All Things Art - FX Edition

Ooh, I've been waiting for this thread. I only have one request that hasn't really been mentioned yet.

Power Effects: Forcefields

All of the Forcefield powers look kind of dated. The swirly, sparkly water-ish look was nice in 2004, but not so much now. With all the bubbles that have been added to CoH since then, the original bubbles look kind of lackluster. I'm especially thinking of World of Confusion. That vertical ring sprite in it makes the bubble feel more three dimensional, which the Forcefield bubbles kind of don't. Also Barrier, but the flashing in that gets a bit grating on the eyes.

Other things that could be used to make Forcefields look spiffier would be effects like refraction. We have the water effect, and the surface of the forcefields look like water, so maybe adding the refraction water effect to it could make it look different? I know the Thermal shields already use that for a heat effect.

Well, I think that's all I got. I just want to see the 2004 forcefields updated to a 2011 version.

Ethereal wings. I don't know how it'd look, but something kind of see through that leaves a trail.

So I'm just going to reiterate what practically everyone has said:

Alternate Power FX!! The power customization added to the game with issue 16 was amazing. The new animations added over past year and half (almost 2) were cool. However, I still think the power department is rather lacking in comparison to the other customization capabilities we have (yes I understand it's also the newest).

That said, new particle effects for the power would be epically awesome. You don't even have to do new animations, just the way the powers look themselves. A lot of the sets feel really dated when looking at the new power sets that have come out, and have nothing new to alternate/substitute with to make feel less sub-par or repetitive. 7-6 years is a long time to be shooting the same fireball or bitter ice blast if you know what I mean!! Look at the flames of pyronic judgement vs the other fire powers!! An updated alternate look is sufficient. Themes are cool, just as earth and spines variations are, but updates to the existing stuff is great.

Weapon FX! Super Strength has color effects! Why not my Battle Axe! While this might require more work, mmm but the weapons are really hurting the "power" customization department. Sure you could argue that they can change the way they look, but there is no "sparkle" to the powers themselves. A lot of them have effects on them already too, it's just we cannot change them, like claw's spin or focus, dual blades has a plethora, all the weapon impact fx really... Just something in this department would be wonderful.

Speaking of weapons - the elemental weapons could really use some love, I'm pretty sure the artists could whip up alternate looks that are simply wicked and feasible.

We can change costumes all we want with a very large selection, we can only change the powers a bit, seems like a wonderful area to expand in.

-- For kicks heh: BETTER ICE COLOR PALLET!

Thanks for beginning the thread TR. Here are several ideas that I've and others have brought up before.

Fire Melee:
All attacks should have an alternate animation involving a sword, and a non-sword animation.
Different sword types besides the scimitar and greater fire sword. Examples would include Katana, Gladius, etc...

Dark Melee:
Siphon Life: an actual attack animation that looks like your punching.
Alternate martial arts style animations for each of the attacks that include strikes and kicks. Barring Soul Drain and Dark Consumption although martial arts style stances or kata-like movements for these would be great.

Ice Melee:
Sword and non-sword animations for each attack. Different sword types should be made availabe.

Stone Melee:
Different mallets / hammers for each attack. Stone covered fist animations using different punches for each power.

Blast attacks: the current assault animations are beyond over-used. Some more assault animations that are actually different would be great to really give the assault set some variation.

Magic-cast style blast animations: rather like the demon summoning powers from Master Minds where arcane runes are cast into the air from which the blast then occurs.

Of course I'll end with the obligatory request for PPP/EPP and PP customizations please.

1. What about Ice Armor that looks more like frost rather than cubes? I'd suggest a texture of ice covering the character here and there too, but that would begin to involve the texture artist huh? I'd be happy with frost and large snow flakes forming and melting with Ice Armor though.

2. Expanding the level 30 auras so that they all have more specific emanation points. One example is I want to be able to have a Fiery Aura on Feet option, so I can make it a combat Aura for my Martial Arts characters. Fiery kicks!

