861 réponses à ce sujet

[Meltemph]

"Reskinning" the generic body sock has worked wonders for comics for decades.

Eh, I always thought that Joker/Batman the distinct look is what helped make them so memorable(not the main reason, but definitely helped) and helped set them apart from the rest. All those comics you listed... The homogenization of looks is one of the reasons I didn't like half of them, and I always gravitated to the "Luke Cage" types, personally.

[In Exile]

casedawgz wrote...
Captain America would like a word with US Agent.

According to wikipedia:

''U.S. Agent's early appearances included issues of Captain America
and West Coast Avengers/Avengers West Coast. During the
1990s, U.S. Agent wore a discarded costume of Steve Rogers, the original
Captain America, which was black and had a different alignment of the
stars and stripes to differentiate it from Steve Rogers' original
Captain America suit design.''

It pretty much sounds like he stole Captain America's clothes.

[Wicked 702]

In Exile wrote...

Wicked 702 wrote...

Um....no offense but you're
contradicting yourself here. Unique outfits ARE what Bioware is doing
for DA2 (see the ongoing discussion about our companions). So if it's
more resource heavy to do it that way, why is it better (according to
you and so many others)?

Because it is unique. There is inherent aesthetic value. And there is no comparative difference in 10 unique items for 10 characters, or 10 generic items for all 10 characters in terms of zots. The problem comes in when you design 4 unique items for 1 character, then another 4 unique item for another characters, giving you 40 unique meshes for 10 characters. That's the cost overrun, and that's why Bioware won't bother to listen. It's why a compromise is unlikely - the cost benefit.

Come on man. That logic is so horribly flawed it's not even funny.

Hawke IS ALREADY going to be able to equip any style of armor just like DAO.
The companions ARE ONLY going to equip their unique sets (number per companion undetermined).

By your own logic, the textures have already been created in totality. Why not simply ALLOW the companions to wear the various armor pieces AS WELL as have their unique sets? There's no logical answer to that except "It's Bioware's decision." Well guess what, it's stupid.

[tmp7704]

In Exile wrote...

No, we're using the same definition of unique, but we're using a different criteria. A red ball and a blue ball are not unique if they are the same model ball, identical in all respects except their colour.

Then i think we actually are using different definitions of unique here, as result of different criteria -- your approach defines unique as "item must be different from others in every aspect" while mine does it as "there's no other item identical with this one".

You pointed out that certain items in DA:O, while having the same mesh, could be unique because of their own skin. You mentioned previously that you wanted to have the ability to swap armour. When I asked about the 5 reskins, I meant relative to DA:O. Dou you think getting to choose between 5 identical apperances with different colours is the same kind of customization as you had in DA:O?

My intuition is that you will say it is not, because you appreciate the difference in flavour a new mesh brought relative to an old one, and my hope was to use that to explain the difference in our position regarding what counts as a unique appearance.

Well i guess then it worked although it'd be quite easier to say "unique for me means no aspect of item must be shared with another"

For the record you're correct, i wouldn't consider having 5 reskins for single mesh identical with functionality of DAO where it could be 5 different reskins for each of 5 or so different meshes ... it would however be welcome improvement over what DA2 seems to have.

We can define clothing as ''material covering the naked body'' and say this accurately describes 100% of clothing, but that isn't sufficient to prove all clothing is just a recolour of the same basic design.

Well now this i think is a cop-out   in the sense "skin-tight spandex" when it comes to superheroes is quite more specific than "material covering the naked body", as it means certain shape which follows very closely the hero's figure. In other words, it does describe certain "basic design" much like "t-shirt" describes a basic design, too.

(and you can rather safely say that tshirts are pretty much all reskins, in similar manner)

[Dave of Canada]

MerinTB wrote...
"Reskinning" the generic body sock has worked wonders for comics for decades.

But do each comic have to do individual animations and such?

[Dave of Canada]

Wicked 702 wrote...


By your own logic, the textures have already been created in totality. Why not simply ALLOW the companions to wear the various armor pieces AS WELL as have their unique sets?

