Image Designer Archive
Thread: ID User Interface
I'm not an ID, but I was thinking the other day it would be really cool if image designers had terminals only they could put in thier houses so players could ID themselves.
***
But what i want is to see what is available. I often see another girl walk around and has a haircut that i want...
Try to describe a certain haircut to an ID... That's hard.
Only the Leia Organa hair-do is easy to describe. But who wants that
1) The process should *not* be client-driven: it's the image designers job to get things right. If the UI is streamlined, then the pain of "this one? no, then how about this one?" will be reduced significantly. And if the client drives the process, well, it turns into an "image designer sits there until the client comes up with what they want, then is done" process, which is just plain no good.
2) An interface that is consistent is of vital importance. An example of a current flaw is the way that most changes appear to the designer as they're working, while some other changes (hair, basically) are never actually seen in-place until the client accepts the change. This makes finding the perfect hairstyle for a client very very difficult.
3) The flow of control between the client and the designer needs to be streamlined, to deal with "hmm, a little more X" requests. We shouldn't have to make a change, pass it to the client, have the client reject it, and then be forced to start from scratch.
4) It would be very very good if the interface allowed multiple changes at once (although this could be troublesome from the point of view of mind costs to make expensive changes all at once.) My best example of this is with face and hair changes on humans--sometimes a given hairstyle will look very severe with a given face. When that happens, it can lead either to instant rejection, or to "that's interesting, but it doesn't look quite right." In that latter case, the common solution is to make bone structure changes to the face to balance things more appropriately for the new style. Even without working to fit a hairstyle well, face changes typically involve adjusting at least two of the eye, nose, mouth, or facial structure features. For example, changing eye size and shape at the same time, or changing cheekbones and jaw at the same time. Changing just one of these is typically not enough to suit a desired image.
5) Numeric display of some sort for all information is a must! This is the minimum needed to make it possible to re-create a look after trying some changes out.
6) While I'm not sure I like the idea of cookie-cutter image design, it *would* be interesting if image design features could be stored as templates (quite possibly using space on the datapad.) This could allow the designer to have certain sets of basic features that they use frequently--especially useful for complex groups of interrelated features like the face. "Hmm, you want an oriental look? *I load up my oriental template and tweak it to fit the style for this character.*" Not necessary, but fun.
7) There are still features that we cannot adjust, but which are available at character creation. The big ones that spring to mind are eye shape vs. eye angle (eye shape changes angle in-game, and shape is not available), and twi'lek eyebrows.
8) Including a payment system in the design UI would be nice, if only because it's easy to miss tips when the client decides to tip before design instead of after in a crowded place like a cantina.
In short, the best interface would provide before-and-after images to both the designer and the client while the design is in progress, allow for multiple changes during a single design interaction, and provide controls (with numeric feedback) only to the designer. It would be reasonable for the client to also get the numeric feedback in order to make suggestions. "Hmm, that 2.0 was too big, but 1.0 is way too small. Would you try 1.75 for me?" This could get nasty and nitpicky, though. The key is: more interaction on both sides, but the designer has control.
Good luck on this.
More of a "Hmm. Long, you say? Okay, let me click each one of those, and you tell me when to stop" and less waiting 20 seconds from one to the next.
I remember now, eureka!
This is more a game-wide thing but it would help greatly... We already have a GREAT Image Design website, it has all the hair + changes that a MID can do... The problem is trying to convince your customer to alt-tab. Many don't understand how it's done or their systems aren't so great so it lags them or crashes them.
I know it's possible, I've seen it in other games but why not make in-game web browsing available? This would be a major bonus for SO many classes, not just ID. I am forever having to alt-tab either to check prices, furniture styles, droid styles, resources, etc.
Relying on an ignorant customer who either doesn't communicate well or can't spell is time-consuming and excrutiatingly painful to those of us with less patience than a saint. The ability to browse Lightstrider would make life infinitely easier.
I like the idea of having the actual Character Customization screen from creation come up. But also I think the screen showing the character that is getting a makeover should show up for the customer. Then the person can see all their changes live. That way the ID can just run down the hairstyles, colors, shapes at one click and have the person instantly see how the body will turn out. Then when all the changes are done you can then accept at the end.
