Shadow Costume Change Emote

[Rudra]

I would like to request a shadow or shadowy costume change emote please. If making wholly new, I would like shadows to gather around the character, obscuring the character, and then dissipating to reveal the new costume. (Edit: Or have like an inky blob appear on the ground at the character's feet, rise up and engulf the character, then retreat back down revealing the new costume.) If modifying existing, then I would like a dark version of Light Magic, Cast, and/or Energy Morph please. Barring that, I would like to be able to re-color existing costume change emotes to make this change possible.

 

Edit: Yes, Murder of Crows is a dark costume change emote, and I am currently using it, but I would like something more thematic for my characters if possible.

 

Edited Monday at 08:23 PM by Rudra

[srmalloy]

One of the more character-obscuring visuals from the Dark Armor set should be usable for this without requiring the HC staff to develop any new animations.

[Rudra]

27 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

One of the more character-obscuring visuals from the Dark Armor set should be usable for this without requiring the HC staff to develop any new animations.

That can work too. Though I did also include some preferred options that don't require new animations either, just re-colors of existing costume change emotes.

[srmalloy]

The existing costume change emote visuals may not be configured for customization, so that would mean someone going in and reworking the graphics for the animations; the DA armor visuals are already set up for customization, so they'd likely be less work to port to a cce function.

[Rudra]

39 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

The existing costume change emote visuals may not be configured for customization, so that would mean someone going in and reworking the graphics for the animations;

Why? In the OP, I stated that Light Magic, Cast, and Energy Ball Morph all work perfectly fine with a re-color. Not even player re-color, just a new version players can select that has the fx re-colored to be dark. No animation work required.

 

Edit: All things considered, adapting Dark Armor power effects to a costume change emote would probably require more animation work than a simple fx re-color.

 

Edited Tuesday at 05:58 AM by Rudra

[srmalloy]

Back on Live when people started asking to be able to change the color(s) of their powers, Positron said that it couldn't be done, because the colors of the powers were baked into the animations, and persisted with this until the devs got the time to rework how all of the power animations worked to make them 'colorless', taking their color from fields in the character data for each power that specified what colors to use for that power, and a separate table of default colors for the powers (the 'original' setting). The way the costume change emotes are coded and animated are likely not amenable to simply having color values changed for them, which would require that the animation be dissected to determine what separate effects make up the cce visuals so they will know what has to be copied and changed; it's not a simple case of "change the 'white' in the animation to 'black' ".

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, srmalloy said:

Back on Live when people started asking to be able to change the color(s) of their powers, Positron said that it couldn't be done, because the colors of the powers were baked into the animations, and persisted with this until the devs got the time to rework how all of the power animations worked to make them 'colorless', taking their color from fields in the character data for each power that specified what colors to use for that power, and a separate table of default colors for the powers (the 'original' setting). The way the costume change emotes are coded and animated are likely not amenable to simply having color values changed for them, which would require that the animation be dissected to determine what separate effects make up the cce visuals so they will know what has to be copied and changed; it's not a simple case of "change the 'white' in the animation to 'black' ".

I'm not a dev and the only animating program I've ever used is beyond ridiculously out of date. However, the question your statement brings up is: was the difficulty Positron was talking about for player customizable colors or for any fx re-color? Because setting up a power to allow for player color customizations is going to require a more open-ended approach, so those colors can be pulled from the character, as opposed to going into an animation, looking at the different parts that make it up, and then re-coloring part of it to save as a new version. Yes, that is still going to require someone going into the animation and looking at the parts that make it up, but isn't anywhere near like setting up a power to let users input their preferred color(s) from an available list.

 

Taking existing animations from say Dark Armor will still require the devs to go into the power's animation to make a costume change version of that fx.

 

Am I opposed to the devs taking a Dark Melee power like Dark Consumption and stripping out the blue rings to use as a costume change emote? Not at all. Except stripping out those blue rings should be more problematic than popping open an existing costume change emote, looking at the parts, and doing a re-color. Why did I choose Dark Consumption from Dark Melee versus any Dark Armor power? Because Dark Consumption briefly obfuscates your character, whereas none of the Dark Armor powers do. (At least on my Dark/Dark Scrapper after I reverted all powers to "Original".) The Dark Armor powers fade your character (if you use "Original"), and while faded the fx are more prominent, but without the fade, the Dark Armor powers don't seem to obfuscate the character at all. To make the Dark Armor powers suitably conceal the character is still going to require going into the power's fx and reworking it to do so. Dark Regeneration from Dark Armor seems the most concealing to me, and it would need those green rings removed from it. Which would require animation work.

 

(Edit: Out of Dark Armor, only Cloak of Darkness and Dark Regeneration obscure your character. And Cloak of Darkness only does so if your character fades. Cloak of Fear, Oppressive Gloom, Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, and Obsidian Shield add fx, but they don't conceal the character at any point in time. Even using original fx for them. Death Shroud only has the ground effect.)

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:42 AM by Rudra