Myst Online: URU Live Forums

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

JulyForToday — Tue May 04, 2010 8:59 pm

Author: JulyForToday

Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 8:59 pm

Simplest solution is that eventually when the source code is released, there can be some coordinated (and regulated) fan work on improving aspects of the avatar system, and adding customizations.

I do find my biggest frustration with the avatars (on the gamer side, as opposed to the developer side) to be the lack of customizations. I'm not big on changing outfits like crazy, but the face and hair are really where it hurts. Granted the game is from 2003, but there are other games now that are such worlds ahead of this one in the area of making believable avatars that can look pretty close to the person they are representing. But this game is U - R - U. I personally am tired of not being able to have a simple flip cut after all these years. I've always felt my avatar never really looked like ME. And everyone else' avatars look the same. It's hard if not impossible to tell anyone apart by their face, which is bad in terms of realism. So if we ever get the option as fan developers, I'm fully behind improving and enhancing the avatar system.

Another thing: has anyone been able to import an actual avatar into Blender? Not a custom avatar (like Yeesha or Rand) but like the generic male and female models? I vaguely remember trying to import them, but they would crash not matter what. It would be nice to have those to play around with, maybe start making customizations (just to see what can be made).

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

vidroth — Sat May 01, 2010 5:33 pm

Author: vidroth

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 5:33 pm

kaelisebonrai wrote:

So, needing the hair to fit under a safety helmet? uh, sorry, not a valid requirement to stop things from being included in uru.

At some point we surrender to the video game, clearly. It's a matter of taste, I suppose, where one draws the line.

I do note that for all the explorers' supposed safety, there are still plenty of danger barricades around, and should they ever return, the ResEngs always are careful to wear good caving helmets with lights.

"Valid" requirements? It's a game. There aren't any "valid" requirements, other than the ones people make for having fun. I don't think mine are unreasonable. Fortunately for those who want green skin and elephant trunks, I'm not in charge of anything.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

kaelisebonrai — Sat May 01, 2010 11:31 am

Author: kaelisebonrai

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 11:31 am

vidroth wrote:

Nalates wrote:

Punk Hair Styles seem to be what most people complain about. There are people that like the bright colors and spikes. I've seen some 12 or 18 inch (24 - 36cm +/-) spikes. Where does one person's presences override another's?

If we're looking for hair justifications: when you couldn't put it under a safety helmet, it's no longer something a person could wear to explore a cave. I'm fine with that as a hair restriction... "must be able to wear a safety helmet, like an actual person has to do when he/she leaves the visitor trail in a cave."

But I'm not trying to micromanage things to my arbitrary narrow preferences. I'm just trying to avoid running into video game characters. As long as the avatar looks like an actual human being who might be able to explore strange and dangerous places, I'm OK with personal style.

Black leather Village People biker outfits with chains? Knock yourself out. Plate armor and bat wings? No thank you.

Smiley-face sunglasses? Sure. Purple skin and fangs? Pass.

Clown makeup with the puffy red nose? Ummmm. Er... what was the question again?

May I note, however, we may be in a cavern, but, none of us are ever required to wear a safety helmet. =P

And the only places we enter that are cave-like, are D'ni locations, really. And all of those were part of a cave system that has been inhabited for 10,000 years. By people without safety helmets.

Also, in uru, as much as many of us wish it were different, we *never* go direct from the surface to D'ni. =)

So, needing the hair to fit under a safety helmet? uh, sorry, not a valid requirement to stop things from being included in uru.

For one thing, i'd be much more worried about going barefoot. Well, that's an option we /do/ get. Requiring that the outfit be safe, well, that rule is already broken, by cyan. Sorry.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Rudolfson — Sat May 01, 2010 6:43 am

Author: Rudolfson

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 6:43 am

I game in 1st person, and other peoples hair is... well theirs.
I'd rather /sit was not an emote but that it was possible to sit in first person. So that I could sit watching a speach or people trying to get onto an elevator, or whatever, without having a out of body experience. Then I would only be pleasantly reminded of my looks during game actions. I give my hair an odd tint so that friends can recognize me more easily in a crowd.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Keikoku — Sat May 01, 2010 4:05 am

Author: Keikoku

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 4:05 am

vidroth wrote:

Paradox wrote:
For people hoping to use Yeesha and Esher from Myst V as counterexamples, note that those animations were all pre-baked, not calculated in real time.

I will not argue with you, because I am sure you're right, but I'm surprised--the cloth effects don't look pre-baked. And that's not a compliment: there's way too much clipping. Pre-baked cloth/hair movement shouldn't clip, that's the kind of oversight you should get in realtime draping physics.

Even if you pre-bake, the results are normally only stored as a set of key frames, with intermediate frames being calculated at run time. Alternatively, It's possible that they generated accurate animations, then had to reduce the polygon count at a late stage and didn't have time to redo the calculations. Yet another possibility is that the collisions are too accurate, and the clipping is an artefact of limited depth resolution.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

vidroth — Sat May 01, 2010 1:16 am

Author: vidroth

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 1:16 am

Paradox wrote:

MOUL currently performs no physics calculations on hair or clothing. To do so (with the current system) cause lag to the point of unplayability for some people.

Certainly it would need to start as a client-side effect only... if kicking cones can bog down the cavern, heaven only knows what braiding your hair would do to it.