3. Giving the Power Customization treatment to the level 30 auras. Why can I have Dark Fiery Melee with Dark Fiery Armor, but not a Dark Fiery level 30 Aura? Bring in the goodness of Bright/Dark/Color Tintable to Auras!

You guys have been doing a great job making (most) of the newer powers in the game look awesome, kudos for that (Barrier looks like crap though). Now can I turn some of them off?

Some of the issue goes back to what Zombie Man said. When I'm fighting Nightstar on a BAF, I can't actually see Nightstar. I have to target her through her health bar. I can't see who she's shooting at, which is kind of important if she's shooting at me, due to the possibility of horrible screaming death if I'm a squishy and sequestration if I'm not. I can't see how many reinforcements have shown up. If she kills someone, I can't see where their dead body is to rez them or use Vengeance. If there are enough Barriers and other buffs with strong visuals flying around, I can't see where I am in the crowd, if I'm melee. And if someone has colored their FF or Sonics bubble too bright, I can't see a thing past it. I'm fighting targeting reticles and clicking on health bars, not fighting enemies. That isn't super.

Some of them go back to the thread Dark Respite linked to. I'm not prone to migraines but I do notice eye strain from some of the flashier effects. If everyone could just turn off the effects that caused them problems, we wouldn't have any more repeats of the sonic resonance fiasco. You'd still need to be wary of adding anything liable to trigger the more severe reactions, but it would be a much better solution for people who have identified the cause of their problem than to strictly limit who they play with and wait and hope for a fix.

And the third is just simple aesthetics. You want new powersets to look unique, players want new powersets to look unique, but no matter how much care you put into the design of your new powersets some players are going to think they're ugly. When you further give players the ability to change the colors of their powers, some people will use colors someone else thinks are ugly. Some people do it on purpose. This is especially problematic in the case of ally buffs, where someone else can directly impose this on you, and their ugly buff covers up your awesome costume. Nobody should have to ask not to be buffed, and in the case of PBAoE buffs like Barrier, it's not an option anyway. Everyone in range gets that stupid striped bubble. And if you ask not to get the ugly ice shield, you might die, to the detriment of your team. And if someone colors their Force Field bubble puke green and shows up at the Mothership Raid, you have to look at it for an hour.

In an ideal universe, the power effect suppression menu would have a complete list of all powers, set to enabled or disabled. I hate Cold Shields, that power is always set to suppress. You colored your Steamy Mist electric blue, I set Steamy Mist to suppress for the duration of this Apex TF. More generalized settings would work too though, such as "disable outside buff effects," which may not help with the whiteout but at least would allow you to see your friends and not just a bunch of swirls of FX; "disable persistent effects," such as enemies being on fire from Fire Blast DoT, or the Interface debuff effects (why does Interface need a visual effect anyway???); "Disable pulse effects" which would remove the flashing from things like Static Field, and it's late and I can't think of any more, but you get the idea.

Energy melee

energy transfer old animation (extend animation time to match new time but allow the straight punch to 'charge' up)

ability to use energy weapons (talasorian blades / nightstar blades)

to use the glow effects of auras in substitution of glowing pom poms of doom

also a 'palm open' style to energy melee... like using the kinetic melee animations

First thing that springs to mind VFX-wise is that Hasten and Super Speed are bright and ugly. I would kill for a no-fx option for those two powers.

In terms of auras, I would like to see a "Left eye/right eye" option for the ones we have. This way, characters that have an eyepatch or monocle can have one glowing eye. We have left and right hand only auras, so that's a precedent.

I'd like to support a couple of things already mentioned: For first aid, having the choice of the regular med device or an amiguous particle effect that could be easily defined as mutant energy, magic, whatever --- would be great.

For Fire Swords and Stone Melee, having something different would be great, even if it was just no weaponry, but some cool particle effects instead.

Once, on the test server (not band camp), a patch caused my dual sword scrapper to lose all his swords. Not that animations though. But with just the spikey gloves that I had on that character, the animations looked just fine. I was kinda sad when a couple of patches later, it got fixed.

Toning down superspeed and hasten would probably be nice.

