Facegen concept ideas

[Evarchart]

Meh, they all look the same.

Hahahaa!! This is true! although I have thought about an alien generator, similar kind of thing to the basic facegen but with greater control of where things can be places and how big the .png's can be, that way I could create unique aliens from the asset-list. I should make a mock up of what I mean (one day)

@FluffyFreak
Right now (correct me if I'm wrong) we can ask to get a face of gender male/female and police/civilian but nothing else? Would be great with finer control like:

• - Alien
  - normal human civilian Male (some bearded) / Female
  - Military/Police of faction X (of rank high/medium/low?)
  - In space suit
  - Pirate/scarred person with worn clothes
  - robot/droid

This is ideally what I would love to have for the comms screens, a really varied and diverse spread of not only facial features but also so you know who you're talking to and what rank etc (silly hat is always an important person etc)...I really REALLY want to create some pirate/smuggler/scoundrel type assets. I wondered if there was a way of increasing the size of the .png's that are used in the current facegen? If I can double their size and they still be placed in the same place I could create some really cool assets for aliens/droids. Maybe I could talk to someone about that when I have assets enough to try out (I just have lots of ideas but I know how hard it is to change things like this at the whim of an artist, if they are at all do-able). I will have to make mock-ups to explain what I have in my mess of a head.

It's looking like we're going to be able to customise our profile pic in the future (if I am right), I'd love to be able to Name the ship too. A small touch but it woule be nice (displayed on the hull, if that's possible?)

[FluffyFreak]

@FluffyFreak
Right now (correct me if I'm wrong) we can ask to get a face of gender male/female and police/civilian but nothing else?

That's correct, the system is designed backwards to what people might expect, it's why I haven't added the ability to customise characters yet.
You can only configure a couple of things, it tells you the rest.

I've tried a couple of way to extend the existing stuff last weekend but I think I'm going to have to do a bit more extensive rewrite and split the character generation from the image building and resource (face component) gathering.

As usual, it's finding the time to do this stuff...

[FluffyFreak]

Hahahaa!! This is true! although I have thought about an alien generator, similar kind of thing to the basic facegen but with greater control of where things can be places and how big the .png's can be, that way I could create unique aliens from the asset-list. I should make a mock up of what I mean (one day)

I'm not sure what the current restrictions are on the PNG dimensions, have you tried using larger ones? Does it get misaligned or crash or something?
I didn't write the original system I've just tried cleaning it up a few times, like a lot of the code :D

[Evarchart]

I still haven't tried my own assets in game yet, I am terribly disorganised.
I will be putting them in for testing really soon.

To help me keep track of what is going on I have made myself this tick-sheet so I can see at a glance how much work is still needed for the facegen, this is the first ticksheet, the second ticksheet will be for accessories, clothes, uniforms, spacesuits etc.
It's scary to know I need to fill 3 of these to replace the current assets...it'll keep me busy at least. :)

What I am thinking about doing is just doing 2 of each asset for each sex/race which should start to show how thing will look in game and then just build on them as time allows.

[impaktor]

Even your tick sheets are nice and designed!

You seem pretty organized to me.

What I am thinking about doing is just doing 2 of each asset for each sex/race which should start to show how thing will look in game and then just build on them as time allows.

I think this sounds like a good plan. Start small, and build from there. This will also allow us to see what needs to be implemented/changed in the code to get things working properly.

[Evarchart]

Haha! If you knew me, you'd know just how disorganised I am but I have learned what I can. Chatting with programmers a lot has helped me to *try* to be more organised.

I am just testing the assets I have drawn in-game today, just to make sure they aren't off centre or anything like that...I shall also be experimenting with larger image sizes for the facial assets in a bit to see if they too can be made to get more out of them without any additional code being required...that being said, beards will need extra code and so will women's facial adornments, should we get that far enough to seriously consider them for inclusion.

Here's my police uniform in-game.

[Evarchart]

Also...for your consideration, I had an idea to add a sort of scanline effect to the comm screen, to make it a bit more...I dunno, it came to me and scanlines always make games seem more gamey. This is terribly worded I know, but what I mean is we're communicating via these screens and I wanted to tinker with them a little bit to see what I could get out of them by adding 1 extra .png layer just to give it a little more character.

I sort of fluffed this by sticking on top of the police uniform .png just so I could test it in game. Is this the sort of thing you guys welcome? I mean, I am fiddling around quite a lot here and if I am off the mark just let me know.

Anyways, here's the scanline screenshot test:

[impaktor]

Yeah, code to do beards would be the same that does women facial decorations/earrings.

I think both versions look very good. I do like the tv-monitor-horizontal lines, but I could go either way.

[FluffyFreak]

I would say keep the scan lines separate, we could add them as another layer, or do other effects if we like in the future with post-processing etc.

[Evarchart]

I have them as a seperate layer all good to go (if you want) the thing is I don't think they will work so well on the bulletin board faces..(we might need a smaller one maybe, I can always play around with them)