Eco-Friendly Costume Recycling!!

[LKN-351]

One of the biggest draws to this game for a lot of people has always been the plethora of options in the costume creator. Through the years we've gotten tons of new options but now, understandably, with the volunteer DEVs we haven't gotten near as much. I feel that "new to us" content is still viable to be new content. I had some ideas on how to expand on the costumes with things that already exist ingame and also slightly modifying things that are already available. We've never used it before in live content so that does make it new.

Back in the dark times someone put together a offline costume creator. Titan Icon for those that werent aware. It also had an interesting thing you could do, NPC edit mode. What it did was add some (not all) of the NPC costume parts to the CC that, I'm guessing, was how Devs started creating NPCs with at some point in time but the players couldn't see them. There's some interesting things opened up in there, mostly from NPCs obviously, but even some of it was unfinished unreleased player stuff. I've been messing around with Icon a lot in the last few months and I just keep seeing these parts that could be added to the current game and some of them work well with other pieces at least following the guidelines that the OG Devs had.

I recall the live Devs had a few different reasons they wouldn't just give the players access to the NPC parts. One reason that came up a lot was clipping and the other was to keep the NPCs unique. The most important reason was that NPCs used to be created a lot differently than the player characters so the parts just don't work the same. I found out that theres the fact that a lot of the older NPCs are much lower resolution than players.

These are some of the things that I've found that I think could work in the CC that are already there, just not coded in a way that players can see them. I saved them all with red being primary and yellow being secondary just to show that they do accept custome color inputs from the CC. These are the very low effort parts that AFAIA just need a tag changed from "NPC only"

These screenshots where all taken in HC costume file load screen.

Spoiler

 

I have done some testing to see how much they clip and these are the things that I found that didn't clip with pre-existing parts and are also in the correct menus that you would logically think they should be in. Not to mention I have tested to see if they still show up in HC as they did in Icon and they all show up just as well but of course with costume part errors due to the fact that they are still coded as "NPC only". I don't know what the current Devs guidlines are for adding or not adding NPC parts for player use but if they are anything similar to the OG Devs then I'd hope these could be added in the future.

 

 

 

Also, thanks to @Alchemystic for letting me recycle the title of his thread 🙂😀

PS, I'm not the greatest at getting ideas out of my head and putting them out for others to read in word format, so if you have some constructive  criticism or a better way to word something than I have please don't hesitate to PM me and help out. I've been putting off posting this for a few months partly due to not being so sure what to say.

Edited September 13 by LKN-351

[Alchemystic]

Some real good finds here! I didn't know there was such a treasure trove of costume pieces included in game that we never had access to, I knew about some of the obvious ones, but there's quite a few things here I didn't actually know were compatible with player models and were capable of being colored!

Good work digging these up, can definitely list a few NPCs that look like they have viable costume parts, but I was never quite sure how to verify;

 

Wyvern
Praetorian Police
Rulu-Shin
IDF Commanders
PPD Hardsuits
Luddites

Mooks

 

[Enamel_32]

Along those same lines, I'd love to see the Mu Mystic lightning aura(s) available.

[LKN-351]

I will add some posts to this in the near future. I mentioned in the first post that I had found some things in Icon that were incomplete player pieces. I thought I'd post them up just for inquiring minds.

 

Champion helm and face cover; Hockey mask; Samurai Maedate Yon; and Skull plate

Spoiler

 

 

The mage cape

Spoiler

 

 

and the full set of Imperial Scholar

Spoiler

 

 

There was also Pratorian T.E.S.T. gloves which I suspect was for Dev use of the villain group.... but I actually placed a texture onto this cause it used the same GEO just for whatever reason it didn't get finished. I suspect that this one actually wasn't used due to the fact it only shows up in one catergory and the textured one was in a better catergory with more parts from this villain group.

Spoiler

 

 

I attempted for a month or so to texture the Mage Cape upper peice and Champion pieces. Unfortunately all those pieces use sections of the same texture file. The pic below, green is unused, white is helm, black is face cover and the teeny tiny bit in the upper right is for the top section (collar?) of the mage cape. Its really hard to work with lol

Yes, the black section that goes onto the face cover ends up being just randomly in the side of the helmet. I could texture each one individually but I decided not to go that route for now.

I'd post up my progress pictures but I can't find them right now. I'll post those later on when I have more time.

