Image Designer Archive
Thread: Image Designer Update for Publish 8
The_Cabbage wrote:
Good news for you Image Designer folks.
Will this mini-publish include any new hair colors?
This is what's posted in In Devp:
Image Designer Profession Enhancements: To enhance the Image Designer profession, we’ve put together a list of new features so that we can add some exciting new avatar customization features to the game as well as make them an important part of the game world. Some of the things Image designers can look forward to are:
ID User Interface: Image designers and their clients can work through the changes in real-time, agree on a price and execute the changes through a secure-trade transaction window.
Hair accessories: Coming in the form of particle enhancements to existing hairstyles
New hair colors: Bright neons and fluorescents, glitter that flickers or changes colors.
New skin tones: More variety in current colors, body paint type colors. (Bright Red, Lemon Yellow, etc.).
Increased Colors for all Palettes: For example, Lip colors such as pinks, peaches, more flesh tones and more vibrant shades like Canary Yellow, White, etc.
XHT8311 wrote:
I can see the customizationson weapons, just make sure the weaponsmith "hand" builds the extra components ie stocks, scopes etc.and then uses those on the gun. You should be able to see themonce youre holding it.
Sorry to get off topic in yall's IM thread but I just wanted to mention that the components only show up on some of the of the guns, I know the scout pistol dosen't show anything but the D-18 does, just an example.
On topic I can't wait for the new color pallete, my mohawk would look so much better blue.
Yeraze wrote:
I'm pretty sure that what the devs mean is Lag in the sense of "too much to render", not in "too much network traffic". TH may have misunderstood the Dev that told him it would create "lag".
Having continuous "windblown" hair on 50+ people in the coronet starport, would slow framerate to a crawl. It's negligible network traffic (just 1 bit for static/windblown, per player), but all the math & geometry to handle is too much for anything but the best systems to handle.
If we want to get technical, you are mostly correct. There is additional data across the network and its not neglible, but you're right, its not a lot. Its enough tore-thinkthe design though. You're second comment is dead on.
As far as "lag" goes, for most players (especially casual players) , they see any slowdown as lag, so when I say lag, Im addressing it from a general perspective. In this case, it is "bogging the client" and the combination of the particle effects and the little bit of extra data has a cumulative effect thats not acceptable.
XHT8311 wrote:
I can see the customizationson weapons, just make sure the weaponsmith "hand" builds the extra components ie stocks, scopes etc.and then uses those on the gun. You should be able to see themonce youre holding it.
Sorry to get off topic in yall's IM thread but I just wanted to mention that the components only show up on some of the of the guns, I know the scout pistol dosen't show anything but the D-18 does, just an example.
On topic I can't wait for the new color pallete, my mohawk would look so much better blue.
Thunderheart wrote:
Well, the use of particle effects is where the drag comes in because everyone has to get the data. In addition we could do wind-blown hair as a"standard hair" image, but for the most part,it would seem like that character just used a whole lot of space-hair spray
You *could* make it just client side, but that kind of defeats the purpose. The player becomes a legend in their own mind and the ID doesnt get any rep because no one sees their work...
im not a programmer for games but why couldnt you guys do the vast majority of the stuff client side and just add a extra "tag" to each character that told all the clients to use X for the effect and your client would display X effect for the hair tattoo etc.
that way your only transmitting one or two extra bits in the data stream instead of hundreds. data could look like
a: hairstyle
b: effect
c: colour
d: tattoo
e: tattoo location
so each person's client has these databases locally and all the server is sending are the extra bits abcde most of the work is being done client side.
dunno im just a gamer.
GraySquirrel wrote:
Just a thought on the PE effect on the hair. I know when I see some cool armor, or whatever that I want to look at I dont chase them down trying to catch a glimpse of whatever i thought was cool. My point is, is there any way to have the particle effect only show up in the "examine" window and not in the entire viewing area. That way the client/server exchange would only happen when someone wants geta closer look. Not even sure if thats possible to code at this point, but a possibility.
yeah maybe client side and examine window?
maybe that would be nice
-Biana
OdiousEncounter wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Well, the use of particle effects is where the drag comes in because everyone has to get the data. In addition we could do wind-blown hair as a"standard hair" image, but for the most part,it would seem like that character just used a whole lot of space-hair spray
You *could* make it just client side, but that kind of defeats the purpose. The player becomes a legend in their own mind and the ID doesnt get any rep because no one sees their work...
Hmmm, don't think I'm quite understanding the premise here. So the particle effect is applied by the image designer, not just an animation given to each hairstyle? A bit more difficult then, but wouldn't you still only have to send one additional byte as to whether hair was static or windblow (as Yeraze said)? If there were different styles or how hair was windblown, you'd theoretically only have to send a number corresponding to the style. What im saying is that you don't have to send data for the every particle in everyone's hair so that all clients see it exactly the same, just tell the client that the hair is blowing (and under what style it is blowing, if applicable) and let the client determine the positions of each particle from there.
Yeraze wrote:
Having continuous "windblown" hair on 50+ people in the coronet starport, would slow framerate to a crawl. It's negligible network traffic (just 1 bit for static/windblown, per player), but all the math & geometry to handle is too much for anything but the best systems to handle.
mh307 wrote:
also quick question
are we getting bald back?
-Biana
Given the choice between Wind Blown hair with the lag or 'plastic hair', I say it is time to go mine some polymer. I'll be very pissed if my game experience was reduced to that of a slide show that changes once every 3 seconds. BTW, you don't get that wind blown effect then. This one should have been blatent from the start. Hair has always been the most difficult thing to render and realistic hair has only been possible for the past few years now, on the very high end CGI systems, which everyone heredoes not have.
It is a shame the hair wasn't abandon from the start and the tatoos worked on instead. I would love a good shark tatoo, but my Mon Cal has no use for wind blown hair. My pet wookie could use some work though, he really does look like a walking carpet in this game.