COH Concept Gallery

For starters, two words: Bat nipples

There is a fine line, but it can be done. What we usually get, instead, are the extremes of the 1960s TV show (which was outright mockery of the "heroic Batman") and the Burton films, in which he is a psychopath. "Batman Begins" seems like it hit the sweet spot, albeit to the darker side of the scale; still, he was ultimately a noble hero.

Where the problem begins is that all of these extreme variations are purportedly the same character.

Tangent:

The breakthrough comic-book movie that led directly to X-Men, IMHO was Blade.

Maybe. Maybe not. Most likely there concerned that the new stuff will, while being fundamentally similar, still be very different than what they have come to know and love. There not willing to risk what they have for what might be. You might what to consider making a batch of test textures. And thin see what people think. You might get different results.

Oh, the Devs tried, alright. But they were swamped by players who were adamant that their beloved legacy pieces stayed.

I'll be glad to step up to the plate and repeat all the reasons why the legacy costume pieces must remain and remain unaltered.

Short version: I enjoy new fancy, glowie, and high-resolution pieces as additional variety. But I like original pieces as much or more. They invariably are used when creating my favorite costumes. I did not like how the updates to legacy pieces that have happened ruined costumes because the textures broke up what was smooth before. The legacy costume pieces are the #2 reason I enjoy playing City Of Heroes. (The #1 reason being Fly.)

Not sure that anything was actually 'tried' on this front--not in terms of actual replacement at any rate. To catch everyone up: some time ago I posted an op-ed thread in which I made a case for why it'd be a good idea for the game to upgrade and replace old parts. Just my personal opinion, mind you. Several players made a convincing case for keeping the old parts in the mix, and that's the long and short of it.

Policy remains the same: we're not going to remove anything.

The only consideration for the future is what new stuff to put alongside the old stuff. And again, I think the goal is to hit similar notes but with modern texture techniques.

A good point, and another good example. Blade surprised everyone with it's huge box office take, and I'd cite it as another case where the comic source material was muted a bit in order to make a very successful action/horror film.

The fascinating thing for me is that Marvel's tried to relaunch the Blade comic several times since then, and it hasn't worked out. I wonder why? Is there some fundamental reason why a vampire story can't work in print? I'd say no, so it must be something else.

Agreed about Batman Begins. You've got a firm acknowledgement of the source material minus the silly and over-saturated stuff. What's left is very palatable to the mainstream film audience. And Chris Nolan is a genius--he takes that core concept, adds a ton of his own sensibility, and the result is amazing.

That's really well said. I'm sure Schumacher's intentions were great, and I'm sure 'comic book on film' sounded good to investors at the time. But he guessed wrong about what the audience wanted. With a good 20 years of history to look back on, the comic films that work appear to be the ones where silliness and bright colors are dialed way back--but not to the point where they're gone of course. I guess you can suspend your disbelief about people with super-powers, but only to a point.

After Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, Marvel seems to know exactly where that point is. DC has been more hit-and-miss. Batman's working great of course, but Green Lantern went a little too silly and too continuity-heavy to really pull people in.

Comic book Blade wasn't that interesting, ultimately, and it's bound up in other copyright (the van Helsings are involved, the Harkers...so there's that whole estate that may not be letting them have access). The closest they've gone to the supernatural route in a while has been with Morbius, so they may be avoiding the 'classic' Blade mythology until they can work that out. I had some thoughts about the movies also....


1) First and foremost, Wesley Snipes. Casting him was a masterstroke, because he was able to combine his real-life martial arts with good acting to completely sell the character. Since then, he's been in jail and his reputation isn't the best. I personally think there isn't another actor who can embody Blade (I cite the incredibly short-lived tv show here), and despite talk of Blade IV, I can't see the movie moving ahead without Snipes or someone a lot like him.

2)Where is there to go? We went from a plot to make a super-vampire to a breed of super-vampires to Dracula. Admittedly if they'd thought about Marvel's lore and looked at the antideluvian vampires (the supposed progenitor of the race is a being called Varnae), they could've delved more into that, but the instant they knocked off the vampiric council, they limited their options drastically.

