This is one thing I picked up on the first time I went into the character creation screen, and was a little disappointed that there's no customization options.

I think though, instead of introducing the finer slider options, it would be a relatively good option to have 3 body types for each race/gender. The main customization is in the facial features and everyone is happy with the way that works, I don't think there's need to keep people longer at the character creation screen as lots of people tend to spend a lot of time there already.

Introducing different variations of body type wouldn't be out of the question as without the need for sliders, customizing the armor to fit correctly would most likely be a much simpler (albeit, time consuming) process.

Quote: Malamasala on 05/31/2012, 09:39 AM
Having seen this specific idea turned down by devs in multiple games because it was so difficult, I'm not sure YOU understand how it works. Quite a lot of armor has its own 3d structure, rather than just being painted onto the player model; copy-pasting the adjustments doesn't necessarily even work, much less look good.

I mean, yeah, obviously those are not this game. Possibly it's easy in Tera. As I said, I would be happy to be proven wrong. But I do not expect to.

I admit being wrong, but only that it is even easier than I first said. The models are all actually replacements of each other. The near naked model you resize in the character creation, will be entirely replaced by other models when you change armors.

This means there is no difference between armor and body, it is the same thing. If you can resize a body, you can resize the armors for all armors with the exact same function calls.

I think at worst you'd get glitches with new stuff like glasses and masks, since they are actually added on top, instead of replaced like normal armors.

Yeah I think ANY hope for complete custom bodies is dead and never going to happen in TERA.

However since it seems to be that changing attires just replaces the mesh with one which fits the standard race body and any manipulation of the body would upset this. I was think as an alternative to complete body control options, the we could perhaps have a selection of body "sizes" to choose from at the start.
This would mean if we had 3 bodies per class the devs would need to make 3 separate fits for each set of clothes. Still a pretty big job and I admit not a lot of pay off, lol.

This has gotta happen if Tera wants to keep up with some of the shnier action MMOs on the horizon.

Agreed

Quote: gobSIDES on 06/01/2012, 07:26 AM - view

I do not understand your theory crafting. Tera use exactly same engine as B&S. Blade and Soul also use similar way of clothing to Tera - naked body + clothes. If Blade and Soul does not have problem with body customisation + fits clothes to it, why Tera should have?

Quote: Zdzisiu on 06/08/2012, 11:33 PM - viewBecause you, like many others in this thread, don't seem to understand how character modeling works and the different methods of doing so.

Method 1 : The glove method
A number of games use what I call the Glove method. I call it that since even people that don't know how modeling works can understand it. Basically, they create a character model with a "naked" texture (EG: your hand). Then, for the armor, it's a small mesh-like model that's stretched and wrapped around the character model (EG: a glove). At that point, it doesn't matter the size and shape of the original character model, the armor will stretch to fit it. This has major benefits, obviously, in a game where you allow character customization, but can have some ugly effects. Armor that's designed with a specific scale in mind, might get ugly when stretched/shrunk. For the most part though, if done well, this won't really bother it too much. One thing to note is that this method will usually require more work to test/render in game and out.

Method 2 : The surgical method
This method is what a lot of games use, especially those that don't allow any body customization past general size/scale. Basically, the character model is made with a "naked" texture, just like the 1st method, but instead of the armor being [Jim Carrey voice]like a glove[/Jim Carrey voice] and just fitting over the base character model, that section of the character model is completely replaced with a model structure for the armor. Basically, instead of a glove you slip on your hand, you chop off your hand and attach a brand new one that looks how you want. This method is very good for being able to made very intricate and stylized armor since every armor piece is designed to fit a specific frame. So you'll never get any ugly stretched/shrunk/misplaced armor and will general keep the style/theme of whatever armor you design. This method is very restrictive on body customization however, as every single possible body combination would have to be designed separately, or have the characters models made in such a way that they can all be morphed in very specific ways very easily. Also, because of how it's done, this makes testing/rending armor very easy.



Neither method is inherently right or wrong, they both have different advantages and disadvantages past the bad examples that I gave. Changing from one style to another though is a long and difficult process that usually involves simply redesigning the entire thing.

TL;DR: Both games use different methods. That's how it is.