Feature discussion: hero skin change

[Zwiebelchen]

I know, there's higher priority stuff to do, but I want to discuss this nonetheless:

What would you think about an npc or option that allows you to change the basic skin of your character?


As there's a method to change the texture of a unit without re-importing the whole model, all I need to do is doing some minor modifications to the current hero models (which are imported anyway, so no change in filesize or complexity whatsoever) and importing other skins to select from.

Since BLP compression nowadays allows for pretty low filesizes for skins and I recently deleted a lot of stuff that wasn't used anyway, I think I can afford some extra file size for that. Chrome67's awesome submissions usually only weight 60kb per skin. Which would end up in roughly 500kb (compressed) for 2 new skins to select from for each hero (Plus the ability to use the WC3 default skins for the specific unit).

The changes could even be saved to the player's savecode (without a codewipe), if we restrict it to 3 choices per class.


So what do you think? Do you want to see a feature like that? And if so, how would you want it to be implemented? Selecting on hero-creation only? Or an npc that allows to change the skin?

On another implementation, I could also make the base skin selection tied to the equipment used. So for example, a high level armor uses a different base skin than a low level armor. In this case, the skin will only use the armor parts of the texture (which also further reduces the filesize a little, as then I can remove the head and skin parts of the texture).

The third option would be, to only make the skin for the head selectable. In this case, the filesize will be much much lower and there would still be a nice amount of customization.

 

[nmphuong91]

Lovely. I think it will be a NPC shop to change skin and cost 100 MC per change since some player is complaining about having too much MC and can't spend them.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Sounds like a great idea, and maybe like nmphuong said, have it cost some mana crystals, though im thinking more on the side of 10.... rather than 100. Also, can we maybe see some ideas you had for the new skins for each class?

 

[grekern]

Perhaps also add a quest requirement to buy a new skin. Something along the lines of building a powerful artifact from peices and give it to a shady mage whom can use the artifact to transform you.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

So what do you think? Do you want to see a feature like that?

Yes! Absolutely. Please?

I know, there's higher priority stuff to do

Actually screw expectations and priorities altogether. Aim for awesomeness and nothing less. If you're doing an amazing map why not go all out, why sell it short?

The changes could even be saved to the player's savecode (without a codewipe)

I didn't even know this was possible. *Fades away droolingly... daydreaming of other possibilities*

On another implementation, I could also make the base skin selection tied to the equipment used. So for example, a high level armor uses a different base skin than a low level armor. In this case, the skin will only use the armor parts of the texture (which also further reduces the filesize a little, as then I can remove the head and skin parts of the texture).

Wait, what? I didn't get this. So when you wanna change to, i.e., Viking armor with zerk, a certain skin change becomes a prerequisite? If yes, well that can sound badass, if a tad forced?

...though im thinking more on the side of 10

Do you really want it to be that short-lived and easy-to-achieve, when you're in the game? Or is this your right-now laziness speaking?

... a shady mage whom can use the artifact to transform you

I find your preferences.. disturbing.

The Off-topic TL;DR

I'll be frank. Limiting gold and MC to 100k/100 was not your best call. It only serves to discourage hardcore gaming (which should be promoted instead, right?), and while at it, gives people more reason to come flooding asking for new stuff, cuz they're bored when they hit the ceiling, and it's not a difficult ceiling to hit.
Farming excessive gold/mc was an on-the-side motivation and an excuse to just get together and help newer hopeful players who need zerks (the true jack-of-all-trades btw, crusaders atm are just jack of jacksh*t trades whatsoever, imho), healers and capable dps'ers etc to go own some bosses. That whole business would in the wider scope of things, keep your map more alive, and the community less inactive, to say the least.

On the other hand, possible enabling of (nearly) limitless farming, first and foremost, and in a moral perspective of things, gives your audience the gift of "choice" while subtly implying respect towards their right to have it. It feels good. If you put yourself in your generic player's shoes, you'll know. Now add the opposite of all the above-mentioned effects it has had.
Even if the 10^6 warcraft gold/lumber limit can't be broken or w/e it's far far better than 100k/100.

Again, it's not that I cannot relate to why you would want limitations from the get-go. But as an RPG player, I believe this: The only limit there should be in a role-playing game is, as a player, how much effort you wanna put into it? How far are you really ready to go?

An unbound and nearly limitless "effort and achievement" system with at least a few hardcore boundaries to overcome by a player, is just an amazing feature any amazing RPG could benefit greatly from. And Gaia is nothing less than amazing for its limitations like being bound in WC3 etc, I hope for you to make it more so.

