New to City of Heroes Emblem Options (yea, I wish!...picture inside)

So, I got to thinking "I am sick of the chest options being either some piece of armor (some that kick *** others that kinda suck) and an emblem that Doesn't quite look right often." Then I thought "What If we had emblem options" so above is an example with the current look a "blended" option where the emblem takes on the shading, shape, and texture of the chest option, and the third an "Embossed" option where the emblem stand up off the chest.

I like the "blended" option very much - adding shading where the muscles are really helps a lot in making it look like it's really part of the tights.

Yeah I've always hated how the emblems stand out, the blended option looks great.

Win!

Looks great, but unfortunately, there's no way for this to work with the current costume/material code. It should be possible to set it up to work like that. But that would require a nearly complete recode of how the engine handles materials. I could set up a material that would work like you have there in UDK, and it actually wouldn't be too much work to switch around from a setup like current CoH and that, but CoH doesn't use UDK and there would be nothing that my example would have to cooperate with. Making it work in CoH would likely be far too much work right now.

That said though... When/if they upgrade the costume creator (and not just give it a new interface), it would be nice to see this put in. Along with tri-color costume options.

Actually, the blend should be easy - muscle shading on the tights is a form of pretinting, the only thing that would need to be done is to add the same pretinting to the emblems, making sure it lines up with where the same shading is on the tights. Emblems are just geometry and textures the same as everything else, there's nothing special about them. Embossed/shiny effects should also be doable with simple texture work.

Speaking from experience as a video game model/texture artist.

I have that effect sometimes, it seems

It is true, though. I've been in the role of copying and pasting a texture over and over and over again into several different masks and onto several different geometries... I think the word is 'mind-numbing.'

LOL

Johnstone Vs. FlashToo FIGHT!
~plays street fighter background music~

Amateurs can do it with Morrowind. Why can't our art team?

Yeah -- some chest details seem to float above the chest slightly -- reminding me of how Green Lantern insignia has been recently depicted...

I really love creative people. What a wonderful idea and the devs need to do this asap.

I really like the way it looks. As flashtoo pointed out the change would not be exceptionally difficult technically, but in that it would be time consuming. However, this work could easily be outsourced to another shop. It's not like this is critical stuff for a new release just a revamp of existing art.