Underworld has done a much better job of maintaining its story because the central characters haven't overcome their nemeses yet. There's still something to work for, a story worth resolving. Plus, we're overwhelmed with the Twilight era and an overwhelming influx of vampire-related fiction in a number of mediums. I think any Blade reboot would be best served starting after the current cycle of popularity has begun to wane so it gets a clear run.


S.

Oh, I agree with you completely; the contrast between good and evil has to be painted pretty completely or else distinctions can't be made between them. It's quite ironic that I'm replying to your nom de plume who's in-game character is responsible for such a moment in First Ward. I have wondered though if Praetoria is a little more The Legion of Five Worlds material where there's a strong Silver Age feel yet moments of really strong adult material. I've had reservations about that kind of mix before because I feel graphic violence violates the feel of the Silver Age particularly. I guess I have a mixed feeling about First Ward because it does end on a down note, but it is at the same time my Empire Strikes Back, as it feels like the 'middle' part of a story.

If I were to have any complaint about the story, it'd be that it felt like some decisions that were potentially morally questionable weren't able to be questioned or found an alternative to...a little more branching could've helped those trying to stay true to the higher path, perhaps.


With regards to the techniques you can employ for costumes, there's some contradictions regarding asymmetry particularly. Is it a situation where it's going to create too much detail or animation to happen that'll prevent some forms of asymmetrical costumes?

I think my confusion over that is that my knowledge of character models and art assets is pretty rudimentary. I see modern video games for instance and think 'oh, CoH could never run that' and then I see things like Brain in a Jar or the Celestial Set. It's clear you can bridge that divide in terms of quality...though presumably it'd be fair to say you couldn't do something as visually impressive as Aion's skins and details without major changes in the engine? I cite that game because it's obviously incorporating those things from the get-go yet keeping the system requirements significantly down.

I'm on your side regarding costume part updates. I don't need to be reminded of something my old PC could render. I'm assuming though you'd want a window to do a big pass on a lot of older parts and go 'right, let's put out a chunk of new 'old' parts'?

I like the thinking with the base coats. I'm no artist, but my filming eye always looks for the details, the things that help sell the illusion better. Of course, the more filmic the better...heh. Being the art lead, are you working with a particular theme like 'filmic' given what we've discussed already? I can particularly see back items being one of those 'connective tissues' you've mentioned, and not just backpacks.


Oh, apologies for not quoting as you have; I have no idea of how to do that.



S.

It is notable that Blade was devoid of any Marvel Universe continuity. In print, I think the continuity worked against the Blade character. Dracula has been around for a long time in Marvel Comics and has even had his own successful title, so it may have been hard to create a jumping on point that both print and movie fans could bind to.

For another thing, in his own movie universe, Blade can be the end-all, be-all bad mothershutyourmouth. Not as much in a universe populated with the likes of Iron Man and Doctor Strange.

I think a movie Marvel Universe reboot of Blade with continuity could work, but the feel of the character and threats would be necessarily different.

DC's new I... Vampire comic has been outstanding so far.

Marvel has figured out how to make superhero movies - while Green Lantern was a comic book movie. The difference is important.

Sure stuff was tried. Some even was kept, I think - Metal texture was replaced with a reflective version, for example. Thigh high boots were replaced with a version with narrower top. (The first replacement seemed much more popular than the second)

Skirts were replaced with a patternable version that worked differently. Suit jackets were too. Not popular at all, skirts had to be redone several times till they were even tolerable and it involved a few bugs along the way...

Actually, the 6-color palette the film employed was critically praised. In fact, Milena Canonero was Oscar-nominated for the costumes, as was Vittorio Storaro for the cinematography. And Richard Sylbert won the Academy Award for his sets.

But then again that film seemed intended on a more 'Comic' color palette. And besides, I thought more of the Flak was about Beatty not having going under the latex to look more like Tracy (you know like nearly all the Villains did...)?

Thank you for the time...

Because blade is all action and none of that emo #$%# that everybody seems to want to love. I'd probably work if they swiped about half of his years and make him a winy teenager. :P

Dracula is very, very public domain.

Blade from origin was just an extra (co-star) in Tomb of Dracula. Tomb of Dracula became a hit in comics due to the superb drawings of Gene Colan. I haven't seen a succesful vampire comic since actually.

