Long robes/dresses

[Hanabishi]

Im sure this has been suggested many times, but is there a way to add long robes and/or dresses into the costume designer, we know these options exist in game (majority of circle of thorns enemies), but it'd be nice to bring them over for players, there's so many costume designs that could be made just by having a close to floor length robe 

[srmalloy]

The argument presented by the original devs for why it couldn't be done is that the character rig is different for mobs with floor-length robes -- they don't actually have legs, just the robe lower body. This is why, when you knock or defeat, say, a Carnival of Shadows Illusionist, the underside of their dress doesn't have feet; it's just a circular plate closing off the dress. To allow it to work for player characters would require allowing fundamental changes to the character model for specific costume pieces in the costume editor, which is a much more expensive change than adding costume parts that fit onto the existing character model.

[biostem]

8 hours ago, Hanabishi said:

Im sure this has been suggested many times, but is there a way to add long robes and/or dresses into the costume designer, we know these options exist in game (majority of circle of thorns enemies), but it'd be nice to bring them over for players, there's so many costume designs that could be made just by having a close to floor length robe 

I'd love to see this, but what they'd have to do is basically cut the dress in half vertically, then kludge together some sort of connection mesh for when 1 leg is forward and the other is back, or for the various kicking animations.

[Completist]

How about  Sorceress Serene's dress/loincloth? That's in the game on a female body already. It's hardly a skirt but it'd be pretty great to have as an option. 

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, Completist said:

How about  Sorceress Serene's dress/loincloth? That's in the game on a female body already. It's hardly a skirt but it'd be pretty great to have as an option. 

And I think it may already work with the various power animations since it is basically two capes. We see the Sybils in Cimerora able to run while wearing it and Selene fights while wearing it. (Edit: As do the BP sorceresses and female Elders/Ancients.)

Edited July 30, 2022 by Rudra

[blue4333]

It's definitely do-able. I think @momentarygrace posted screenshots of the skirts that the Talons + Mistress Nadia use in their costume

 

 

I've tried it + Sybil dress in the Icon Costume Designer (With NPC parts turned on) when the application was still available and the costume pieces honestly don't look weird when doing powers such as Martial Arts Eagle's Claw or any of the kicking stuff. 

 

Not sure why they're not enabled for players here, oh well.

Edited July 30, 2022 by blue4333

[momentarygrace]

23 hours ago, srmalloy said:

The argument presented by the original devs for why it couldn't be done is that the character rig is different for mobs with floor-length robes -- they don't actually have legs, just the robe lower body. This is why, when you knock or defeat, say, a Carnival of Shadows Illusionist, the underside of their dress doesn't have feet; it's just a circular plate closing off the dress. To allow it to work for player characters would require allowing fundamental changes to the character model for specific costume pieces in the costume editor, which is a much more expensive change than adding costume parts that fit onto the existing character model.

 

I don't know when that was but I did use db editing in Paragon Chat to hack this skirt, and my character had legs, even boots under there. She walked/ran, flew, looked fine. No more clipping than we sometimes get from capes when the "wind" blows the wrong way.

 

In the db, it was 

 

geom "V_Hips_Talons.GEO/GEO_Hips_Ragged_Talons"        
tex1"!Skirt_V_Talons_02"    
tex2 "!Skirt_V_Talons_02_Mask"

 

 

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, momentarygrace said:

I don't know when that was but I did use db editing in Paragon Chat to hack this skirt, and my character had legs, even boots under there. She walked/ran, flew, looked fine. No more clipping than we sometimes get from capes when the "wind" blows the wrong way.

I'm just repeating the 'explanation' that Positron gave for why they "couldn't" make full-length skirts for the costume creator. It may be that his waffle was true at the time, the costume management got better over time, and they just never bothered to go back and make full-length skirts as selectable costume options, but that was what was claimed back when they were originally requested.

[General Idiot]

On 7/30/2022 at 5:01 PM, Rudra said:

And I think it may already work with the various power animations since it is basically two capes. We see the Sybils in Cimerora able to run while wearing it and Selene fights while wearing it. (Edit: As do the BP sorceresses and female Elders/Ancients.)

The problem with both that and the sybil robes is not that it doesn't work, it's that it has multiple capes on it. Giving those pieces to players would violate the 'one cape per player costume' rule they've always stuck to. Whether that rule is still valid in the context of much more powerful modern computers is a whole other discussion but for now, the Homecoming devs try to stick to the game's system requirements as they existed at the end of live. And adding a second cape (Or more, the sybil robe if I remember rightly has four of them?) to potentially dozens of player costumes on screen is taxing enough on the system that it would require raising them.

