NPC Revamp Thread

[Sakura Tenshi]

Basic idea of this thread is to suggest new looks for old NPCs, but no reason we can't also talk about new powers for mob NPCs to make fights more interesting. Starting things off, I was playing around in the Dev/NPC costume editor to revamp the Five Origin contacts of Atlas with some new looks. Some more extreme than others.

 

Starting off with Azuria, I actually came up with two separate looks, one was to largely embrace Azuria as we pretty much know her, just made using player assets (and a ToV belt yet available to us)

 

With the second one there's not too much of a difference, though I also gave her a CoL belt dyed red to break up the line between her top and bottom as well as a bit of quasi-Gypsy inspired look with a 'jewelry' on her arms and a purple bandana around her head. To further emphasize

 

Next up is Dr. St. John Smythe of SERAPH, an apparent inventor and long-time liaison for SERAPH, I didn't want to change too much in his design, but the limits of the costume creator forced my hand a bit, gave him the breakneck fat bellied turtleneck because turtlenecks are cool and as a nerd he might not take the best physical care of himself.

 

Next up is Prince Kiros Nandelu, I didn't change his overall look too much besides giving him white eyes to signify his mutation (able to see ultra-violate and infrared spectrum) and fancied up his suit to make him look more princely. Also gave him black pants since I don't know how many men these days wear navy blue pants.

 

And now we turn to Rick Davies who probably had the most extensive changes as a side effect of there being no flannel shirt option (could have sworn there was), I went with a very geeky look since he's a forcibly-retired-due-to-war injury nerd and gave him a look to compare and contrast with his sister. (a beard and green sweater, clear prescription glasses, and somewhat formal attire)

 

And finally Susan Davies, who I largely tried to not change too much besides giving her a shirt instead a blouse and throwing on dark sunglasses. Once more she's kind of meant to compare and contrast to her brother with dark, unnecessary sunglasses, a more casual look, and not being bald.

 

There's my initial crack at updating the five starting contacts, feel free to pitch and discuss your own I'll probably add more in the future.

[Vanden]

I made this updated look for Frostfire about one million years ago:

 

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

 

Next up is Prince Kiros Nandelu, I didn't change his overall look too much besides giving him white eyes to signify his mutation (able to see ultra-violate and infrared spectrum)

Fun fact -- ordinary humans would be able to see ultraviolet if the lens of the human eye didn't block it. People who had a lens removed due to cataracts, or who underwent early lens replacement, are able to see UV down to around 300 nm. It is believed that Claude Monet's works after the lens of his left eye was removed as a cataract treatment, which heavily feature bluish colors, is an indicator of this. More recent lens replacements use materials that, like the natural lens, block UV.

 

Seeing IR is possible, too, although the mechanism is less effective, and a 'superhuman' alternative would work better. If two IR photons hit a cone cell at the same time, they can act like a single photon of a higher frequency -- so two 1000nm photons can act like one 500nm photon, resulting in a perceived green color. Obviously, to get IR colors that shift off the red end of normal perception, you'd need to have different receptors.

[Zepp]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Fun fact -- ordinary humans would be able to see ultraviolet if the lens of the human eye didn't block it. People who had a lens removed due to cataracts, or who underwent early lens replacement, are able to see UV down to around 300 nm. It is believed that Claude Monet's works after the lens of his left eye was removed as a cataract treatment, which heavily feature bluish colors, is an indicator of this. More recent lens replacements use materials that, like the natural lens, block UV.

 

Seeing IR is possible, too, although the mechanism is less effective, and a 'superhuman' alternative would work better. If two IR photons hit a cone cell at the same time, they can act like a single photon of a higher frequency -- so two 1000nm photons can act like one 500nm photon, resulting in a perceived green color. Obviously, to get IR colors that shift off the red end of normal perception, you'd need to have different receptors.

Tetrachromacy allows a greater range of perception (more common in women), pentachromacy has not been recorded in humans, but could be an interesting mutation...

[Aberrant]

Love that Frostfire, and especially Prince Kiros Nandelu. I made my own Azuria look a while back but I think I deleted her 😞

I've been wanting to make a thread like this for ages. Here's some of mine. 