Because armor doesn't work with their body type. You'd have to make every companion look generic to wear every armor. I'm also doubting very much that Hawke has a generic model, so... using Hawke's armor on companions will yield to everybody having Hawke's proportions.

[MerinTB]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Right, because we were all dressing our mages and rogues in plate, or our warriors and rogues in robes.

Exaggeration to the point of absolutely ridiculing yourself - well done.

[Sylvius the Mad]

In Exile wrote...

You would still have the dialogue wheel.

The orientation of the options isn't particularly relevant.

You would still have scripted action and body language you cannot control.

We've had that for many years.  DAO had scripted action and body language I couldn't control.  That's still a bad thing, but it's clearly a tolerably bad thing.

Do you think ME or ME2 would become an RPG by your standard if you played it on mute? If so, why not just do that?

I'm willing to bet you think the paraphrase is broken, regardless of VO.

Because then I wouldn't know what the NPCs are saying.

Muting the PC and turning off subtitles would eliminate the paraphrase problem, as that's only a problem when the paraphrase and the actual line disagree.  If the actual line ceases to exist, the paraphrase becomes the entire abstraction of the PC's expression (just like the full line options in DAO, or the keyword dialogue in Oblivion).
 
But without subtitles, I can't follow the NPC lines if I can't hear their voices.  Hence my request to mute only the PC VO.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:22 .

[In Exile]

Wicked 702 wrote...
Come on man. That logic is so horribly flawed it's not even funny.

Hawke IS ALREADY going to be able to equip any style of armor just like DAO.
The companions ARE ONLY going to equip their unique sets (number per companion undetermined).

You might not have noticed, but Hawke is human. Varric, at the very least, will never be able to wear any armour Hawke can. Each re-sized armour was not just stretched in DA:O. It was a unique racial model.

By your own logic, the textures have already been created in totality. Why not simply ALLOW the companions to wear the various armor pieces AS WELL as have their unique sets? There's no logical answer to that except "It's Bioware's decision." Well guess what, it's stupid.

The answer to that is that it would mean either all companions had to be human, or only the human companions would be able to wear any of the gear Hawke could wear. Which means that now you have some companions who can magically physcally alter their shape, which is liable to give the cinematic department a stroke.

Bioware can justifiably decide in treating all the companions the same as companions without it being a cop-out.

[Dave of Canada]

MerinTB wrote...

Right, because we were all dressing our mages and rogues in plate, or our warriors and rogues in robes.

Exaggeration to the point of absolutely ridiculing yourself - well done.

Actually, those characters are supposed to represent Sten / Alistair / Oghren. Though I guess you'd make a wild assumption.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:23 .

[Wicked 702]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Wicked 702 wrote...


By your own logic, the textures have already been created in totality. Why not simply ALLOW the companions to wear the various armor pieces AS WELL as have their unique sets?

Because armor doesn't work with their body type. You'd have to make every companion look generic to wear every armor. I'm also doubting very much that Hawke has a generic model, so... using Hawke's armor on companions will yield to everybody having Hawke's proportions.

Right, because Zevran and Oghren clearly used the EXACT SAME MODEL.

No, you wouldn't have to do what you said at all.

[Meltemph]

 

Then i think we actually are using different definitions of unique here

Well ya, you are happy with:

being the only one

Where as Exile wants

being without a like or equal

He wants uniqueness to be all encompassing.

You are are willing to accept a more superficial uniqueness.

Both have their validity and both are very much a preference thing.

Modifié par Meltemph, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:25 .

[Dave of Canada]

Wicked 702 wrote...

Right, because Zevran and Oghren clearly used the EXACT SAME MODEL.

They do, infact. Sarcasm isn't required. A Qunari, Human, Dwarf and Elf are actually all resized from the human model. Why do you think elves and dwarves have weird looking arms? It isn't because they were made like that, it was because playing with the model made it odd.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:27 .

[CoS Sarah Jinstar]

Dave of Canada wrote...

MerinTB wrote...
"Reskinning" the generic body sock has worked wonders for comics for decades.

