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I doubt would be quite as simple as the OP suggests, but it would certainly be a welcome edition.
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I say it's relatively simple. It should be simpler than implementing any completely new graphics feature, due to experience with the subject matter and existing code to refer from.
Only BaBs can say if the idea has merit, and he doesn't come to these parts much. 
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
Excellent suggestion.
/signed
Proud member of FOXBASE ALPHA and coalition associates.
Hero 50's - 25
Villain 50's - 1
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I doubt would be quite as simple as the OP suggests, but it would certainly be a welcome edition.
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I say it's relatively simple. It should be simpler than implementing any completely new graphics feature, due to experience with the subject matter and existing code to refer from.
Only BaBs can say if the idea has merit, and he doesn't come to these parts much.
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Whether or not our ideas are possible is not really our problem - as you say that's up to the devs. This is a cool, original and "non-game-unbalancing" suggestion and therefore fulfills the only reasonable criteria for the Suggestions forum.
/signed.
"If there's anything worse than being sacrificed, it's being sacrificed incompetantly."
Holy Cripes on toast!
There's a shields option called Tech Shield. Not only does it use a glowmap, it's animated. It pulses power in a colour of your choosing. Seriously!
All I want is for that awesomeness to be on the rest of me.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
Thats cool idea. My cloak would look nice. Dark cloak and full of circuits. Maybe some kind of unlockin system could work, likes capes have? Badge perhaps...
Prunejuice is warriors drink.
Well, since we don't get anything at lvl 40 (except for a cossie slot, which is fine, but not enough I guess), glow maps would be a nice reward.
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Well, since we don't get anything at lvl 40 (except for a cossie slot, which is fine, but not enough I guess), glow maps would be a nice reward.
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I wanted my Talorisan related stuff right out of the bag, but you have to wait and wait for it! Please don't do the same! I want glowmaps right from when you first choose your costume.
/jranger...rawr: http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki//jranger
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Thats cool idea. My cloak would look nice. Dark cloak and full of circuits. Maybe some kind of unlockin system could work, likes capes have? Badge perhaps...
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In addition, maybe also add "Transparacy" to capes.
So we can have a slighly see though cape, with a circuits boards 
(\__/)
(O.o )
(> < )
This is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your profile to help him on his way to world domination.
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Thats cool idea. My cloak would look nice. Dark cloak and full of circuits. Maybe some kind of unlockin system could work, likes capes have? Badge perhaps...
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In addition, maybe also add "Transparacy" to capes.
So we can have a slighly see though cape, with a circuits boards
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We already have transparent capes. Insect capes and all of the oddly-shaped capes (especially the scarf) use a separate transparency pattern to give the effect. They wouldn't allow for any old pattern of transparency because there would be some very broken capes out of that.
Semitransparent capes, maybe... you'd have to adjust each pattern so that black areas (which define transparency) would be grey (translucent), and you can do this en masse with a program like Photoshop. This would also increase the memory footprint for the game, as you'd have two of every pattern. Alternatively you could create new cape transparency code which somehow squashes the 0-255 range to 128-255, reading black areas as grey and grey areas as light grey, so that you only needed one copy of a pattern to do both jobs; but again, that's a code issue, and beyond my knowledge.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
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It seems like a relatively small amount of work for a fairly large outcome
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I disagree, on the second part, but there you go. 
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But if we don't suggest ideas because they aren't guaranteed to be instantly doable in the engine, this section of the boards would be a bit dull.
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I don't object to suggestions due to them being hard or undoable. I object to people stating that it would be simple when they don't know. Why bother writing it down?
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Although I agree with the sentiment of raven due to the community in general having assumptions over whether something is easy or not, we however, cannot berate them for lack of knowledge, some people are misinformed yes and it may cause ire to those who have more knowledge in programming/coding etc but this is what it is...a suggestion forum.
Maybe Raven should run a class on how to stop using the term "how hard can it be" im sure he has a small apoplexy every time he reads those words
I mean this in the nicest way btw im not looking to rock the boat 
And in reply to the OP (who seems to have a good base knowledge) if...and I say if..it was implementable as I see it could be, yes there would be man hours involved... and with them working on i13/14 I wouldnt expect any kind of implementation until after but as it stands I would support this wholeheartedly 
But then again I am by choice a cossie hooer
Art of War Co-Leader - Union *Global@Warscythe*
"The box said Windows Vista or better - so I installed Linux"
I think a lot of you are missing out a big point. The OP already posted earlier that the Tech Shield option is not only a glowmap, an animated glowmap. Shield customization was only a tiny part of the issue, and all the shield choices themselves, so I say they would be easy to implement.
Im not disagreeing with Necro at all, as I stated he has a good base knowledge on the subject and has stated facts regarding the issue rather than just meandering assumptions on implementation ease (which i know is where ravens ire comes from)
And I believe that Raven and others were not disputing the facts ...its only the general argument that some people think everything is easy as hell to put into play which isnt an issue on this thread
So when someone has done some groundwork in research on the subject matter - as the OP clearly has, that is when I stated at the bottom that I wholeheartedly back it/sign it/spank it...whatever
Art of War Co-Leader - Union *Global@Warscythe*
"The box said Windows Vista or better - so I installed Linux"
I had completely forgotten something else, too... weapons have used glowmaps for quite a while. The Broadsword Tech Sword uses both an aura and a glowmap, all Talsorian weapons use them, and the various Rularuu weapons use glowmaps on the runes and the eye.