My husband used to be a master image designer, in fact, he was the first MID on the Ahazi server. He dropped the entire line because it was boring, too easily mastered, the customers were annoying, demanding, and didn't like to pay or quibbled with his prices. Other IDs came along and started either charging way too little or giving their services free. If someone being willing to sack away an entire master profession isn't the sign of a broken class, I don't know what is.
This IS fixing a broken profession. Image Design, whether you agree with it or not, is a full profession, just as deserving of dev time and UI fixes as any other. Just because it doesn't appeal to YOU doesn't invalidate it as a profession. Your attitude is closeminded and juvenile.
That said, there are some things that I think would help the image designer profession tremendously. Disposable make-up kits, to let people change their own minor details like eyeshadow and lipstick color. Ideally, these would be crafted from organics (and VERY small amounts of organics), and would have a small number of uses (like 3-5). I don't want IDs to be turned into crafting stations, but I think a lot of human/zabrak/twi'lek chicks would enjoy being able to change their make-up to match their clothes, without seeing an ID every time. Other possibilities include wookiee fur color kits, colored contacts (eye color changes) etc. I would want the changes these items made to be temporary, however...keep anything personally applied by the ID as permanent (as an incentive to have the professional do it) but make the minor make-up kits wear off. This gives IDs a constant revenue source, gives players a finished product, but keeps the ID's original services as being superior to these new kits. Major changes (facial modifications, height, weight, bust size) would ALWAYS need to require a trip to an actual ID...they don't make home plastic surgery kits, afterall.
I, for one, am very glad to see ID getting much needed attention. None of the things I've said here would actually help me, as a Rodian, but I can look far enough beyond myself to see that what is good for the game as a whole (customer satisfaction) is good for me as well. I really would like a different color for myfrills tho...so please fix that bug eventually.
-Sirise Iridisci
Bounty Hunter/Creature Handler
Former Master Tailor
Ahazi
Yay for Ood_Bnar!...And good luck to you with stepping over all the highjackers. Yeesh! Anywho...
Letting the customer have control of what the Image Designer does, using us like some ID vending machine, is a bad idea.
It's tempting to go off track here and bring out the wishlist. It's tempting to start throwing ideas for additional game content at you, Jake, but that's not what you've asked for here. So I'm going to stick with thetop twomost requested changesfor the ID interface.These twochanges alonewill help put IDersin much, much better shape thanwe find ourselves innow.
***We can't see our customers. We particularly can't see faces well. We needlighting to be intuitive as it relates to theID interface. We needthe action of selecting Image Design from the radial menu to be tied in witha light being cast on thatcustomer's face. I'd love to not turn my back on my customers, trying to get my personal light to shine on their face so that I can see what I'mdoing.
***Death to those slide bars onanything having to do with color,hair color, lip color, eye shadow color, etc.We need the color charts that we're able to use at character creation applied to the ID interface.
And I'm going to go ahead and throw in one more change that some of us feel is needed. IDers have no such thing astheability to make a secure trade for services.We don't have the insurance that a crafter has with being able to put items on a vendor or into a trade window so that we'resure to be paid for our services.
***We need an interface that allows us to plug a fee into the ID window. The ID'er types in the cost of the proposed change. The fee shows up to the customer in the same window as the accept or refuse options.
The following is pretty mucha cut and pastefrom another post of mine...
I don't see muchroom here for ID'ers tounscrupulously prey on customersif something like this were done right. But there would need to be a couple offailsafedetails built in.
-There's no need for the box the fee is plugged into toallow for more than 4 digits to be used. Even forcomplete makeovers that might cost more than 9999 credits, the fee can be brokenup into more than one request for payment. That would be better than taking a chance that an IDermight type in an amount that could clear out a customer's bank account in one fell swoop.
-The box thefee shows up in should be clearly labled with appropriate wording and also becolor coded. The phrase usedand thefee, if the ID'er has pluggeda feein, should appear in bright red.When no fee is plugged in the phrase andthespace for the feeshould remain green. This shouldeliminate problems of ID'ers surprising someone whothought the job was being done for free.And should keepsomeone who's practicing ID fromfooling the volunteer into paying for a change.
