I think there needs to be a few tweeks made to the costume/character design.
Currently there are 3 areas to customize a toon, Head, body and Uniform. I think head should be changed to appearance.
The first characteristics you look at are racial features, not simply the head. So with this you could completely design the head to toe appearance of your character. I'd also suggest in this tab and the Body tab that the toon be in skivies to better identify the shapes you are giving your toon.
Appearance would include what is currently offered plus the hand options of claws or long nails and such and minus any artificial parts. (Borg and Android parts are acceptable. This is the baseline appearance of your toon. All options should show even if "none" is the only available selection.
Race SelectionRace Classifications
Racial Class: (Based on alien selection) Humanoid, Feline, Insectiod, Reptilian, etc.
Head: Humanoid, Ridged, Duallobes, Flat, Pointed, etc
Hair: As we have now+
Forehead Detail: As we have now+
Nose: As we have now+
Ears: As we have now+
Eyebrows: As we have now+
Eyes: As we have now+
Mouth: Any feature above the chin, i.e. mustache
Chin: Any fearture below the mouth, i.e. beard
Skin Texture: Scales, Fur, Spots etc.
Neck: Any feature pertaining directly to the neck, i.e. serpentine, Cardassian, etc.
Torso: Any feature pertaining to the torso, i.e. wings, spine plate/spikes, etc.
Arms: Any feature pertaining to the arms, i.e. wings, tenticals, etc.
Hands: Any feature pertaining to the hands, i.e. bony, claws, long nails, tenticals, etc.
Legs: Any feature pertaining to the legs, i.e. insectoid, feline, w-w/o tail
Feet: Any feature pertaining to the feet, i.e. insectoid, clawed, hooved, etc.
Sizing yourself
Body is all the slider bars. Your physik and stature. As opposed to racial characteristics these are your physical features.
Head: cranium, forehead, skull height, etc.
Neck: length, width, etc.
Eyes: height, size, depth, width
Ears: length, height, etc.
Nose: length, height, width, nostril height, width, etc.
Mouth: portrusion, width, cheek, chin, etc.
Upper body: shoulder width, bulk, height, torso(TRIBBLE) width, bulk, height, arms length, bulk, stomach width, bulk, height, etc.
Lower body: hips width, bulk, legs length, bulk, etc.
Feet: length, width, height, etc.
Optionals: tattoos and scars.
Uniforms
Uniform is just that, head to toe, the clothing you are wearing. All options should show even if "none" is the only available selection.
Head: hoods, hair pieces, hats and helmets.
Eyes: Visors, glasses, eye patches and things that cover your eyes.
Ears: earrings, ear pieces
Face: Masks
Neck: scarfs, necklaces, armorings and collars
Shoulder(s): shoulder pieces, including capes
Top: the actual shirt piece.
Jacket: any special overshirt option
Chest: wraps, straps and anything that is worn on top of the "top."
Back: anything specific to the back not related to chest or shoulder items.
Arms: straps and the like
Wrists: straps, bracers, bracelets and the like
Hands: gloves, rings and the like
Waist: belts and waist wraps
Lower: pants and skirts
Legs: straps, garters, stockings
Ankles: straps, anklets and stocking or socks
Feet: footwear if any
Badges, Patches and Accessories all extra touches
All options could be tied to other selections what can be with what.
Additionally, stances should be an option you can select outside the tailor. Put the option on the character sheet or in the selector where you change outfits.
Comments
So with the head for instance you would have the center point and the 3 sliders would be set at center for a normal head size. Slider x makes the head fatter or thinner. Slider y makes the head longer or shorter. Slider z makes the head taller or smaller. So adjusting all the sliders to max would make a balloon head while setting them all to min would give a shrunken head effect.
This can be put in place for every point on the body. It would be significantly restricted for set races and grant more freedom to customize on an alien.
Also, would love more alien options like beaks, tails, and claws so we get more alien aliens. I know that it has some what this capability when we had Fed Gorn walking around.
I love the idea of the more detailed sliders and I would appreciate more control over certain elements like cheekbones and eyebrow height. I would like to see more options, but especially for hairstyles.
You should check out Champions Online's character creator. It has a lot more options, and they're better, though the art style is way too cartoony. The best part is, STO is built on the champions engine, meaning that all the options there are already built into STO and NW's systems, including Cheek options.
Currently, species like Ferengi or Cardassians have the same face because you can't just add cheekbone types or dimples. If you have neckscales like a Cardassian, you cannot have any other distinguishing features aside from tattoos/scars.
