Make the Details menus for the head redundant - dump everything in all two/three, and Hair as well

[temnix]

The head when "Standard" has two Details menus, with all of the additions either in the one or in the other. "Full masks" has three Details, if I am not mistaken, but no "Hair." And on the whole, "Detail 2" is a lot less useful and attractive than "Detail 1," and the list is shorter. Most of "Detail 2" is taken up by gas masks and other masks. Making a head always involves much juggling: do I use "Standard" and limit myself to the parts there - but then I can have hair, or do I make a full mask with some kind of color that looks similar to skin, and so on. Or: how do I get a "Back of the head tattoo" with "Full masks"? And so on. So, I suggest putting all of the items from each of the menus, including hair, in all of the menus. In effect, eliminate "Hair" as a separate category and turn it everywhere into another "detail" (you can keep the name for simplicity's sake). I don't know what will happen if a player chooses the same detail from two or three menus, whether that will result in three identical additions blending together, a strange jutting and duplication, whether there will be clipping or not, but no matter what the result will be, it is the business of the player making the character, who will play the role of the arbiter. Nobody wants clipping, but if somebody does, after all, let him use that detail. What matters is giving more power of combinations.

 

Some NPC already use duplicate details. Infernal in Founders' Falls sports two sets of horns: "Rhino" along his nose line and those little side horns like Hellions'.

[Rudra]

26 minutes ago, temnix said:

Some NPC already use duplicate details. Infernal in Founders' Falls sports two sets of horns: "Rhino" along his nose line and those little side horns like Hellions'.

Okay, I'm tackling this part first because it causes me the least headache. As you were previously told and you yourself figured out in a previous thread, NPCs are not made the made the same way PCs are. That means they get to have radically different options in their design because they do not use the costume creator like players do, but rather have their models designed from the ground up as a single unit. So it isn't that some NPCs use duplicate details, it is that they do not use the costume creator.

 

26 minutes ago, temnix said:

The head when "Standard" has two Details menus, with all of the additions either in the one or in the other. "Full masks" has three Details, if I am not mistaken, but no "Hair." And on the whole, "Detail 2" is a lot less useful and attractive than "Detail 1," and the list is shorter. Most of "Detail 2" is taken up by gas masks and other masks. Making a head always involves much juggling: do I use "Standard" and limit myself to the parts there - but then I can have hair, or do I make a full mask with some kind of color that looks similar to skin, and so on. Or: how do I get a "Back of the head tattoo" with "Full masks"? And so on. So, I suggest putting all of the items from each of the menus, including hair, in all of the menus. In effect, eliminate "Hair" as a separate category and turn it everywhere into another "detail" (you can keep the name for simplicity's sake). I don't know what will happen if a player chooses the same detail from two or three menus, whether that will result in three identical additions blending together, a strange jutting and duplication, whether there will be clipping or not, but no matter what the result will be, it is the business of the player making the character, who will play the role of the arbiter. Nobody wants clipping, but if somebody does, after all, let him use that detail. What matters is giving more power of combinations.

We've discussed this before. You can't just take costume options from one list and simply dump them in another. Detail 2 for instance is the lower face/head (except on Full Masks where it is Detail 3 instead), so throwing hair options in there makes no sense. If you want expanded costume options, ask for the costume options. For instance, if you want back of head tattoos for Detail 1 of Full Masks? Ask for the tattoos. That would most likely be the correct detail option for that since that detail slot is hats and other head but not face options. If you want hair with Full Masks, then why are you using Full Masks and not Standard which includes hair options? You're not going to be able to get a selectable hair option and a selectable top/back of head option because those use the same costume/model slot.

 

Edited April 26 by Rudra
Edited to add " (except on Full Masks where it is Detail 3 instead)".

[temnix]

How easy you are to give headache to. My simple point is that all of the details ought to be available in all combinations, and never mind what "makes sense" or not. Moving the parts around won't do it. If the tattoo is included in "Masks" "Detail 1" only, that is going to mean the costume maker will have to sacrifice everything else he might desire from that menu. If, on the other hand, it is found in both "Detail 1" and "Detail 2," and in "Detail 3" that replaces and should include hair, then perhaps in those other fields the player won't have to make sacrifices. This is different from what I suggested about combining male and female parts, because the placement of, let's say, a belt might have to be adjusted between the sexes. But expanding menus to feature all parts that are known to be compatible with the current model won't cause any problems, it is only a convenience matter to get around the "either-or" problem. And only some of the NPC were made whole-cloth. Others clearly use the same parts that are available to players. Infernal, for instance, wears a typical "Armored" suit on the whole, etc. An exception was made for him, some kind of custom model created, that included just what I propose, two picks of standard horns. And so on. There are some NPC that use a combination of unique items and ordinary ones. Skulls wear shitkicker boots, I think, shorter than the Work boots that players get to wear, but that is only my impression, and their jackets might not be the same kind, but again that may be due to unusual colors. On the other hand, Veles in the cutscene wears the same part that is called the "Human skull mask" in "Detail 1" of "Standard," only with blue eyes behind it that are unique. But why not ask Homecoming about this? They have the files and can look at them. Hey, Homecoming! Do Infernal and Veles use standard parts or not?

 

Excuse me if I don't come back for a reply. I'm not someone who replies to every thread within 20 seconds, and this conversation is not too interesting to me. I made my point, that at least for player characters all of those extras that are available at all can go into every menu.

[Rudra]

And with that, I'll simply say I oppose just throwing all the costume options onto all the costume option menus regardless of whether they make sense or not.

[megaericzero]

Unfortunately, this is what it looks like if you hack a second set of horns into a costume file where the beards go. Looks like the options do determine the attachment point. I'm not against the suggestion but it will take more work than just listing the same options in each others' slots.