Costume Detail Diversification

[El D]

An age-old gripe with City of Heroes has always been 'Why is Costume Piece X in Category Y?'

 

In the Long Ago, this was a problem with Tails being located under the Belt category (thus denying all of the ancient cat girls, demons, and dragon people any way to keep their pants from falling down while fighting crime) and it's still hanging around in other categories today. My suggestion is to repeat that process and decouple some of the more specific options from the broader categories they're currently in, making them into their own detail slots. I'll admit I have no idea how labor intensive the process would be, how jumbled it might make the costume creator UI, or what issues it might give against any limit on the amount of costume details each character can have, but at least it wouldn't require the creation of new textures or costume pieces. I've edited a few screenshots to give examples of these divergent categories and what the separated choices could end up looking like.

 

- Break down 'Detail 1' into multiple sections. For example, 'Head Details' (Horns, Antennas, Ear Muffs, etc.)  and 'Eye Details' (Glasses, Monocles, Robotic Eyes, etc.)

 

 

- Move Facial Hair from 'Detail 2' into its own category

 

 

- Move the Neck options into their own category outside of the 'Shoulder' categories

 

 

 

 

- Separate the various types of 'Symbols' from the 'Chest Detail' category

 

 

There are definitely some other category breakdowns that I missed, but these seemed like the most workable examples. Also I readily acknowledge that without some specific editing of which options go into which new categories and how many of them can be selected at one time, there would probably be a few clipping issues. However, that's already present with a number of other costume pieces as is (looking at you Jackets, High Collar capes, and just... The Huge model in-general). I just figured that this would be a good way to give folks even more creative options without requiring new assets to be made.

Edited November 17, 2019 by CoH El D

[kyothinks]

I don't have anything to add, but I love this idea. The costume creator is already so flexible and I'd love to see it made even more so by allowing us to utilize pieces that normally couldn't be "stacked"!

[Fasttrack2]

I also would love to see this feature worked on and implemented.

 

Make it so, Number One!

[MetaVileTerror]

Uh, I think you mean @Number Six there, Fasttrack2.  "Make it so, Number Six!"

[humanowl]

Yes. This would bring a lot more customization into the mix without needing to create new assets.

[El D]

Thanks for the comments! And apologies for the late reply - been a busy few days. ^_^

[biostem]

I wonder what would be involved in making this a reality - from my understanding, character models have "attachment points" and there are only so many per character...

[gameboy1234]

I'd like to /sign this.  It seems well thought out and pretty implementable.  Hopefully some dev cycles can be found to work on this.

[Galaxy Brain]

+100

 

 

[Flashtoo]

It wouldn't be easy, but it would be nice. 

The big reason it hasn't happened is that the character models have a limited number of attachment points for every type of costume part. New points have been added in the past (separating tails and belts; making ears into their own category, addition of Back Details when capes were first introduced) but it's a lot of work to redo the skeletal weights and iron out animation glitches for every single item, as well as rewrite basically the entire costume menu's text because the UI in this game is a dang mess and a half that has to be edited manually on every level every time it's changed. This is also one reason we don't have swappable hairstyles with hats (though that would also require a crapton of new visual assets - every single hat would need to get its own set of hairstyles that go with it because they don't all sit on the head at exactly the same level).

 

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to shoot down the idea - I'm just trying to give some explanation and context for why this might not be as easy as you think!

[biostem]

It's more likely that they could add a few combo pieces to the existing categories - like goatee + cigarette, or shoulder cat + collar.

[plainguy]

On 11/21/2019 at 12:23 PM, Flashtoo said:

It wouldn't be easy, but it would be nice. 

The big reason it hasn't happened is that the character models have a limited number of attachment points for every type of costume part. New points have been added in the past (separating tails and belts; making ears into their own category, addition of Back Details when capes were first introduced) but it's a lot of work to redo the skeletal weights and iron out animation glitches for every single item, as well as rewrite basically the entire costume menu's text because the UI in this game is a dang mess and a half that has to be edited manually on every level every time it's changed. This is also one reason we don't have swappable hairstyles with hats (though that would also require a crapton of new visual assets - every single hat would need to get its own set of hairstyles that go with it because they don't all sit on the head at exactly the same level).

 

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to shoot down the idea - I'm just trying to give some explanation and context for why this might not be as easy as you think!

I would agree up until I kept hearing can't change mastermind pets because they are "baked in", coding. ETC.. 

Then I see a video from another gaming server in which you can pick different mastermind pets.. 

 

 

[boggo2300]

1 hour ago, plainguy said:

I would agree up until I kept hearing can't change mastermind pets because they are "baked in", coding. ETC.. 

Then I see a video from another gaming server in which you can pick different mastermind pets.. 

But what did they break doing it?

[plainguy]

34 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

But what did they break doing it?

Nothing

 

[boggo2300]

31 minutes ago, plainguy said:

Nothing

 

not what I've heard, but ok

[BubbleWrap]

5 hours ago, plainguy said:

I would agree up until I kept hearing can't change mastermind pets because they are "baked in", coding. ETC.. 