But do each comic have to do individual animations and such?

The game doesn't either.  A Hawke rogue uses the same animations as a Isabela rogue. Sure push the "unique companion mesh" line but honestly 99.5% of people wouldn't notice it unless it was pointed out to them in the first place.

This is purely a one portion of the fanbase gets exactly what they want, while the rest don't, even though it could have been advoided with just a bit more effort.

[Wicked 702]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...

This is purely a one portion of the fanbase gets exactly what they want, while the rest don't, even though it could have been advoided with just a bit more effort.

On this we agree completely.

And on that note, I must take my leave for the night.

Flame away!

[Dave of Canada]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...


The game doesn't either.  A Hawke rogue uses the same animations as a Isabela rogue. Sure push the "unique companion mesh" line but honestly 99.5% of people wouldn't notice it unless it was pointed out to them in the first place.

Not just ingame battles (I suspect character specific talent trees will have unique abilities) but in the cutscenes, dialogues, ect.

This is purely a one portion of the fanbase gets exactly what they want, while the rest don't

That's just a generalization. No proof to back either side.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:27 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Because armor doesn't work with their body type. You'd have to make every companion look generic to wear every armor. I'm also doubting very much that Hawke has a generic model, so... using Hawke's armor on companions will yield to everybody having Hawke's proportions.

Did it actually bother anyone that Morrigan and Leliana had the same body, especially since they were almost guaranteed to be dressed differently?

Really, simply making Wynne male and forcing the PC to be a female elf or dwarf would have provided a unique model for every party member in DAO.

Sten: male qunari
Alistair: male human
Zevran: male elf
Morrigan: female human mage
Leliana: female human non-mage
Wynne: male human mage
Oghren: male dwarf
Dog: dog
Shale: golem

Add in a PC as any one of female elf mage, female elf non-mage, or female dwarf and you still don't have any duplicates.

And yet somehow they still managed to have customisable outfits for everyone.

[upsettingshorts]

CoS Sarah Jinstar wrote...
This is purely a one portion of the fanbase gets exactly what they want, while the rest don't, even though it could have been advoided with just a bit more effort.

This could be said about every design decision made by every developer on every game ever made. 

The point about "a bit more effort" is also the reason why Gran Tursimo is always years late to release.  At some point, effort is going to stop being added because the game has to go gold, and no matter what that means, some aspect of the fanbase is going to be disappointed.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:31 .

[tmp7704]

In Exile wrote...

...But these are all mooks. Okay, I'm not a comic book fan, so what I know re: comics is Captain America, Spiderman, Superman, Batman, the X-men, Iron Man, and the Hulk. They seem to be the flagship Marvel characters, and they each have their own very unique apperance.

I'm equally ignorant when it comes to comics, but that series of images had Spiderman and Green Lantern and that's two separate, large franchises.

When it comes to outfits even the people you list have extremely similar outfit shapes, with most of them having 1-2 minor details setting them apart if that. Oh and there's option of cape or not.

Now, if such minor details in shape are sufficient to deem them different then i suppose it's fine. But then i must say this would come as surprising contrast to approach you have when it comes to difference in textures.

[Leonia]

There's a LOT of animations to consider and not all of them are combat-related. While in-combat it would be ok for rogues to all use the same animations, regardless of which character they are, they might want to give each character a different set of animations for when they're not fighting. Like for cutscenes. Which there will be a tonne of. Maybe they don't want all the characters to move the same way or have the same mannerisms. I think this is the point another poster was making earlier on in the thread. Individual models effects more than just the clothes that can be worn on those models, it allows the models to have all sorts of other unique qualities.

[Dave of Canada]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Did it actually bother anyone that Morrigan and Leliana had the same body, especially since they were almost guaranteed to be dressed differently?

It did bother people when they removed Morrigan's robe and she mutated to look like the default human female body, yes.

Really, simply making Wynne male and forcing the PC to be a female elf or dwarf would have provided a unique model for every party member in DAO.

