All Things Art - FX Edition

I know that I've seen this requested several times, but I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it in here, or if it is something that you can help with. I read as much as I could, but it's 5 whole pages... at about 100 or 200 posts per page. I also didn't see anyone with a visual of how it might work, so I have one of those.

Anyway, many people want different auras for different body parts. This idea might also solve the body aura vs path aura issue as well. Without further ado, here is what I came up with. The way it would work, then, is that each body part would have an aura option, allowing people to set exactly what aura they want on that part. I know there are only so many nodes in the costume creator, but I think this would be a good use.

As I recall Junior, that's been asked about before (in a sense), the problem is, and always will be, that each additional slot in the costume creator is an exponential increase in load on the servers for CoH and for our PCs at home.

It'd be great and all, and it'd solve a lot of issues and requests - weapon auras for example would be easier to implement - but it just can't be done without making the game unplayable for people like me with old computers, and server lag would increase for everyone regardless of their computers / bandwidth.

The devs really have to ask how badly they need to add costume option slots before they add them for precisely the reasons above. Because it is an exponential increase, or close to being one, even one additional slot can cause issues. Sorry, but asking them to add over a dozen just isn't possible in this day and age.

Anyone able to post a screenshot comparing Granite Armor with the Stone Pet?

If they are similar then we could surely get the pet version as Granite Armor with all of it's customization options intact.

The thought occured to me as I was playing the Sig Arc heroside, that the Magma Igneous bosses would make a great alternate Granite Armor option.

Just a quick post to give a *thumbs up* on the double lava effects in the signature arc. The moving dual textures are a fairly elegant, effective and economical solution for conveying something as complex as flowing lava. Good job there! ^.^b

Now if ONLY we could someday get similarly animated textures on our characters... >.>

Oh wait, came in here just to compliment you guys on a job well done for once rather than hit you with a bevy of new ideas! Dang.

<.<

Keep up the good work FX crew!

I was contemplating a a character concept that would make use of grenades.

I wanted to pair it up with Assault Rifle or Dual Pistols as a more offensive playstyle than using Traps or Devices.

And then I realized that the powerset I was going to suggest would basically already existed- it was called Trick Arrow.

It would be TA just with different effects/animations.

So could we get an alternate FX/animation option for Trick Arrow that makes it a Grenade set as well?

I would dearly love it if there were alternative effects for things like Blazing Aura etc that didn't involve having a pulsing circle around our feet. I think it's a pretty obnoxious effect, all in all, and would much prefer having just the egg shape pulsing from the body.

I want to be a flaming death egg, not walking around on a blazing doom frisbee.

Even though I would never and Have never played a Stone Armor Tank or Brute, I think it would be great for you to be able to add the Magmite Lord Boss skin to the mix as a selection!


Also! Dear Tunnel Rat, I was wondering could you add some mobs effects to /Poison! I think for evenom the mob should have the graffix from Melt Armor except with some of the Fire Sprites removed and the coloring of the effect green instead of reddish orange.

For Weaken I think the mob should have the dripping effect you get for the first few seconds from the Wet Ice power from Ice Armor.

Neurotoxic Breath just needs a little cloud around the mob and that's it.

I do know in the past certain buff sets had to be toned down to the grafix awesomeness crashing people's PCs but I think now they can handle it or if not one could tone down the effects a bit just enough to let the caster know he already debuffed a group. When I play poison I just guess and I can't really tell who I debuffed...unless it's Paralytic Poison the dripping from that power is awesome and noticeable.

Also is there a way we can tint the Venemous Gas Power? Thank so much for listening to my babbling!

Thanks Warden the link broke on me for some reason.

Hay Tunnel Rat! How about a Costume Change Emote that involves hunks of metal rushing to your person. Kinda like Gizmoduck (blathering blatherskite!)

Having completed the First Ward arcs for the first time, any chance of getting Serene's "Crow Explosion" as a costume change emote?

Path Auras are part of the new vet reward system. You start earning them in Tier 6 or 7.

