Costume Colours..or lack there of.

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I was thinking about if it would be possible to implement a colour system for costumes where you have a colour square/circle for each of the colour slots like the pic below as I feel the choices we are given seem rather limited as it stands now, thats not to say the current system is not well done though.

i just think it would be nice to be able to have any shade of any colour for my outfits so i could get a themed outfit working correctly.

please let me know your opinions and also tell me if you think i am mad too.

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I support this idea.

I'd still like to have the default square colours but its pretty often that I cant get quite the shade I'd like.

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If I remember correctly, they had a very good reason not to that. But the exact reason... can´t remember that one.

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I agree, a greater range of colours are needed. I'd also like more controle over the colouring process.

personally, I'd like more creamy colours. or an off-white.

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I know one of the reasons was because of a skin colour. They temporarily had the option for a full colour palette in CoX once, but then you had a bunch of naked Barby doll clones running around. It wasn't pretty.

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Yup it was the barby dolls that did it we don't get a full colour pallet because people could make naked toons which personally I think is a load of rubbish who cares if some one can make a naked barby or ken doll?

I sure as hell don't and would much rather have more colours to choose from.

I would especially like pure black and white as at the moment you cant have pure white skin (it always has a pink tinge) and you cant have pure black clothing (its a very very dark grey)

So yes to a wider colour pallet!

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so silly immature players who like looking at visually naked (but not really) characters spoiled it for everyone then, thats such a shame honestly, still though it is nice to know that this idea/thought was not as stupid as i once thought it may be.

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How does the color cause this? I mean can't you make a green or blue virtual naked version now anyway? If skin based colors are the problem then just exclude those sections of the color pallette.

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Adogg wrote:

How does the color cause this? I mean can't you make a green or blue virtual naked version now anyway? If skin based colors are the problem then just exclude those sections of the color pallette.

Because right now, there are choices for skin color and choices for costume colors and none of the colors are the same. So you cannot choose to have a costume that is skin-colored (and therefore non-existent).

But yeah, I see your point - maybe they could just disallow the skin colors on the palette. Or even better, disallow the specific color you are using as your skin color, rather than all of them.

Then maybe we could get some decent greens. The greens on the existing color list suck.

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Theoretically you could make a super-white person naked. As in, like "porcelin doll white." Probably black, too. The reds and greens look like they might be too hard to nail that EXACT tone of red or green or blue or whatever, just from a cursory glance.

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Calsetes wrote:

Theoretically you could make a super-white person naked. As in, like "porcelin doll white." Probably black, too. The reds and greens look like they might be too hard to nail that EXACT tone of red or green or blue or whatever, just from a cursory glance.

nope no skin colours match costume colours if you try it with white you'll notice that the skin white has a pink tinge to it and you can tell that the skin and costume pieces don't mesh (you can kinda do it if you use the smallest and skin options you can find (works better on females as they have skimpier options than guys). Black works a bit better and its not immediately obvious that the skin black is blacker than the costume black (which is really a very dark grey) but if you have the gamma turned up its easy to spot.

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MESS wrote:

nope no skin colours match costume colours if you try it with white you'll notice that the skin white has a pink tinge to it and you can tell that the skin and costume pieces don't mesh (you can kinda do it if you use the smallest and skin options you can find (works better on females as they have skimpier options than guys). Black works a bit better and its not immediately obvious that the skin black is blacker than the costume black (which is really a very dark grey) but if you have the gamma turned up its easy to spot.

Alright, I probably just missed it then. I have a semi-naked character in one costume, but she has the whole Samurai gear on also, so I guess she's covered as far as that goes. I could swear it's the same color, but maybe it's either me not looking close enough, or maybe the metallic sheen on everything (I noticed it makes colors slightly lighter than they normally are.)

Either way, good to know. I know they used to make it so the last color you picked was at the top, no matter what it was. Cool for some concepts (you could make a robot that had fleshtone-colored metal pieces, like the robotic saloon girls in Snake Gulch) but horrible for obvious reasons. Like someone said earlier, featureless Barbie Dolls running around.