In light of which, farming like a mindless machine for very, very expensive customized skins, (even) faces and whatnot feels like a dream come true.
It's the process, not the goal, that feels good in RPGs (right ihaz?... just so you other guys know, some of us started "11th" characters and more even, after we hit 10 char ceilings, just and purely out of hunger for the pleasure of lowbie farming) and this would let the 'process' last much longer, and as a side note bring satisfaction to those of us in displeasure with having nothing to do with all our riches (+ to nmp's comment).

I'm not ranting groundlessly. My still-played almost-heavily modded Skyrim's most basic modifications were, if you ever heard of them, "The Uncapper" (removes caps and limitations on Skill Levels and Main Level plus complete customization, even as far as level-specific, "curved" experience gaining) and "Economics of Skyrim" (makes financial system much harder with 5 difficulty presets, the 5th, called inconceivable, being hardest, and my customized settings are twice harder than 5!).
The result? I have yet to get tired of playing it; I'm even saving for a 2nd PC upgrade to try new DLC with more mods and highres stuff.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Well I was thinking of being able to freely switch between skins, so 10 would be still a time sink, but not an excessive amount,

And what I hate, a lot, is when I see people trying to hog as many mc's as possible trying to get the second stash on every character, or 100 mcs on every character, when there's other people in the game that actually NEED mcs.

However maybe 10 is too low, but I still think 100 is too high, I probably also wouldn't want anything over, say, 30 because again there might be people in your game that actually need MC for recipes or items, then there's the people that simply want all the mcs because they need 100 to change a skin that doesn't actually help the team at all.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

Well I was thinking of being able to freely switch between skins, so 10 would be still a time sink, but not an excessive amount,

And what I hate, a lot, is when I see people trying to hog as many mc's as possible trying to get the second stash on every character, or 100 mcs on every character, when there's other people in the game that actually NEED mcs.

However maybe 10 is too low, but I still think 100 is too high, I probably also wouldn't want anything over, say, 30 because again there might be people in your game that actually need MC for recipes or items, then there's the people that simply want all the mcs because they need 100 to change a skin that doesn't actually help the team at all.

There was a period fresh after my chars started getting 50, I didn't roll at all and was just enjoying people getting what they want. Keeping doing that for a while, got me thinking, "would I want someone to make gold/mc farming easier for me by passing, if I was the one in need? My answer was a definitive fat No. Not cause of pride. Cause it kills the purpose and fun of farming. In occasional cases where someone needs something immediately, they ask for it and there is no one in our group at least, to say no to a teammate, is there..

Just saying though, if your coin says "be kind", flip it & you'll see "don't spoil" / "don't degrade other's prides" as well. But I agree 100 mc is too much. nmp was just suggesting something randomly anyway.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Let me first talk about the save limits before coming back to the actual topic, as I feel I need to clarify my design intentions in that:

The caps are selected as a compromise between performance (save/load code length) and freedom (stacking up stuff for the sake of powergaming).

WC3 only allows for three different resources without 3rd party mods and I had to carefully select the purpose of each. Gold, obviously, can be gained by both solo and group play. Mana Crystals where designed to be the group play highlevel rewards. As with any currency, there's inflation on higher levels. Which means that a level 30 Legendary item might only cost 3 mana crystals, whereas a level 50 blue item might already cost 10-15 mana crystals. This also means that level 50 bosses will drop mana crystals much more frequently. D4 bosses will award ALL killing players with a mana crystal, instead of just one, just to balance the currency inflation.
I can't make level 30 items cost the same amount of MCs as level 50 items in the same way as I can't make level 30 items cost the same amount of gold as level 50 items, for obvious reasons.

Just see mana crystals as the same as gold: early monsters drop low amounts of gold, later monsters drop more. But the cost of items also scales.
The new cap for mana crystals, btw, is 300, not 100. It was changed with 1.2. I felt this was the magic number, again, as a compromise between freedom and save/load limitations.


About the food resource, it will basicly be the third type of resource, that can only be collected through questing (both standard and repeatable quests). This is to allow for more endgame variation. For 1.2B content, I already have some new quest designs in my mind that will allow the player to do activities other than just endlessly farming bosses. For example, there will be a (repeatable) crafting quest.


There's a lot of interesting stuff that can be unlocked by those quest tokens. Like an additional talent point or two more skill points. And then there's a gamble component to it aswell, as you can buy bags with quest tokens, that award you random items after certain rules (for example, there's gonna be a bag that will give you a random recipe; some of them only available through this gambling).
And then there's the 1 hour buff effects that can be purchased by quest tokens.

