would hope they would be using them to their fullest.

I don't discount anything islandtrevor72 has said about the possibly out-of-date(?) technique of making clothing items as "independent 3D objects" that have to be artistically "tailored" to fit each individual body model after they are created. But to me that sounds like each item, to use real world vernacular, is initially cast in stone or forged in solid metal (like a plate mail armor breastplate would be) in a vacuum without any consideration for the body model shapes they would eventually have to be applied to. Obviously one could see how much tediously intensive re-work it would take if a real-life armorer had to abstractly create a generically sized breastplate first THEN bother to measure the person it was intended for AFTER the breastplate was already made. This seems to be the sad state of affairs that islandtrevor72 is saying we are stuck with for CoT.

I'm simply suggesting that the obvious advantage of designing clothing in a virtual space like the one for this game would be that a general pattern for a costume item could be created that would potentially fit a wide range of human-shaped models automatically. Let the computer do what it's good at by way of "crunching" the measurements to allow (for example) a shirt item to properly fit a bicep that's either 12 inches or 16 inches around. Obviously, as I've always said, the computer might not be able to perfectly stretch a given costume pattern to every single body proportion so some follow-up artistic "clean up" work may be needed. But where islandtrevor72 seems to be implying that every single item must be manually sculpted to fit each individual body model like a time consuming unique piece of art I contend that the possible "clean up" work should only take maybe 5% of that time and in many cases may not even be necessary if the automated system can handle it on its own.

Costume items in games like this should not behave as if they are all cast out of metal and frozen into a specific shape that can only fit one model like my earlier breastplate example. Clothing in games like this should, well, act like clothing in the way they can NATURALLY bend and stretch over the various body parts they are draped over so that they can fit a reasonably wide range of body models (e.g. male and female) without heavy amounts of labor intensive art Dev re-tinkering. It would appear that systems like the Marvelous Designer is embracing that fundamental concept and I can only hope that the CoT Devs will take this heart with whatever design systems they are using.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I'm just guessing here, but

If I recall correctly, MWM does have at least one license for Marvelous Designer 2, or 3. :)

I'm just guessing here, but IslandTrevor72 is probably thinking about how 3D Modeling is done.
ex: https://youtu.be/eskfzfU4NsI?t=6m43s

In that part of the video, you see how MakeHuman relies on Morph Targets to shape the clothing.
But the 3D Artists needs a Mold (base mesh) to work off of. I'm not sure, but it would seem that in order to make any armor or clothing that looks like a Corset, Breastplate, Etc... there needs to be a Different Mold.
So... more that one Mold (base mesh for Male, Female, Animalistic) would have to exist that the 3D Artists would use to make any sort of clothing. Well, assuming Morph Targets are not used, but i think Andy (MWM's base mesh model) is Gender Neutral... so most likely Morph Targets are used to Genderfy/Animalize. I wouldn't be surprised to hear someday that MWM has allot of the same features like MakeHuman for the base mesh. I was gonna suggest looking at it when Andy was being created, but I had a feeling at the time it wouldn't satisfy MWM's requirements then. :<

To Add to that, the whole body could be made up of different areas, like Limbs, Feet, Hands, Head, Torso, Hips/Butt (little tricky for a single cyborg hip, cyborg leg, and foot)
Now the 3D Artist has to be careful and know how and if the 3D Programmers are using any Naming conventions for each part and pray for the best Mish Mash when they create the clothing pieces. And if the clothing piece Invades another Region, they have to cut a separate mesh from the existing piece... making sure to not Loose a single vertex Point. Or it will wont work. :/

And i have no clue how Cloth Physics are setup, and have to wonder how a Dress might be created in this way. Some parts Conform, while others, are Cloth Physics. :(

And Layers of Clothing that lay one over the other. I guess in Theory, as you stack each of the clothing layers, the Morph Target might increase very slightly for each piece of clothing. So this is an area that gets very restrictive as to what looks correct. So a Shirt with any Fluff might stick out when a Coat or Jacket is worn. But i guess the 3D Artist can make the Fluff be a separate mesh, and just have it be Shown or Hidden if there's any additional layers that are over it. And that's not perfect either, since not ALL of the Fluff should be hidden, just a small portion. :<

So if there are layers over the shirt, create and use a Flat version, and just use bump normal etc mapping to give it depth in case the layer above it doesn't cover majority. Or ask the Player which one to use, Flattened or the Fluffy version for a particular piece of clothing. :/

There's more, but.. Oww.. Migraine! Gotta stop. :P

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

The idea that you believe we are still, in 2015, stuck with creating clothing objects as "independent 3D models" that have to be shoehorned and/or tinkered with to fit over multiple body models seems grossly impractical and frankly something out of the playbook of game creation from 20 years ago.