[blue4333]

2 hours ago, General Idiot said:

The problem with both that and the sybil robes is not that it doesn't work, it's that it has multiple capes on it. Giving those pieces to players would violate the 'one cape per player costume' rule they've always stuck to. Whether that rule is still valid in the context of much more powerful modern computers is a whole other discussion but for now, the Homecoming devs try to stick to the game's system requirements as they existed at the end of live. And adding a second cape (Or more, the sybil robe if I remember rightly has four of them?) to potentially dozens of player costumes on screen is taxing enough on the system that it would require raising them.

 

This feels like a moot point

 

You can technically have 3 capes in game right now. Circle of Thorns Shoulders + Tech Knight belt (with cape attachment) + Cape 

 

Not to mention Auras + Path Auras

[General Idiot]

49 minutes ago, blue4333 said:

 

This feels like a moot point

 

You can technically have 3 capes in game right now. Circle of Thorns Shoulders + Tech Knight belt (with cape attachment) + Cape 

 

Not to mention Auras + Path Auras

OK but that's a very specific combination of three separate costume parts that don't even share a common theme so it's unlikely to ever see more than one such costume at a time. The sybil robes, on the other hand, a large chunk of the playerbase has wanted for ages and has several capes on that one piece alone. So the chances of seeing a couple dozen of them on screen would be much higher.

 

That said, I'm not sure anyone's ever actually publicly tested it. Would be interesting to see what the actual performance impact is if one was to make a costume with all three of the pieces you mentioned and, on a minimum spec computer, go into an AE mission set to x8 with every mob wearing it to put the largest conceivable amount of capes on screen at once. Then compare framerates between that and the same mission but give the mobs a costume with one cape each.

 

The only difficulty really would be finding someone who actually still has a minimum spec computer. I'm told they do exist but I haven't met one in years.

[Amanita]

54 minutes ago, blue4333 said:

You can technically have 3 capes in game right now. Circle of Thorns Shoulders + Tech Knight belt (with cape attachment) + Cape 

 

 

I actually have a couple of characters with this combo, and one of my mains has the Circle of Thorns shoulders+cape, which actually look pretty good together with the right cape pattern. (I used scarf and set it to a single color, so it looked kinda like a priest's stole)

As for the effect of multiple cape rigs on screen, I remember running a mission (I can't recall if it was someone's regular mission or AE farm) with a full team of 8 players. There was an absolute load of Banished Pantheon characters on screen, all wearing those front and back loincloth aprons, and they might have had scarves as well. My computer is far from top of the pack (It was new in 2014) and it handled all those cape rigs with no issues that I could see. I wouldn't wear my new Sybil gear to a Mothership raid, but I'm sure it would be fine on regular teams.


I'm gonna also say we need the missing Labeaux belt with the single front loincloth.

[General Idiot]

Anything new in 2014 is still going to be well above the game's system requirements though.

 

For reference since I'm not sure some people realise how low they actually are, those requirements are:

• CPU: Pentium 3 or Athlon equivalent
• CPU SPEED: 800 MHz
• RAM: 256 MB
• OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista/7
• VIDEO CARD: 32MB Direct3D Card (GeForce 2+/Radeon 8500+/Intel 845G+)
• TOTAL VIDEO RAM: 32 MB
• 3D: Yes
• DIRECTX VERSION: 9.0 (included)
• SOUND CARD: Yes
• FREE DISK SPACE: 2 GB

And yes, I realise they're honestly quite absurdly low almost 20 years later and the odds of a machine old enough to not be significantly above them actually being still actively used are low at best, but so far as I know they're still the minimum the devs try to keep supported. It's why we have things like the legacy 32 bit client, even though there haven't been any 32 bit processors available new anywhere for over a decade now.

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, Amanita said:

I wouldn't wear my new Sybil gear to a Mothership raid, but I'm sure it would be fine on regular teams.

I remember the early Hamidon raids when the zone limit was 250 characters -- and we filled the zone; given the slideshow that the hold and damage phases turned into even with everyone wearing 'Hami Raid Costumes' with simplified outfits and no capes or auras, I can only imagine what it would have been like with everyone fully tricked out with triple capes.

[Sakura Tenshi]

I always found it weird how the live devs would say “long skirts will look awful with martial arts animations and similar ones!” and meanwhile, about every melee power set possible was used by the Tsoo and more than half of them had long robes. This included them doing Martial Arts animations and many others and while it looked rough they still didn’t look half bad.

 

Also still jealous of the Tsoo Sorcerer hats and the Hanya masks, also that only females got the glowing tattoos.

[Coyotedancer]

Ask my lady mages how happy they are that only male toons got the second group of Circle bits... The horn gloves, the caped shoulder piece, the Death Mage kilt and spikes...  😖 

[blue4333]

I went to Titan ICON and tried it out.