 

Akarist, a unique look that can be used in all his appearances, inspired by one of the old Circle of Thorns designs emphasising that he's an old-school Oranbegan. Don't like his appearance in Who Will Die, seen in the middle here in all black.

 

Karsis, the contact for the Cavern of Transcendence Trial, who still uses the old CoT mage look, here given a look similar to the current lieutenant mages but with unique coloration that invokes his original look.

 

Talshak the Mystic, final Hollows Contact. In this form could be used as another hero character aligned with the Legacy Chain or similar.

 

Calvin Scott (Primal Earth) husband of Primal Earth Aurora Borealis, and not seen since Issue 3! Strange he never turned up around the time of the death of Sister Psyche or Praetorian Calvin Scott's appearance in Primal Earth, though I guess he is just a normal man. Made to somewhat resemble his Praetorian counterpart.

 

A unique look for Praetorian Infernal, currently identical to Primal Infernal, here shown modelling a Titan Weapons axe. I always thought Prae Infernal should have been Infernal's once friend/rival T'Keron, so when they left their dimension one ended up in Primal and the other in Praetoria. No idea why the devs were so resistant to this, I guess they wanted each dimension to have it's own assigned demon dimension, which seems a bit silly to me.

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Aberrant

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, Zepp said:

Tetrachromacy allows a greater range of perception (more common in women), pentachromacy has not been recorded in humans, but could be an interesting mutation...

Tetrachromancy in humans doesn't increase the range of perception; it increases the discrimination of color. There are two genes for retinal cones on the X chromosome, for the middle and longer wavelengths of light (red and green). In some cases, one of these genes is mutated, shifting the response range of the cones formed from that gene toward the gap between the two ranges. In men, who only have one X chromosome, this causes anomalous trichromancy. In women, normal copies of the two genes on the other X chromosome gives them four types of cones, giving them addtional color discrimination if the mutation shifts the response range of the cones from that gene far enough from the 'red' and 'green' cones to create a sufficiently distinct signal.

 

Because the human retina is sensitive to UV, but UV is blocked by the lens of the eye, you can make the case that humans are blocked tetrachromats, and the women with this mutation are blocked pentachromats. Of course, all humans fall short compared to creatures like the mantis shrimp, some species of which have 18 different types of light receptors.

[Sakura Tenshi]

I love those redesigns @Aberrant, I am admittedly on the fence with the CoT ones, but mostly because I sort of miss the old CoT look, but it seems the live devs had already made a 'revamped Akarist' and yours is definitely better. (given how Akarist originally was an AV Reichsman captured and fights heroes, gives the impression the live devs didn't remember who he was until the playerbase reminded them). I think my favorite is the Talshak the Mystic, he actually looks like a legit magus now and not someone in magus themed running outfit on a jog through the park. As for Infernal, I almost got the impression the live devs wanted us to forget about him because he clashed with the rest of Praetoria so harshly, even though he would have complimented Diabolique quite well.

[Aberrant]

5 hours ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

(given how Akarist originally was an AV Reichsman captured and fights heroes, gives the impression the live devs didn't remember who he was until the playerbase reminded them).

Oh that's right, I completely forgot about that. So weird that they didn't just use Baron Zoria, the actual leader of the Circle of Thorns! Could've been his big chance to be bumped up to an AV, he's still only an Elite Boss the poor thing!

[Sakura Tenshi]

Time for another round of updated contacts!

 

Starting out with Paco Sanchez, I couldn't quite get a 'thrill seeker' aspect into the character, but I did give him an outfit that made him look less like a janitor. Now it's more common for EMTs to wear black or navy colors from what I could see, but I opted for the less common green coloration to keep him distinct from Paragon Police, also used the mercenary pouch belt for the sake of him having medical gear on hand. Might have panicked a bit on the face choice though.

 

Next up we have Detective Jose Brogan, whom I opted to aim for a slightly more pulpy, hard boiled detective look, Downside though is that he looks more like Indiana Jones than I meant to, also the pistol holster looks good in front but has some clipping in the back.

