Curse

Empress Amarox · Jan 22, 2009, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Right, so... Plastic surgeon/barber are pretty old recommendations.

I'd like to be able to choose any hair style with any face from any certain profession you have unlocked the content of.

For example, maybe I'd want a Factions Warrior face with Prophecies Warrior hair, or maybe I'd want a Prophecies Necro face with Nightfall hair? You get the idea.

That's the initial idea. Being left at that, they could just implement it with minimal work and those of us that wanted to look different would have to make new characters (omgwtf).

A step further would be allowing a character to re-enter the character creation once every 30 days, changing everything except sex and name. I think 30 days is long enough to prevent abuse, it's that way for your Account Name, so I figure that's alright. You'd still have the same name anyways, just look a bit different.

Another huge step from both of that (inclusive) would be not only allowing you to pick from your profession, but any profession. So, Prophecies Warrior hair with Nightfall Dervish face, etc..

So, to sum that up...

Options:
1. Pick any hair/face within your profession, cross chapters you've unlocked.
2. Be able to change a character's appearance once every 30 days.
3. Ability to choose any hair or face from any profession.

I'd /sign 1 and 2, I kinda doubt Anet would ever do 3, but my as well /sign that as well. At the very least, /sign 2. 1 would be really nice though... and 3 would just be like extra candy or something. The only thing is that it might be weird seeing some of the combos on completely opposite classes, but... I think it'd do a ton for customization.

Shursh · Jan 22, 2009, 10:26 PM // 22:26

a great idea that should have been implemented from the start.

/sign for 1-2-3

MisterB · Jan 23, 2009, 01:28 AM // 01:28

Add a poll, if you please.

/signed for 1 and 3.

# 2 is the sort of thing that other games charge for, and every 30 days is an extremely short term. I just don't see that kind of service added for free.

gargytama · Jan 23, 2009, 01:43 AM // 01:43

/signed for changing hair only

If I get it right there are no make-over artists at the time guild wars takes place, but there are barbers though.
I think you should be able to get yourself a nice haircut/shave for a reasonable price (somewhere around 1-2p).

Owik Gall · Jan 23, 2009, 07:09 AM // 07:09

This is Guild Wars. Not IMVU.

/not signed.

Empress Amarox · Jan 24, 2009, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

# 2 is the sort of thing that other games charge for, and every 30 days is an extremely short term. I just don't see that kind of service added for free.

Well, then add "and pay $5 in the online store to change a character."

the 55 warrior?!? · Jan 28, 2009, 12:38 AM // 00:38

maby make it so you would have to beat campains other that the 1 your char was created in b4 using those faces

or if you want you can swap char names as long as both char are at least 1 year old so u cant abuse

or maby u would have to unswap char. to there original names if you want to delete them b4 their first B-Day

Spike Stritter · Jan 28, 2009, 02:56 AM // 02:56

Maybe we can just say the asurans created these awesome inventions called the comb, the scissors, and the face changer.

if i wanted my character to look different i would have made a different character. but after a couple years the same helmet hair looks kinda bland
/signed for hair.
/notsigned for face.

Operative 14 · Jan 28, 2009, 07:10 AM // 07:10

#1, Heck yeah. I think anyone that has even a smidgen of knowledge about me on this forum knows I'm a big advocate of the addition of a barber to the game.

/Most definitively Signed.

#2, Seems a little odd to me. I'd probably (and I stress probably) never use it, and it should be a big deal to change your characters face. Otherwise I don't really care about that option.

/indifferent (I'm not going to /notsign it just because I don't care for the idea though

)

#3, Seems like it would be a really good idea, but I'm not sure it's possible since there might be various issues (like clipping or shadowing effects) that would be a major hassle to change.

/Wouldbenicebutsoundsverydifficult

morgan · Jan 28, 2009, 12:20 PM // 12:20

I fully agree that you should be able to change your hair style/colour (for a price). Everyone changes their hair at some point in their life in RL so why not in GW.

