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Hoping we get the Lower Decks uniforms tomorrow/this week! :)
stocostumes
Member Posts: 53 Arc User
A few times previously Cryptic has released costumes to celebrate the premier of a movie or new season, so with tomorrow's premier of Lower Decks season 2 hopefully we will finally get the Lower Decks uniforms in game!
We did the best we could with the parts currently available, but it would be nice to be able to update those designs with the actual uniforms.
Oh, and how about that California class?
We did the best we could with the parts currently available, but it would be nice to be able to update those designs with the actual uniforms.
Oh, and how about that California class?
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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The rumor is that CBS is still holding out for the California class to be "animated" style instead of STO's realistic style, something that really cannot be done in the engine.
Champions Online has an option to put black outlines to make things look a little more like a moving drawing from comics but it isn't quite the same thing and it is an all-or-nothing switch so there is no way to make one ship look a little more "animated" than others even if they implemented in in STO. That will probably also be a stumbling block with any ships from Prodigy.
Honestly I think she'd translate over to realistic pretty well. We can kinda already kitbash a Light Cruiser into a similar configuration. Me, I'd probably use the Galaxy hull material if that was an option.
While avoiding the silliness of looking like something from Roger Rabbit probably figures in too, the fact is that STO uses a modified Champions Online engine and the devs over there have stated numerous times that the engine is not capable of true cell shading without a major rewrite of it, and that the pseudo-cell black-outline method is a post processing thing that is all-or-nothing, either you turn it on for everything on that client or turn it off for everything, no mixing possible.
The closest they could come would be by using materials that use artistic illusion to play down the shading the engine gives models like Rattler2 suggests.
https://imgur.com/a/94qTPRg
I actually think that hull material has a somewhat animated look
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Integrating something cel-shaded into a game with more grounded visuals however, might make it stick out like a sore thumb. Then again, this is a themepark-MMO. I don't see why they shouldn't add the Cerritos and have it look closer to the animated version.
Since the design itself is rather simple, it might even look better that way and not stick out as bad as like... a BOFF that looks like straight out of LD. The ship itself however, wouldn't break the artstyle of STO all that much IMHO.
No, you misunderstand. The engine can absolutely DO cell shading. But because they didn't intend for STO to be cell shaded, it wouldn't look good/right. But it can absolutely DO it.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
For those not familiar, Reshade is basically a filter (think instagram) that goes over the game. It can change all kinds of things like hue, sharpeness, tone, exposure, etc. You can also add film grain, play in black and white, or cell shading.
I might play around later and see how the ship I posted earlier would look when cell shaded
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Actually, it IS what they said in that livestream. What they said is they could create a whole new set of materials and lightings and whatnot that would look more cartoonish but it would take as much time and effort as making a new game so it is impossible to do in STO.
Some of the more modern engines allow you to essentially flip a switch to get a cell shading/flat cartoon effect, but Cryptic's engine does not have it and it would all have to be done by hand. Taking several years to do all that for one or two ships and some uniforms is not at all viable.
That is a completely different statement than saying the STO engine does not support cell shading. What you just said is that they don't want to spend time creating new materials/lighting to support a cartoonish effect. Absolutely not the same thing, at all.
Champions Online has this feature in it's settings. It's on by default, but you can turn it off and actually remove the cell shading. STO has the same engine, but the STO devs did not enable it because that is not the appearance they wanted their game to have. It absolutely can do it, but they have not designed their lighting system to support that appearance.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
Far as I know you can't just turn it off for one character while leaving all the NPCs on.
So... what phoenix said most likely still stands. They'd have to figure out how to make that binary setting only work for one thing and not everything.