 

I remember being fond of taking missions from Rachel back when Galaxy was around, mostly since a lot of my characters were natural origin. That aside, I opted to put Rachel in full uniform when she's serving as a contact within City Hall than keeping her in plain clothes since her first week on the force ended with her partner dying and her nearly getting killed, I could see her as wanting to keep her gun close by and wearing something with a ballistic weave than a normal t-shirt. Also, a stress induced smoking habit.

 

Now we have Tony Kord, a mixed expy of Iron Man and the original Blue Beetle, while I mostly updated his look, I also gave him some cybertech shades and a cybernetic glove (or hand) to show him maaaybe enjoying his own tech a little.

 

Lastly for this set we have Kip Cantorum, who I went in a radically different direction than his base. The idea of a guy who rewires villain tech into harmless kid toys makes me think of a guy who is still a bit of a kid himself and maybe not too caring about his appearance so I made him look like a garage-tech genius version of The Dude. The post apocalypse belt was essential for this look.

 

 

that's all for now, I didn't quite get all of them, specifically Henry Peter Wong who is in a Hero Corps uniform and didn't seem to need an update (just maybe a tan because that guy looks like he's never seen the sun in his life) and Laurence Mansfield and Maurice Feldon, both of whom are generic cientist NPC outfit and it would feel repetitive and even almost a down grade to just slap the lab coats on them and the shirt and tie chest. Maybe I'll figure out something later. Until next time.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Sakura Tenshi

[TraumaTrain]

I'd like to see Longbow uniforms updated to give them a more of a look like old school SHIELD agents. Less spandex, and more flak jackets and tactical belts.

[Sakura Tenshi]

33 minutes ago, TraumaTrain said:

I'd like to see Longbow uniforms updated to give them a more of a look like old school SHIELD agents. Less spandex, and more flak jackets and tactical belts.

I admit, I've long thought about how a longbow revamp should look but it would involve outright retconning a lot of the lore. My ideal longbow would have them appear as yellow non-aggressive mobs of volunteers in t-shirts with the longbow emblem helping out the people suffering in the Rogue Isles, in otherwords: hurting them is entirely your prerogative, even in missions where you're sent to fight them they will not actively attack and dialogue has them try to reason to you first. As you progress as a villain, they get more and more militarized with the implication of your actions push a relief organization into a full paramilitary that's doing stuff like making their own versions of malta titans by cramming the brains of your past victims in them.

 

That said though, keeping with just a 'not so spandex clad' longbow, I threw these together as two possible examples.

A normal flackjacket with straps, looser pants, and boots.

 

And here's something a little more of a Fantastic operations group. Kind of hard to make it all look good when it's mostly red and white.

[TraumaTrain]

Those are nice! The uniform of the dude agent is more in more in line with my vision. Adding a single white star on each shoulder would complete the motif.

[Zepp]

On 8/30/2020 at 11:47 PM, srmalloy said:

Tetrachromancy in humans doesn't increase the range of perception; it increases the discrimination of color. There are two genes for retinal cones on the X chromosome, for the middle and longer wavelengths of light (red and green). In some cases, one of these genes is mutated, shifting the response range of the cones formed from that gene toward the gap between the two ranges. In men, who only have one X chromosome, this causes anomalous trichromancy. In women, normal copies of the two genes on the other X chromosome gives them four types of cones, giving them addtional color discrimination if the mutation shifts the response range of the cones from that gene far enough from the 'red' and 'green' cones to create a sufficiently distinct signal.

 

Because the human retina is sensitive to UV, but UV is blocked by the lens of the eye, you can make the case that humans are blocked tetrachromats, and the women with this mutation are blocked pentachromats. Of course, all humans fall short compared to creatures like the mantis shrimp, some species of which have 18 different types of light receptors.

Tetrachromacy (having 4 cones) sometimes expands the range in addition to the distinction. It depends on the specific mutation. Seeing 100x as many color variations.

 

Those with lens mutations or lacking lenses who can distinguish UV light are not necessarily tetrachromats. Even dichromats (people with a certain form of color blindness) could perceive UV under those circumstances.

[srmalloy]

10 hours ago, Zepp said:

Those with lens mutations or lacking lenses who can distinguish UV light are not necessarily tetrachromats. Even dichromats (people with a certain form of color blindness) could perceive UV under those circumstances.

