Characters and Character Customization
by Tim Leedy · in General Discussion · 06/27/2002 (10:35 am) · 12 replies
I would like to start a discussion on the character classes and how they will look and behave as well character customization based on the Stage 2 design documentation.
I would like to put up the idea of including a limited number of character statistics (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, etc) that the player will be able to customize within specific thresholds for each of the character classes. As a visual representation, the look of the character will change in response to the statistic changes. For example, if you want you character to have a higher constitution and strength the size and the stockiness of the character's image would increase. Also, the statistics could be used as input for the physics models for character movement and combat.
I would like to put up the idea of including a limited number of character statistics (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, etc) that the player will be able to customize within specific thresholds for each of the character classes. As a visual representation, the look of the character will change in response to the statistic changes. For example, if you want you character to have a higher constitution and strength the size and the stockiness of the character's image would increase. Also, the statistics could be used as input for the physics models for character movement and combat.
#2
06/27/2002 (11:15 am)
You make a great point! I guess we will need to take a good look at how the character can be customized and the actual effort involved in implementing the functionality. Why pursue a feature if it is not going to produce a positive ROF (Return On Fun) in comparison to the time spent building the feature?! 
#3
I think that a few people have put some minor research into this already though I have not heard or seen any positive results.
Logan
06/27/2002 (12:42 pm)
It probably wouldn't be impossible to do (there are many possible ways of achieving this), but it would require a lot of work doing the programming and the artwork to support this.I think that a few people have put some minor research into this already though I have not heard or seen any positive results.
Logan
#4
I'm not sure how difficult this is to do in Torque, but conceptually it isn't that difficult. You don't need ANY extra art resources or extra animations. If you model has the vertices attached to bones, you can just move and scale the bones to adjust individual builds and body parts. (or something like that, depends a lot on your system obviously)
Having 3 sets of animations is not going to happen I don't think. For that amount of work you could animate 3 times as many totally new characters!
The nice thing about the PSO system is that it adds a lot to the character customization but doesn't seem like a lot of extra programming work. You can choose from a few different hairstyles and faces, customize the colors and adjust the model dimensions. From that same model you can create a guy in a silver jumpsuit with pink spiky Dragon-BallZ style hair, or a short funny looking dude in all black with a helmet.
It is really cool that you can be in a room with 20 other people and they all look very different.
The question is how much work do these different things take? There are also some issues like how do you distinguish between teammates and enemies if you can customize the colors?
06/27/2002 (1:28 pm)
Well I would point to Phantasy Star Online or Final Fantasy Online. In both of those you can change the width and height of your character. The animation doesn't change, but the looks do end up making a lot of difference. (It is a bit more complicated than just scaling the entire model)I'm not sure how difficult this is to do in Torque, but conceptually it isn't that difficult. You don't need ANY extra art resources or extra animations. If you model has the vertices attached to bones, you can just move and scale the bones to adjust individual builds and body parts. (or something like that, depends a lot on your system obviously)
Having 3 sets of animations is not going to happen I don't think. For that amount of work you could animate 3 times as many totally new characters!
The nice thing about the PSO system is that it adds a lot to the character customization but doesn't seem like a lot of extra programming work. You can choose from a few different hairstyles and faces, customize the colors and adjust the model dimensions. From that same model you can create a guy in a silver jumpsuit with pink spiky Dragon-BallZ style hair, or a short funny looking dude in all black with a helmet.
It is really cool that you can be in a room with 20 other people and they all look very different.
The question is how much work do these different things take? There are also some issues like how do you distinguish between teammates and enemies if you can customize the colors?
#5
Creating 3 sets of bone animations for a particular model is by far easier and faster than creating a whole new model and bone animation for that model.
06/27/2002 (2:16 pm)
I disagree James.Creating 3 sets of bone animations for a particular model is by far easier and faster than creating a whole new model and bone animation for that model.
#6
Sounds like a good task for the Team Lead to assign ;-)
There are also some issues like how do you distinguish between teammates and enemies if you can customize the colors?
In order to distinguish between teammates and still allow for customization, a portion of the of the character's body or clothing will have the same style or color for all team members. The color would be chosen by the team leader from an available palette. Each palette would be unique for each team so alike colors could not be chosen. Has anyone come up with any ideas on how the teams will work? Maybe that would be a good topic for another discussion thread?
I think it would be prudent to start with some simple customizations like skin color and then move onto more complex customizations such as armor/clothing and starting weapon/spell. I think the armor/clothing and starting weapon/spell would complex enough to take into account the stats the player can choose for the character (if that is going to be used?). For example, if a player's character has a low strength and he chooses to equip him with full plate armor than the characters movement speed should be slower than normal (crawling?)
James also brought up a good idea in his documentation about customizing a character's ability or skill. My question is what kind of abilities would they be allowed to choose from (swimming, scouting, etc) and would the abilities be class-specific?
