Fixing the "Pinocchio Syndrome"
the_riblo
Member Posts: 26
We all know that One of the main visual issus of NWN are the outdated creatures models with that annoying marionette look
About creatures and NPC this is easier to fix cause they can receive a new shiny models ad Aribeth had cause they don't Need any customisation
When It comes to PC the problem will rose cause nobody wants to play in a server of clones
Trying to figure out how to fix the issue i was thinking that the way robes and cloaks work could bè the best solution
So all the Clothing/armour/helmets system Will work as a system of layers each one have a higher priority on other ones denying/allowing them to show up (like now robes make dissapear selected body parts or cloaks make dissapear shoulders)
Below all and base of the system there is the "underwear" level, a single piece including all the body but hands, feet and head
The body Can have a variety of Undertaker TS from underwear to full chainmail suit that Will be the base above which other parts Will bè attached to
Above this we Will have several nodes where the various componente of the Clothing/armour system Will bè attached
The main node Will bè the torso where you Can attached from single Chest armour piece to a full body robe
This is the master node and It has the Power to dentro/allowing the usate of all the other nodes (apart cloaks, wings, tails and helmets that have their own usage)
The second node is the pelvus and It controls all' the legs and feet nodes
Both torso and pelvis nodes control the best node too and if both all'ospedale the belt node Can bè used
In lega and arms the importance of the nodes goes from the body to the extremities so biceps Will rule above forearms and hands
The neck and shoulder nodes are controlled by the torso node
In this way we have a undergarment that is the basic in wich we build the Clothing/armour allowing to have a high customisation without having the marionette effect
AC is not linked to the torso piece but It Can bè decided by the builder of the resources
Do you think It could bè possibile to implementare such a system in NWN?
About creatures and NPC this is easier to fix cause they can receive a new shiny models ad Aribeth had cause they don't Need any customisation
When It comes to PC the problem will rose cause nobody wants to play in a server of clones
Trying to figure out how to fix the issue i was thinking that the way robes and cloaks work could bè the best solution
So all the Clothing/armour/helmets system Will work as a system of layers each one have a higher priority on other ones denying/allowing them to show up (like now robes make dissapear selected body parts or cloaks make dissapear shoulders)
Below all and base of the system there is the "underwear" level, a single piece including all the body but hands, feet and head
The body Can have a variety of Undertaker TS from underwear to full chainmail suit that Will be the base above which other parts Will bè attached to
Above this we Will have several nodes where the various componente of the Clothing/armour system Will bè attached
The main node Will bè the torso where you Can attached from single Chest armour piece to a full body robe
This is the master node and It has the Power to dentro/allowing the usate of all the other nodes (apart cloaks, wings, tails and helmets that have their own usage)
The second node is the pelvus and It controls all' the legs and feet nodes
Both torso and pelvis nodes control the best node too and if both all'ospedale the belt node Can bè used
In lega and arms the importance of the nodes goes from the body to the extremities so biceps Will rule above forearms and hands
The neck and shoulder nodes are controlled by the torso node
In this way we have a undergarment that is the basic in wich we build the Clothing/armour allowing to have a high customisation without having the marionette effect
AC is not linked to the torso piece but It Can bè decided by the builder of the resources
Do you think It could bè possibile to implementare such a system in NWN?
0
Comments
Your idea is a project much bigger in terms of "making it happen" = modeling and texturing and implementing then you might think. Or you know how big it realy is but just has hopes...
I´m doing a thing/ system like that myself but in a very small way. I have 3 basic PC´s or NPCs so to say that are nude/ have underwear/ wearing clothing and it takes a huge amount of time making this working and looking good. No bad clipping etc. And i only use humans. A basic/ default male and a female plus the main protagonist!
But it works!!
You need 2 (blank or tattoo) * 7 (2 biceps/forearms/shins, 1 torso) + 3 (skeleton arm) * 2 (phenotype) * 7 (races) = 238 robe body variations. That's just the basic options, if you get into custom content then you'll have to make millions of individual body meshes.
It would be better if they figure out a way to programmatically stitch parts together that share the same common identifier. That is a part with identifier "skin #1" merges a set of specified vertices with the specified vertices of the mesh of the adjacent node if it also has the "skin #1" identifier. So a part that's "skeleton #1" doesn't merge vertices.
I think something like that would be better than trying to create all possible body variations by hand.