Then I see a video from another gaming server in which you can pick different mastermind pets.. 

 

 

Pet customisation and detail diversification are two entirely different levels of impossible/difficult.

 

 

3 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

But what did they break doing it?

 

3 hours ago, plainguy said:

Nothing

 

 

2 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

not what I've heard, but ok

Yes, there are issues with pet customisation, they will be solved before it gets pushed anywhere for testing.

 

 

Meanwhile, other things had issues, and they were solved, like being able to smoke without shaving your beard off. This was, originally, something I considered to be really difficult, then one night I just realised I was coming at the problem from the wrong angle, and solved it. Coding be like that sometimes.

 

 

[boggo2300]

40 minutes ago, BubbleWrap said:

Pet customisation and detail diversification are two entirely different levels of impossible/difficult.

 

 

 

 

Yes, there are issues with pet customisation, they will be solved before it gets pushed anywhere for testing.

 

 

Meanwhile, other things had issues, and they were solved, like being able to smoke without shaving your beard off. This was, originally, something I considered to be really difficult, then one night I just realised I was coming at the problem from the wrong angle, and solved it. Coding be like that sometimes.

 

 

I do like the Monacle and Bubble helm,  i'm all for the diversification, just want it done right, which is what you're doing

[El D]

@Flashtoo & @boggo2300 - Totally understand the concerns about coding issues and wanting to ensure this would work properly and play nice with the rest of the UI/character animations. Like I mentioned in the original post I don't actually know how this works behind the scenes. I was just going off of what I'd seen the Cryptic/Paragon Studios devs manage and now others accomplish. I definitely get the desire for careful consideration. No objection taken at all. ^_^

 

@BubbleWrap - Really appreciate your post! I figured this would get a bit of traction but never thought you'd show up. With actual working examples to boot, that aren't just half-baked photoshop jobs like mine were. <.<;;; Big fan of the content you've posted on reddit, and I'm very happy to have someone with actual experience wrangling CoX's infamous spaghetti code chiming in. If you don't mind my asking, what was the change in approach that got it working?

[BubbleWrap]

Just now, CoH El D said:

@Flashtoo & @boggo2300 - Totally understand the concerns about coding issues and wanting to ensure this would work properly and play nice with the rest of the UI/character animations. Like I mentioned in the original post I don't actually know how this works behind the scenes. I was just going off of what I'd seen the Cryptic/Paragon Studios devs manage and now others accomplish. I definitely get the desire for careful consideration. No objection taken at all. ^_^

 

@BubbleWrap - Really appreciate your post! I figured this would get a bit of traction but never thought you'd show up. With actual working examples to boot, that aren't just half-baked photoshop jobs like mine were. <.<;;; Big fan of the content you've posted on reddit, and I'm very happy to have someone with actual experience wrangling CoX's infamous spaghetti code chiming in. If you don't mind my asking, what was the change in approach that got it working?

 

Since the limit is one costume part per bone, instead of trying to attach parts to unused bones and get them to reposition to the right place, I just added a bunch of new bones to the base skeleton.

[EmmySky]

13 minutes ago, BubbleWrap said:

 

Since the limit is one costume part per bone, instead of trying to attach parts to unused bones and get them to reposition to the right place, I just added a bunch of new bones to the base skeleton.

The head bones connected to the extra bone....the ear bones connected to the extra bone....lol

 

Hey whatever works!  Sometime this week I am going to my sons house to borrow his Wi-Fi and see if I can unscramble anything (not in costumes because that's not my expertise).  If enough people are working on random bits maybe it will all come together in the end.

[El D]

23 minutes ago, BubbleWrap said:

 

Since the limit is one costume part per bone, instead of trying to attach parts to unused bones and get them to reposition to the right place, I just added a bunch of new bones to the base skeleton.

 

That does sound a lot easier than having to kludge the existing aspects of the model into the right area. Adding new bones just lets you put them right where you want to from the get-go. Thanks for the insight!

[boggo2300]

4 hours ago, BubbleWrap said:

 

Since the limit is one costume part per bone, instead of trying to attach parts to unused bones and get them to reposition to the right place, I just added a bunch of new bones to the base skeleton.

out of interest does that mean existing models (ie our currrent toons) need to be converted with the extra bones (which seems highly likely) the main thrust of my question is is it likely to be a one off pigg update to do it for all? or would each existing character ned converting?

[BubbleWrap]

1 minute ago, boggo2300 said:

out of interest does that mean existing models (ie our currrent toons) need to be converted with the extra bones (which seems highly likely) the main thrust of my question is is it likely to be a one off pigg update to do it for all? or would each existing character ned converting?

Three new files in a new pigg, and boom, every PC and NPC in the game is updated.

[boggo2300]

16 hours ago, BubbleWrap said:

Three new files in a new pigg, and boom, every PC and NPC in the game is updated.

I was kinda hoping it would work that way 😄