Character Creation and Content, from the Character Art Devs

Discussion in 'Avatars & NPCs' started by Qball, Nov 2, 2014.

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  1. Drake Aedus

    Drake Aedus Avatar

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    How about character alterations? A barber shop perhaps?

    I didn't read the previous posts, sorry.
     
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  2. Qball

    Qball Developer Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Let me see if I can get some of these questions answered real quick;
    · JaymoSotA – Not sure what you are referring to but characters are always very complicated. Customization of them even more so. Allot of games spend millions just on Character customization, and then they upgrade them with each release of it. Music, and skateboarding games for example…
    · Jack Knyfe – The facial hair system got a big upgrade this time around.
    The engineers and I created a system that has transparency working with soft alphas. It also enables the main color of the beards (hair) to have two colors we will define. This is for helping create more depth/volume in the hair. For example: If the beard was Medium brown, the bottom layer (closest to the chin) would be a darker brown and the top layer would be the medium brown. This will help us give depth to the hair without having to use ginormous alphas and then calculating shadows from them. This just came online for the art team right before release and will require us to go back in to each beard and re-map them.
    [​IMG] This is the current r 16 hair.
    [​IMG] This is with the secondary main color turned on. This is the same color with layers of darker color weaved through. ( r 17)
    Next we will propagate this tech through the rest of the hair/
    Also within this system we are able to define a third color for the players to choose. There is one hitch at this point: all 3rd color placements have to be defined by us. This is not for any other reason than for technical restrictions. This also mean at first they will be limited, because each hair 3rd color placement would essentially be a another hair style. (This should also answer Isaiah’s question) We will try to do the most common choices though (Stripe down the middle, the hair above the ear, and of course salt and pepper beards.
    [​IMG]Didn't have any to show so I will show you my beard.... :)
    · Lord Galiwyn / Ravicus – Probably not for episode 1
    · Drake Aedus – Do you mean Character alterations later after the initial setup? That is out of my wheelhouse. I think the powers that be would like to do that for sure, but I have no idea when or if its planned. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be as easy as dropping a barbershop in every city! LOL

    That wasn't exactly quick, but nevertheless

    Qball
    Sorry for the images not showing up the first time, I re-added them another way. Let me know if this doesn't work.
     
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  3. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    @Qball, thanks as always for the great and interesting information. Also for me I can't see your images, but I get the point anyway.:)


    **edited** yes I can see the images now. Thanks. That does help me to see more of what you are talking about.
     
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  4. Gabriel Nightshadow

    Gabriel Nightshadow Avatar

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    I can't see the images either, but I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer questions, @Qball :)
     
  5. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    One of the stretch goals we reached in the kickstarter was a 'new you' shop (like a barber shop) you can go to in-game to alter the look of your existing character. I believe they still plan to include this for ep.1, so it will be available for future episodes as well.
     
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  6. Proteus Tempest

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    Does the new you shop include the whole body or just the head?
     
  7. Miracle Dragon

    Miracle Dragon Legend of the Hearth

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    You mean, change gender/race/height? Good question. Since the shop was titled 'new you', i would assume everything could be changed. I mean, why not? It's all cosmetic, right?
     
  8. Ravenclaw [BEAR]

    Ravenclaw [BEAR] Avatar

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    I was reading an article that was about the importance of the avatar and how it affects people in general.

    It goes on to say,
    Found at: This Site

    The avatar is the one game object that we always see and interact with, it is a representation of ourselves and it is the first thing we use to identify one another. I think some effort should be devoted to enhancing the avatars we have now. It started with the beards which were a huge improvement, now it needs to move on to the hairstyles, skin textures and choices available. Unique features like scars, tattoos, even weight should be considered to help uniquely identify ourselves to the rest of the community.
     
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  9. Stahlknecht

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    @Qball: love your work, great job !
     
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  10. The One True Nobody

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    You know, I really do have to say, while the character creation options are exceedingly limited at the moment, what's there works extremely well. Not very many MMORPGs give you control over facial construction sliders; not very many games that have facial construction sliders (online or otherwise) implement them well, in fact quite often they can be finicky at actually creating a face that looks visually appealing by anyone's standards. I had to actively try to make a face that looked wonky, here; that's a victory. The game could certainly use more customization options (body type, more hairstyles, facial features such as freckles, scars, make-up, tattoos...) but those can come with time, and more can always be added in later episodes, as well.

    I also want to applaud one particular piece of visual styling here, and this may not seem like an obvious thing, but... too often videogames are divided very starkly between super-stylized and/or toonish, and hyper photorealism. Or anime, which is more or less that first one anyway. Shroud of the Avatar avoids the photorealism route but also looks breathtaking in a down-to-earth way and it does this without relying on "loud" stylization aspects like toon-style characters, extremely "cool"-looking armor designs, or--and yeah, considering MMO trends, this is worth highlighting--a particular emphasis on sex appeal. It hits that authentic fantasy/adventure feeling without trying to be Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. It's impressive and, in a sad way, refreshing. It's probably even more stark a contrast for me because of my preference for female characters, which usually means I'm stuck with impractical armor and costume designs a minimum 60% of the time. Not to say this I the only game that does this, but I like the visual style and I wanted to say so.

    And so I have.
     