I'm hoping we get path aura like what Red Tornado has

Tunnel Rat, I just wanted to say thank you for the Volcanic aura. It is PERFECT for my Mister Halloween and finally addresses my long standing issue with most eye auras not playing nicely with hats. Thank you! ♥

I would buy this aura faster than I bought Volcanic Aura:



It looks just like my avatar except solid gold! I must have it! What must I do to get you to put it on the market?

Did I mention I want this?

(Oh - while I'm making a suggestion: if it is added, could the player version take two colors? One for the inner structure and particles, the other for the swirls/ring? Then I could recreate the star-forming cluster of NGC1097 on my fists! )

After having played with the Seismic Path aura for a bit, I have a suggestion:

Can we please turn the Seismic Aura into a "splat" instead of a separate 3D prop that only looks right on perfectly flat ground? I hadn't noticed this before, but as you run around with the Seismic Aura, it doesn't paint cracks on the ground, but rather it creates transparent sheets with cracks painted on them and places those about an inch off the ground. Again, it looks good on flat ground (somewhat, it's still an inch off and your boots sink below the cracks) but it immediately fails once you start climbing amps or stairs, or stand on cars.

As I recall, the things the art team of old called "splats" are basically effects that follow the contour of the ground, and I believe are actually drawn ONTO the actual ground texture, as opposed to on a separate, offset plane. An easy example for a "splat" is Triage Beacon, I believe. If you put that on an inclined surface or next to a wall or other props (crates, forklifts, static consoles), it will actually curve around and over the objects it passes through, instead of just clipping with them.

This REALLY needs to happen for the Seismic Path aura, because seeing cracks hanging in mid air is just about the most distracting, ungainly things I can imagine in a game. It just looks fake, unfinished and glitchy, when I know the aura itself is actually incredibly awesome and exactly what I need for my new giant robot. Please, make the Seismic Path aura conform to terrain. Pretty please?

*edit*
Oi, here's another big one! The large crack that shows up on the ground when your character lands or is just sitting there rotates to match your character's orientation? The crack itself is not set to persist as long as a character is standing, it constantly reapplies itself, with the old one fading away and the new one fading in to replace it, over and over again. When you stand still, you don't notice this. When you turn around, the new ground crack shows up in a different orientation and does not match the old one, so you get a crack on top of a crack and it looks really bad. The aura shouldn't be set to follow the character's orientation. It should be set to show up with the same orientation regardless, say always pointing North. The orientation doesn't matter so long as it's always the same, so that recurring cracks will always match each other.

I know this is possible. The game already does it. Powers like Shadow Fall and Hurricane spawn a prop which does not rotate, centred at my character. I can turn around in it, but the FX prop ignores me and keeps its own orientation. I can spin around inside my hurricane, but it will never swing around erratically, but will rather just stay with the same orientation, playing the same animation. It will only follow me if I move, but not when I turn. This needs to happen with the Seismic Aura, because it just looks bugged otherwise. Honestly, it does.

*edit*
Here's an actual BUG. I spoke with Annah, the Halloween costume slot contact, and the static part of my Seismic Path aura disappeared. I still leave cracks when I move, but I no longer leave large cracks when I stand still or land from a jump, and the screen no longer shakes when I do that. I'm not sure what to do to fix it, but I suspect zoning will do.

Here's the thing - speaking with contacts has caused animated costume pieces to reset their animation for a LONG time now. My Vanguard shield resets back to its folded in state and has to extend and spin, my cape and trenchcoat centre sharply, my body and eye auras shut down for moment and then play their "starting up" animations where the effects build up to an array and so on and so forth. This, however, is the first time I've ever seen where an aura has bugged itself by speaking with a contact, and I'm honestly not sure what caused this. I'll try zoning and sepaking with other contacts to see if it'll cause it, but this concerns me.

Also, no, I did not get a new costume from Annah. I'd forgotten to claim the Halloween salvage bits I e-mailed to myself and I have not, as of the time of writing this, claimed that slot still.

*edit*
Zoning did return my aura, and speaking with Annah WITH Halloween salvage in my inventory did not take away my aura this time. Then I went to Kings Row to speak with the detective to see if that won't make my aura disappear, but I didn't get to do that because my static large ground crack stopped playing as soon as I walked through the Kings Row PD front door. Leaving the PD did not make my aura return.