Mana crystals, to get back to that topic, will have their uses in 1.2B content. And will actually be useful for something other than just the stash upgrade.


To go back to the topic:

I'm always in for more character customization; that's why I came up with the skin changing idea. But in order to implement it, I wanted to get some player feedback first about what is the preferred implementation.
The method I'm gonna use to apply the different skins only allow me to do one texture swap at the same time on a single unit. This means I can not make the head of the unit use texture 3, whereas the body uses texture 2. However, I can make the head of the unit use the default texture only, whereas the body texture is dynamic (and the opposite).


I'm not sure if the customization should be part of endgame content. I feel it's a cool feature that should more or less be available to any player at a given time. But it certainly depends a lot on the implementation.
If only the head should be changable, then I think it should be bound directly to the character creation process.
If only the body skin changes, I feel it should be used in combination with item models to allow for even better item visuals.
If both body and head change, I feel it could indeed be highlevel-only customization. But then again, if could also be bound to the character creation process.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Here's a list of skins I found with a quick search that might be interesting - I also like the idea that this can be abused to for example make a night elf ranger hero:

Squire variation 1: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/skins-552/villagermale-61284/?prev=search=villager&d=list&r=20

Squire Variation 2: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/skins-552/human-blp-129175/?prev=search=villager&d=list&r=20

Dark Elf skin for Ranger: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-157951/?prev=search=sylvanas&d=list&r=20

Night Elf skin for ranger: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...ro-61999/?prev=search=night%20elf&d=list&r=20

Blue skin for Ranger: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-172446/?prev=search=sylvanus&d=list&r=20

Green Skin for Ranger: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-172426/?prev=search=sylvanus&d=list&r=20

Brown Leather for Ranger: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...nter-blp-182001/?prev=t=21&r=20&d=list&page=3

Metal Skin for Ranger: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/skins-552/shandris-61113/?prev=t=20&r=20&d=list&page=25

Red Thief skin: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-137786/?prev=search=Sentinel&d=list&r=20

Metal Thief skin: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-120159/?prev=search=Sentinel&d=list&r=20

Metal Thief skin 2: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...2/?prev=search=night%20elf&r=20&d=list&page=2

Darker Thief skin 2: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-121050/?prev=search=Sentinel&d=list&r=20

Brunette Thief skin: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...er-blp-172441/?prev=search=Runner&d=list&r=20

Night Elf thief skin: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...p-172442/?prev=search=night%20elf&d=list&r=20

Dark Mage skin 1 (Only the robe/face matters for those skins; all other parts get deleted to reduce file size): http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...-blp-116588/?prev=search=Archmage&d=list&r=20

Dark Mage skin 2: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/...er-61695/?prev=search=Mage&r=20&d=list&page=2

Dark Priest: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/skins-552/hereticpriest-61083/?prev=search=priest&d=list&r=20

Generic Priest: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/skins-552/hero_bloodelf-blp-129995/?prev=search=Mage&d=list&r=20

Night Elf Priest: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/skins-552/bloodpriest-blp-142151/?prev=search=priest&d=list&r=20

I could also ask 67chrome for some custom made skins.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

There's a lot of interesting stuff that can be unlocked by those quest tokens.

Whoa cooool (◐ o ◑ ) Should I be happy I grinded hammer then?
@Skins. Gawddaymn. Now I know what you mean by awesome. I want me all of those. 'Cept for the hulk hogan squire maybe. lol kiddin'.

I wanted to get some player feedback first about what is the preferred implementation.

How about being able to choose body for a moderate but not too easy amount of gold before changing your job at 25. And later on changing your head accordingly with much higher requirements? Trust me it's something Everybody would love to have and drool over. You should utilize that to encourage farming. Free would make it lose half its luster.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Trust me it's something Everybody would love to have and drool over. You should utilize that to encourage farming. Free would make it lose half its luster.

True. But then again only being able to select the skin upon character creation also increases replay value, as now you actually have a reason to play the same class again if you wish to have different visuals.


I'm also thinking about a "rebirth" feature. Which will basicly make you start again from level 1, but this time with higher stat gain. In this case, the skin could be selectable to represent that your character is now a premium character that made its way all the way to level 50 just to start again...

