Helms of Zeus and Tartarus

Pretty much but if it has to be done, it should be the smallest, least intrusive part of the costume, the part that stylisticaly people won't care too much about (mid thats totally subjective isnt it?)

I think the main problem we have is when its a wash applied to the whole thing, like celestial, but theres also no real standard set, as the Pilgrim hat has colour bleed into the hair, while other hats have a locked hair colour and no bleed.

ideally there should be alternative versions to allow for people to have the most options... or some super inteligent dev should put us at 3 or 4 colours.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

Sounds like both things are a concern, though not necessary for the same people. As a concept artist, I obviously don't have control over tints, pre-baked colors, and the handling of textures--that's strictly up to the 3D artists. However, I wanted to thoroughly understand what you guys are saying, and now I think I do.

Pretty sure the character team is well aware of this, but I'll pass it along anyway.

I recall playing with reflection in an old 3DS MAX, and what I took away from that is 100% reflection essentially kills everything that's below it, meaning you could give the surface any colour or texture and it won't matter.

That said, I believe the request here is less for "more reflectivity" and more for a costume that's reflective, yet doesn't have the grooves of Metallic. Think something like the T1000 when it's fully molten. Metallic in this game is essentially Marvel's Colossus, but without saying that. It's metal with grooves painted on it so it's easier to tell it's metal, which was useful back when we didn't have even rudimentary reflection, but right now just makes it take away from the experience.

I fully believe that reflective tights, including a reflective tights face, would be a welcome addition.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

What about the Steampunk and Gunslinger packs? Those have hard-coded yellow all over them. You want it to be totally black? Not possible. This actually made me decide not to renew my sub because I don't have faith in these things ever being noticed or fixed by Paragon Studios.

I logged in to preview the gunslinger bits on my character, and was ready to buy the 12+2 month promo until I learned that I couldn't get rid of the yellow bits. Oh, and Resistance hair still doesn't attach to Huge heads; it just floats in space, and that's been going on for a year and a half. The yellow is here to stay.

Well speaking for myself, I don't mind a bit of fixed colors as long as it isn't the main draw of the costume piece.

To use the Steampunk Backpack as an example, there are two bits that have special colors, the pipe and the pressure gauge. The Pressure Gauge I have no problem with, it's fixed as white but it looks ok no matter what colors I use. The Exhaust Pipe is the bit that is problematic, it's set to use a different pre-tininting from the rest of the backpack, this makes it stand out but also means I can't make it not stand out. Additionally, the backpack as a whole has a certain amount of pre-tinting which means that it doesn't match the Steampunk Armor pieces in color.

This was brought up in the Art A-Z Panel too, about the dislike of pre-baked coloring as it interfered with tinting. If I recall, it was a dicussion on the Elemental Order helmet where the question was asked: Can you release two versions? One with the Pre-baked and one with Player Selectable colors?

Perhaps its something that everyone has to be aware of, from yourself as concept to the 3d artists as a big no-go thing to do, certainly its a good thing your gonna pass this on. What I do worry is theres some guy in 3D art getting these cool concepts from yourself and wanting to preserve the concept so much as to bake the colours in.

Mind that I have an issue with both pre-baked and accent colours locked, I would totally kill for a "tights sleek full reflective set" just for the lols.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

To expand - the white gauge and red needle don't stand out in any designs because no-one sees the colour of the gauges and gauge needles as part of their colour scheme. It's a gauge, that's what it's supposed to look like. That one brown plate on the chimney, on the other hand, will always stand out because it's a major, undefined part of the superstructure and as such IS part of the colour scheme. It needs to be tintable because if I want a pure black backpack, I want a pure black backpack, not a black backpack with a brown plate on it. I can live with a black backpack with a white gauge on it because... Again, that's how I can tell it's a gauge from a distance.

And, really, the fact that not only are pieces of the Steampunk boiler backpack pre-tinted, the entire backpack is stained brown is the real killer. Make the pack white and it turns brown. Make the pack black and it turns dark brown. Make the pack blue and it looks dirty. There's no reason for this. If I want my backpack to be brown... I'll pick brown from the colour palette. That's just one hue. What if I want it to be anything BUT brown?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Any idea how much extra work it would be to produce 2 versions, one with the reflections ('shiny metal helm') and one without ('dull metal helm')? That seems, from a laymans standpoint, like a potentially efficient way to increase variety

The same with the pre-tinting, having a tinted version and an untinted?

Well, there are different issues here:

1. Color-locked sections: Selecting the secondary or primary color has no effect.

2. Pre-tinted sections: section already has a color or grey-scale tone applied to it which mixes with the primary or secondary color chosen.

3. Mixed-tinting: Section is a combination of the secondary and primary colors, which also may add in a third pre-tinted hue or grey-scale tone.


For those who don't know, the player has only 2 chosable colors (which is a hard limit of the current game engine).

One solution to the 2-color-only-problem is to leave out a third expected element. This is what happened with the Witch's Hat from the Croatoa TF... it left out the hair so that you could have a 2 tone hat. I can't speak for all players, but I think the majority would have wanted hair attached to the hat that was fully tintable and could have lived with one of the sections of the 2 tone hat locked to black.

The new Pilgrim Hat has 4 sections: the hat and band which pick up the 2 chosable colors, the buckle which is locked to silver, and the hair which is a pre-tinted grey scale that picks up both the primary and secondary colors! Now, that's pretty.... odd. (Yes, blue hat + red band = purple hair.)

Again, not wanting to speak for everyone, but my preference would be for the band and buckle to be color locked to black and silver and for the hat and hair to be tintable. Or, for the band to be a blend of the two colors, and not the hair.