Next I went to Pocket D. Zoning in made the large crack part of my aura return, but travelling through the main elevator caused it to disappear again. It seems like every location transition that plays the "door" animation robs me of my aura until I zone. That's not good.

I did find out, however, that this loss of aura CAN be solved by swapping costumes instead of zoning, which should be easier to achieve in places where you can't get to from another zone without passing through a lift or door (such as the Pocket D interior), but that's still a pretty unpleasant bug.

---

For reference, all of this I tried with the Huge model only, and I used no weapons at all in the process of trying the above.

Quote:

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.

Thanks for all the feedback on possible Granite Armor options, guys. This is what I took away from the conversation, after reading this thread and BaBs’ older one on the same subject:

1) Some people like the size change and Devouring Earth model in the current Granite Armor.
2) Other people do not like the Devouring Earth model.
3) Virtually everyone would like customization options for Granite Armor, but not everyone is willing to lose the Devouring Earth model or the size change for those extra options.

Though I feel there is slightly more support for a generic customizable Granite Armor, there is still a sizable group that is attached to the Devouring Earth model. This makes me hesitant to do away with the model, even for the sake of expanded customization. Also, I fear the generic model will bear a resemblance to this legendary “poo-man” I keep hearing about.

I know we always say we can’t make everyone happy, but this really looks like an issue where a bigger time investment will make a lot more people happy. I will take both increased customization and Devouring Earth model proponents into account if there is time allotted to work on Granite Armor.

Also, I should remind everyone that at this stage, I can’t even attach the typical Soon™ label to this project. It is a feature I am looking into, and it does not currently have a release date.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RavenSoul Any chance that working it into the Costume Editor could happen AFTER Weapon Auras were added to the game? By which I mean, I think that it would be a good enough compromise to add Weapon Auras to the game that are initiated with slash-commands for many of us who want them, and have done so for years.

That’s not a bad idea, RavenSoul, but as you mentioned later in your post, it’s not very user-friendly, and therefore it’s logical to assume that few people will use it. If the FX department invests a significant chunk of time into a new feature, I want to make sure that feature is easily accessible to a lot of our players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vanden Hey Tunnel Rat, remember that thing you said last time you posted here about putting additive particles in from of nonadditive particles? I think you really ought to consider doing that for the new Volcanic Aura, because right now the "lava" is too transparent to actually look like lava.

Thanks for the suggestion, Vanden. To use this technique for an aura, or any persistent effect, would require a consistent screen of nonadditive particles. For aesthetic reasons, I didn’t want to have a lot of thick smoke spawn indefinitely around the character, so I made the tradeoff of having slightly transparent lava sprites.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilverAgeFan Just a quick post to give a *thumbs up* on the double lava effects in the signature arc. The moving dual textures are a fairly elegant, effective and economical solution for conveying something as complex as flowing lava. Good job there! ^.^b Now if ONLY we could someday get similarly animated textures on our characters... >.>

Thank you, SilverAgeFan, but all the credit for the lava textures goes to Chris Gregory, one of our awesome environment artists. In his own words, “ It's a combination of a photo of a worn crosswalk (for the dark fractured islands of lava) and roof tar (for the hot liquid lava underneath).”

Chris did a presentation for the Paragon artists awhile back about his technique, and he is an unbelievably creative guy. One of the ground textures in the Underground was actually based on an egg he burned. That’s right; where we see a botched meal, Chris Gregory sees opportunity.

As for getting those textures for characters, all I can say is that I’ve seen our character team do increasingly amazing things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goblin Queen Tunnel Rat, I just wanted to say thank you for the Volcanic aura. It is PERFECT for my Mister Halloween and finally addresses my long standing issue with most eye auras not playing nicely with hats. Thank you! ♥

Thanks for letting me know, Goblin Queen! I’m so glad those eye auras worked out for you!

I also wanted to speak up and praise the new Seismic Path Aura. This is probably the perfect thing to use on my giant robot characters, but as I mentioned in my wall of text, there seem to be a few things wrong with it, and I'd really love to use a Seismic Aura that's JUST the jump landing screen shake but not the snaking crack that shows up on movement.

Quote:

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.

When we get to customize travel powers, can we get a vibration effect to replace the glowing feet?