something big

[bearded]

unless anyone has a better idea, i'm going to make seperate for body, waist and belt, legs, arms, and head. then skins for boots and gloves can be alpha layered on for any length. this isn't counting mounted items, like bootscuffs or hats.
i just discovered particles can be mounted! any particle defined and customized can be mounted on any dummy points!

particles react to the environment and animations. this is after spinning the model around, the flame is actually set on the head.

[Cyber Burn]

That pic just looks seriously cool.

Also,

I just wanted to say that, from a skinning standpoint, feel free to use any of mine for your mixing and matching.

Ditto.

[vamp]

Will particle amounts effect weapon mounts? (like are they the same mount)

Also, will you be able to mount multiple weapons on the same mount? For instance, deadpool uses swords and guns, so would he be able to use both?

And this is looking better and better. Thanks for all the hard work your putting into this.

[bearded]

cat is pretty close with his idea of how it will work. items will have powers attached to them, and you can then attach the items to mount points, probably with sticky colliders. i am going to try and do an array for some of the points, so you can wear a hat and have hair. topically, for the most part, if you have a sword and a gun, you'll have to choose a spot for each of them.

here is the current character tool, one mesh wearing several different skins for the different areas, cyberburn's skins look great. also, i managed to fix the hair rotation, position, and scale scripts.
i'm going to experiment with decals next, applying alphaed symbols. if cyber or unko want to help, that would be good. any number of any types of symbols will do, even letters or numbers. they need to be alphaed out around them, and should conform with male basic uvw for placement.
i'm also thinking of making extra mount points being based on character advancement, would that work?

[Vertex]

my question comes up around .. what happens with diff bodies? Say not only larger and smaller but female? sounds like you are gonna have to set up a lot of stuff to handle different bodies.. basically duplicating everything you're doing for that one.

[bearded]

my question comes up around .. what happens with diff bodies? Say not only larger and smaller but female? sounds like you are gonna have to set up a lot of stuff to handle different bodies.. basically duplicating everything you're doing for that one.

good question. i am working that out right now. for the different objects during character creation in my ctool, there is a command called transform.localScale with x, y, z co-ordinates. i simply determine how much larger the hairpiece has to be for heavy and hulking compared to the base basic, and attach a script to the heavy that automatically resizes. the mesh completed will be saved and loaded by the game engine which will then instantiate all the attachments as they were saved.
simple, yes?

[Vertex]

hrrmmm...

   methinks still need entirely diff parts to fit female body...
and of course in addition to resizing.. stuff has to be moved to new correct placement..

eh too complicated for me..   
GOOD LUCK!

[lugaru]

my question comes up around .. what happens with diff bodies? Say not only larger and smaller but female? sounds like you are gonna have to set up a lot of stuff to handle different bodies.. basically duplicating everything you're doing for that one.

Actually that is easily fixed by putting breasts on the chest mount point of a male basic (or heavy). Add some particle effects, alphas and powers and well.. might not be convincingly female but would be hilarious.     

[Randomdays]

Since Bearded is setting it up the body parts as switchable, you'd just have to swap in a female torso,legs, etc.  They still might need seperate skins and mount points though

[Cyber Burn]

cat is pretty close with his idea of how it will work. items will have powers attached to them, and you can then attach the items to mount points, probably with sticky colliders. i am going to try and do an array for some of the points, so you can wear a hat and have hair. topically, for the most part, if you have a sword and a gun, you'll have to choose a spot for each of them.

here is the current character tool, one mesh wearing several different skins for the different areas, cyberburn's skins look great. also, i managed to fix the hair rotation, position, and scale scripts.
i'm going to experiment with decals next, applying alphaed symbols. if cyber or unko want to help, that would be good. any number of any types of symbols will do, even letters or numbers. they need to be alphaed out around them, and should conform with male basic uvw for placement.
i'm also thinking of making extra mount points being based on character advancement, would that work?

Hopefully Unko can help you out in the Alpha department, that's something that I never learned.

[bearded]

actually, now that i think about it, decals would work even better if they were shapes. can you make shapes other than squares and rectangles? they don't even have to be .tga, it could be gif, jpg, probably many other formats. anything other than the ffvttr, i can't remember what that is even called.
edit update:
scale offset works perfectly! edit: just realized it might not be obvious, that is male heavy instead of male basic. the hair mesh is resized according to script attached to the heavy model, with a size ratio of 1.37.

now i'm thinking about females. should there be a whole seperate category, or should it simply be a tag? for character creation, it could simply be a different model, instead of a different list of models.