If not possibile ti fix the marionette look of my PC i Will override all Clothing/armour assets with robes from various hakpacks
It's the only solution ti refresh the PC graphic It seems
I would like after 16 years ti see for PC anche improve the like the NPC Will get (see Aribeth new model)
There are several haks like ProjectQ that adds amazing new models for NPCs and creatures and refresh the tilesets too (NWN Revamp is a very nice project)
Only the PC are remaining to refresh the look of the game
I don't hate the PC now but i Will hate when all' the game Will look new but the PC Will look 16 years old
It also has nothing to do with looking modern, refreshing, improving, updating, looking 16 years old, or anything like that. Mesh based models are also very old and have their own unique set of limitations which have already been explained, meaning on a large scale it's unrealistic with everyone having the same body and wearing all the same clothes.
You could possibly come up with techniques to improve the part based system to be seamless but this thread isn't about that.
If someone wants to override their game so that character models only wear robes then more power to them.
Project q takes that up another notch.
However, NWN will still be NWN.
It looked 16 years old in 2002... Let alone today. But it is not without its charm.
I don't want a system all made with robes
My suggestion was that the PC had a single mesh body that has one texture of clothes or skin if is "naked" that are the undergarments (so the texture can bè a tank top and panties in cloth to wear under a dress or a full chainmail to wear under a armour) and that the various pieces of garments/armour are above od that connected ti various nodes like the cloaks do now
So if you have armour pieces that don't cover all your arms or legs you have under that a texture of leather or chainmail for example
Or a jacket open in your Chest and you see below a tank top or a shirt
It's not more complicated than the system we have now and don't require more pieces of armour Just some textures for the body under the clothes/armour
The priority nodes in this system is to avoid clipping as much as possible (so if you are wearing a jacket with long sleeves It Will prevents biceps and forearms pieces of armour to show up avoiding annoying clipping)
It's still modular but better looking than now IMHO
And i Hope it's possibile cause the armour system we have now was old 16 years ago
If not possible It Will look ankward to control a marionette that has to Save a world made of real people
I'd love to have a single mesh for the body, but it's way harder to customize than you think. Just seeing how they did Aribeth shows how little we can change body parts and still look like a seamless body.
What we really need it's what Julius said, separate head and hair meshes so we can use transparency on the hair @_@
Yes the separate hair and head is a must to have better helms too but would bè ankward to have better heads with open face better helms in low poly wodden marionettes body
There are already better heads added by Bioware and you can already notice the difference with the body details
It's a very hard thing to fix i know but if those bodies were old but acceptable in 2002 in 2018 they look like they come from the dinosaurs Age
I hope Beamdog will be able to fix that
Single meshes are also very old, how it looks has nothing to do with how old the method is if it's all old assets or all new assets. It's old just as well as it's modern.
TR
When the trello ticket for enhanced character/clothing model overhaul came about I thought that was the direction things were going in. A Lisa quality overhaul for characters/clothing but with a little modern tech and publisher money behind it.
That's a solution to the big problem here, but if the new PC parts won't be compatible with the old ones or we can't use them to customize our characters... It's no solution.
I just said that i would like better PC models but if this is bad to discuss about i give up
I Just wanted to give my opinions but they are not welcome It seems
If you want your point to be taken seriously then you should address the actual current situation instead of fabricating a facetious comparison. Otherwise we can go all day and make fun of the silly old graphics you want, lets see oh right that's right you want low poly indie graphics that look like lego and graphics like virtua fighter, tomb raider, or ffvii from the dawn of 3d games.
Do you see how pointless a discussion like that is?
Why not just make a new body model for each variation? Because the variations are exponentially intractable, with n average part variations and k parts given as n^k total models. Minus head, belt and robe there are 17 basic body parts which can have variations, and there are cards to increase the parts limits over 256 which is for the variations. Some servers already use extensions to get around part limits but for this we'll assume the 256 limit. There are then 256^17 possible combinations of geometry. We already know that the Aribeth model is roughly 700kb but we'll simplify it to 500kb per new model.
Your homework for your next post is first to write out the number of possible combinations with the current system and then to indicate how much hard drive space is necessary to store the resulting body meshes at 500kb a piece. Finally you should explain how the conclusion will hypothetically affect both the development process and players.
A great example are the CODI textures
Every texture quality depends on the skill of the painter ! So in the end many huge 2048 textures suck because the amateurish painter dont do it well
What do i mean "not well" as an example for a human skin. Using a one tone yellowish/ rosa for the diffuse map and the normal map only for the shadows/ highlights. That is just bad and looks like NWN2. The human skin is full of little details like warts, spots etc. which you can easily paint on a 512*512 diffuse texture map. Sorry but i dislike NWN2 creature skins btw.