All Things Art - FX Edition

my opinion on granite is i would be fine for a change of the graphic of the power but i do not want the actual numbers to be changed

the DE avatar is not too bad since it looks thematic and graphically makes sense to the power, but theres like 6 different kinds of rock DE and we only get to look like one of them. if we lose the DE look over customization i would prolly be fine with that

the only thing that i would hate the most about granite changes if the numbers were messed with, if granite was nerfed per say then i would have to completely revamp my stone brutes build and i really like him the way he is now

Can Evenom and/or Weaken's special fx from the Poison set be made into something like a recolored Melt Armor?

As it stands now, I think it is very difficult to tell which mobs have been affected unless you are looking for the defense and resistance debuff graphics.

A couple of requests that may or may not have been mentioned before:

Dark Melee - this currently consists of three punching animations and several casting animations. It would be really nice to have the option to use all casting animations for a melee magic kind of theme. I can drain your soul/cause you to shiver in fear/entrap you in the tentacles of the underworld - why on earth would i actually need to punch you?

Power customisation in general - I often want to use basically the original colours for a power with some minor ajustments. Could we have it so that selecting custom colours defaults to a pairing that is as close as possible to the original rather than a random selection? I don't think it would negatively impact anyone who is going to make large changes to thier power colours anyway and would save a lot of messing around trying to find something close to the original.

Effect desaturation - many power and aura effects are very obscuring and the only way we have currently to tone things down is with colour. It would be nice to be able to desaturate individual effects while being able to keep any colours we like. I'm not sure how this would work tech wise, I imagine the particle count etc is baked into the powers/auras so controlling that may not be easy. How about an additional palatte of progressively more transparent colours to choose from?

Can we get a flower petals aura and a playing cards aura? I don't know how easy it would be for these to be implemeted, but the modles already exist in-game as part of emotes. And if this ever happens, and we get a cards aura, please don't make the cards similar to Tarot, with glowing and sparkles the same colour as the cards, leave them uncolourable and let us colour the trails only (with black making them invisible).

Also, is it possible for auras to leave objects on the ground, like emotes do? Maybe they'll last for a second or two before fading, but showing that they land on the floor and disappearing immediately instead of going through it is enough to make these auras look more realistic (I'm talking about Tarot, Leaves, Clunker and Feathers. I'm not sure if there is another Ayra that includes objects falling on the floor.)

Also, Dark Armor/Dark Embrace doesn't work properly with the No Fade or Pulse option. My character still pulses black.

Finally, please PLEASE, make a Combat version of the new Bats aura.

Thank you

Just the other day, I was thinking that we need some origin-specific auras that are similar to the HUD for tech, but options for more than just the head. Some of the origins could be diffiult to pin down, but magic and tech lend well to it. I know that there are already origin emotes, but I was thinking about giving people energy/psychic/supernatural/holographic armor overlays.

One of my ideas for magic was to have what looks like a spirit form over the top of your character, looking like they are channeling demon strength or something. This would add lots of possible character ideas for scrappers, where maybe they just use the spirit's hands, or maybe the spirit's head only shows up when fighting, etc.

Tech lends well to the process as well. It would be similar to Ice Armor and other power effects in some ways, but what it would allow people to do is show some type of energy armor over the top of their character. This would work great to show off special high tech energy gadgets.

[edit] Another idea that I thought of could be a shattering or eruption effect. Think of how something looks before it explodes (especially in anime, since everything explodes). You know where the cracks start to form and energy starts to escape? That energy effect could start just below the surface of the skin, and emit outwards, looking like some energy is escaping. [/edit]

Tunnel Rat, I just wanted to say that your team did a great job animating Titan Weapons. I think the Fan Fav is the Taunt.

And speaking of the TWTaunt...

I've seen quite a few people mention that they think each set with a Taunt should have a unique animation. I have to say that I agree. I know that's a lot of work for you & your team, but I still wants it!

I'd also love to see the alternate animations for Aim & Build Up (or is it just Build Up?) ported over to other sets.

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i don't know if this has ever been mentioned, I know it's possible with the new tech they've been adding into the game, but what are the possibilities of having aura's on weapons? Melee weapons to be exact, adding an electric, fire or any of the current auras too 1 or 2 handed weapons. Just adding another aura section would be great for when you select your weapon, would fit right into the weapon selection part. Another idea is is having two aura's instead of just one, mixing two aura's on a character instead of just one? Any chance we might be able to implement that into the game? I think many players would get a huge kick out of that. I would haha.