 

[Eagle XI]

Boils down if you have space left in the map, in which case i have to ask: whats the reason for not screwing the desire to remain lite(any map which can be just downloaded and played, instead requiring a seperate setup, as in 90% of WCIII maps) and not head for your own seperate MPQ, also why not a full mod ?
Rebirth sounds like "Elite status" in DoW2-TLS, unless you give an super-duper useful boni at end-level to make worthwhile after went through entire game a 2. time with same char instead lvling an alt, there wouldnt be any reason to suffer through the grind again.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

OK so let's clarify.
Having story/immersion element embedded to skin change > not having it.
We wan t that. A simple shady NPC with no background that just does that, would break the delicate immersion there exists.

Like certain games giving you special codes upon finishing (even wc3 capaigns had that) you can perhaps add a champion or hero status, or divinity rank (like gaining the favor of gods or titans or w/e I still dunno what you wanna do with story, like Gaia herself n stuff), achievement system, something in those areas. So that this time around, starting from lvl 1 he/she who accomplished it, will unleash their true spirits or such.

As such, Rebirth is good but on what occasion & by what force are you given rebirth. Certain story details are necessary I'd say. It never has to be complex. Simplest things work best. So I'd say an NPC with little story background relating him/her to what's going on, who has a power to "unleash" you or such,would sound relevant.

But starting over, what will happen to your gear? if they can simply be kept safe till you reach the required lvl to use them, it is fine but forcing 50 levels of both exp and gear farming is as good as a code wipe. It will prove counter-productive towards discouraging a re-play. Maybe boosted exp gain rating can be enforced as well?

What if instead of starting over, there can be a very long process to reaching 'third job status'? --3 is a charmed number anyway -- (they don't have to get new names, just a minor note that they have reached this status; maybe like "unleashed" or "true" or "champion" added to their unit name. That or we can call each of them differently. English never runs of of names for those things.)
Like gathering stuff, devouring some kinda energy particles or some kind of seeds that could relate to gaia herself (or just using dragonballs to go super saiyan O,o) and blah blah then with that power unleash their true selves and be reborn.

Ok too much fantasizing. I dunno how far you're ready to go all out at the endgame and how badass you want it to be, so I don't know how many notches to turn up the "fantasy" gauge.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

A Rebirth could be fun for the simple reasoning of giving more incentive to train with lower leveled new people. Sometimes it can be a bit boring to help all the new people who are trying to learn the game. Its boring for them too because they're not really experiencing the game by just being powered leveled. Even if our stats grew a bit faster but we were level one and doing stuff with noobies it would be better for everyone involved.

As for skin changes specifically.. Why not both? Have the option to choose any skin at the start and then be able to pay to change it later. I don't know if you have any advanced plans for consumable uses of mana crystals (such as potions) in the future, or if it'll just be more one time buys for x amount of MC's and then never needing to spend them again. Having skin changes always gives them a use.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I'm currently experimenting with merging all vital texture parts of the hero models into a single texture and customizing the UVW mapping on the heroes. This will greatly reduce filesize for custom skin textures, as then all 5 hero models will share the same texture file (which can then be swapped as described above).

I'm also experimenting with a seperate head texture for all heroes, which basicly has a semi-transparent greyscale hair texture that allows me to abuse team-colors to change the hair color of the units dynamically.


Both methods combined allow the player to change both the hair color of the unit and the body texture individually.

Since this allows me to get rid of all the seperate model-exclusive texture files, I can achieve an even greater level of customization options for the same file size.

Left part of the image are the shared textures for Clerics and Squires. Right part are the shared textures for Ranger, Thief and Mage (the small part on the bottom right).


The downside is, that all the hero skins have to be custom-made, as I can't simply download and use existing files from the hive.
But I think I can deal with that. Since most unit textures in WC3 are comic-style and pretty much low resolution, I think I can manage to keep the art style consistent to the current game art.


I attached an image how the combined texture file currently looks like. The textures are taken from the hive and are just placeholders for creating proper UVW mapping for the heroes.



EDIT:
I can also abuse the team color thing to change the color of certain clothing and armor parts of the unit. I'm still not sure which road I want to go here. Either make hair colors changable via team colors or make armor part colors changable. Can't do both, unfortunately.

 

[Kyuzo_dono]

I'm still not sure which road I want to go here.

Hair, is my vote. Armors shudn't really change. Their looks is somewhat of an identifying feature for them. And hair is a personal thing which adds variety.

But I think I can deal with that. Since most unit textures in WC3 are comic-style and pretty much low resolution, I think I can manage to keep the art style consistent to the current game art.