I think the artist who did Worf's recent makeover made a strong observation that Dorn has a line under his right eye. Adding that made Worf look more believable.
But as players, we can't add a line under one eye. We can't add lines under both eyes. We're stuck with full faces whose traits can't be mixed and matched. You want a certain style of lines under your eyes? You have to take the cheekbones and mouth lines that go with it.
Likewise that we can't mix and match the two styles of nose and eyes. (This one should be simple. Just two new heads. Type 2 nose with type 1 eyes and type 1 eyes with type 2 nose.)
Also, sliders are too restrictive for non-aliens to make distinctive people.
I realize actual likenesses aren't something we should be doing but in the tailor one day, try to make Robert Picardo or Brent Spiner with a human. You can do it with an alien but not a human. Real humans have distinct faces.
There's also a shortage of conservative haircuts for men. In Trek, almost all the men had a short, parted look or a horseshoe. We have maybe 5 male haircuts like that in the editor... and meanwhile there are probably 7 or 8 haircuts with bangs (something mainly worn by Vulcans) and a bunch of extreme shaved head/ponytail looks. No horseshoe. Not very many catalog haircuts.
Also, in most versions of Trek, men were supposed to have sideburns cut in a diamond shape based on the Starfleet delta. None of the male haircuts in game have this. A simple fix would probably be to have a couple of angled sideburn facial hair add-ons.
https://www.google.com/search?q=star+trek+sideburns
It's not just a Federation thing.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=3494133
When a male actor who wasn't even playing a Federation person didn't have pointy sideburns, the Trek people would generally glue on pointy sideburns or add it with makeup.
I would love to see curly hair, braids, long hair options,..
Everything you say into the snip are definaitely things that need to be addressed. Under the snip, in TOS maybe but not "Trek" These hairstyles are a sign of the time when the shows where made. However, I would argue that the STO "hair stylists" look at past to present hairstyles as with most thing in "Style" they come back around.
Then take a peek at the many "alien" hairstyles and make sure they are a part of STO as well.
Yes but that is why there are some restrictions. Avaian races are out there just not real plentiful. Insect and Reptilian races are out there. I don't want to see a Devil race or anything so you could still have option restrictions based other selections.
But if I'm a bird man why wouldn't I have wings? I'm not suggesting you have the options to make all out monsters.
To me, more tailor options only become relevant in a setting where I can actually use it. For instance, no point in making me and by boffs looks even better, when they're hovering ca. 20cm above their bridge seats (or are stuck ca. 20cm into the floor).
Tl;dr: PC + NPC looks/movements, etc, need to be more or less on par with their environment.
I hear that. But that aside I really hope we get better options soon.
Lol, they can't even fix clipping with big TRIBBLE, and you want wings? You'd be subjecting yourself to ALL sorts of clipping issues.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
Race Selection
Sizing yourself
Uniforms
So what I want to see from a full range pallet to make us who ye are.
I'll start with asking 5-7 areas of the body customization and you come back with different variants of the subject.
1- (Example) Body Type:
Reptilian
Humanoid
Feliniod
Rodentarian
Insectoid
Amphidian
Aviary
Aquatic
2- legs
3- hands
4- Busts
5- shoes/boots.
everyday or so I want to post more on here. the I'll compile the data and go from there.
This alone would make the alien generator SOOOOO much better than it is now.
I mean, seriously, I can make 256 combinations of fish people with blocks of coral growing out of their heads, but I have only ONE option for skin type?
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
realistic? hahaha. CO and realism? thats like stating an ordinary double decker bus can out race a BTCC sports car on a small race track.
on CO it's all strong chins, big hands and feet, oversized torso's. trek is at least based in part of real world body scales however the only things i would like to see is an adjustment to;
the last customization for the characters was just a UI change. the whole thing needs TLC.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Day Two.
Getting closer
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
*grabs flamethrower*
*FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*
--Heh. I've seen some people make some pretty unrealistic stuff already. The kinda stuff that would die in a lab if someone spliced DNA to make it.
The Wing idea reminds me of those lil Anime MMOs. As for sliders, idk, some might prove better then others. Its a few things that even after you change them, you wouldnt ever notice them. Due to gear, moving to fast, graphical settings and so on.
-V
Maybe with the added sliders you can make something close but i doubt youll get a gorn like snout if they dont add a feature to the racial type identifier