So, a friend of mine have been wondering about why Dark(melee, armor, blast) only accepts "dark, musky, emo tones", whereas powers like energy/fire/ect can go from extremely dark to really bright things, electric is a good example of this.

Would it be possible for further customization for Dark powers in order to get something a bit more bright? At least when it comes to color selection. Maybe something more white colored... I think the FX used in Void are kind of like Dark, and you can get quite a few bright-ish colors for the power.

Had to check and see if this had been done, but it hasn't. Therefore, I'm going to request the following:

Please port the Alternate Blast Animations to Dominator and Mastermind Secondaries.

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Please Tunnel Rat, can we have elemental FX unified?
I'll explain myself:
The latest VFX for fire is awesome. But we still got some old "not as nice as new one" VFX for fire. I mean, fire blast, fire aura, melee, etc...
All should look the same kind of effect. We got awesome VFX for Pyronic judgment and very ugly VFX for Blazing aura or Fir shield.
Same for Dark, Elec...
Please use the same VFX for the same element! Update fire powers FX please.

Want this be available in Paragon Market!

I'll call it, Soul Path Aura!

I have a suggestion for a new fly pose animation/"emote", and a possible tweak to the travel power animations.

NEW FLY POSE

When you activate the 'Ninja Run' power and your character is stationary, if you jump straight up, the body animation would be a great new flypose5 animation/"emote". Check it out; you'll see what I mean.

Possibly a very quick win as well, considering the animation is already there.

TRAVEL POWER ANIMATIONS

It would be great if you could add travel power animation and travel 'aura' customisation to the costume shop. I for one am not keen on the smoke type effect that fly and super jump have. Also, I'd like the ability to add colour tintable flame exhausts to the bottom of boots (and possibly even palms to satisfy the power armour fans ); again, possibly a very quick win as the flame exhaust animation already exists on the rocket boot costume option.

Antoinette I like your idea for I'll call it, Soul Path Aura! Looking at the images you brought to mind an idea that I would like to see. In Image you posted where the character is standing and the energy is circling various parts of the character's body I would like a to see something similar to this the little more detail to the energy patterns. What I'm envisioning could be called spectral serpent's or dragons with those trails spinning the body in various places could have the appearance of Oriental style dragons or some sort of serpent that circles the body.



Continuing this idea looking at the images you have for the running and flying would have these serpents or dragons trailing after the character as they move undulating in the air.




Some Trails could be a fun feature with this idea be for the dragons if dragons were used to leave trails behind them for instance if we were per train a water dragon those that were closest to the ground leave a water trail or any instance of a fire Dragon leave a small trail of fire behind them burning on the ground when a character runs and the dragons off the ground could lead small smoke or steam trails when the character runs or flies.

Hey folks!

Once again, I apologize for the long delay between posts in this thread. The FX team has been pretty busy with... well, effects, and of course, preparations for the Player Summit. I hope to see many of you there! There are quite a few surprises planned and it'll be great to see your "live" reactions.

Still, "He Who Must Not Be Called Honey Badger" and I are consistently reading your ideas and concerns. Thank you for continuing to post your latest inspirations!

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Originally Posted by Rock_Crag While kinda close... my suggestion is more about the fading clones than the blur. I don't even care if there is a blur to it... I just want to see the copies of yourself trail away. They don't even have to be animated. They could just be after images of the specific animation frame. Although, something just occurred to me: This would be difficult to pull off simply because of all the various ways players can run. That actually kicks it from 'plausible' to 'notgonnahappen' territory.

While it's true that we can't always give you a straight answer about a suggestion's feasibility (often because we don't immediately know ourselves), I'd definitely put your idea into "worth investigating" territory.

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Originally Posted by xhris Can we get a flower petals aura and a playing cards aura? I don't know how easy it would be for these to be implemeted, but the modles already exist in-game as part of emotes. And if this ever happens, and we get a cards aura, please don't make the cards similar to Tarot, with glowing and sparkles the same colour as the cards, leave them uncolourable and let us colour the trails only (with black making them invisible). Also, is it possible for auras to leave objects on the ground, like emotes do? Maybe they'll last for a second or two before fading, but showing that they land on the floor and disappearing immediately instead of going through it is enough to make these auras look more realistic (I'm talking about Tarot, Leaves, Clunker and Feathers. I'm not sure if there is another Ayra that includes objects falling on the floor.) Finally, please PLEASE, make a Combat version of the new Bats aura. >

We use physics sparingly in effects, because when used excessively, it can be a framerate killer. When I was working on one of the Avatar of Hamidon's powers, I originally used physics to create several instances of rocks bouncing off the ground and breaking apart. This produced a double-digit drop in the framerate. When I revisited the effect and eliminated the physics-based elements, the effect on the framerate was barely noticeable.