 

That's all for now, I have more things to post of work I've done that I'd hope to be added to the game at some point but it took so long to post this I ran out of time.

[LKN-351]

15 minutes ago, Alchemystic said:

Some real good finds here! I didn't know there was such a treasure trove of costume pieces included in game that we never had access to, I knew about some of the obvious ones, but there's quite a few things here I didn't actually know were compatible with player models and were capable of being colored!

Good work digging these up, can definitely list a few NPCs that look like they have viable costume parts, but I was never quite sure how to verify;

 

Wyvern
Praetorian Police
Rulu-Shin
IDF Commanders
PPD Hardsuits
Luddites

Mooks

 

 

Specifically mentioning the clipping on Wyvern,  Rulu-Shin, IDF Commanders, and absolutely especially the PPD Hardsuits.

Now, the Wyvern, Praetorian Police and Rulu-shin parts that are available I'd just think those where too unique.

Those are actually accessable in Icon, but in the wrong catergories. The Wyvern, IDF and Hardsuit is kind of wonky as well as in the wrong catergories.

 

The Praetorian police stuff is viable and looks great but it's fairly unique... we can hope lol

 

As far as the Mooks and Luddites... I'm workin on reskinning some things from each villain group but I haven't gotten to those two specifically. I think the revolutionary robe from my first post is used by the Luddites.

[LKN-351]

Apparently there isn't very much interest in costumes that are already in the game and nearly ready to go.

I've finally got some time to spare to post up the work I've done on some costume pieces though and I'd like to show them off at least.

All of these are still WIP and unfortunately I'm running out of steam due to apparent lack of interest.

 

I mentioned the Champion Helm, Champion Facemask, and Mage Cap Collar previously and how difficult they where to work with due to the unfinished state of the files. I did add dual colors to the helm(<---I didn't get a screenshot of this) and a metallic reflection to all three as well as transparency to the Mage Cope Collar. The transparency is hard to see really in the pics but it's kind of like frosted glass with this cool facet effect as you rotate the character. Red is primary color, yellow is secondary.

Spoiler

These first three pics are how it presents in Icon unmodded, just so the difference is apparent.

 

This is after I modded the files and added the metallic texture and reflection, as well as transparency.

 

 

 

This is what originally made me decide to mess with texture modding in the first place. I converted this years ago during the dark times just cause I wanted to mess around with textures. I wasn't completely satisfied with how it came out back then so I thought I'd take another stab at it now that I've learned a lot more and have way better programs to use for the file conversions. As I do, red is primary and yellow is secondary.

Council Ascendants

Spoiler

 

I actually made two different versions, one is just as shiney as the NPC and the other is reflective like the Metallic costume set.

This is the reflective version, the pic doesn't do it justice.

 

NPC on the left, player version on the right. Players don't have any shoulder pieces that where even close to the NPC, the GEO for the NPC has the piece behind the head built into it, and the knee pads are the same story as the collar thing. The NPC version has a blue tint baked into the peices that I removed during conversion.

I plan to remove the shadow for the knee pad since it's not present and remove the indentation for the muscles as it makes the set not nearly as 'universal' as the other CC pieces but I can't decide whether I should remove or just lessen the baked in dark colors on some of the parts.

 

The downside I found was that the crease where the plates meet on the head are misaligned for the player version. Due to the fact the textures for this costume set are shared across the three body types if I align that crease for one body, it will be misaligned for the other two so I may have to outright remove it.

 

 

It always bugged me that we had access to Chaos Leather chest and pants for the players but the gloves and boots were locked for only the Vahzilok. The OCD in me wanted the full matching costume instead of the close enough Heavy Buckle gloves and boots.

So, since I was at a crossroad with the Council Ascendants set I set it aside to work to convert the Vahzilok pieces to match the way that they were implemented to the players, with the lack of the white 'skin' section. I actually kept seperate files for both the NPC version and the one that matched the player version, just because.

I did run into an odd issue with this though, I had the belts reflect just the same way the player version did but at some point while I was completing them that reflective area changed and I never could figure out why. I did some thorough testing and it points to the bump alpha so I scrapped the altered bump then reverted back to the unmodded bump but nothing changed, so I did the same thing with the reflect texture and again nothing changed... so I'm completely stumped.