 

Honestly it's not even a point against long skirts and sybil robes anymore, i don't see anything wrong with the clipping that we already encounter with the skirts and capes we have in game.

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by blue4333
clarified post

[Naomi]

Screenshots are not worth a lot of weight with this sort of decision making, so a few points:

• The Live devs did not lie or mislead anyone about Skirts. Using MA as an example is just an example, and it may not even be a good one because the speed of it hides what's going on. If you add black boots or dark legs underneath the already black skirt, it hides it even further and is misleading.
• The testing threshold goes beyond the costume creator and isn't limited to just one animation. The most important one is the run cycle, and this skirt in particular is atrociously bad with it (my opinion). Graphics settings and lods are an overlooked testing criteria, but worth mentioning that our current skirts have been bad for awhile now and on a long list. I often have to split my time between fixing bad things that already exist or deciding whether or not what's bad with what's being added is something I can fix later or not at all. I absolutely do not buy into or entertain the argument of "we don't care about clipping, give it to us it's fine" line of reasoning I hear a lot. There are developers and lots of you in the community who would disagree and have disagreed and that's fine, because this is a hugely subjective topic that I am always open to. I will freely admit that perfect has been my enemy on multiple occasions, but my stance on that is that your name is not the one getting attached to that patch note when someone else thinks its poor quality work and associates it with your name. I know the name isn't literally there in the open on the patch notes, but regardless that's where I personally stand on that reasoning.
• There is no way to fit a close fitting skirt or similar component onto a character without clipping (often terribly) when using traditional methods which are still in use today, in or out of coh's engine, without custom systems or different techniques. In other words, there's no magic wand and this isn't a problem of talent. It's a technical limitation. When it works, there's a good chance it's smoke and mirrors or pure luck in very specific instances.
• Tsoo (Tsoo_01) uses one of these different techniques, and it looks better, stretching aside, because the legs don't exist. Doing it this way in the costume creator is possible, but you'd be limited to a short selection of boots (of which 0 exist right now).
• Carnival Illusionists (Carnival_Illusionist_01) use a similar technique, without feet, but to my knowledge they're in perpetual fly animation and can't do most character animations. If they could it would probably look worse than Tsoo with the exact same skirts they wear.
• Regarding NPCs, no one notices the stretching and clipping on them because the first thing that happens when you come up on a Tsoo in lotus pose as they meditate is they rise up and combat begins. In 90% of circumstances, it goes unnoticed. NPCs get a ton more leeway for different reasons. Their parts, especially the older ones, don't need to be compatible or held to the same standards as a human using it.
• Texturing techniques can assist in hiding extreme stretching. Forget asking about fancy patterns on skirts like these when people get tired of the plain black.
• There are problems that exist beyond what you can see with some parts. Sometimes they're simple, sometimes they're annoying. Every part is case by case. In this very particular case, which is an easy fix, the skirt shows through windows when it's not supposed to. Lots of NPC parts do this, like with naked Banished Pantheon man through office doors.
• The Sybil loincloth is probably going to happen, with or without its present issues, which so far, is the fact that when you run, the cape components turn themselves off to the left or right and remain there until you stop. I believe our current capes do this when we run backwards but it's less prominent and noticeable. I wanted to try messing with the cape settings for it first and it got forgotten about a few months back when someone else offered to look into that, so not having them in page4 is my fault.
• Circle of Thorns bits for females are something on my list to look at.
• Lastly, some game engine systems are non-linear with advances in hardware when it comes to talk of performance. This means your hardware is irrelevant past a certain point. I don't have the specifics on capes or anything, but don't expect the game to run any faster on better hardware as a general rule. You'd get much better performance just turning off AO alone.

 

There is also a weird flicker when the pocket d lights roll past the skirt, but it's something that would have to be recorded and probably caused by the transparency issue:

 

[Completist]

Holey Skirt! That doesn't look too great.

[momentarygrace]

On 8/6/2022 at 6:42 AM, Naomi said:

Screenshots are not worth a lot of weight with this sort of decision making, so a few points:

• The Live devs did not lie or mislead anyone about Skirts. Using MA as an example is just an example, and it may not even be a good one because the speed of it hides what's going on. If you add black boots or dark legs underneath the already black skirt, it hides it even further and is misleading.
• The testing threshold goes beyond the costume creator and isn't limited to just one animation. The most important one is the run cycle, and this skirt in particular is atrociously bad with it (my opinion). Graphics settings and lods are an overlooked testing criteria, but worth mentioning that our current skirts have been bad for awhile now and on a long list. I often have to split my time between fixing bad things that already exist or deciding whether or not what's bad with what's being added is something I can fix later or not at all. I absolutely do not buy into or entertain the argument of "we don't care about clipping, give it to us it's fine" line of reasoning I hear a lot. There are developers and lots of you in the community who would disagree and have disagreed and that's fine, because this is a hugely subjective topic that I am always open to. I will freely admit that perfect has been my enemy on multiple occasions, but my stance on that is that your name is not the one getting attached to that patch note when someone else thinks its poor quality work and associates it with your name. I know the name isn't literally there in the open on the patch notes, but regardless that's where I personally stand on that reasoning.
• There is no way to fit a close fitting skirt or similar component onto a character without clipping (often terribly) when using traditional methods which are still in use today, in or out of coh's engine, without custom systems or different techniques. In other words, there's no magic wand and this isn't a problem of talent. It's a technical limitation. When it works, there's a good chance it's smoke and mirrors or pure luck in very specific instances.
• Tsoo (Tsoo_01) uses one of these different techniques, and it looks better, stretching aside, because the legs don't exist. Doing it this way in the costume creator is possible, but you'd be limited to a short selection of boots (of which 0 exist right now).
• Carnival Illusionists (Carnival_Illusionist_01) use a similar technique, without feet, but to my knowledge they're in perpetual fly animation and can't do most character animations. If they could it would probably look worse than Tsoo with the exact same skirts they wear.
• Regarding NPCs, no one notices the stretching and clipping on them because the first thing that happens when you come up on a Tsoo in lotus pose as they meditate is they rise up and combat begins. In 90% of circumstances, it goes unnoticed. NPCs get a ton more leeway for different reasons. Their parts, especially the older ones, don't need to be compatible or held to the same standards as a human using it.
• Texturing techniques can assist in hiding extreme stretching. Forget asking about fancy patterns on skirts like these when people get tired of the plain black.
• There are problems that exist beyond what you can see with some parts. Sometimes they're simple, sometimes they're annoying. Every part is case by case. In this very particular case, which is an easy fix, the skirt shows through windows when it's not supposed to. Lots of NPC parts do this, like with naked Banished Pantheon man through office doors.
• The Sybil loincloth is probably going to happen, with or without its present issues, which so far, is the fact that when you run, the cape components turn themselves off to the left or right and remain there until you stop. I believe our current capes do this when we run backwards but it's less prominent and noticeable. I wanted to try messing with the cape settings for it first and it got forgotten about a few months back when someone else offered to look into that, so not having them in page4 is my fault.
• Circle of Thorns bits for females are something on my list to look at.
• Lastly, some game engine systems are non-linear with advances in hardware when it comes to talk of performance. This means your hardware is irrelevant past a certain point. I don't have the specifics on capes or anything, but don't expect the game to run any faster on better hardware as a general rule. You'd get much better performance just turning off AO alone.

 

There is also a weird flicker when the pocket d lights roll past the skirt, but it's something that would have to be recorded and probably caused by the transparency issue:

 

 

Hi, I just saw this, re-read multiple times but my brain isn't sorting it for me to my own level of OCD, so, apologies and hope my question isn't annoying, but... is this the Talons skirt I posted about?

 

geom "V_Hips_Talons.GEO/GEO_Hips_Ragged_Talons"        
tex1"!Skirt_V_Talons_02"    
tex2 "!Skirt_V_Talons_02_Mask"

 

And is your post saying that this skirt is off the table? It it is, I'd like to know so I can stop watching every new update like a hawk and spend some time crying...

 

[Rudra]

Unfortunately, yes. (Edit: To be clear, the 'yes' is to the Talons skirt in your pic being off the table at this time.)

Edited September 1, 2022 by Rudra

[A.I.D.A.]

What about Ghost Widow / Belladonna Vetrano hairstyle? That's what I really want, long hair with physics!

[Rudra]

GW's/BV's hair is a cape. On her head. I don't remember the reason the Live devs gave for saying we weren't going to get it. Maybe the HC devs think otherwise though. Who knows.

[A.I.D.A.]

I know it is, that's what makes it so good! Even if we need its selection to turn off the cape section, much like some long jackets turn off the cape section, I think it is worth it.

[momentarygrace]

On 9/1/2022 at 2:34 PM, Rudra said:

Unfortunately, yes. (Edit: To be clear, the 'yes' is to the Talons skirt in your pic being off the table at this time.)

 

Thanks for being clear!

 

I hope this is reconsidered.  I was told, I won't say by whom but the person seemed to be involved in beta testing, that this was going to be available, and they even showed me a screenshot of a costume they had made with this piece, definitely this specific Talons skirt, so it was on the table at one point recently, if Dec. 2021 can be considered relatively recent.

 

For me, I accept responsibility for using any available costume parts to advantage, and have faith that 90% of my fellow players here understand the game's vintage and therefore its limitations.

 

I yearn for that skirt. I know I can use it to make an attractive costume that will look good on the right character 99.9% of the time.