Yea you can mate! This whole thing's sounding amazing and is gonna add such an aesthetic feature to Gaias. Not just visually. But also in giving customization room to players. Go for it
I'm looking forward to how I'll smugly brag like" Hey there, I got a WIP reborn zerk lvl 35 with skin #xyz and he beats your 50 old-fashioned one with 6 scrolls for slots!"... Ok that was overkill.

Right part are the shared textures for Ranger, Thief and Mage (the small part on the bottom right).

What small part, the back of the mantle thing? Hardly visible. I thought my sorc is gonna wear panties from now on for a moment there.

Anyhoo. Is rebirth thing gonna be a "continuation" of your current character somehow or not? I don't think cutting the two apart achieves much, if it's even possible. How are you going to be able to implement an increased stat gain?
And as for the difficulty it might offer redoing 50 levels, it's an optional thing for hardcorers right? It should be solved with the same old "don't do if you don't like" treatment.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

So I decided for changable haircolors instead of armor colors.

I did a lot of testing yesterday to find the optimal design for the body texture files and decided that I will completely re-map all the heroes to a custom made texture. I simply couldn't find a texture layout within the WC3 files that was done properly. I don't know why blizzard decided to discard all common standards when uvw-mapping their unit models. Most of their unwraps are a total mess.

So I'll do it on my own for a much cleaner unwrapping and easier texture making.

I also came up with a new idea to allow even greater freedom:
Instead of just doing one swappable body texture, I will seperate the body textures into two files: a basic skin and undergarment file and an actual armor texture. The first will always stay the same, the second can be changed.

The interesting thing about this is, that is basicly allows for transparent parts in the armor texture, which means that not all armors have to cover the entire body of the unit.


I also experimented with different compression and managed to get the filesize of a an entire armor texture file down to only 20-25kb without a noticable loss in quality.
Making textures from scratch allows for certain design decisions that allows me to drop the file size even further (paletted colors).
If it works the way I expect, then I can even ditch the actual armor attachment models and go for a texture-only approach (attachable shoulder pads and cloaks will still be there, though).

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The new Squire Base skin that I will base all male hero armor textures on (of course, he will get pants).

The head uses a different texture file that contains all the current head textures with a semi transparent alpha layer on the hair. This allows to change hair color ingame via adjusting the team color of the hero (from left to right: grey, brown, orange, light blue, blue, red; the other colors didn't look that good, but I will allow them to be picked nonetheless).

Note that the Squire will have armor attachment models on top of the base texture. This allows sharing the base body texture with cloth wearers, which will not have armor attachment models (will still have shoulder and cloak attachments, though). Also, I felt that the attachment model armors actually looked pretty good on the Squire.

The Ranger and Thief will get a female texture variant, of course. Thief and Ranger will also not get armor attachment models anymore, as the armor change will be done by body texture swapping. This will make them look more agile and realistic (compared to the currently blocky armor attachments).
Again, no armor attachment model does not mean they will not have shoulder and cloak attachments.

 

[Malygos10]

This all sounds cool and all, but would it be possible to have both genders for all classes. How awesome would it be to have a female squire, magician and cleric. Having a male ranger and thief doesn't sound as appealing, but still

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I guess that would be possible, but would require a lot extra map space for the alternative models (roughly half a megabyte more, to be exact).

 

[PastTime]

That would be a cool eyecandy indeed, depends whether you can sacrifice the remaining space for such purpose.

 

[grekern]

It is a nice touch to be able to choose gender, but i would prefer to see the space used to other content. If you have abundant space left, sure!

 

[Zwiebelchen]

It's not like the place isn't there (remember that there's still custom music in this game that I can get rid off), but the amount of work required would also be huge. Remember that every model has to be custom-fitted for all the existing attachment models and that every model must come with a certain set of animations.
Especially cleric and squire are the main problem here:
I heavily used anim transfer to fit all the animations in the squire model (alternates for 2H style, defend anims, jump anim, spin anim) and making the fist attack alternate anims work on the cleric model was a pain in the ass too.

Also, I would need a lot of vertex-modifying of existing hero models too. A lot of the custom models that I could use as a base for those alternate versions have a cloak or headpiece. While some of them can be removed pretty simple, others are quite hard to delete, as sometimes those model don't have proper back meshes.


All in all, I'm open for the idea of having male/female of every class, but the amount of work that has to be put into this is simply not worth it atm.

 

[Malygos10]

Yeah, I thought as much.

P.S. Really appreciate all the time you're willing to put in and all the work you're doing on this map