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I've seen it done with blue and green skinned people. The skin matched the costume pretty well. I dunno, maybe they used the feline patterns for their skin and just made it all the same color or something.

Anyways, I'd like more than just 1 low-saturation color for each color column. I don't need 200 super-saturated bright colors. I say double the color palette and reduce the saturation on the doubled one.

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The reason is with a reduced palette, they can use fewer bits for each color. When the data is sent describing your character to each and every person within viewing distance, that data has to include the color of every part of every costume piece you are wearing. If they allowed any color, that would mean sending 3 8 bit integers for every piece of every costume part. likely they have reduced the palette down to a single 8 bit number or maybe even less, which can save a lot of bandwidth over time.

So yes, they *could* allow it, but have limited it for very good reasons. I really haven't found the palette to be a problem in this game, there is plenty of variety.

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Avengaline wrote:

The reason is with a reduced palette, they can use fewer bits for each color. When the data is sent describing your character to each and every person within viewing distance, that data has to include the color of every part of every costume piece you are wearing. If they allowed any color, that would mean sending 3 8 bit integers for every piece of every costume part. likely they have reduced the palette down to a single 8 bit number or maybe even less, which can save a lot of bandwidth over time.

So yes, they *could* allow it, but have limited it for very good reasons. I really haven't found the palette to be a problem in this game, there is plenty of variety.

Shenanigans. The amount of bandwidth saved by saving 2-3 characters over a network is ridiculously small compared to what other stuff they have to be sending.

They could use hexadecimal to pump out thousands of different colors, in four character spaces.

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Calsetes wrote:

Alright, I probably just missed it then. I have a semi-naked character in one costume, but she has the whole Samurai gear on also, so I guess she's covered as far as that goes. I could swear it's the same color, but maybe it's either me not looking close enough, or maybe the metallic sheen on everything (I noticed it makes colors slightly lighter than they normally are.)

Either way, good to know. I know they used to make it so the last color you picked was at the top, no matter what it was. Cool for some concepts (you could make a robot that had fleshtone-colored metal pieces, like the robotic saloon girls in Snake Gulch) but horrible for obvious reasons. Like someone said earlier, featureless Barbie Dolls running around.

There pretty close maybe only a shade or so difference and I imagine 9 out of 10 people will never notice but I tend to notice these things.

yea the metallic sheen seems to even out the diffidence or at least make it less notacibal I think its probably because of the way it reflects/mirrors other light sources

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I've been playing this character for a couple of months (Supposed to be a golem-esque concept. She also has a "rock-skin" and two "metal-skin" forms) and I've not been able to tell a difference. Though I do use all the "skin" bits on the "Leather" setting for this particular costume.

http://champions-online.com/rate_my_champion/1443973

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Nadezda wrote:

I've been playing this character for a couple of months (Supposed to be a golem-esque concept. She also has a "rock-skin" and two "metal-skin" forms) and I've not been able to tell a difference. Though I do use all the "skin" bits on the "Leather" setting for this particular costume.

http://champions-online.com/rate_my_champion/1443973

You probably have Reflection Quality set to Off and Lighting Quality set to Low.

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I've got all the video "bells and whistles" turned up. I like my games to be as glorious graphically as my 1mB video card will achieve.

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One whole megabyte, huh?

If you can't tell the difference with all those things turned on, then something else has gotta be wrong. Unless I misunderstood you.

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Megabit ... Gigabit... what's a few zero's here or there.

The only actual "skin" you see on that character is her hands (which are the three finger claws so have a mottled texture), the feet (which are monster feet so also have a mottled texture), and her head. Whether that makes a whit of difference I don't know but on my 27" LCD monitor everything looks the same even when zoomed in.

YMMV

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I think something may be wrong with your card, because I can see differences easily. Surrounding light and colours also play a major role in how your costume looks.