  11. Albus

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    I'd like to see more skin tones, eye colour variations and hair colours; for instances something to create a bone-white albino with white (not grey) hair and red or pink eyes. Is this something we will likely see? There are a few interesting albino characters in fantasy fiction ;)
     
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  12. Hati

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    Im really happy with character creation so far, its definitely ramped up by leaps and bounds.
    Curiosity question, I was wondering if there is any talk of there being other races added on down the line?
    Really hopeful there will be, that was one of my issues with UO. The gargoyle race was a good idea but the appearance and implementation of them was awful. I did like that it was not a commonly used idea. Elves and dwarves are a bit run into the ground. I always thought the Warhammer series Lizardmen were insanely cool. Just throwing that out there
     
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  13. leilakin

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    Interesting to read about what the character devs do.

    Maybe I need to put this on the feedback forum, but here seems good, too.

    Regarding character creation and bodies, I would like to be able to change the size and shape of my character's body. I feel very unhappy with how anorexic my female avatar looks. I do not mean she needs a big bust or anything that could be construed as lewd, but I would like for her to have realistic female hips and thighs. Also, I would like her to be a tad shorter.

    Regarding hair, I can currently choose a white grey color or a dingy brownish to represent blonde. Can we get a real blonde that is in between the white and light brown options that are currently there?

    Lastly, instead of having short hair, braids, or a pony tail can we have an option to have long hair that is down and simply straight?

    I've played a ton of video games that let me alter, change, create my character and I honestly feel the SotA character creation options are pretty limited. Yes, we have a lot of sliders for face, but I can't change or create the shape of my mouth or eyebrows, I can just choose between a few styles, for instance...
    Thank you.
     
  14. majoria70

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    Hi leilakin. Well one problem with getting characters worked on right now are that the same people who work on creatures work on our avatars. I am not sure what the plans are for the avatars, but I do believe more improvements are coming later when they get to them. ;)
     
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  15. Kittik

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    2!? Dafaq! Well, there goes my wishlist of things I'd hope to see. Good luck just getting done whats needed.
     
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  16. Desire

    Desire Avatar

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    Exactly how I feel. While I am enjoying the many changes, improvements and additions to the game in general, the avatar, in my opinion, needs work. I understand it is a work in progress, but I have seen the world transform before me, in a positive fashion, but have only seen minor revisions to character models. Content, mechanics and the world itself are very important, but to me my avatar is crucial. I do not expect the extent of customization like Black Desert, which is actually overwhelming. The ideal creator would have a few faces, maybe a couple of sliders for main features, about a dozen hairstyles and perhaps up to two hair color selections (base and highlight color). A few tattoos (body and face), piercings, make up, and maybe scars would be awesome. There should be a height slider, perhaps a few sliders for waistline, chest and hips. Muscletone would be fine too.

    Overall you should have enough options to create your ideal avatar. I do enjoy having a character that is unique and that I can customize to my liking.
     
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  17. Proteus Tempest

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    I mostly agree.

    Shroud of the Avatar should (When the character creation process is done) be in direct competition with all the other games out there.
     
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  18. draykor darkale

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    2 people doing all of that? Seems like you need another person perosnally. That being said, I like how things are moving forward, some nice character models. Most interested in avatar customisation but we'll see nearer the time.
     
  19. Elwe Thor

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    You're SO right that there is (at least) a meta-world all dedicated to the avatars' improvement, as they have a great impact on social: SecondLife.
    But I saw very nice configurability even while into EVE-online, back in 2011: the face could be changed like one was moving muscles/bones under the skin, with their limits but with great freedom even.

    Back to SotA, I think I know why we're not having full freedom about the avatar's customization: the clotes!
    I mean: when clothes was just textures, "painted" over the body, you could make your avatar tall, short, fat, thin, skinny... whatever: the texture ever followed the shape like it was a skin (a layer). But since we're having mesh objects, it's far more difficult (not having a 3D graphic internal object editor) to "tailor" your clothes (mainly armor, but not only) to the avatars' different sizes. So, single size/thickness.

    Ok... that's why we can't configure our avatars to be really unique in that way... but I agree that there is MUCH more that devs can do, about head traits (e.g. my avatar have a neck which seems a bear... and I can't do nothing about that :(), hairs (there should be a ton of initial hair styles, and even much more at the barbers, in game), scars/tattoos, COLORS!!! (the current color selection, at minimum graphic settings, is just kind of fake: all way too dark, no "blonde hairs" just pale yellow, no reds, no real brown tints: you devs should look at them with the minimum graphics to see).
    Even the body could be a little more customizable: more fat, more (or less) muscles... everything which can match with crafted armors' limits.
    By the way: the avatar's editor seems a little rustic: something more zoomable/visible/turnable will be very welcome. :)
     
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  20. Jamet

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    I just read that the final wipe is about a month away. Does that mean that, by that time, I will have to stick with what the character design editor offers me? Forever? Because last time I checked, 2 weeks or so ago, these still looked as hideous as just about every NPC in the game. To me. Subjectively.

    So I hope this is being revised to see a lot more care. I know I did my part -- I practically begged for character portraits a long time ago, not only just for the NPCs.

    If things still look like this when the final wipe is done, and I'm going to *have* to look like this, please let me craft a paper bag, which I can then put over my head. ;) Just kidding, but...
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2016
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