Quote:

For people hoping to use Yeesha and Esher from Myst V as counterexamples, note that those animations were all pre-baked, not calculated in real time.

I will not argue with you, because I am sure you're right, but I'm surprised--the cloth effects don't look pre-baked. And that's not a compliment: there's way too much clipping. Pre-baked cloth/hair movement shouldn't clip, that's the kind of oversight you should get in realtime draping physics.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Paradox — Sat May 01, 2010 12:56 am

Author: Paradox

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 12:56 am

MOUL currently performs no physics calculations on hair or clothing. To do so (with the current system) cause lag to the point of unplayability for some people.

For people hoping to use Yeesha and Esher from Myst V as counterexamples, note that those animations were all pre-baked, not calculated in real time.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

vidroth — Sat May 01, 2010 12:46 am

Author: vidroth

Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 12:46 am

Nalates wrote:

Punk Hair Styles seem to be what most people complain about. There are people that like the bright colors and spikes. I've seen some 12 or 18 inch (24 - 36cm +/-) spikes. Where does one person's presences override another's?

If we're looking for hair justifications: when you couldn't put it under a safety helmet, it's no longer something a person could wear to explore a cave. I'm fine with that as a hair restriction... "must be able to wear a safety helmet, like an actual person has to do when he/she leaves the visitor trail in a cave."

But I'm not trying to micromanage things to my arbitrary narrow preferences. I'm just trying to avoid running into video game characters. As long as the avatar looks like an actual human being who might be able to explore strange and dangerous places, I'm OK with personal style.

Black leather Village People biker outfits with chains? Knock yourself out. Plate armor and bat wings? No thank you.

Smiley-face sunglasses? Sure. Purple skin and fangs? Pass.

Clown makeup with the puffy red nose? Ummmm. Er... what was the question again?

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Nalates — Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:28 pm

Author: Nalates

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:28 pm

Treating hair as if it were from RL pretty much removes most of the limits. Google.

Punk Hair Styles seem to be what most people complain about. There are people that like the bright colors and spikes. I've seen some 12 or 18 inch (24 - 36cm +/-) spikes. Where does one person's presences override another's?

There is concern about game lag. Most hair physics happens on the client side. Depending on who one listens to MOULa's lag is mostly server side or mostly client side. Either way it can mitigated. The problem is someone has to add the new styles and someone has to deal with optimizing the client for dynamic hair.

While several of us like the idea of better hair my OP point is it may not be that big a deal for attracting new players. I like the great hair in SL. But, the ...plainer... hair of MOULa does not put me off that much. Nor do we see games advertising their great hair... mmmm... Blue Mars might be consider... naw.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

vidroth — Sun Apr 18, 2010 2:58 pm

Author: vidroth

Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2010 2:58 pm

I'm a big fan of limiting your personalization options to practical real-world and/or D'ni-manufactured gear. I don't want bright purple trolls with three-foot mohawks roaming around the cavern. Other games can do (and allow) what they want, but my guiding principle is this: quit reminding me I'm playing a video game. Pretend the cavern is a real place, linking Books are real things, and Explorers are real people... and make your decisions on "what is allowed" accordingly.

With that said, I think the quality of the avatar choices could/should be greatly improved, both for hair and for clothes. Myst V had plenty of "draping" working, check Yeesha's (and for that matter, Esher's) appearance. That can be added just fine.

But if the choice is "what do you want Cyan to spend time on," that's not it. That's something that can wait for Open Source, and responsible non-Cyan people can enhance it, and when they've done a good enough job, Cyan can add it to the primary source.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

dnidaz — Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:12 pm

Author: dnidaz

Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:12 pm

I feel a bit left out here (see pic in sig)

But at least I can look like a standard bald guy in MOUL. When I tried SL, I simply couldn't work out how to do that. Hair was far too complicated!

In MOUL I'd settle for being able to have dark eyebrows and grey hair like in real life, but I know that's small beer compared to you folks with your locks blowing in the wind.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Gondar — Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:47 pm

Author: Gondar

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:47 pm

Or people like me who wear a hat with a different style than cropped short. Or such.

Of course, that would probably involve finding a way to separate hats from hair.. perhaps a second item of them like glasses, tethered to the hair? Hm.

Regardless, while apparently the plugin has clothing exporters (which presumably would include hairstyles) we don't have reference models and such. Heck, do we even know how that part works?

But I do want to properly wear my ponytail under my actual cap.. heck, I'd learn 3d modeling just to show it off

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

lunanne — Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:05 pm

Author: lunanne

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:05 pm

Some of us got(or want to have) lose hair over the shoulders or long braids, I would love to see those.. Or something curly, not everyone got straight hair,

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Ai'ron — Tue Apr 13, 2010 7:48 pm

Author: Ai'ron

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 7:48 pm

I personally find the hair in SL way overdone. The fact is that nobody wears their hair even resembling that outside of high school prom. Maybe a few more conservative styles wouldn't be untoward, but I don't think it needs to get crazy. I would flip if I saw someone with the hair shown in your SL avatar in Uru, Nalates. Keep Uru as Uru, keep SL as SL.

Re: The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Keikoku — Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:10 pm

Author: Keikoku

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:10 pm

DarK wrote:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Furry

It seems to blend, not sure how this would translate into Uru, as it mentions particals.

Uru's partical system seems a bit on the simple side, however thats not to say that something could be added to give some more realistic hair.

You wouldn't use a particle system for hair in real-time; it's far too computationally expensive.