The UV perception has its own peak separate from the 'blue' cones, which is where the term comes from. And an aphakic dichromat would be technically an aberrant trichromat. There's still no good explanation for the survival of UV sensitivity in the human eye, though, and for the most part, arguing over terminology is just splitting hairs.

[Zepp]

The difference between a trichromat and a tetrachromat is the number of cones. It is possible to have a tetrachromat with a narrower band of visual light than a dichromat (mice are dichromats that can see in the UV that have a broader visual spectrum than trichromatic humans, meanwhile dart frogs are trichromats with an extremely limited range). Removing the lens doesn't increase the number of cones.

The likely reason that UV sensitivity remains is because there hasn't been an advantageous mutation to shift the SWS1 receptor that evolved before advantageous mutations to human lenses. The reason that humans have a high rate of dichromacy is because mammals had dropped to dichromacy. However, somewhere in primate evolution, there was a mutation to the OPN1LW gene which bifurcated it into OPN1MW & OPN1LW. This is why there is such great proximity between those two cones in terms of visual range 527 & 557. The mutations related to color blindness and tetrachromacy are on the X chromosome. In terms of color blindness, the lack of a competing gene makes dichromacy and other forms of color blindness more common in males. With tetrachromacy, this involves two versions of one of the three cone receptor genes resulting in a further bifurcation, this occurs in 2-3% of women (if I remember correctly). This occasionally leads to an increased number of perceivable colors (100mil as opposed to the usual 1mil) [not all tetrachromats are "functional" but there are no clear numbers to approximate what percent are]. It is possible that some tetrachromats would be able to see in the near infrared, but there is insufficient evidence to say that this has occurred.

 

It is theoretically possible, though highly unlikely, for a woman or KS male to have up to hexachromatic vision. A TXS woman could even have nonachromacy...

[Noyjitat]

Thanks for reminding me how much better the old cot looked.

Dev1: Rather than update the textures, lets make them look spiky because thorns right?

Dev2: Yeah the players will love that.

 

 

[Zepp]

On 9/1/2020 at 4:40 AM, Sakura Tenshi said:

Now we have Tony Kord, a mixed expy of Iron Man and the original Blue Beetle, while I mostly updated his look, I also gave him some cybertech shades and a cybernetic glove (or hand) to show him maaaybe enjoying his own tech a little.

Very nice job on this one. The three changes I would make would be broader shoulders, Suit Jacket with Dress Shirt 2 for the upper body, and pin stripes for the slacks. But other than those minor details, very cool.

[Sakura Tenshi]

It's been a little bit, but since I completed pretty much all the Atlas contacts and @Aberrant did his really cool Talshak the Mystic revamp, I decided to do a short one and go over the Hollows contacts.

 

First up is David Wincott, I figured even if we went with an idea of his son's kidnapping having been only a few months prior, I pictured David as getting a bit of an adrenaline/stressed out dad makeover. The Warzone that is the Hollows have hardened him a bit and he now wears partial SWAT gear (sadly not even available in the NPC icon) and his mustache is a grown out beard from a lack of care and started to go gray from the stress. Poor Wincott.

 

For Flux, I kept things largely simple and tried to make him look more like the outcasts we see. It's a little tricky when other outcasts use incredibly low poly models we just don't have (kind of amazing Paragon Studios didn't just use a random outcast minion for him, actually) and in some ways you could see his look as being indicative of how an updated outcasts in general could look. Sadly, no Outcast charger lightning emblem. But I also removed the bared teeth snarl and just gave him a wary, scowling face.

 

With Julius I kind of went hogwild, once more it'd be a bit indicative of a Troll Revamp in general, but my idea for Julius was that he's a runt among the Trolls. Specifically The Trolls, and by normal standards still would stand a respectable 5'10 or so, not to mention he's still head to toe muscles, but being the runt in a gang of brutes like the Trolls isn't easy even when said runt is still able to bend steel with his bare hands. They've taken his shirt, they've taken his shoes, and in a bit fit of insecurity, Julius takes to hording things he feels might be helpful against his bullying brothers, even intending to one day give them a taste of their own dynamite. Literally.