Ordinary clothes, please. And real versions of faction clothing

[temnix]

While pedestrians who give me a languid wave from the sidewalk might envy my powers, I envy their clothes. Shirts, in several varieties of checkers and Hawaian, trousers and slacks, briefs, I think even dresses - there is a lot that they get to wear and I don't, even if its colors are muted and cuts aren't fabulous. Well, the NPC ought to surrender all of that, tintable or not. And this seems like a simple thing to implement, so I am puzzled why it hasn't been yet?

 

Civilians aside, it is another puzzling fact that players only get to try on imitative versions of the equipment worn by different factions, such as Praetorian PPD or the Resistance. The "Praetorian" gauntlets don't seem to be quite like the ones low-rank policemen wear there, and the much more interesting massive, and glowing, gauntlets of suppressors can't be had at all. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the "Chest detail" Resistance breastplace, but only one type of their gauntlets may be available. There are "Resistance goggles" that some of those fighters appear to wear, but others use a type similar to "Blast goggles up," yet again not the same. There is a chest detail called "Resistance strap," a crosswise sling, but if you walk up to some fighters grey to you and have a good look, theirs has a much better, worn texture and a different middle. Their faces are not available either, even though S. T. A. R. T. vendors greet both dimensions from Face 1.

 

The impression that I get from all this is that either the particular creatures for the factions were drawn as they are, from scratch, instead of being dolled up the way of player characters and common villains, and so there are no separate clothing items to give, or those files were lost somehow after being used for the mobs. As a result, someone among the designers in Cryptic decided to sit down and create something players could use to pretend to be from these factions. But I, for one, can't pretend because the differences are so obvious. Homecoming should get the shovel and dig out all of those wearable clothes of every kind from the archives, wherever they are. Exceptional NPC may be allowed to keep their unique items, like Praetor White's gauntlets and belt, but everyone else must turn in his threads to save the world.

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, temnix said:

I think even dresses

This has been explained to you before. Player characters can't have dresses because unlike the NPCs that only walk around the zone, player characters fight through an expansive array of animations and dresses suffer from extreme clipping.

 

4 minutes ago, temnix said:

The impression that I get from all this is that either the particular creatures for the factions were drawn as they are, from scratch, instead of being dolled up the way of player characters and common villains, and so there are no separate clothing items to give,

Correct.

 

4 minutes ago, temnix said:

Homecoming should get the shovel and dig out all of those wearable clothes of every kind from the archives, wherever they are.

There aren't any. The various mobs are not built the same way player characters are. That's why player versions of those costume items look different. They had to be made to be usable by the players. It is why VEATs only get their Arachnos uniform in their 1st costume slot as well, because the Arachnos models are not made the same way player costume models are.

[Ghost]

The OP is starting to make progress - I’m impressed!

 

Originally he wanted his toon to be nudists, and now he wants clothes!

[Rudra]

11 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Clipping from dresses can be averted by making the upper legs invisible. 

That only partially addresses the problem, because the skirts break in horrific fashion when the movements exceed a certain threshold. (Edit: You can see it to an extent with the Talons Skirt and Martial Arts. Not just the upper legs pops through, but so do the buttocks as the skirt extends and stretches its polygons to the limit. Now extend that to an actual long skirt. The Victorian Steampunk 01 skirt gets around that by essentially just being leggings posing as a skirt. However, it does that by lacking a middle.)

Edited April 24 by Rudra

[Krimson]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

That only partially addresses the problem, because the skirts break in horrific fashion when the movements exceed a certain threshold.

I'd still try it. I used to hex edit meshes for clipping using XVI32. 20 years later I have better options. 

[biostem]

13 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Clipping from dresses can be averted by making the upper legs invisible. 

That would require altering the player models in ways that would probably have consequences elsewhere...

[Krimson]

Just now, biostem said:

That would require altering the player models in ways that would probably have consequences elsewhere...

That depends on how well the game handles alpha channels. 

[Rudra]

Just now, biostem said:

That would require altering the player models in ways that would probably have consequences elsewhere...

That depends. After all, we have hook hands and peg legs. If the model itself isn't broken by the replacement, it should be fine. (Emphasis on should. Insert SCR here.)

[biostem]

Just now, Krimson said:

That depends on how well the game handles alpha channels. 

So when you say "making the upper legs invisible", do you mean just not drawing them, but they'd otherwise still exist on the player model?

[Krimson]

Just now, biostem said:

So when you say "making the upper legs invisible", do you mean just not drawing them, but they'd otherwise still exist on the player model?

Usually you would apply a transparent texture.

[Krimson]

However I just thought of a problem. Even if the legs had an invisible texture they'd be visible because of SFX from powers. Kind of like how certain capes don't play well with auras. 

[temnix]

It's too bad that the mobs really were drawn whole. But even from screenshots it should still be possible to study and recreate the details, if not to export the textures. And as for dresses, I don't see why a broad dress or a fur coat would clip more than the bolero or the trenchcoat. Besides, whose problem is clipping anyway? Only of the player making the character. Some of the models may clip, some will be tolerable, other players have no right to complain if they see something breaking through. There are all sorts of clipping issues with walls, warehouse stacks, helicopters, containers, and it bothers no one, because characters don't get stuck on that account (a very impressive achievement for a game from that period).

[Krimson]

Exporting the textures isn't a problem. I may still have every texture ripped from Live on an old hard drive. 

[lemming]

There is one model that is legless: Freakshow Disc Jockey

 

Doesn't look available via the Hologram, but can be gotten via Halloween salvage.    iirc, you'd see the transparent legs via some powers and effects.

[Player2]

9 hours ago, Ghost said:

The OP is starting to make progress - I’m impressed!

 

Originally he wanted his toon to be nudists, and now he wants clothes!

We're all naked under our clothes.  That makes our heroes and villains clothed nudists... except for those ones that aren't wearing clothes because they have animal hair or some other non-human texture that would replace ordinary nudity.