All Things Art - FX Edition

Not a prob at all.


Awesome.



Also awesome. Any chance at Animal Patterns and/or Shapes? Or detached solid/opaque pieces to use as 'floating' armor?


Yay! A redname response that isn't a modsmack!

That would bite if that was the nail-in-the-coffin... kind of puts a damper on hopes for other new mechanics to ever show up there.


I'm referring to the ability to change the opacity on ones own powers so that they don't interfere with their ability (or the ability of their teammates) to play effectively. (As an example, Hurricane. You get that girl up and running and it puts a blinder out over a large area AND at above ground height. Anything smaller than that is effectively obscured; even normal size critters can get lost in the sauce. Couple it in with it's Repel ability (I can keep the KB in check); you end up having a situation where you/team cannot see where mobs are being inched to/towards.


1. For some powers

2. It may or may not conflict aesthetically with what the player wants


This would help as well; would be a workaround for the other point. (If people are having difficulties dealing with my Hurricanes, Spirit Trees, Fire-and-Smoke AoEs, etc... then at least they would be able to lessen its visual impact for themselves even if I'm not able to do it for them (or myself).



Thanks again for checking in.

No problem at all. As I've said before, simply having you and David posting in your respective All Things Art threads, even if you don't have any inside information to share or clarifications to ask, is still a major boon to the community, I think. Even just dropping by to say "Hey, I'm still reading. Keep it up!" makes a bigger difference than I suspect most people realise. You guys are pretty much the celebrities of our game

So, yeah, it's very nice to hear from you

Question: Wasn't support of further power customization a priority in the newly redesigned character creator from Beta? I can't really claim one way or the other, but to make a complete overhaul of the creator interface and not plan for pool and epic customization would seem unlikely from my outside-looking-in position. Wouldn't the new Freedom interface make that transition easier?

Question: Long before he left, Christopher Bruce, AKA Back Alley Brawler spoke at length about weapon auras and essentially discarded that particular idea as unworkable. The way he explained it, adding auras to weapons would require that every weapon-and-aura pairing to have its own copy of said weapon, producing both humongous weapon lists that become cluttered and constituting a maintenance nightmare. Do you have a solution to this problem via new tech, or are you just considering rolling with it anyway?

I know this is probably not really FX-related, but I've noticed something else that might help here. Regular weapons are coded as their own category with only a single option for category type - "Weapon." What weapon we use is selected from the single subcategory of that main category. Shield Defence, by contrast, is coded as a main category with one option for every shield type, and then subcategories for the various finer options on the shield. For instance, the Round Shield and Kite Shield are major categories similar to Pants and Monster Legs for the lower body, and selecting the Round Shield then gives us the subcategory of texture finish (flat or riveted rim band) with its own sub detail option for patterns where applicable, plus another subcategory for shield emblem that is independent of the rest of the shield's options.

Would it be possible to redo the other weapons so that each weapon is its own main category with additional options like scopes and silencers on pistols, colour patterns and indeed weapon auras being subcategories? Or am I overthinking this?

Speaking purely for myself, I actually want an option to make my effects LESS transparent. Currently, the only way to make a semi-transparent (bright) power effect opaque is to make it essentially white, either directly choosing white or choosing pale colours that, when they stack, add up to white. If I want to have a power that's a vibrant primary colour and yet still opaque, I have no option to do so. For reference, check out a small sample of old console 2D sprites, specifically the opaque fireballs. These are what I had in mind, but these are almost completely impossible to do in City of Heroes.

When I first heard of Power Customization, what I really wanted to do was to turn Energy Blast into a dense, vibrant, vivid blue. When I picked a pure blue primary and secondary, however, what I ended up with was a transparent blue-tinted beam that looked almost like it were made of blue cellophane. Trying different shades of straight blue didn't help, and only served to make the beams whiter as they grew more solid.

Right now, trying to control power opacity via power colour is very complicated and requires both knowledge of how the system calculates colours, knowledge of additive and subtractive colour models and at least some experience working with colours and transparency to know how they behave. It took me something like eight hours spread between several days of reading Wikipedia articles, running calculations and messing with the editor before I gained even a rudimentary idea of how what I was doing was affecting the results. It quickly transpired that pure primary colours used with the additive (Bright) colour model made for highly transparent sprites since anything which wasn't that particular primary colour would add onto it and form clear shapes that showed through. Using secondary colours helped, and using white-washed version of them helped even more, as they had more of the other colours and thus caused overlapping sprites to meld better into white and to meld better into white with the background colours. Finally, having to test these on a blue-tinted or red-tinted background is highly misleading.