Auras for weapons alt weapons made of energy/elements.
Add options to have auras on feet only (plus in combination with hands, etc).
Aura wings/wings made of light.
Add a hexagonal pattern option for forcefields.
Dual Pistols, let us customize the shots.

Customize Epic and power pool colors.

Other than supporting the option for weapons or no weapons in all of the fire,ice and stone melee attacks, I would like to suggest animated textures on costume parts similar to the strobing lights on the Arachnos crab helmets but applied to chest pieces, gloves, boots and any other pieces.

These could represent flashing buttons on tech pieces or lightning or flames actually on the costume piece itself instead of a separate aura.

Jet or regular back packs as an option for a back piece, which I do not know why we have not gotten already.

Lastly an option for alternate, dedicated weapons and animations for most of the assault rifle powers including the shotgun for the shotgun and beanbag powers, grenade launcher for the M30 and an alternate beanbag power and animation, flamethrower using the fire extinguisher animation and the gatling gun for the full auto power. I realize this would not be popular with everyone because of the animation time but at least give us the option.

Hi Tunnel Rat!

Welcome to the forums, and expect this thread to get a lot longer.

First of all, I'd have to echo other people's concerns regarding their health and some of the visual effects. If there's absolutely anything that can be done about that (and I think it'd probably fall into some broader category that'd impact the user end being able to suppress power effects), I think that'd be the single biggest thing I'd want to see addressed.

After that, I think the visual effects for travel powers could use a makeover. Something that's bothered me from day one on the game are some of the unnecessary points for effects, like the 'glowing' that comes off a character's hands using Fly. The only time I've seen it visually appropriate is from Iron Man, a Marvel character. Fly doesn't need too much more to it than that, as there's only so many ways you can fly.

I think where VFX would benefit are the other travel powers. Superjump doesn't seem like it could use some, but in conjunction with an animation, perhaps a ripple on the ground before leaping ala the Matrix would be distinctive, plus the classic 'ground smash' (perhaps a steal from Super Strength's Foot Stomp?) landing would add to the power. For Superspeed and Teleportation, anything that would enhance the visuals (perhaps with alternate visuals? I don't imagine Nightcrawler's 'bamfing' could be used, but it'd be spectacular with Smoky effects) would be of great benefit to take into account what can be harnessed now.

I think you'll probably find that the Epic and Power Pool powers are going to come up a lot as people want to have a continuous theme across their powers...my only suggestion along those lines would be to perhaps see what VFX could be updated (if possible) and/or considered an alternate (timing and animations notwithstanding).


Hope this helps!


S.

Environmental Effects Request/Suggestion:

Please update all the "Dimensional Rupture" glowies in Unai Kamen's story Arc from the strange "Mystical Well" to a graphic of an actual vortex as seen in Heroside Reichsman TF, the Defeat Snaptooth mission from DJ Zero, and/or the Stop the Banished Pantheon from Contacting the Spirit World mission from Tobais Hanson (I think).

Thank you for your time.

Edit: Updated my Signature to include this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Hi Tunnel Rat! Enjoyed your answering questions on Ustream the other day.

I have a whole bunch of ideas and requests but I'll keep it short(ish) for now. Hehe.

1) I don't know if this qualifies as VFX art but I'd love to see the tech used for the Resistance Armor glowing bits to be implemented on an alternate set of chest emblems. That way we can get glowing Ankhs, Stars, Mystic symbols, etc.

2) As above, the same tech would be great to use for certain patterns as well. Some examples: Tribal, Isles, Circuitry, Electricity, Lines and Magic. This would be for Chest, Legs, Arms, Feet and Face patterns. This way we can get glowing circuits on our armor, glowing tattoo patterns (Tribal and Isles), glowing magical runes, glowing Star Eyes, etc.

I imagine it would be an ongoing process since there are so many applicable patterns and chest emblems but maybe new ones can be added in each Issue. Menu wise they'd need to be subsets or extra options such as Mystic 1 and Mystic 1 Ultra Mode perhaps.