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*sigh*

We can argue for days. The facts remain: a) There's nothing wrong with my card, b) My settings are cranked up, c) My monitor is not defective and of very high display quality, and d) I can't tell a difference.

I return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

*clicks channel*

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All this arguing about the skin colour and such is pointless as I created this thread to see what peoples thoughts were about the possibility of a wider colour pallet, not if the skin colours can be made to match the colour of your outfit.

On the subject of skin colour and outfit colour though, the only thing that matters is wether or not it looks right to the creator, everyone eyes see slightly different shades of the same colour and it has nothing to do with monitors and graphics cards or ingame graphics settings, with the standard of lcd monitors today they all display pretty much the same range and shade of colours.

I for one can see the difference between 2 shades of lets say red for instance that look extremely similar but then I may not be able to see the difference in 2 very close shades of green, as mentioned earlier all that matters is if the outfit looks right to the creator and no one else.

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MESS wrote:

nope no skin colours match costume colours if you try it with white you'll notice that the skin white has a pink tinge to it and you can tell that the skin and costume pieces don't mesh (you can kinda do it if you use the smallest and skin options you can find (works better on females as they have skimpier options than guys). Black works a bit better and its not immediately obvious that the skin black is blacker than the costume black (which is really a very dark grey) but if you have the gamma turned up its easy to spot.

Differ, beg.

http://www.champions-online.com/rate_my_champion/25923

Seamless head/neck/torso

I've done a green, a blue, and a purplish one as well that are as good. The colors are there, but you can't do it with the shades of gray due to the hue. The blue and green block the pinkish hue, and the red covers it.

Granted, my card is marginal *and* an ATI (weeps) but I've run it will full effects occasionally because I'm a masochist (and to take screenshots.) I can't tell the difference.

Also, your differences spotted under high gamma settings may have to do with renderer shading differences on given body areas more than a tone difference.

Only your hairdresser knows for sure...

Edit] I'm all for a wider pallette, and I'd like grayscale for powers too please!

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Nadezda wrote:

*sigh*

We can argue for days. The facts remain: a) There's nothing wrong with my card, b) My settings are cranked up, c) My monitor is not defective and of very high display quality, and d) I can't tell a difference.

I return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

*clicks channel*

We could, or you could post a screen shot of both your normal skin and metal skin. If I can't tell the difference, something's probably wrong.

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Regardless, I think there could be more color customization in the game. It'd make it a bit more varied, but using the current system, I can see them saying something like "We kept the colors somewhat limited to emulate the old 4-color comic books" or some such jazz.

Still, I'm usually creative enough to come up with whatever colors I need - the only exception to this rule is the doll face for females. I personally HATE that you "need" to have the background color, and can't just have the doll-like cheeck circles and lipstick, but that's just me.

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Smackwell wrote:

We could, or you could post a screen shot of both your normal skin and metal skin. If I can't tell the difference, something's probably wrong.

Oorrr... I could just let bygones be bygones and let the OP carry on with their crusade to have more colour options added to the game.


Which is a long winded way to say, "BUMP!"

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Nadezda wrote:

Oorrr... I could just let bygones be bygones and let the OP carry on with their crusade to have more colour options added to the game.


Which is a long winded way to say, "BUMP!"

Crusade?????, i am not starting a crusade so don't start taking your frustration out on me ok, as i said the point of this thread was to see if other people thought it would be nice possible to have more colours in the game for outfits, if the devs ever added in more colours it would be a bonus thats all.

I think this tread has run it's course now anyways so if a passing moderator reads this could they lock it down please.

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Nerfhearder1979 wrote:

Crusade?????, i am not starting a crusade so don't start taking your frustration out on me ok, as i said the point of this thread was to see if other people thought it would be nice possible to have more colours in the game for outfits, if the devs ever added in more colours it would be a bonus thats all.

I think this tread has run it's course now anyways so if a passing moderator reads this could they lock it down please.

I don't think he meant anything bad at all towards you by saying crusade. Just a bit of colorful talk.