[vamp]

I think it should be a different list of models completely. Just works better to me

[Epimethee]

the amount of progress you're making is almost disgusting... Almost.

they don't even have to be .tga, it could be gif, jpg, probably many other formats. anything other than the ffvttr, i can't remember what that is even called.

If you want to support an 8-bit alpha channel, you should go with TGA, TIFF or 32-bit PNG. In addition, GIF and JPEG are lossy formats. I suspect that TGA is faster to process than PNG, which of courseis more important for games than file size.

[UnkoMan]

So logos are alpha'd on. Gloves and boots are too? Are underpants and belts?
How are colours handled? Does each colour have to be a separate thing or do you have any way to change the hues? And textures, does each one have to correspond to each different skin or can you just, say, use a different lightmap on them? I think I saw some bump mapping or something like that.

And how much have you already got? I might do some generic logos this week. I probably have photoshop files of older skins that I can swipe logos from, too.

[bearded]

So logos are alpha'd on. Gloves and boots are too? Are underpants and belts?
How are colours handled? Does each colour have to be a separate thing or do you have any way to change the hues? And textures, does each one have to correspond to each different skin or can you just, say, use a different lightmap on them? I think I saw some bump mapping or something like that.

And how much have you already got? I might do some generic logos this week. I probably have photoshop files of older skins that I can swipe logos from, too.

logos can be alphaed on, the engine handles alpha channels really well. everything is automatically alpha enabled. i was thinking decals, to allow maximum customization.
gloves and boots could be skinned onto the legs and arms, naturally, but alpha boots and gloves would be better, so that you can match the leg skin easier.
so far i am using pics for colors, i haven't experimented with changing hues. i know it is possible, i just don't want to bog myself down with too much. i'm thinking of adding an option later of a rgb slider, maybe. lightmaps, i don't understand. they are cube shaped and don't correspond to uvw, so i don't get it. bump mapping is superb. i find i can easily convert a skin into a greyscale, and then into a pretty good bump map. custom made bump maps would be good for things like scale mail, or maybe even hair.

and i have no logos at all! i simply haven't takent the time, and to be honest, i've tried something similiar years ago, and i'm not very good at it. anything you make will be absolutely great!
skinning is something i don't do well, but i think psd layers would be perfect.

the amount of progress you're making is almost disgusting... Almost.
...
If you want to support an 8-bit alpha channel, you should go with TGA, TIFF or 32-bit PNG. In addition, GIF and JPEG are lossy formats. I suspect that TGA is faster to process than PNG, which of courseis more important for games than file size.

most of my progress is simply having the time to learn from tutorials. i know for a fact you are a much better programmer than me. i just need to get enough of a base so you guys that are better meshers, skinners, and coders than me can get involved. i'm a jack of all trades, master of none!
thanks for the tech advice! what does lossy mean? all advice is welcome.

I think it should be a different list of models completely. Just works better to me

aye aye. you're the boss! male/female toggle for different list of models. now, should i make all the different parts available for both genders? spiked heels, all the different hair styles, etc. oh, that reminds me. i'm trying to allow the character generation to allow you to pick an animation set at creation. so, male basic with alchemiss style animations?

[Randomdays]

Too soon to think about yet, but at one point are you going to be looking at non - human meshes? Something on the order of Big Cat versatile, FF's dinosaurs, etc. And any thought on vehicles?

[bearded]

Too soon to think about yet, but at one point are you going to be looking at non - human meshes? Something on the order of Big Cat versatile, FF's dinosaurs, etc. And any thought on vehicles?

not thoughts from me on this yet. i'm sure i'll be wanting this later.

I think it should be a different list of models completely. Just works better to me

aye aye. you're the boss! male/female toggle for different list of models. now, should i make all the different parts available for both genders? spiked heels, all the different hair styles, etc. oh, that reminds me. i'm trying to allow the character generation to allow you to pick an animation set at creation. so, male basic with alchemiss style animations?

thanks for the input! i work better with some direction, i'm without focus on my own. all you guys are the boss!

[lugaru]

I'm pretty far from being the worlds best skinner but if somebody posts a template for emblems I'll be happy to adapt some royalty free clipart, hero logos and maybe an original creation or two. Same goes for bump maps, texture patterns, recolors or anything else you would like so that when we start testing it there are some presets.