Other than the reflect issues, it came out really good.

Spoiler

1st is OG with the untintable skin showing, second is in the same style as the players chest/pants version, and third is with how the reflections ended up. You can sort of see them in the boots but it only reflects between the buckles on the gloves.

The lowest buckle on the belts still needs moved up just a smidge, there is a minor difference between the players boot GEO and the Vahz boot GEO that caused it to stretch the texture just a bit there.

   

 

 

Last up, some things I did in the past. I have the files for most of these, but a couple I need to convert again. They take player selected color.

Spoiler

This one, I modded a pre-existing mask for something new.

 

These three had always bugged me that the chin was covered, so I moved it down.

 

I just wanted a symetric version.

 

I always thought this was a cool helm so I converted it.

 

Same with this, but we don't have access to a GEO like the one that the NPC uses for this texture so it's rather flat as opposed to having the nose piece that the NPCs get. The neck was bland as well so I used one from a different helmet also.

Fun fact: the players Crey armor and the Crey Recovery NPC reference the same files... Normally costume textures for the CC are under Players/Avatar but these buck that rule and are under enemies. IMO that means the Recovery helmet could be reverse engineered to be used by the players in just the same way as the rest of the armor set is 😉

 

At the time that I converted this set I was completely unaware that the NPC GEO was VASTLY different than anything the players had access to... but it came out pretty good actually. For example, the NPC helm has vents that protrude from the sides.

I THINK these are some of the files that vanished in the years since I converted them.

 

Unfortunately I know I lost the files for this.

It takes skin tone but I don't remember if the red or the black was selectable by the player. I think it was the red but thats a moot point since the files where lost.

 

 

Anyways, I was making all these in hopes that they might be added for player use as opposed to just client side mods but with little to no interest that seems unlikely.

Hey, it doesn't hurt to suggest though.

Edited September 18 by LKN-351
line spacing

[PoptartsNinja]

While you're looking at pre-existing stuff, I'd kill for the Arbiter version of the Arachnos armor for crabs/banes; with the shiny metal effect (and the silver-tinted Arbiter Widows, too)

 

And Cerulean's robe, but I know we'll never get that.

Edited September 18 by PoptartsNinja

[LKN-351]

37 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

While you're looking at pre-existing stuff, I'd kill for the Arbiter version of the Arachnos armor for crabs/banes; with the shiny metal effect (and the silver-tinted Arbiter Widows, too)

 

That honestly shouldn't be too difficult. I'd suspect it'd probably be similar to what I did with the Council Ascendant where I took the blue out of the baked in colors.

 

39 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

And Cerulean's robe

 

The lower part, probably not. The chest part is a reskin of the Terra Robe option so converting it wouldn't take much.

The shoulder/neck pieces are in the Titan Icon CC but marked as NPC only, so I've tested that piece and it clips with a lot of stuff just due to the 'necklace' part.

 

 

I had planned to go through all the NPC groups and convert some things to be utilized by players, if I gain some traction with any of this I'll pick it back up. It'll go slowly though.

[PoptartsNinja]

I wonder if Cerulean's robe texture could be ported to the Pencil skirt.

[FDR's Think Tank]

I wonder if "Think Tank" domes could get more variants for the Dome itself... not just shape (Globe, Cube, Pyramid, Cosmonaut, Astronaut) but also make versions that are Opaque or Mirrored Finish.

 

I know there's all sorts of costumes I want to explore with that!

 

I would love to see the Knifes of Artemis Night Vision Goggles too.

[LKN-351]

3 hours ago, PoptartsNinja said:

I wonder if Cerulean's robe texture could be ported to the Pencil skirt.

 

Possibly. Depends on the layout of the texture files.

 

14 minutes ago, FDR&#x27;s Think Tank said:

I wonder if "Think Tank" domes could get more variants for the Dome itself... not just shape (Globe, Cube, Pyramid, Cosmonaut, Astronaut) but also make versions that are Opaque or Mirrored Finish.

 

Adding the shapes gets into GEOs, which I don't personally have any experience with.

I had started to mess with opacity though.

 

The different Night Vision Goggles were built so that they fit with certain other pieces, they fit with some of the other helms in varying degrees though as well. They don't currently accept custom colors but the MM pet version is available in the Icon CC as an NPC only piece. I don't remember if the Artemis version was or not.