This is why we have to be really careful about using physics in persistent character effects, like the Tarot Card or Leaf auras. While it'd be cool to have them leave artifacts on the ground, it's potentially a permanent hit to a player's framerate, and combined with other players' auras and powers, could easily become an unmanageable performance issue. All that being said, Flower Petal and Playing Cards auras are interesting ideas that are entirely possible. We will keep these suggestions in mind.

Also, I'm not sure if the "fix" has been published to Live yet, but a combat version of the Bats aura was recently checked in, courtesy of the Honey Badger.

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Originally Posted by Angelxman81 Please Tunnel Rat, can we have elemental FX unified? I'll explain myself: The latest VFX for fire is awesome. But we still got some old "not as nice as new one" VFX for fire. I mean, fire blast, fire aura, melee, etc... All should look the same kind of effect. We got awesome VFX for Pyronic judgment and very ugly VFX for Blazing aura or Fir shield. Same for Dark, Elec... Please use the same VFX for the same element! Update fire powers FX please.

The inconsistency of the fire effects in the game is a personal annoyance for me, too. Unfortunately, it's a side effect of having several different FX artists doing fire effects over many years of development. I'd like to go and unify all the fire styles into one consistent look, but the time required could be a serious hurdle. Creating effects for a single powerset is a large time commitment for our two-man team, and the fire theme alone covers at least four different powersets. Then you add in all the environmental fires that should ideally be updated, and the task gets even bigger.

This doesn't mean we'll never do it, but it does make it extremely unlikely that you'll see a complete facelift of all fire effects in a single update. This sort of immense project is something that would have to be scattered throughout several updates, and the consistency of these updates would be greatly affected by other demands on our schedule.

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Originally Posted by Kheldarn Probably not gonna happen. When Power Customization came out in I16, they said that the original graphics for Fire were left there for those who liked them. I get the feeling that there are new graphics so that everything doesn't look the same.

Ideally, all fire effects in our game should look consistent with each other. Though if we were to (miraculously) pull off a complete update to our fire effects, we would leave the original sets in as "legacy" options.

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Originally Posted by Alexander_Drako So, a friend of mine have been wondering about why Dark(melee, armor, blast) only accepts "dark, musky, emo tones", whereas powers like energy/fire/ect can go from extremely dark to really bright things, electric is a good example of this. Would it be possible for further customization for Dark powers in order to get something a bit more bright? At least when it comes to color selection. Maybe something more white colored... I think the FX used in Void are kind of like Dark, and you can get quite a few bright-ish colors for the power.

I believe Void and Dark themed powers use the same palettes, but your friend is one of many to weigh in on powersets that currently only have a limited palette, like Ice and Dark.

For a few powersets, we've decided to use unique palettes that give you more appropriate options for the theme. Personally, I feel that Dark powers, with all their in-game references to terror and the netherworld, as well as their Negative Energy damage type, should remain dark in color. This is important in preserving the theme of the power, and to distinguish it as a Negative Energy attack. That being said, however, there are a number of brighter, more saturated colors available in the "Dark" palette, so you can still create colorful combinations with Dark powersets.

I know this is a controversial decision, but ultimately we have to pick out visual elements that are considered "signature" to a powerset's theme and stick with them. I feel Fire and Electricity are more dependent on their shapes and animation than their colors to "sell" their themes, so they have a wider range of colors to choose from. Dark sets feel more appropriately sinister with their darker colors, so we preserved that trait when we added customizable options.

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Originally Posted by Antoinette Want this be available in Paragon Market! I'll call it, Soul Path Aura!

Thanks for the screenshots, Antoinette! These are some very interesting visuals, and definitely a theme we'd like to look at for future path auras.

If we could get some more brighter, whiter colors for Dark, it would be nice. While there is a strong association of "Positive/White/Good" and "Negative/Dark/Evil" in some cultures white is considered the color of mourning, not black.