06/27/2002 (6:10 pm)
The question is how much work do these different things take? Sounds like a good task for the Team Lead to assign ;-)
There are also some issues like how do you distinguish between teammates and enemies if you can customize the colors?
In order to distinguish between teammates and still allow for customization, a portion of the of the character's body or clothing will have the same style or color for all team members. The color would be chosen by the team leader from an available palette. Each palette would be unique for each team so alike colors could not be chosen. Has anyone come up with any ideas on how the teams will work? Maybe that would be a good topic for another discussion thread?
I think it would be prudent to start with some simple customizations like skin color and then move onto more complex customizations such as armor/clothing and starting weapon/spell. I think the armor/clothing and starting weapon/spell would complex enough to take into account the stats the player can choose for the character (if that is going to be used?). For example, if a player's character has a low strength and he chooses to equip him with full plate armor than the characters movement speed should be slower than normal (crawling?)
James also brought up a good idea in his documentation about customizing a character's ability or skill. My question is what kind of abilities would they be allowed to choose from (swimming, scouting, etc) and would the abilities be class-specific?
#7
First, tweaking the stats may or not be really useful. Remember we will have different character types that will each be fairly different already. We don't want changes in stats to blur those things together. The weakest Orc will always be more durable than the toughest spellcaster. So the range people will be allowed to fiddle with stats would have to be pretty small. It might be more effort than it is worth, more confusing for the players than helpful. If you want a tough, slow guy, you could always choose a tough slow character class rather than tweaking stats.
A lot of that depends on what the classes are to begin with. I think that discussion should go before character customization. There are a number of good ideas floating around for character customization, but that will not be worked on for some time and a lot of it depends on the classes and the technical limitations.
One discussion that would be very fruitful to have now that would be immediately applicable is simply what are the different character classes?
So far we have an Orc, and an Elf Sorceress on the way. What are some other ideas?
We need to keep the following questions in mind:
#1: How will a class be unique and interesting? What sets them apart from other classes?
#2: Will the class be fun to play?
I will continue noting all the customization ideas of course, but a discussion on character classes would be more immediately useful.
In terms of proposing characters, we all know the basic types. We all know what a Necromancer is, but how would that translate to our game? Can they create skeletons out of thin air? Can they turn dead players into zombies? So let's all try to be specific. What does the character look like? What sort of unique abilities or spells might they have, what are their basic stats and abilities relative to other classes?
Hopefully we can come up with an interesting and diverse array of characters that every player can find something to their liking in.
06/27/2002 (6:48 pm)
A few things.First, tweaking the stats may or not be really useful. Remember we will have different character types that will each be fairly different already. We don't want changes in stats to blur those things together. The weakest Orc will always be more durable than the toughest spellcaster. So the range people will be allowed to fiddle with stats would have to be pretty small. It might be more effort than it is worth, more confusing for the players than helpful. If you want a tough, slow guy, you could always choose a tough slow character class rather than tweaking stats.
A lot of that depends on what the classes are to begin with. I think that discussion should go before character customization. There are a number of good ideas floating around for character customization, but that will not be worked on for some time and a lot of it depends on the classes and the technical limitations.
One discussion that would be very fruitful to have now that would be immediately applicable is simply what are the different character classes?
So far we have an Orc, and an Elf Sorceress on the way. What are some other ideas?
We need to keep the following questions in mind:
#1: How will a class be unique and interesting? What sets them apart from other classes?
#2: Will the class be fun to play?
I will continue noting all the customization ideas of course, but a discussion on character classes would be more immediately useful.
In terms of proposing characters, we all know the basic types. We all know what a Necromancer is, but how would that translate to our game? Can they create skeletons out of thin air? Can they turn dead players into zombies? So let's all try to be specific. What does the character look like? What sort of unique abilities or spells might they have, what are their basic stats and abilities relative to other classes?
Hopefully we can come up with an interesting and diverse array of characters that every player can find something to their liking in.
#8
human
Cave human race
amazon human race
midevil race
demon
bone demon ( i made that up, SEE different)
gargoyle
slave demons
we dont need to use them all but at least something different.
We are making "Realm wars" here, races are shaped by the realms they live in, it makes them unique, difined.
07/02/2002 (11:59 pm)
Personally I am conserned about originality. I joined the project expecting new ideas but I find people with an almost religious doctrine of fantasy. I'm not a lord of the rings guy or a fantasy guy at all, I like the idea's but they are as old as time itself we need something new or at least different. I suggest taking a subject matter we are familiar with and and making somthing fresh from, it or at least charmingly different. For examplehuman
Cave human race
amazon human race
midevil race
demon
bone demon ( i made that up, SEE different)
gargoyle
slave demons
we dont need to use them all but at least something different.