3) With the new Path aura stuff we're getting in the Steampunk pack. I got to thinking it would be cool if we could add a Roaches Path Aura to the Flies Aura (renaming it Insects) where the aura would be the roaches already found in the sewer maps. Creepy effect of having insects milling about your feet when you stand still and following you around as you walk about.



4) Can we get the Clunker aura coming with the Steampunk pack to have a setting where the oil trail is used on its own? No cogs floating around but just the oil trailing behind? That would allow recoloring (hopefully!) to have green slime, mud and the like behind a character.

5) And lastly, this is a request I've been wanting a long, long time. I've been on the hunt for the perfect eye glow to use with hats and hoods for years now. The newer Sparks and Thunderhead auras are *almost* it! The reason why they are: the glow does not spread above the rim of the hat in or out of combat mode like almost all other new or old eye glows do (I checked). Of course the problem is they are very specific and either shoot sparks or shoot lightning bolts therefor they are of specific use/theme.

I'd really love to see a new Eye glow aura that behaves like Sparks and Thunderhead but without the bits that jump out of the eye area. Basically just a pulsing glow.

The pictures below show how Fireflies and every other eye glow besides Sparks and Thunderhead behave. The glow color is set to one of the brightest settings available to illustrate how the two lower eye glows don't bleed through the hat rim even at that setting. I timed the screenshots to not show the sparks or electricity but they of course activate every couple seconds or so normally.

I would like to see the prestige slide power be tintable. as it is it's VERY hard to use thematically. even a new power colored light blue for ice characters would be more beneficial than the current pinkish purple slide.

powers
how about instead of alternate animations give us the "no VFX" option

cape auras:
how about using actual capes, give us some auras that we can use in place of a cape such as a burning cape aura or electrical cape or smoky cape.

how about populating Paragon with small animals like rabbits, cats and dogs

Hey Goblin Queen, where did you get info on the Steam-punk pack?

Fiery wings. Is it even possible? If it is, please consider adding some.

Firstly, massive thank you for the Ustream appearance, I enjoyed discovering how much you put into the game lately and what your favourite part of the game is - wait its not released! Your work so far is fantastic, the latest onset of auras has been awesome so keep up the good work!

I would like a transparency aura/setting, I understand this may conflict with stealth but there has been many times where I wanted to create a ghost-like character with an glowing aura. At the moment the only way to do is is to turn the aura up to the brightest to create the effect which can be mind-numbing!

Can't wait for steampunk!

Fury

* Add nice Shader fx to Auras and/or powers. Easiest example would be powers that cause a toon or area to burst into flame; it would be awesome to have heat distortion effects applied - at least as a power customization option. Of course this would be extra eye candy for Ultra Mode users, but wouldn't ruin already-existing visuals for those who don't run in Ultra Mode.

* I'd also love the option to apply shaders to toons in the costume creator/tailor. I think the mirror effect with metallic skin is great but it would be fantastic to see a watery shader, a wet surface shader, a slightly translucent shader, etc, etc. Even better would be if such shader effects could be applied over costume pieces/textures just as patterns can currently be applied.

* Basically, shader fx rock. More shaders!

A few things:

1. Customization for Epic and Pool powers. I know that's breaking the rules, but it has to be said.

2. Wing auras: Right now our "full body" auras aren't full body. They don't affect our wings. I could, for example, have an aura that sets my entire body on fire constantly, but I can never set my winds on fire. Would it be possible to extend the current auras to include a few "and wings" options if a character has wings selected?

3. Aura wings: No, that's not a duplicate. I want to see wings that don't have any sort of physical form, but are instead completely and entirely a visual effect. Think Demon Summoning Fire Whip attacks, with or without the self-illuminated 3D core, only shaped like wings and flapping. Crystal wings, ice wings, rock wings, energy wings and so forth would be good additions. Preferably at character creation.

4. Aura capes: Same as above, but with capes. I'm not sure if the cape rig can handle this, but I envision putting a sprite effect at every vertex of an invisible cape and running with that. Would that be possible to do?