YourImage Design feefor this change is 2000
Your Image Design fee for this change is_ _ _ _
-The customer should be able to plainly see the look of the proposed change and the fee for acceptingthe changeat the same time.It's easy enough for players to look at the changes that are being proposed for their avatar. It would be just as easy for themto see the amount they'll be charged, shining red at them next to the accept button. If the customer doesn't want to pay the amount or accept the change then of course they refuse it. And if they don't havethe amount in the bank to cover the fee an appropriate message would pop up for both parties and the customer would be unable to accept the change. This would dramatically shorten the time that's sometimes taken up by players who really have no intention of paying an ID'er at the end of a long session.
**** And that's it! I can't wait for a time that you'll come back and ask for ideas on additional content for Image Design. Because there are someplayers floatingaround here with some great ideas on what else can be brought to Image Design that players would really enjoy. And some of those ideas are even realistic! 
Lastly, I understand thatsome ofthe other problems we're dealing with in IDprobablyaren't within your power to fix.None the less and all the more, I'm really hoping that at the same time the interface is being improved upon we'll alsofinallybe getting rid of the long standingbugsthat have plaguedus.Ya know...thingslike the hair color defaulting to brown and some ofthe abilities that we're supposed to have for changing an avatar's image thatarefor somereason missingfrom the IDer interface.
Thanks again, Ood_Bnar!
However, I didn't see one idea: I would like to have image design perhaps start with a box saying "Jaera would like to start image design on you, will you accept? Yes/No". Clicking yes would begin an image design session.
This allows a few things:
First (and this is the idea I haven't seen yet), we could (for the duration of the ID) stop character animations. People don't fidget that much when getting hair cut or makeup done, why the heck do our characters constantly move all over the place? It's very difficult to change something subtle about a person's appearance when the client is constatly looking in other directions, yawning, etc.
Secondly, it would provide an opening to start showing ideas live. I select a hairstyle, they see it appear instantly. They could say "yes! that's the one I want", then I stop, confirm the image, the client hits accept, they get the change desired.
Thanks so much for the response, Ood_Bnar =). It's great to know we're still on dev radar, somewhere. Also props to Kwee for helping get us to this point!
Just in case your reading this Holo there was a very very popular proposal on the bio-engineer forum which solves alot of problems and creates new markets when it comes to changing someones species. This idea was so popular it extended to over 4 pages just for the bio-engineer forum alone. Please take this under consideration as it involved multiple professions, provides a money sink and provides new markets for several professions.
It's really a very simple request from the players which I put into a focussed idea which increases the markets for a number of professions while also providing a money sink which the develoeprs are always saying they need more of. On the whole the idea is almost flawless except for some things which need to be carefully considered but aren't issues that can't be worked around. It comes from the grower desire for many players for them to change their species for one reason or another.
The full topic is at the following URL where many of us discussed and expanded on this original idea:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=bio-engineer&message.id=11553&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
The actual idea is quoted below, the reason why I'm posting this on all of the profession forums that would be involved is that this seems like the ideal solution to the issue and we want to rally as much support for this concept as possible. So please post your concerns and/or approval here and hopefully we'll get it submitted to the developers for serious consideration.
This wasn't an idea I proposed a while ago but some people rejected it because they felt it fell into the catagory of the image designer, I argued that it actually falls more fittingly into the catagory for bio-engineers but none the less I could see their point. As SWG expands to include new player species types I can see folks wanting to change to these new species without giving up all of the hard earned effort they spent on their current character. It's not unfair to say that you can change your appearence anyway in the game and that a species change is really not any different from a gameplay and balancing point of view. Also this idea will open up more business for imagine designers, architechts, master artisans and bio-engineers as well. Let me explain.
Lets say that Tosk Lightwalker is a transhodan who is sick of the alien penalties associated with being in the empire and wants to switch to being a human. However they have invested alot of time building their character into a master bounty hunter and doesn't like the idea of having to delete this character or play on another server away from their friends in order to be happy with being in the Empire. So in comes this new ability for the bio-engineer to change someone's species with the help of several of the other professions.