I focused on your use of the word 'dynamic' as it has a specific meaning in 3d. It does not apply to textures or bumps (as much). But I did explain how even those can be distorted based on extreme character model differences.

I want it clear I am not saying that every article of clothing will be an independent model. I am saying that no method of dressing a model, be it separate models or textures/bumps, is a simple switch. There just is not automated program (that I am aware of) that will allow for the extremes a costume creator will have.

I said it before but I guess it bears repeating and a bit of elaborating... making clothes that are cross compatible with similar body types is not the bigger issue...its when you get into extreme differences that cause the most problems that require hands on attention.

Lothic wrote:

I'm simply suggesting that the obvious advantage of designing clothing in a virtual space like the one for this game would be that a general pattern for a costume item could be created that would potentially fit a wide range of human-shaped models automatically. Let the computer do what it's good at by way of "crunching" the measurements to allow (for example) a shirt item to properly fit a bicep that's either 12 inches or 16 inches around.Obviously, as I've always said, the computer might not be able to perfectly stretch a given costume pattern to every single body proportion so some follow-up artistic "clean up" work may be needed. But where islandtrevor72 seems to be implying that every single item must be manually sculpted to fit each individual body model like a time consuming unique piece of art I contend that the possible "clean up" work should only take maybe 5% of that time and in many cases may not even be necessary if the automated system can handle it on its own..

As I said, I was largely discussing the use of 'dynamic' clothing. Textures and bump maps run into many issue as well which I only touched on in my past post. But even there I showed how textures are distorted by simple scaling (as would happen with texture swaps for skin that CoH did a lot of). If you want I can spend a bunch of time again and explain all the pitfalls with textures (which I thought would be evident from my previous examples).

The point I was making and you seem to miss is that to make these items able to fit the '12 inch arms and 16 inch arms' requires them to be designed that way to begin with. There is no simple program that will take a model or texture and make it cross compatible without first being designed to do so. This requires much more work than just modeling for a single body shape. To get your 5% cleanup after design you need to spend much more during design. A t-shirt that fits even the three body types CoH had can have issues if its a separate prop as can a texture and bump map ...both of which I showed before. When you factor in the idea that CoT is going to allow for more variety in body shapes and possibly the manipulation of body parts (separate dials for arms, legs ect) you get into a situation where the artists have to start with a design that incorporates all body shape possibilities then eliminate those shapes that are just not feasible based on the clothes appearance.

I will copy and past a part of what I said before to further emphasise my point...

...the software makes the designs possible...but the artists and designers are the ones who do the work. The amount of work just grows as we expect more from them. We want more realistic textures, its extra work...we want more elaborate designs, its extra work...we want that realistic texture and elaborate design to be available to all body shapes that a whole lotta work. Its just less work if they design the clothing props with cross compatibility to begin with rather than after....they still do the work though.

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Quote:
Quote:

I'm just guessing here, but IslandTrevor72 is probably thinking about how 3D Modeling is done..

Pretty much yes. But this example show probably one of the most basic methods of clothing design and does not touch on texturing. Worse, this method is really only useful for creating props for a single body shape. Most separate 3d clothing props are built from scratch and then fitted to the model, then textures and bumps are created to enhance the props appearance. . Here would be a better example of what I am talking about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zDd85K79jQ

As you can see clothing is usually made for an individual model. Simply making it fit this single model has issues as can be seen in part 2 here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-lMqkbdV7k

Quote:

So... more that one Mold (base mesh for Male, Female, Animalistic) would have to exist that the 3D Artists would use to make any sort of clothing. Well, assuming Morph Targets are not used, but i think Andy (MWM's base mesh model) is Gender Neutral... so most likely Morph Targets are used to Genderfy/Animalize. I wouldn't be surprised to hear someday that MWM has allot of the same features like MakeHuman for the base mesh..

Its probably very reasonable to assume that any clothing designed for cross compatibility will be done with morph targets. But as I showed, clothing does not always respond well to morphs.