5. Aura-only costume items in general: Think a tail made out of energy. Not a 3D mesh, just effects. Not think about a character that has no torso and legs, just a head, goves and boots connected by a body-shaped cloud of glowing light. Or a character with a head made entire of aura. No face, no hair, no details. Just aura. Well, OK, possibly with additional colourable aura options for eyes and possibly mouth.

6. Aura weapons for all weapon sets, including firearms. For completeness' sake, I mean: Aura Broadsword, Aura Katana, Aura Dual Blades, Aura Axe, Aura Mace, Aura Shield, Aura Bow, Aura Claws, Aura Assault Rifle, Aura Pulse Rifle, Aura Dual Pistols. Some of those actually do exist in the face of Vanguard items, but more would be better, and not all have Vanguard variants. And Vanguard weapons are energy weapons. I'm talking also adding fire weapons, ice weapons, gaseous weapons and so forth.

7. Footsteps aura: You know that one mission from Tavish Bell where Baphomet rampaged through a blue lab, burning holes in the walls? Remember he footsteps he left behind all over the place? Simple horizontal sprites with a hoof patter, occasionally smoking or burning. Could this be added to players so that, for instance, a walking player would leave a trail of puddles of fire when he walked?

8. A higher-rez runes aura: The rune sprites for the one we have now are horribly low-res. Can you make one that's higher resolution and looks less seriously pixellated?

9. More per-bodypart auras: I'm talking about being able to put an aura only on one fist, on one leg or on one eye. If I'm using a single eye patch, I may want to have only my other eye glowing, and right now only Combat Auras can do that. If I'm using a big robotic arm, I may want just that arm to glow, and currently few auras can do that, mostly the Alpha and the Omega (somewhere, Xan Kreigor is filing a lawsuit). It might bloat the list of aura setups somewhat, but it has room to expand.

10. Non-constant toggle aura effects: You know how the Praetorian PPD officers' shields only trigger when hey get hit? Can we have that as an option for ALL toggle powers? For instance, I'm running Fire Shield, but with this option, I'm not actually on fire most of the time. When I get hit, THEN my fire shield flares up, absorbs the damage, stays lit for a while, say two seconds, then turns off again, unless someone hits me in the meantime, at which point its timer resets. Should be using existing tech, since PPPD officers already have that.

11. An alternate Energy Blast: I'm talking the entire set. Right now, the set is using some combination of toothpase energy and Kirby dots that don't really look bad, but also doesn't look as much like energy as it should. I'd like to see an alternate set of effects that are closer to the Praetorian PPD's power gauntlets, in that it's less a mess of effects and more just a seamless beam of light. As an option, at least. And do something with Sniper Blast. It's disappointingly pathetic as an animation.

12. "No pulse or fade" options for ALL powers that pulse or fade: Stealth powers make your character model turn transparent and hard to see. Some defence toggles make your character pulse brighter or darker. An option exists to disable both of those effects, but right now it only ever affects Dark Armour and nothing else. It should be allowed to affect ALL powers that pulse or fade, such as Electric Armour shields, Energy Aura's Energy Cloak, ALL Stalker Hide powers and so forth.

13. More energy Aura customization options: Right now, Energy Aura effects look like Kinetics buffs, which look horrible. I'd like to see customization for all Energy Aura shields to include Forcefields-like colourable bubbles (aligned better than the bugged custom forcefields) as customization options for the three shields. There's a bubble already in place for Energy Drain. In addition to that, I want to see Beehive Barrier shields like what the Praetorian PPD have going on, again as options for the set's shields.

Which reminds me...

14. Fix the numerous FX bugs. Here's a short list:

* Custom forcefield effects are locked to the character's hitbox position, but not to the character's body, meaning that the bubbles don't move with the characters, meaning that you can jump, sit or often just step out of your bubble if your power animation moves you away from your character away from his hit box.

* Poison Gas Trap's gas field summon still doesn't take custom colours. It always spawns as a whitish cyan, almost like steam. The only thing that custom colours change is the colour of the vial and the colour of the initial particle spray, but the actual big hinkin' cloud is unaffected.

