A map ( no genre defined) using attachments for Villager Male ?

[Ardenian]

Hello,

I would like to hear your opinion on the following:

Imagine a map, maybe a RPG or a Campaign, offering only the male villager as hero. You choose a class, however, to become a certain hero, like Knight, Priest and so on.

Now, the important thing: Instead of using custom models, the map would feature many attachments, so basically every item would have a corresponding attachment, changing the look of the hero.

I know, to a certain extend, this already is executed in Gaia's or Heroic Town (?), but I would like to know what you basically think of it.

Is it boring that all heroes look like the villager male ?
Is it a good idea or would you rather like to see custom models, what do you prefer ? Why would you not choose the villager variation ?

 

[rulerofiron99]

This is an idea I have usually once or twice a year, but never get around to making.

• Aesthetically, it would be best to make the model itself also customisable.
  • Chop up the village model into head/arms/chest/etc.
  • Remove the skin from the base model; this is only the attachment skeleton.
  • Make attachments for various heads/arms/etc, use different races other than human as well.
• AoS/DotA style
  • You buy new weapons/armour as the game progresses
  • Each weapon has a skill level that increases as you use that weapon (like in Skyrim)
  • Higher skill level in a weapon improves your hit/parry chance and allows you to use new abilities, e.g. a spear user has a leaping spear strike
  • Different weapons are good against different armours, so during the game you might change your preferred weapon to counter an opponent.

I've never gotten far with this idea because it's a huge load of work to get all the content right, and particularly crossbows are a bitch because it seems like each one is designed for a different attachment angle.

 

[Ardenian]

Thanks for responding

The aesthetically aspect, I think it is a great idea. But, this requires to remake all attachments used for the map, doesn't it ? Except weapons, of course, but all clothing, plate, armor, whatsoever attachments would require to be redone, as they aren't hiding the whole chest, are they ( Hive ones) ?

Of course, this would require tons of work, only the systems would require hours, days to make. It is just something I am playing around in my head at the moment.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

This is an idea I have usually once or twice a year, but never get around to making.

• Aesthetically, it would be best to make the model itself also customisable.
  • Chop up the village model into head/arms/chest/etc.
  • Remove the skin from the base model; this is only the attachment skeleton.
  • Make attachments for various heads/arms/etc, use different races other than human as well.

• 
  I experimented with this in the past and found it impractical for several reasons:
  
  1) The game engine messes up the shading; which leaves visible seams whereever body parts connect; now this is fine if every body part has some clear outlines defined by textures, but you can't create a convincing "cloth" look like that.
  
  2) The animations would still always be the same, regardless of the attached body; which will ultimately look weird. An orc barbarian should not have the same attack animations as an agile nightelf rogue.
  
  3) Actually, animations are a bitch anyway. You need at least two basic skeletons, one for female and one for male characters if you want to make the gender customizable. Giving female characters the same walk/stand/attack animations as male characters will ultimately make them look like on steroids.
  
  4) You miss out on the opportunity to apply different team colors
  
  5) the portrait is not replacable ingame. So unless your head is the only static member of the skeleton, your portrait will not represent your character in any way. Which is kind of sad, as heads are not only the easiest to replace, but also the defining piece of your unit model.
  
  6) Again, animations. Every character will have the same, which will ultimately make everyone look the same, no matter how much customization you allow. Animations define a character more than any attachments.
  
  7) You miss out on the opportunity to change textures ingame by using the "eat tree" ability.
  
  
  
  Don't get me wrong; it's not a bad idea and it works, but unless you are a really skilled modeller, expect it to look horrible. Everything needs to be customized and match perfectly for this to work.
  
  Imho, it's far easier to just import different models and attach weapons and armors to them. Provides more visual fidelity and editing the attachment points so that attachments scale to taste is a matter of a few clicks.
  For example, if you want to attach the same armor to an orc barbarian and a filigrane nightelf, just scale the chest attachment point of the elf to a smaller X and Y value, but leave the Z value; your armor will be "stretched" so that it matches the model better.
  
  
  If you want to go really hardcore, like I did recently, you can use attachment models AND swap out the body textures of your units at the same time. Requires heavily optimized custom skins, though, if you want to keep the filesize low.

 

[Ardenian]

Thanks again for a very detailed answer.

It seems it is a very huge thing to do. I also worry about the lack of uniform attachments sets. I mean, of course, as a skilled modeller ( who I am not) I could make them easily myself, but relying on existing resources it might be difficult.

I think I am going to learn basics of modelling and such first, before starting such a huge task.

Thanks a lot, guys!