That said.. Blade in the comic wasn't interesting enough to work on the big screen. He had a HUGE makeover for the movie. Something comic lovers only accepted because he was just a co-star. Wesley Snipes really carried the character. In such a way that the series that came out without Snipes failed misserably.

My comment about DC was less to do with costumes and more to do with their general failure to produce a successful super hero film. The recent Batman films being the exception.


Not sure I entirely agree but I will bow to the designer's eye about hue and saturation. However I would say there is a big difference between how the characters appear in the film and how Marvel market them. The most obvious example being the Iron Man movie poster. This is far darker than practically anything we see in the film. The shots from his lab showing the Hot Rod Red at its best. Its almost as if they are trying to trick the audience into the theatre During the Thor movie Hemsworth spends most of his time in civvies. However we he's suddenly in costume after defeating the Destroyer, that costume is at its most bright and shiny. My point being that Capt, Iron Man and Thor all have costumes that are very close the comic books of today. Most of the time the cinematography presents them dark and battle damaged as befits the story but when appropriate they are clean and colourful. In that respect the films are no different from the comics.

I think the details of the costumes are a side issue. Especially for the Capt and Thor since their costumes have almost always implied more detail than drawn. Such as mail armour in the case of the Capt and armour pieces for Thor.

Joel Schumacher clearly doesn't understand what makes a comic book a comic book. The reason his movies failed was not the costumes although everyone makes rubber nipple jokes. They failed because they were awful movies. I can agree with you that that is the lesson Hollywood has learnt from them, but it is the wrong one. Tim Burton has a lot to answer for!

ps: Thanks for taking the time to answer my post.

I want to point something out: There's a pretty hard limit on how dark you can go before you start losing players BEFORE said resolution. You guys have pretty much entirely lost me on the SSAs with the third one because I'm simply not going to trudge through more "dark themes" and cliffhangers for the hope of resolution, which will still include a signature character dying, and you've just about lost me on Praetoria with how depressingly First Ward ends.

I wouldn't call it a "science," specifically, but it's a balancing act to give people both drama and release so that the story comes off as tense, but people are still compelled to keep coming back. Remember: This isn't real life. We can - and often will - walk away when things become too heavy to be worth it.

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.

On an artistic level, I feel that's a waste, myself. Please understand that I'm not a fan of Golden Age or even really Silver Age tights costumes, but that's mostly because I feel tights costumes themselves look goofy irrespective of colour scheme. I really don't think colours have anything to do with it, not intrinsically. It's a question of colour scheme and how these heroes are designed.

Yes, if you try to recreate a character whose costume is a base purple, secondary cyan and detail colour red, you'll end up with a Christmas tree that WILL appear goofy, but that doesn't mean "bright colours" as a concept can't be employed. It's mostly a question of employing them well and contrasting them against more faded colour so what results in is both iconic and visually impressive. I mean, look at the original Star Wars trilogy, for example - most people wear earth tones or black, most tech is white, black or grey an it's overall a monotone world, yet every time a jedi pulls out a light sabre, it's a bright pink or lime green or fluorescent yellow or some such. Yet these don't stand out and ruin the aesthetic because they make sense and complement the otherwise muted colour scheme. It's why the skittles aliens in the prequesl, animated and 3D movies stood out so much.

JUST bright colours are goofy, yes. That doesn't mean they can't be incorporated into more photo-realistic, cooler designs.

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.

Of course. That's definitely been my point as well. JUST bright colors= Power Rangers, which to most people over 15= kids stuff. Whether that's fair or not has been a point of discussion, but it's the reality for most of the film-going audience.

Well, yeah. The Dick Tracy movie did go for a comic book color palette, that was why I brought it up. Regardless of the critical reception, the movie bombed financially IIRC. I don't know what lesson Hollywood learned from that, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "Warren Beatty's face should be covered with latex in his next movie." Honestly, I don't remember anyone complaining about that. I remember hearing women say that they would love to see a Warren Beatty movie, but not that one because it had guns and fighting in it. And guys saying they'd love to see a Dick Tracy movie, but not that one because it was bright yellow and looked like it was made for kids.

If we're talking about hue and saturation and translating comics to movies, I just figured that movie made a good example to throw into the mix.