Control of opacity via colour choice is possible, but at least to my limited understanding and practical artistic skills, it is also very difficult and very limiting. Allowing us to choose our opacity even in as little as two or three general settings would help greatly. If I had the choice, I would make all of my sprites non-transparent in their interiors as I simply prefer monolithic uniform dense single colours. Right now, the only way to achieve this and not have your effects transparent is to either have them Bright and white or Dark and black, as it's only the extreme values that become overbright, and it's only overbright sprites that look opaque as they simply cause the background to meld into a singular white/black mass. Even then, that's not opacity so much as it is extreme distortion. We're still seeing the background through our effects, we just can't recognise it.

Ideally, I want a pure 255 blue fireball that looks exactly the same regardless of whether it's on the background of blue water, red lava or grey cityscape, and I haven't found a way to produce this so far.

If you're talking about the suppression of other players' or unnecessary effects, then this is something we're looking into.

As long as you keep it alive, Tunnel Rat, the thread will live, this much I can guarantee without a shadow of a doubt There are few things players like more than the notion that their voices are being heard.

I apologise if my posts comes off like a long-winded rant or a know-it-all tirade, as that was not the intent. I honestly don't know anywhere near enough about FX to speak with any authority, but I'm hoping what I've said will make sense just the same.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Speaking of costume changes, that reminds me: I've been trying to get a CCEmote bug looked at for two years, so I'm hoping you're the right person to tell.

The Peacebringer CCEmote timing is off when you're in the air. On the ground it's fine, but if you're hovering or flying, your costume doesn't actually switch until 6-7 seconds after the animation has already finished.

Really, this emote has never worked right. I remember bugging it way in the I15 beta (over two years ago). Since then, I've bugged it in-game numerous times and posted to the forum several more. For an archetype that has inherent flight/hover, its a bummer that this emote only works correctly on the ground.

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Very much would be into this. Would pay Paragon Points for variations of all sorts of applied shields: cold, FF, thermal, etc. Never been too pleased with the fx or geometry of cold and thermal shields in fact.

Also would pay for total alternate fx pack for plant powers that included alternate geometries and fx that felt much less sinister: leafier, tintable flowers, butterflies flitting about, etc.

I'd simply settle for Null the Gull having a 'turn off FX for Hasten' option added. All other customization I could wait a long time for.

This should probably be in the All Things Art thread.

I do like the idea of snake staves, hair, bracelets, patterns, etc... would be a nice set of unlockable perks for completing a major Children of Enos plot line.

Excellent! My girlfriend used to be an avid CoH player, and misses the game very much. However, she developed a seizure disorder, and the multiple flashy power effects quickly trigger her seizures. If we got a way to turn off some of the unnecessary effects, and tone down some of the rest, I might well be able to bring her back to the game.

And that, dear Tunnel Rat, would be wonderful.

Good lord, this.

I'd LOVE customization, of course, so I could match my Fire Controller's blue fire to the APP fire armor.

But I'd totally settle for being able to make Hasten pom-poms and the horrible pink scribbles from the Mental APP armor go away forever.

Better yet, add a third option: Hasten FX On in PvP Only. At least this way it'll conform with other customizable powers.

*sniff* I still miss Ten. And Tunnel Rat, I've lived through nine out of the ten regenerations.

I miss every one of them.



S.

Coolio Wolfus leader of Coolio�s Crusaders on Union.

Tekna Logik leader of Tekna�s Tormentors on Defiant.

Creator of: Coolio's Tech Beacon Replacements

AE arc 402506, 'The Rise and Demise or Otherwise of Tekna Logik...'.

I never mind being quoted by a Dev.

I see where you are coming from, but I think there are really only a few big culprits. Those would be Hasten, Super Speed, and the Medicine Pool. These are the ones I can remember seeing the most complaints about.

I will be honest, I really HATE the hasten FX, it needs to be changed to something that can fit any theme, and not obscure the work people put into their costumes and concepts. Sadly, for some builds it is just too good to skip. I get that changing how it has been may tick some people off, I still think it is worth changing, and I know that is me being selfish.

Thanks for the answer though. I know you guys realize how important pool customization is to us, and I can only pray that it is being worked on in the background. We harass everyone we know to harass about it, care to give us another name to add to the list?

Hear, hear! I'd love an option to turn off the effects (or change the colors of 'em) for Hasten and Super Speed.

Nah, just go for dual auras, that way you get this and other options

Coolio Wolfus leader of Coolio�s Crusaders on Union.

Tekna Logik leader of Tekna�s Tormentors on Defiant.

Creator of: Coolio's Tech Beacon Replacements

AE arc 402506, 'The Rise and Demise or Otherwise of Tekna Logik...'.