But it does make me wonder... they can plainly get player costume items using glowmaps, but at the same time they haven't used the feature in any costume item other than weapons. Why? I have no idea. On the one hand, this makes it appear that glowmaps are easy to implement. On the other, you have to wonder if there's a reason they haven't used them. We really are talking about the inner workings of their costume system, and only a developer would be able to comment on that. I wouldn't dare to say anything either way. All I know is how glowmaps themselves work.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
Something to Note, you can't alter the dimensions of the weapons at all. only change the colour.
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Something to Note, you can't alter the dimensions of the weapons at all. only change the colour.
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Weapons take their size from the size of your costume. Some will tell you this isn't true, but my Bane Spiders' mace gets an extra foot when I switch to the Arachnos costume. That said, the dimensions of an object are irrelevant when it comes to texturing. All you need do is flatten out every polygon of an object in your 3D package of choice, so that a texture can be painted onto it. This flattened-out map (called a UVW map) stays constant when you enlarge, shrink, or stretch the model, or even when you move parts around.
tl;dr, size and mapping don't affect each other.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
that's not true, as you can see if you look at the textures that were made for upper leg and are then stretched on to trousers, they look horrible blocky and distorted, it affects pattens a great deal.
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that's not true, as you can see if you look at the textures that were made for upper leg and are then stretched on to trousers, they look horrible blocky and distorted, it affects pattens a great deal.
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If anything, you're agreeing with me. Stretch the model and the map is equally stretched. What I was trying to get across is that size doesn't affect mapping at all. If you could stretch a weapon, the texture (and glowmap) would conform, although it wouldn't look right due to the texture being created for certain proportions, just like pants and tights. Resize a weapon, and everything looks right.
I have to ask though, what does any of this have to do with glowmaps and weapons? I'm getting a bit confused at what the problem is...
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
I would suspect that its more a time constraint and going back and adding a glowmap to each and every costume part (x3 for the three body types) is just too much work. Weapons are IIRC only a single model per item which then uses the body scale for size, so you don't have a female bow a male bow and a huge bow its just a bow... could be wrong though.
If they started adding new costume parts with glowmaps they would be nagged half to death and back to go back over older costume parts to update them.
Also while this doesn't exactly support my theory it doesn't harm it: If you look at the really old CoH costume parts they are all clearly older tech than the costume parts added with villains, costume parts added with more recent packs/issues are again better looking than CoV costume parts.
I suspect we'll get glow maps on costumes but probably not soon.
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I would suspect that its more a time constraint and going back and adding a glowmap to each and every costume part (x3 for the three body types) is just too much work. Weapons are IIRC only a single model per item which then uses the body scale for size, so you don't have a female bow a male bow and a huge bow its just a bow... could be wrong though.
If they started adding new costume parts with glowmaps they would be nagged half to death and back to go back over older costume parts to update them.
Also while this doesn't exactly support my theory it doesn't harm it: If you look at the really old CoH costume parts they are all clearly older tech than the costume parts added with villains, costume parts added with more recent packs/issues are again better looking than CoV costume parts.
I suspect we'll get glow maps on costumes but probably not soon.
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But again, I'm suggesting we use existing patterns as glowmaps, not making new stuff. These patterns would simply work as-is on any costume piece that can already use a pattern.
Necrobond - 50 BS/Inv Scrapper made in I1
Rickar - 50 Bots/FF Mastermind
Anti-Muon - 42 Warshade
Ivory Sicarius - 45 Crab Spider
Aber ja, nat�rlich Hans nass ist, er steht unter einem Wasserfall.
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I would suspect that its more a time constraint and going back and adding a glowmap to each and every costume part (x3 for the three body types) is just too much work. Weapons are IIRC only a single model per item which then uses the body scale for size, so you don't have a female bow a male bow and a huge bow its just a bow... could be wrong though.
If they started adding new costume parts with glowmaps they would be nagged half to death and back to go back over older costume parts to update them.
Also while this doesn't exactly support my theory it doesn't harm it: If you look at the really old CoH costume parts they are all clearly older tech than the costume parts added with villains, costume parts added with more recent packs/issues are again better looking than CoV costume parts.
I suspect we'll get glow maps on costumes but probably not soon.
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But again, I'm suggesting we use existing patterns as glowmaps, not making new stuff. These patterns would simply work as-is on any costume piece that can already use a pattern.
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But if you haven't got time to do additional work it doesn't actually matter how simple and easy to do it is you don't have the time. And while I'm sure there are things in the next issue we can all see that could be left out so that something like this can be added others won't agree with precisely what is left out.
I doubt would be quite as simple as the OP suggests, but it would certainly be a welcome edition.
I really should do something about this signature.