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Smackwell wrote:

I don't think he meant anything bad at all towards you by saying crusade. Just a bit of colorful talk.

QFMT!

(Why do posts have to be at least 10 characters? )

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Smackwell wrote:

Shenanigans. The amount of bandwidth saved by saving 2-3 characters over a network is ridiculously small compared to what other stuff they have to be sending.

They could use hexadecimal to pump out thousands of different colors, in four character spaces.

What you fail to understand is that's 2 characters per colorable item part. I have better things to do than do all the math, but I could see there easily being at least 3 colorable areas per part, and maybe something like 20-40 parts (depending on a lot of factors). so it would add up to something in the neighborhood of 60 to 120 bytes. doesn't sound like much, but it adds up over time. And programmers are notorious for trying to save every byte they can, I know because I am one.

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Just wanna say...

If you take a look at your costume saves in a text editor you can see the color values of your costume. They have an RGB coloring method implemented into the game already and are limiting the choice of colors for whatever reason. You can edit the numbers using a hex editor without damaging the binary portion of the file, however once you change any values or names the game appears to recognize that something was changed even if the changed values for the colors are "valid" and will not allow you to load the costume.

They appear to have an alpha channel or transparency option implemented as well, but again changing this value results in the game not allowing you to load the costume file.

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UVee wrote:

Just wanna say...

If you take a look at your costume saves in a text editor you can see the color values of your costume. They have an RGB coloring method implemented into the game already and are limiting the choice of colors for whatever reason. You can edit the numbers using a hex editor without damaging the binary portion of the file, however once you change any values or names the game appears to recognize that something was changed even if the changed values for the colors are "valid" and will not allow you to load the costume.

They appear to have an alpha channel or transparency option implemented as well, but again changing this value results in the game not allowing you to load the costume file.

Very interesting find! Nice sluething. I really do wish we had more color options for costume parts. All this nonsense about naked characters is a poor excuse. Unlimited color options would really be nice!

The more the better with the costumer editor (that rhymed) is my motto. I'd love to see this get changed.

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Yeah the whole "naked characters" thing is, frankly, kind of moot... unless the definition has been skewed to only include human skintones. Case in point is a work-in-progress I have. Theoretically quite revealing (understatement ftw), but technically just regular tights... :rolleyes: Something like this done with regualr ol'skintones might cause a little uproar with the ESRB, and thusly get Cryptic in trouble, but... I dunno.

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in Age of Conan if you had a female char you could remove your chest armor and everyone could see your boobs... It isnt really offending but its pretty annoying to get ganked by 5 naked germans when you log in :P

So go go with this color thing and hope they put it in cause when you can customize so much why not the colors ?

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Avengaline wrote:

What you fail to understand is that's 2 characters per colorable item part. I have better things to do than do all the math, but I could see there easily being at least 3 colorable areas per part, and maybe something like 20-40 parts (depending on a lot of factors). so it would add up to something in the neighborhood of 60 to 120 bytes. doesn't sound like much, but it adds up over time. And programmers are notorious for trying to save every byte they can, I know because I am one.

I don't fail to understand anything. I think it's just ridiculous. The only time that would matter is if they're hosting the game on a 56k modem. Let's take a character that has a 4 color part for every part on his body. And hell, different gloves and boots and shoulderpads for each side. I'll make a guess and say that's about 40 costume parts. Giving extra color options in hexadecimal forces them to add 80 bytes to my character. BYTES. Not even Kilobytes! Yes, it adds up, but even when it does add up, it's insignificant! They're using up more bandwidth by allowing the use of the Champedia to look up characters. I'm sure their servers can handle it.

Any company that would limit color choices because they think adding 80 bytes to a character is completely out of their minds. The only way I'll be convinced otherwise is if someone from Cryptic says so. It's just such a ridiculous concept to me.

I'm not trying to be rude, I just think it's not a valid argument for this discussion. To give players a huge palette, then take it away because of minuscule amounts of bandwidth usage it takes would be a bad thing to do to the players.