Cross compatibility of clothing or textures is one of the more time consuming jobs in modeling along with actual animating. While animating has seen a vast improvement in automation programs due to its many applications the same is not true of cross compatibility as its application is rather limited. Really animation is used in a vast amount of arenas (movies, games, demonstration ect) but making clothing props that fit multiple model shapes is really only used in a subset of games (and a small element of the 3d artist community but that's a separate discussion).

There are a lot of factors when making clothing for a single animated model. How the texture acts, how the bump acts, cloth simulations, clipping, bunching, ect ect ect.... this is only compounded when you make that clothing prop for multiple body shapes. Even just texture swaps for skin like many of the 'tight' clothing in CoH showed flaws (seams for example) when you went from a very small model to a very large model. Most costume parts will feature at minimum texture and bumps which can behave in odd ways when it is fitted to different body shapes.

There just is no simple way to make clothing work across all body types. It takes time and effort to do so....less if you start with cross compatibility in mind but by no means is it not time consuming. It only gets worse because we expect the clothing in CoT to be that much more detailed than it was in CoH.

So yes I am thinking of how clothing props are made because I know there isn't a lot of shortcuts when it comes to this.

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What about something more

What about something more dramatic in the "draped fabric" category that is relatively simple yet still dramatic and with a (by definition!) Classical look to it?

I refer to the Greek Chiton and Himation ... just add laurel wreath.


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islandtrevor72 wrote:
islandtrevor72 wrote:

There just is no simple way to make clothing work across all body types. It takes time and effort to do so....less if you start with cross compatibility in mind but by no means is it not time consuming. It only gets worse because we expect the clothing in CoT to be that much more detailed than it was in CoH.
So yes I am thinking of how clothing props are made because I know there isn't a lot of shortcuts when it comes to this.

I suppose I will remain extremely incredulous of all this for the simple fact that even in CoH when a costume item was placed on the male body model with all the body sliders set to "maximum" size that same costume item would also work (in most cases) on the same male body model if all the body sliders reset to "minimum" size. In that scenario the difference between the "fully maxed sized male" and the "fully minimal sized male" is so extreme they might as well be considered TWO completely different body models.

So, if the game could automatically account for all the morphing/stretching needed to handle costume items for that extreme range of difference (between the "max male" and "min male") I see no overwhelming significant difference between the "average male" and "average female" body proportions when used in that same situation. Yes, the idea of being able to stretch something all the way from say "fully maxed sized male" to "fully minimal sized female" might very well cause some isolated clipping-type issues that would have to be individually addressed by an art Dev. But my fundamental premise is that the overall body size/shape differences between the average sized male and the average sized female is not so great that they'd require unavoidable mandatory Dev re-tailoring in a game where virtual clothing can and should be designed to stretch/morph over either of them automatically.

The notion that the only way you could have something like a functional "unisex t-shirt" in a game like this is that you'd actually have to create both a unique "male t-shirt" and unique "female t-shirt" seems at the very least highly antiquated to me and I'll just reiterate that if the current overall software technology (circa 2015) is still forcing Devs to do that kind of thing then that's just generally pathetic and unfortunate. Perhaps I'm simply being overly optimistic or maybe I'm already mentally living in the year 2030 and in that year they are already handling costume items in the way I think CoT should be able to now... *shrugs*

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Quote:
Quote:

The notion that the only way you could have something like a functional "unisex t-shirt" in a game like this is that you'd actually have to create both a unique "male t-shirt" and unique "female t-shirt" seems at the very least highly antiquated to me and I'll just reiterate that if the current overall software technology (circa 2015) is still forcing Devs to do that kind of thing then that's just generally pathetic and unfortunate.

I have said MANY times that they don't have to create a unique part for all models. I said it requires a lot of work to make one that will fit all shapes and sometimes the extra work might be prohibitive for the time being. There is no automatic program that will simply take a prop and make it fit another without it first being designed that way (which requires the artist to do extra work such as the inclusion of morph targets) or significant post design work and in most case will require both.

This is why it is highly likely we will see a large majority of costumes to start with that are texture changes instead of unique parts. As in we will get a few suits but a lot of designs to place on them and later we will start to see more unique items.

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Black leather fingerless

Black leather fingerless gloves and welder glasses. Many big glasses and sunglasses.

__________________

The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.