* Trip Mines and Time Bombs take two colours, but only use one, and they use this colour for both the lasers/light AND for the colour of the explosion.

* Dark Melee custom power effects are neither bright nor dark, which means they look bad in both bright and dark colours. They should really be split into bright and dark themes, or at the very least be all made subtractive so that picking black/black (as one might with the powers of darkness) doesn't make them transparent and borderline invisible.

* Ninja Genin still lack ANY visual representation for their first upgrade, and have lacked one since they traded their bows for shuriken and lost their quivers. They need SOMETHING there to show that they have been upgraded if I have my pet screen set to hide passive powers.

15. More colours for all custom powers: Some powers - namely ice-, earth- and air-related ones, have a hugely diminished colour palette to choose for, essentially restricted to dull, white-washed colours that don't really change much of anything on the powers. Please consider adding more colour options and letting us actually customize the things. It's painful to be able to colour half of Storm Summonning, but not the other.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I only got to about page 2 before I posted, however, for fear of forgetting what I was going to say, so if I come up with anything else, I'll append or repost.

*edit*
Here's another one!

16. Power customization for weapon sets: Right now, sets like Broadsword, Claws and Assault Rifle have baked-in power colours that the team never got around to touching since they already had weapon customization and further customization wasn't as important at the time. However, suppose I want my sword to swing not with that white arc, but with a blood red arc to match that blood red blade? Or suppose I want my sword to swing with a train of fire, or a trail of ice, or that one little edge trail from the Knives of Artemis Head Splitter. Or suppose I want my Flamethrower to shoot green flames and my Burst to fire instant-hit tracers. That's kind of what I mean.

*edit*
And before I forget!

17. Glowing Hair: Just take the regular hair meshes, get rid of the textures and shaders, apply a flat colour and make it always retain the same level of brightness, the same way as the Resistance glowing gloves and chests, or Positron's Tron stripes. This would allow us to more easily make eldritch or alien characters, as well as be just dang cool to see in the dark.

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.

Costume Parts:

(Not sure if this is new tech or not, considering that things like Nemesis Warhulks already appear to have texture animations...)

• Fluid tanks--either strapped to the arm or hip or ideally as a backpack. Animated and tintable textures on the clear parts that have rising bubbles, similar to those in the Warhulk tanks.
• Costume bits with looped texture animations--
  • electronic parts with glowtech lights that blink on and off slowly
  • something similar to the old Malaise skin but this one actually swirls about like oil on water
  • a texture that flows mostly downward as if a thin sheet of water were flowing over it
  • a white noise and static skin
  • see earlier post up thread about energy beings inspired skins and auras
• more smoke puffs, flames, etc for all sorts of back pack items--all FX should be color tintable
  • jetpacks with flames
  • jetpack like devices with "anti-gravity" rings puffing out of them
  • parts like the steampunk backpack that occasionally belch smoke
  • organic stalks or vents on the back that also belch smoke or gas
  • a cage on the back containing hot coals that occasionally blasts out a burst of fire
  • costume parts with fx animated propellers--go go gadget booster!
• texture animated holographic auras, similar to the ACCU HUD combat aura, but with some full body options

• energy and elemental wings--both persistent and appearing in flight
• Vanguard wings complete with a "projector" that the wings get sucked back into that is similar to how the current Vanguard shield works with its persistent and separately colorable projector piece

Couple of more suggestions, love this thread!

Travel powers
I know its hard to ask for a VFX dev to not actually add a FX to a power, but I dont think sprint, fly or superjump need those ugly auras around hands and feet. When we jumping with superjump we leave a trail of semitransparent onion rings, and thats no sense. Im sure those FX were made long before you even work for Paragon but I think is time for them to go or got updated to something more fresh and cool.

Auras
I love the leaves auras. We could have some more options using same mechanics:
Feathers (Example, in black for characters with black wings, so badass!)
Sakura leaves
Little energy bats (Think of Morrigan of Darkstalkers)
Auras in weapons