We are making "Realm wars" here, races are shaped by the realms they live in, it makes them unique, difined.
#9
07/03/2002 (6:10 am)
Well I agree as I did in the other post thta we may want at least 1 differet race but in the realm of fantasy and Sci-fi there are actual boundaris in every atmosphere. Most people who play this will be people who have read Lord of the Rings or some sort of fantasy book, and will expect to see the key races, humans, dwarves, orcs, elves. Other than those I say we could myabe make 2 new races. I think we will need it because s it stands we have 3 good races, and 1 bad. Making a total of 6 races would be a nice round #. Maybe Bone Demans, and draconians, but going alll original is a lot of qwork and time, because you have to develope eevry aspect of that races culture. 
#10
To start, we have all agreed that we are sticking with the original fantasy classes, i.e. Orc, Elf, Human, Drawrf, Thief, etc. However, as the product progresses, we envision mods that can be anything you want. For instance, the steam punk mod, RWTA, that Phil is working on is kind of like Warhammer 40K. Of course, there will be a sci-fi mod, ala Tribes, a tactical shooter mod, etc.
Even if you are not excited about fantasy, kick in with the project for a while in order to get the foundation laid, then move off in your own direction.
I know I preach a lot about originality, but originality comes in many areas. For RW, the originality comes in the fact that it is a community project for one thing, but it will also be the first team based game to attempt HTH combat plus many other features that are too broad to discuss on this thread.
Jeff Tunnell GG
07/03/2002 (1:14 pm)
Ian,To start, we have all agreed that we are sticking with the original fantasy classes, i.e. Orc, Elf, Human, Drawrf, Thief, etc. However, as the product progresses, we envision mods that can be anything you want. For instance, the steam punk mod, RWTA, that Phil is working on is kind of like Warhammer 40K. Of course, there will be a sci-fi mod, ala Tribes, a tactical shooter mod, etc.
Even if you are not excited about fantasy, kick in with the project for a while in order to get the foundation laid, then move off in your own direction.
I know I preach a lot about originality, but originality comes in many areas. For RW, the originality comes in the fact that it is a community project for one thing, but it will also be the first team based game to attempt HTH combat plus many other features that are too broad to discuss on this thread.
Jeff Tunnell GG
#11
So basically, once we have enough content to try the concept out on (i.e. a few characters to see if it matches enough bone/mesh combo's) I'll stick it in as a requirement.
For now, its a bit of a moot point, we dont have enough classes to worry about. Obviously that will change as we progress.
Rest assured, its something I REALLY want to try out.
Phil.
07/03/2002 (2:53 pm)
Guys, talking about the physical characteristic changes for the skeleton (ala phantasy star) its one of the things Ive been meaning to get to for a LONG time now.So basically, once we have enough content to try the concept out on (i.e. a few characters to see if it matches enough bone/mesh combo's) I'll stick it in as a requirement.
For now, its a bit of a moot point, we dont have enough classes to worry about. Obviously that will change as we progress.
Rest assured, its something I REALLY want to try out.
Phil.
#12
but regardless I will go along and give 100% I am enjoying it never the less
Ian
07/04/2002 (10:16 am)
Dont get me wrong I'm exited about the project and even its subject matter. I guess because I'm not a fantasy fan I have a problem limiting myself. I mean look at it this way the elf sorceress, she looks great really nice design and a good model already made but its not something I haven't seen in a thousand other games before, stick some red, wavy locks on her and you got dungeon seige. I just think an inection of freshness wouldn't go amiss somthing to set us apartbut regardless I will go along and give 100% I am enjoying it never the less
Ian
Torque 3D Owner Robert Blanchet Jr.
Strickly from a modelers point of view I would not want to have to render different model looks for a single character depending on the different attributes the user decides to go with.
On the other hand, having 2 or 3 different sets of bone animations for any given character might be possible. Basically a 'plugin' type bone animation system.
In other words lets say for character model A you have 3 different bone animation sequences. Animation 1 would contain more stockier type animations -- where the character moves and acts battle hardened, Animation 2 would have more agile and stealthier type animations, and Animation 3 would have more wizard like animations and graceful movement.
Then depending on the attributes the user selects, we do a bit of fuzzy math in the background to determine which animation set would best suit those attributes selected. So if say, the user selects attributes that are more warrior like, such as strength, constitution, and dexterity, then we determine that the best animation set would be Animation 1. Then we just apply that those bone sequences to the model selected.
This would only require that the different bone sequences be made for every model. So if you have 6 different model types, then you would have around 18 different animation sets in total. Each model would get its own sets. So, if a player chooses an Orcish looking model, then their animations sets would consist of something such as orc_warrior_*.seq, orc_magic_*.seq, and orc_generic_*.seq, where * represents the different animation actions such as run, duck, and so forth.