Hues would rock but yeah, one thing at a time.

[bearded]

I'm pretty far from being the worlds best skinner but if somebody posts a template for emblems I'll be happy to adapt some royalty free clipart, hero logos and maybe an original creation or two. Same goes for bump maps, texture patterns, recolors or anything else you would like so that when we start testing it there are some presets.

Hues would rock but yeah, one thing at a time.

that would be perfect. i have tried using clipart and alpha enabling, but i couldn't make it look good. as for uvw, for right now, if you could align it with male basic uvw that would work.

[hmarrs]

Wow all I can say is that this is beyond amazing.
Awesome stuff.

[Amazo Version 2.2]

Wow all I can say is that this is beyond amazing.
Awesome stuff.

agreed, to bad most of this is going over my heaed.

[Courtnall6]

Jeez...where have I been? I'm 8 pages behind of what's going on in here...but it all looks really cool!

[bearded]

thanks guys.
i'm about to do a character tool pre alpha .000000001a release. all i have so far are 3 male models and some gui buttons to let you do different things to them.
Courtnall6, one of the skinners is using one of your bases, is that ok? also, grenadier said i could use any of his work, and a lot of his meshes use your skins as the standard.
the idea is players can create custom skins and meshes in the character tool with sliders and buttons, and i will also have preset meshes and skins, like gren's set up to use in the game also.
i'm thinking of being able to change costume parts as part of the campaign rewards. change your look, and as per cat's suggestion, some costume parts will give powers.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

i'm thinking of being able to change costume parts as part of the campaign rewards. change your look, and as per cat's suggestion, some costume parts will give powers.

Actually, no, that's not at all what I was suggesting.  What I was suggesting was that when giving characters their own powers, then could create powers linked to an item which the character would always start a mission with.  It simply allows players to more accurately create weapon and item using characters.  Having costume piece earnable that add their own power is exactly the opposite in fact, although that does not mean it's a bad idea in and of itself, just not what I was talking about there.

I am however, all in favor of certain items granting powers when picked up as this could add all sorts of options.  The lampost attack of FF, for example could be duplicated by having lamps grant a smash power when wielded.  Same for other objects.  It also means things like swords or spears found in mission could be used appropriately and if your hero gets hold of a villains magic sword he could use it against him.

[bearded]

Hmm...how about adding a tag to powers that make those "object dependent."  This causes the object to start with the character, but if he loses the object, those powers become unusable.  So if cap uses an object dependant "throw shield" power that also has a tag that causes it to use the item in question, he loses his shield defence abilities.  Along the same line, have an "object optional" tag that allows a character to use optional animations depending on whether on object is present or not.  Again, we'll use cap.  Let's say he has a power called "bash."  If he has the shield, he's use it to bash the bad guy.  If he doesn't, he'll use his fist instead.

you are correct, it is the opposite. i think i can manage to do both.
i'm trying to figure out the best way to do uvw now. i think i'm going to have to go with seperate tga's for different body parts, so as to work with the customization. this will decrease the overall size of the hero file. each character will have legs.tga, arms.tga, face.tga, torso.tga. otherwise there will be 4 male basic.tga attached. not counting the logo.tga.
any ideas for a better way?
edit update:
i just discovered that unity automatically combines materials for each object, meaning only one call to each object. the other route is "render to texture", which is a unity pro feature.
the first method simply means the hero file will be larger, but once loaded will not slow down the game. the second feature, if i understand it correctly, allows a new texture to be created by combining several. meanwhile, i'm going with the first option. until we get the pro.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

You are correct, there is no reason not to allow for both options.

[BentonGrey]

All of this has been over my head lately, but I just thought I'd say that I'm still following along!

[bearded]

i'm in the final stage of the character tool, setting up costume parts (from tommyboy versatile), and making the skins work right. i need a volunteer to try and help me figure out how to easily set up more parts and skins by simply dropping them in a folder. all you have to do is download the tool and not have unity installed and see how easy it is to access the assets.
also, any ideas for what to call the character tool?

[Randomdays]

How about the Phone Booth?

[Outcast]

also, any ideas for what to call the character tool?

"Hero Maker" comes to mind but i think it's already been used by others.......how about the "Character Suite" or "Character Builder"?   "HeroCraft"?