But here's a mechanical question: Can you make an overlay for these pieces like there is for tights or armor tops? An overlay can lay down a pattern for coloration. One overlay can target the hair and hat so only those parts are colorable. Another overlay can target the hair and hat so only those parts are colorable. Just a hopeful idea...


That's the problem with color locked sections. The problem with pre-tinting is laid out in this thread: The Problems with pre-tinting costume pieces

The main problems with pre-tinting are:

1. Ugly colors from the blending of some chosable colors and the pre-tint;

2. Unable to match pieces from different sets, and;

3. Unable to match pieces even from within the same set! (see the link above wrt Celestial).

Speaking only for myself, I really like the metallic parts we have. I don't mind environmental reflections. I do dislike the pretinting that limits the hues though that some set and parts, like the Celestial Armor, can take.

I also don't mind the way certain legacy pieces, like the CoV skulls, were given the option for matte and metallic finishes. Some generic bump maps and levels of reflectance would likely be appreciated by the player base at large. Having these in your art departments back pocket wouldn't be a bad idea--based on some sets I'd be surprised if they weren't already there though.

In the specific case of these helmets, I'd suggest polished chrome (like metallic skin and some valkyrie parts) and a less reflective surface of "hammered steel" as an alternate.

I think what they are requesting then is how about a simple skin, similar to the "metallic skin" but without the ridges so a player could in theory make a liquid metal/reflective character.

Speaking of experiments with reflectivity, do you have the ability to apply reflectivity to fx particles? Have you tried? Curious to know the results. Thinking about shortcuts to interesting and trippy visuals here.

Personally, I'm not 100% opposed to pre-colored bits in a costume. Often it does look nice, and it's the only way to get a third or fourth color in a design.

However, I certainly can agree that pre-chosen colors often don't work, and it would be nice to have an option for uncolored, or minimally color, pieces. I do agree that the color scheme chosen for the female Pilgrim Hat hair is an odd choice.

Generally I'd think shading -- dark patches -- is the safest color choices, followed by highlights and light places. To me, colors are ok, but yes it is taking a risk that a lot of players won't be able to use it. Having a second option (colored and uncolored) seems the safest way to go.

The old witch hat does something unique that hardly any other hat in game does: you can use it with a full mask as a costume detail, in very comic book fashion.

I'd like NS to pass along to character artists the suggestion that going forward (and preferably back to a few select legacy or pay-to-wear hats), while the geometry models are fresh in the oven, two versions for each model should be exported: one with hair and one without. This would then mean that ANY forthcoming stylized hat can become a "signature costume item" for more classic heroes and villains without having to try and work around the hair.

i.e.--I would have gotten a TON of usage out of that pilgrim hat were it hair free. It is just that weird and wonderful. May get some pics later and to illustrate what I mean.

Again off topic: Isn't there a way to make Metallic completely smooth instead of the separated plates we have now?

Would love this. Very much. Plain, no details. Just metallic tights/gloves/boots/face. With no grooves. Please.

What is this...? I don't even...? The HAIR is the blended color? Seriously? Wow.

My honest reaction to this would get me mod-smacked, so I'll just say that might be the most completely backwards stupid thing I've heard of in this game. Even more stupid than having /swoon and /faint being Incarnate-locked emotes, and that was completely backwards stupid.

Someone tell me this is a bug.

d

I discovered this past weekend that the magic pack's witch's hat does this exact same thing (it was the first time I'd ever tried to use it).

I went with it anyway and gave my wiccan heroine purple hair but I don't like it. I wore the costume for like 1 mission then switched. I'll probably end up ditching the hat because my witch does not wear black but does have black hair.

I would have much rather the hat be the primary color and the hair and design be the secondary.

Wait, so... we can't make those 2 costume parts red or yellow? Just the 2 Colors that were shown in the, concept art?

Meh... :/

That's an interesting way to misread what he said. "Fully tintable, with exactly 2 colors that you choose." You know, like every other costume part. Not just two colors period.

Yes, and if I recall correctly, Eric said that he'd created both versions. And that's great for a one-off, but it'd cost too much time if we had to do 2 copies of EVERY piece. Would probably result in 1/3 less time for parts, so it's not a sustainable strategy. We really just need to nail a 'best practices' that works for everyone the first time.

Sure, and it'd be *relatively* straight-forward because we already have the values set up for Metallic. Likewise, I've seen several requests for a plain, non-reflective, matte version. My guess is that we're halfway home on that one as well. The issue would be finding time in the schedule for such parts when there are dozens of other priorities to worry about. It's a difficult juggling act.

I think if we, as customers, had to choose then we'd most likely prefer the ones that have no pre-colour tinting rather than pre-colour tinted. It should be common sense really. What has more use? A skirt that appears light blue when the colour palette is set to the whitest white or a skirt that appears white when it's set to the same white?

Textures can stay. Reflectivity can stay. Baked in colours and pre-tinting? No thanks.

Kinda off topic but related... do we have tights-sleek gloves and boots yet? I love tights-sleek, but have to use something else for boots and gloves. Can do, but would be nice for the option.

Indeed we do have Tights Sleek options for Gloves and Boots, though there is a disparity between them. The Glove selections for Tights Sleek allows for all the original gloves options (Smooth, Folded, Flare, Spiked, Finned, Large, and Banded). However, the Boot selections for Tight Sleek is only the standard Smooth option (so you can't have massive Tights Sleek boots or put fins/spikes on them, etc.).

Well, "awesome" is certainly subjective, but do you have screens of that? I'm quite curious!