Step 1. First of all after the bio-engineer and Tosk have arranged to go through with this the bio-engineer needs to own a gene-sequencer device. This looks exactly the same as the clone template machines seen in the cloning facilities where people store a clone to be activated if they die.
Step 2. The gene-sequencer is a very complex peice of machinery which requires master artisan components and can only be put together by a architects who has tech furniture 4. The bio-engineer also needs to synthesize a human dna template for use in the sequencer.
Step 3. Tosk the transhodan goes into the house/lab of the bio-engineer. And steps into the gene-sequencer. The Bio-engineer then has to load the human dna template into the sequencer. Depending on the skill of the bio-engineer the process will either trasnform the transhodan into the default appearence of the human or they'll fail and have to try again.
Step 4. Assuming things work the transhodan now looks like the default human. In order to get allowing how they want they now have to visit an image designer to get their features changed. Tosk has also reverted to the default stats of a human as well. The change is 100% and they cannot go through another species switch for 24 hours (due to physical stresses on the body)
The market potential
On the whole you're looking at expanded business not only for the under used image designer but also for master artisans. Architects also benefit from the furniture line now having a higher perpose than decoration. Bio-engineers gets something other than tissues or clones to play around with. The gene-squencers would also require maintaince and alot of power each time they are used to change someone's species thus increasing the flow of money to people who sell the power sources.
The money sink
The developers are always saying that we have too much money and they'd like to introduce new money sinks. Well the gene-sequencer is the ideal solution to having money flowing out into the virtual abyss. The successrate for changing someone's species would be based on the quality of the dna tample made, the bio-engineer themselves plus the quality of the gene-sequencer as well. Thus there's alot which factors into the successrates meaning there's alot of risk for failures. Since the sequencer would need power, maintaince plus the template you're looking at something which can result in money flowing out with nothing in return. Something the developers are working very hard to introduce with the inclusion of the casino games, the gene-sequencer is just the same as the roulette wheel or someone trying to slice a locked container which then fails. The loss of the power, the wasted upkeep from maintaince and the dna template would be enough to slowly drain some of the money from the economy. As long as the process is suitably expensive.
The conclusion
Sooner or later the new player species are going to come in. Players are going to see something new they want to try out without the risk of deleting their character which they worked so hard to build. In the long run the majority of players will complain enough to make SOE allow for species changes and they know it's a reasonable request since they already allow us to drop skills and alter what our character is on a whim. Species changes which also add a market AND a money sink are an ideal solution to a very simple request.
Thank you for you time.
I really like Fishwan's ideas! Oh and in line with the stopping character animationsmake going into the ID interfaceautomatically causes the person to face us. I still want to be able to go to the side to see nose and hair changes, however,it would be nice if they initially were forced to face us, like when you target on someone.
I also agree with Fishwan, I don't want to go into another screen when I'm doing ID. It should stay like it is in that respect, perhaps with a small model available, for some changes where you might want to zoom in. We get far too many tells to be locked off in another space without access to chat and e-mails.
I spent HOURS at character creation getting my character JUST right 
...
I'd love to buy ID every now and then...but there is NO CHANCE of my doing that until IDers can "Restore to Default" and put me back the way I was when I was born into the game.
Someone else mentioned this in the thread, and I second it!! Please give the IDers a way to put us back the way were when we first started.
I think it's pretty important to let the customer see the changes you're making in as real time as possible, or to at least add the preview button already mentioned so that you can "test" the changes without having to boot up the interface all over again. It's kinda annoying when you spend awhile getting just the right color or just the right style, and the customer refuses, so you have to boot up again, find that color again, and adjust one shade. This is compounded by the fact that you get NO xp when the customer refuses. This would make sense to me if you could just image design anyone at random, but makes no sense considering you have to already be grouped anyway.
Color palettes are always better than sliders. Say this with me, now. Style palettes are better than sliders, too, even when there's a ton of styles, such as for tattoos. Actually I wish that even in character creation the zabrak tattoos would be available as a box with a loooong scroll bar instead of a slider, so you don't have to go through every one and can more easily go back to the ones you like. Also it's easier to make screenshots to put on websites, etc. that way.
Trying to keep feature requests to a minimum and it's REALLY hard.