But being able to change a characters face shouldn't be implemented. It just seems a bit wrong to me. How many people completely change their face? ok yes many a person gets some plastic surgery done but, except in a few extreme cases, you still mostly look like the same person as you did before.

Once your character has a face, it should be stuck with it, like it or not.

However, I do /sign for being able to pick any face from across all unlocked campaigns when creating a charactor

Empress Amarox · Jan 28, 2009, 12:52 PM // 12:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Operative 14

#3, Seems like it would be a really good idea, but I'm not sure it's possible since there might be various issues (like clipping or shadowing effects) that would be a major hassle to change.

/Wouldbenicebutsoundsverydifficult

Well, I can actually explain this - it's non-issue by the way.

Lets say you make a 3d model. You generally start with a shape, like a cube, or sphere, or a plane. From there you can extend/morph certain pieces to get the shape you want. It's a lot more complex than that, really, but that's a very simple explanation. It comes down to dragging verts, faces or edges. Some (most now days) programs make it easier to make shapes, like ZBrush for example; Blender and a whole lot of others can do similar. But at that point, to get a really complex shape there's probably a really high poly count, which would be like you make some shape then do a lot of subdivision (slice it in more pieces basically), so it can be a more complex shape.

Here's some visual references of what I'm talking about:

(Yes, that is actually my Elementalist from GW. That's the real model.)

Anywho... None of that matters. At all.

The shading you speak of will come from the normals (already made!) and UVmap (already made!); so, that is certainly not an issue. Normals tell the game engine how to render an item, how shiny, how transparent, etc. From my experience with texmod, GW just reads the following format textures: "DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp | interpolated alpha" and the alpha layer in the dds basically doubles as both a normal and alpha (bump/shine/transparency). So, that's already done. No worries!

Now, the clipping that you speak of. That's a little thing that happens due to "rigging." More specifically weighting... The way a GW character's face would be weighted pretty much makes it near close to impossible for there to be clipping issues. I'll show you why:

As you can see, the face is unweighted -- I'll explain why in a minute.

But, to explain why "clipping" occurs - basically, what "rigging" or "weighting" is, is something we have to do in the 3d world to tell the program you're viewing the model in how it would move. You don't need to rig something that would stay still forever, but if it moves, unfortunately the computer can't just guess that the shirt should stay ON your body, or that the breasts may jiggle, et cetera. So, these things have to be weighted. How you ask? Well, when you rig something, you make a faux skeleton, you can see an example of this in the above picture. What happens is, the actual mesh is weighted to this skeleton, and what moves actually is the skeleton and what moves with it is what is weighted to it, and how much it moves is how heavily it is weighted to that particular bone. There's actually tools now that you can automate weight painting to some extent, but you can moreso copy weighting to a decent extent from an already existing similar mesh.

However, I digress. This is also not the issue.

The face is not weighted because there are more than one way to rig a mesh. You can weight it to a bone (right side of above) or you can PRN it to a bone. In our case, the face would be prned to the head bone. This is generally done with faces/hair. I'm just gonna venture out and say that most the faces/hair in GW is weighted however. Mouth moves, hair jiggles and moves when you run. So, chances are that the hair is actually weighted instead of prned, probably the face as well. Prior to the moving lips, it probably would've just been prned. Any way you look at it though... The face/hair is going to all be weighted to the same bones. And, once again... This stuff is already done, they don't have to redo it...

Any way you go about it though, the rigging itself is already done. If a face works on an Elementalist, it's going to work on a Mesmer.

The only real complication is where the mesh itself is (distance from the centered point). That's easy to adjust though. You can pretty much take one face, import another face, select the object that is where you want, do some fancy button pushing, select the other object and automatically move the second to where the first is. The thing of it is though, they probably wouldn't have to do that, cause I'd imagine they're all centered similarly. Moving where an object is does not change its weighting!

So, the work we're looking at here is slim to none as far as anything you mentioned above.

Now, what would need to be done is actually textures. While hair textures would be fine, the skin textures would need to all be matched with the faces and skin tones from every chapter, and that would be the biggest thing. Though, relatively easy still. I could probably do the entire thing myself in a couple days while eating my lunch, were I to work at Anet. Or, I could just stay late one day for a couple hours and get it all done in a day.