Unique body type, yes. Unique model? No. Sten is still a scaled up human wearing scaled up human armor, Oghren is still a scaled down human wearing scaled down human armor.

[Meltemph]

Did it actually bother anyone that Morrigan and Leliana had the same body, especially since they were almost guaranteed to be dressed differently?

I dunno about that, but me personally, I found most of the armors in the game to be ugly. The ones that were good, were quite good, but most were... questionable fashion statements.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Dave of Canada wrote...

It did bother people when they removed Morrigan's robe and she mutated to look like the default human female body, yes.

That could easily be fixed by giving Morrigan the default female body.

Unique body type, yes. Unique model? No. Sten is still a scaled up human wearing scaled up human armor, Oghren is still a scaled down human wearing scaled down human armor.

The proportions were all different.  It was a different mesh.

[casedawgz]

In Exile wrote...

casedawgz wrote...
Captain America would like a word with US Agent.

According to wikipedia:

''U.S. Agent's early appearances included issues of Captain America
and West Coast Avengers/Avengers West Coast. During the
1990s, U.S. Agent wore a discarded costume of Steve Rogers, the original
Captain America, which was black and had a different alignment of the
stars and stripes to differentiate it from Steve Rogers' original
Captain America suit design.''

It pretty much sounds like he stole Captain America's clothes.

Irrelevant. They're both still in action. Wearing the same duds. It doesn't matter if one was originally intended as a derivative of the other.

[In Exile]

tmp7704 wrote...
Then i think we actually are using different definitions of unique here, as result of different criteria -- your approach defines unique as "item must be different from others in every aspect" while mine does it as "there's no other item identical with this one".

Fair enough.

Well i guess then it worked although it'd be quite easier to say "unique for me means no aspect of item must be shared with another"

For the record you're correct, i wouldn't consider having 5 reskins for single mesh identical with functionality of DAO where it could be 5 different reskins for each of 5 or so different meshes ... it would however be welcome improvement over what DA2 seems to have.

I can appreciate that, but I just want to explain where I'm coming from at this point.

Well now this i think is a cop-out   in the sense "skin-tight spandex" when it comes to superheroes is quite more specific than "material covering the naked body", as it means certain shape which follows very closely the hero's figure. In other words, it does describe certain "basic design" much like "t-shirt" describes a basic design, too.

(and you can rather safely say that tshirts are pretty much all reskins, in similar manner)

But Captain America and Spiderman ostensibly wear skin tight spandex, and yet are barely anything alike, in particular because they get different physical builds. In a video-game where this is not possible, the custom mesh has to account for that.

Sylvius the Mad wrote...
The orientation of the
options isn't particularly relevant.

I should have been more specific. I used the wheel as representative of its UI, i.e. the paraphrase.

We've
had that for many years.  DAO had scripted action and body language
I couldn't control.  That's still a bad thing, but it's clearly a
tolerably bad thing.

Not to the extent ME had. ''Time to shut you up'' in DA:O did not result in you punching someone in the face. You say that with the paraphrase, you can get away from it by removing the line as said. The problem is that the wheel incorporates action with the paraphrase. That you remove the spoken dialogue does not remove the posibility that the associated action (or lack thereof) you build into your character concept would still be overrun.

Because then I wouldn't know what the NPCs
are saying.

Muting the PC and turning off subtitles would
eliminate the paraphrase problem, as that's only a problem when the
paraphrase and the actual line disagree.  If the actual line ceases to
exist, the paraphrase becomes the entire abstraction of the PC's
expression (just like the full line options in DAO, or the keyword
dialogue in Oblivion).
 
But without subtitles, I can't follow the
NPC lines if I can't hear their voices.  Hence my request to mute only
the PC VO.

That presupposes the only conflict you can have is with the spoken line of the PC. But ME and ME2 include actions with what Shepard does, even without the interrupt. Sometimes, these actions can break character.

Not to mention that this solution only works for your idiosyncratic style - for this to even be a compromise, it would have to be the case for Bioware that fans of silent VO do not want full sentences in absence of VO, but only rough statements & cues.