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ABS FOR LADIES!!!! *flips

ABS FOR LADIES!!!! *flips over a nearby baby and runs out of the forums screaming about carbon emissions*

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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I like abs on ladies, but

I like abs on ladies, but they should be properly lady-like abs, not Man-abs glued on a lady's belly.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Perhaps the easiest to fill

Perhaps the easiest to fill feature request in the costume department. A flattish metallic rounded triangle small enough to fit in the palm of a hand that can be attached onto sleeves (left, right or both). It doesn't even have to be called a Holo Emitter ... since it could just be used for cosplay or as an accent mark as part of of another costume design. You could have a couple of different texture maps for it, allowing it to look "tech" or "arcane" or even like some leather and bone armband talisman (or whatever).

Keep it simple and basic and I'm sure that over time all kinds of other uses for the underlying geometry and placement would come to mind, especially for Players that are more into "cosplay" for different reasons.


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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

I like abs on ladies, but they should be properly lady-like abs, not Man-abs glued on a lady's belly.


Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.
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Yup, see, different shape.

Yup, see, different shape.

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Fireheart

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Like if Ronda Rousey played

Like if Ronda Rousey played the next Thor?!? :o
Or She-Hulk? :)

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

I like abs on ladies, but they should be properly lady-like abs, not Man-abs glued on a lady's belly.
Be Well!
Fireheart

Redlynne's and Izzy's examples were nice but when I think of "well defined female abs on pseudo superheroines" I always think of a fun little short-lived TV show called Cleopatra 2525.

Style-wise it was similar to the classic 90's era Herc and Xena shows but set in a post-apocalyptic future where killer robots had conquered the surface of the Earth and the remaining humans lived in these vast underground complexes. I know that last sentence makes this sound like some kind of Matrix rip-off but it was really far more campy and at times almost reminded me more of the 60's era Batman show with a trio of hot chicks fighting the bad guys with gadgets instead of Adam West. They even had this hot android guy who was like their Alfred maintaining their version of the secret Batcave. It was all fairly cheesy and full of eye-candy but it actually had a bunch of costume ideas that I wouldn't mind seeing CoT duplicate.

Fans of Firefly might recognize Gina Torres in these pics - this show came and went just a few years before Firefly. Both Gina and Victoria Pratt (highlighted in the last two pics) had some fairly well defined abs but neither of them were incredibly extreme so they didn't venture too far towards looking "too manly" about it. I'd wouldn't mind being able to have the option for something like this in CoT.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

Sescheraun
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Is there a list of confirmed

Is there a list of confirmed costume pieces as of yet?

As for what I would like to see, chains and locks. For things like bound spirits or undead horrors.

WE ARE THE RADIANT DARKNESS.

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http://nebezial.deviantart

http://nebezial.deviantart.com/art/Spoof-WIP-112493288
The Luke Skywalker bathrobe

and the Leia "Jabba Palace" special

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Victoria Pratt

Mmmmm ... Victoria Pratt. :)~
/em fetches a bib

Victoria always turned in a good performance, with or without the cheesecake factor. Definitely a good role model/example for a game like City of Titans to follow when it comes to looking "buffed" without overdoing it. Yes, she "looked great" on screen, but she could also act in addition to that, which made her wonderful to watch.


Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.
Lothic
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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Mmmmm ... Victoria Pratt. :)~
/em fetches a bib
Victoria always turned in a good performance, with or without the cheesecake factor. Definitely a good role model/example for a game like City of Titans to follow when it comes to looking "buffed" without overdoing it. Yes, she "looked great" on screen, but she could also act in addition to that, which made her wonderful to watch.

To be honest I'm not sure I've ever seen Victoria in anything other than Cleopatra 2525 but she does seem to have a relatively long movie/TV career according to her wiki. She's one of those rare examples of a person who started off in the "fitness" world who could also act. This was why I always worried about the people who wanted the next Wonder Woman actress to be mainly a "fitness model" first because sadly (through no real fault of their own) so few of them can also act worth a darn. Victoria Pratt herself might have been a reasonable pick for Wonder Woman a few years ago if she had been a little taller.

Anyway like I said I wouldn't mind being able to have characters with abs like hers in CoT as well as many of the costume items they wore in Cleopatra 2525.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

Lothic
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Sescheraun wrote:
Sescheraun wrote:

Is there a list of confirmed costume pieces as of yet?

Sadly I doubt we'd ever get a "list of confirmed costume pieces" unless some very bored player wanted to generate one after the game is released. Frankly I wouldn't want a Dev to waste their time with something like that anyway.