Realistically speaking, the texturing is going to be the issue, but not the biggest. The biggest would be the programming side of it. The side that would be adding all the options to choose from and the coding to allow us to go back in to creation, and all that... That'd be.. Ah well, I won't talk about what I don't know. I don't know anything about programming. I don't imagine it'd be all that difficult though, but I can't say.

Overall though, what we're looking at (at least from the side of things I can personally comment on) is minuscule at most.

t3dw4rd0 · Jan 28, 2009, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Quote:

From my experience with texmod,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you use texmod to modify textures in the game as you view it? And does this not include faces/hair? As I see it, if you realllly have a problem with your char's face, just texmod it. Here's the honest truth: most random people on gw don't give a rat's ass about what your in game face looks like; if anything, it's your armor/weapons.

Hair, I can kinda see where you're coming from. You can still texmod it (I believe) but it could be a good money sink. Make it require dyes and certain materials +3-5k and a skill point. Once again, people don't exactly care what your hair looks like, but it's more feasible than plastic surgery.

Although TBH, I hope the programmers don't waste time on this; REAL updates pl0x!

Empress Amarox · Jan 28, 2009, 05:20 PM // 17:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by t3dw4rd0

Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you use texmod to modify textures in the game as you view it? And does this not include faces/hair? As I see it, if you realllly have a problem with your char's face, just texmod it. Here's the honest truth: most random people on gw don't give a rat's ass about what your in game face looks like; if anything, it's your armor/weapons.

Hair, I can kinda see where you're coming from. You can still texmod it (I believe) but it could be a good money sink. Make it require dyes and certain materials +3-5k and a skill point. Once again, people don't exactly care what your hair looks like, but it's more feasible than plastic surgery.

Although TBH, I hope the programmers don't waste time on this; REAL updates pl0x!

Way to completely miss the entire point of this thread.

MagmaRed · Jan 28, 2009, 06:13 PM // 18:13

Although I like the idea, I dont' want it in the game. I am not a lore guru, but I do enjoy the lore of the game. Factions is based on an 'asian' society, and the character models are based on that. Same with Nightfall and the 'egyptian' theme. Having a character made in Prophecies with a Factions character model does not fit with the story. Yes, you could create a new story to explain how that would work (immigration, travel, etc.), but that is changing the story, which doesn't need to be done imo.

I'm also a very attentive individual. When I make a character, I spend time experimenting with the various looks. Until I have checked what all the options are, I don't make a final decision. Changing something I already decided was 'best' won't be needed for me. I do know I am not like all other players in this though, so maybe having the option wouldn't be so bad. However, I am not sure how possible it is for this to occur with the games engine.

I like what I have, and don't see a need to change it, so I opted for "None of the above."

Operative 14 · Jan 29, 2009, 07:07 AM // 07:07

I sort of agree with you, Magma, but the thing to remember is that a lot of people do the same thing you do. I know I spent about 2 weeks going over all the permutations of various Dervishes, another few weeks of Rangers, about a month for Monks (one of which I actually deleted so I could remake it), and about 3-4 months off and on looking at Necromancers before I finally decided on any look for them.

Don't confuse a want for variety with a feeling of disappointment. All of my characters are the best I could make them. Were they to be deleted I would remake them exactly the way they look now. However, I also wouldn't mind seeing what my Dervish looks like with a ponytail for about a month, either.

And Empress.. Thanks for such an in depth explanation. Twas very interesting and informative - you're right, it doesn't look like modeling is the limitation on this, just the software coding to set up the client side editor.

:Edit:

Darn it I accidentally voted none of the above. >_<

MithranArkanere · Jan 29, 2009, 03:43 PM // 15:43

Even if it's not faces, most hairstyles are just like hats.

It won't go against the lore that a traveler from Tyria could go to Cantha, talk to a hairdresser and get one of those cool hairstyles they see on their new Canthan friends.