Until the game is released having an abstract list like that is basically pointless because it would likely change before release not to mention that it wouldn't really help us to fully "visualize" what to expect. Sure they could tell us we're getting 8 types of helmets and 20 kinds of boots but who's to say any of them would look like what you'd be expecting anyway?

I know it's hard to wait but it'll just be easier to see what gets included in the first release of the Avatar Builder and go from there.

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Heck, just trying to collate

Heck, just trying to collate a list of suggestions would get prohibitively long at this point. The step after that would be confirmation that a suggestion has been accepted for consideration (with explicit understanding that this is NOT a commitment to create it). The step after that is the TO DO list.

To be honest, I'd rather the people responsible for costumes just get on with making them, rather than go to the effort of combing through this thread for all that. I'd rather see the man-hours go to something productive, honestly.


Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.
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Sure, so it will have to be

Sure, so it will have to be some dedicated Fan, who combs through this thread and makes a list...

Not me, though!

Be Well!
Fireheart

Lin Chiao Feng
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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Not me, though!

That's pretty much the theme of the forums.

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Lin Chiao Feng wrote:
Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Fireheart wrote:
Not me, though!

That's pretty much the theme of the forums.

Sorry, LFG (job) IRL takes all of my spare energy. Though it does mean that I can check the forums all the time.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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LOl, was a little late to the

LOl, was a little late to the party, but that nipple convo was pretty funny. I only play as guys anyway, hence don't really pay attention to boobs, jiggles, and what-not in-game, despite being a straight guy.

Pages back someone mentioned a horse and snake person costume model, that would be cool and quite unique. No other MMO has that, to my knowledge, at least no super hero MMO. Anyway, would like to see some arm cannons and sci-fi armors, akin to Megaman X. I liked the X6 blade armor, were his arm cannon creates a energy blade. Anything sci-fi really.

As a child, I thought my name was handsome, cause that is what everyone called me.

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Phararri wrote:
Phararri wrote:

LOl, was a little late to the party, but that nipple convo was pretty funny. I only play as guys anyway, hence don't realyy pay attention to boobs, jiggles, and whatnot in-game, despite being a straight guy.

There's a whole other thread on this forum that directly deals with the topic of "jiggle physics" and the ongoing talk about nipples has been a favorite since the old days on the CoH forums. It's understandable considering most people either like to look at all things related to "breastesses" or want to have the best looking ones for their own characters. ;)

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Aye, most people.

Aye, most people.

I'll have the sexiest ankles in the game, thankyouverymuch. (My calves aren't all bad, either.)

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Hail Beard!

Support trap clowns for CoT!

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Darth Fez wrote:
Darth Fez wrote:

Aye, most people.
I'll have the sexiest ankles in the game, thankyouverymuch. (My calves aren't all bad, either.)

Imagine if the comic books we know today had started in the Victorian era. Instead of people being worried about whether Wonder Woman's outfits were too "thong" oriented they probably would have been focused on whether her long skirts exposed her ankles or not lol.

Everything's relative I guess...

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So my "Gold Standard" of

So my "Gold Standard" of humanoid avatar creators and what I hope the system of City of Titans will use is based off APB

To see what this system is capable of (moving textures, Customizable emblems, body morphing to extremes) check out this video:

Hope Cassandra can do all this and more

Crowd Control Enthusiast

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https://www.youtube.com/watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTcf6RhXooQ This mmo has an amazing character creator. It would be awesome if this game followed some guidelines of creating your face and look.

Also another thing I would like are mini skirts, lots of mini skirts. (No idea if thats been covered). But I have found in other mmos I have been playing is the lack of mini skirts or good mini skirts. Leather, frilly, plaid and so on. I am a huge anime fan so I like their kind of outfits. Stockings, long pigtails and things like that.

RawR

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As awesome as Blacks CC is I

As awesome as Blacks CC is I just don't think its needed in CoT (not to mention the dev effort it would require to make it work with CoT's costume, animation customizations). That level of body and facial customization is in place because the game has little in the costume customization aspect. I'm not saying I wouldn't love it....just that its not my priority concerning the CC.

I'm with JayBezz in how suitable APB's options are for CoT. If nothing else...I hope they take the xyz manipulation of logos and tattoos from APB ....that alone would make CoT's CC light years ahead of CoH's. (Before anyone says it...yes it could be used to create inappropriate combinations and I simply don't consider that a deal breaker).

Speaking of the CC.... any news on its release? Would love to buy it for a bunch of friends as a holiday gift.

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