Many female character improvements coming soon

crypticjoejing · October 2014

A big update of a lot of little things coming down the pipe.

For the most part, the geometry and skinning has been subtly improved for tons of assets: the female Odyssey variants, most legs, pants, skirts, feet, footwear, and a couple small anatomy tweaks.

Some of the more noticeable improvements here: http://imgur.com/M4wDfVN

lordtrekkie · October 2014

Looks exciting!

qjunior · October 2014

Improving character models is always good, do male characters get some love too ?

duncanidaho11 · October 2014

Cryptic has made the pixelated wenches appear [more] in the vissage of flesh and blood women....

Burn them for their black magic!

[Translation: good QOL improvements. Is there any chance of more of the same in future for other types of characters [gorn?] or is this just a few targeted tweaks?]

fmgtorres1979 · October 2014

Do you know if this contemplates clothing clipping that occurs with some costume choices, usually when selecting skirts?

kurumimorishita · October 2014

Hah.. that's really great - many thanks, jj

!!!

crypticjoejing · October 2014

qjunior wrote: »

Improving character models is always good, do male characters get some love too ?

For now, just the upper arms in the Odyssey jackets when males use the "Thoughtful" stance.

A few points of insight on this...

1. We typically make the male versions of most assets first and many times the female version is pretty much "squished" to fit the female skeleton and existing assets. So unfortunately the assets sometimes suffer from that lack of being built from the ground up to properly fit and animate well.

2. Speaking of ground up...early in STO development, the above was especially true and female versions were given almost no time to create and crammed in last minute. Creating a frustrating foundation for us to continue expanding. Imagine an oddly proportioned, jagged, and poorly skinned base body. And now you have to put pants and skirts and shirts and jackets on it...and they all have to fit together. So by default they will be lumpy and ill fitting and add in the fact that time constraints to do it are so tight that more corners are cut and you end up with less than desirable results...and every new item is based on these assets...and it's a perpetuating challenge. Again, the female assets are in worse shape than the males in this regard.

3. Finally, in looking for the most bang for the buck in time to noticeable improvement, in general, male characters are *allowed* to be more rough around the edges in most people's eyes. Men tend to have harder edges, more rugged looks, arguably worse style, etc in real life. So when there's a slightly jagged polygon or something's a bit bulkier, lumpier, and/or ill-fitting than it should be - it isn't as detrimental on male characters.

crypticjoejing · October 2014

fmgtorres1979 wrote: »

Do you know if this contemplates clothing clipping that occurs with some costume choices, usually when selecting skirts?

Yes, many improvements have been made in these regards. And we're doing our best to look at the combinations and anims, but as you know there are a ton so hopefully we don't end up introducing too many new problems by solving these :P

questerius · October 2014

Looking at that it makes you wonder if topless will ever become an option.

cerritourug · October 2014

Seems to be really good changes. Is this coming with DR or after?

Btw, sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, but is the hair brightness on tribble changed? This is on tribble and this holodeck.

Thanks.

fmgtorres1979 · October 2014

crypticjoejing wrote: »

Yes, many improvements have been made in these regards. And we're doing our best to look at the combinations and anims, but as you know there are a ton so hopefully we don't end up introducing too many new problems by solving these :P

Eheh yeah, I know it's not easy

Thanks

tilarium1979 · October 2014

How about addressing the way my female character run and walk? Really don't like that when they run they are A) pushing their TRIBBLE to break the tape a DD earlier and

look like they have a stick shoved in one of they places you don't want a stick shoved into. :mad:

trek21 · October 2014

tilarium1979 wrote: »

How about addressing the way my female character run and walk? Really don't like that when they run they are A) pushing their TRIBBLE to break the tape a DD earlier and look like they have a stick shoved in one of they places you don't want a stick shoved into. :mad:

But the female walk/run isn't broken - and without a lot more dislike, that's not really enough to change the visual effect

questerius wrote: »

Looking at that it makes you wonder if topless will ever become an option.

Heh... even if a serious question or not, it wouldn't happen anyway, due to Rating T :P

adamkafei · October 2014

This is great! Looking at some of the jagged edges here and there (most notably the heels on the swimwear model) I can see some more polishing needs to go into this but still it's great to see, keep up the good work

umaeko · October 2014

Overall a distinct increase in quality. The wrists still suffer, but you CharacterArtDevs seem well aware of it.

Though 'many' other stuff fixed draws my attention in other ways, like...

Does this mean that the female undershirts for Romulan female on Republic uniforms will finally stop horribly clipping on pretty much every stance that's not static? (it wasn't like that before, but it got eventually broken).

Speaking of broken (as in, was fine before something messed with them), any chance romulan female can get access to the same dual pauldrons Romulan males have? It started out that way, but ever since the TNG Rom outfits came out, the loops of cloth are now ridiculously floating in the air (I'm praying the rank increase pauldrons will look better).

frtoaster · October 2014

crypticjoejing wrote: »

A big update of a lot of little things coming down the pipe.

For the most part, the geometry and skinning has been subtly improved for tons of assets: the female Odyssey variants, most legs, pants, skirts, feet, footwear, and a couple small anatomy tweaks.

Some of the more noticeable improvements here: http://imgur.com/M4wDfVN

I'm glad you guys are still working on bug fixes and improvements. The broken wrist in the cute stance has looked odd to me for a while now. So have the pointy heels, but I didn't think anyone else noticed. The new heels still look a bit jagged, but I guess you have to make a trade-off between smoothness and the number of polygons. Will we be seeing these changes with the launch of Delta Rising, or will they come afterwards?

The second and third characters aren't the same in the "Before" and "After" images, are they? The faces and skin tones look completely different.

As someone who has taken a lot of screenshots in the tailor, I would like to make a feature request. Can we get a true static stance? In the current static stance, the character blinks and sways back and forth; Orion loincloths also flap in the wind. I just want my character to stand still while I take a screenshot. I'm not opposed to animations in the tailor, but I would like the option to make the character stay perfectly still.

Some bugs for the character artists:

Shiny hair in Delta Rising (Tribble ticket #47,430)
Clipping with Risian Beachcomber Outfit (Tribble ticket #47,587)

Something for the graphics programmers to investigate, but I thought the artists might like to know, since it subtly changes the colors of everything in the game.

Objects appear darker or bluer in Delta Rising (Tribble ticket #47,432)

crypticjoejing · October 2014

tilarium1979 wrote: »

How about addressing the way my female character run and walk? Really don't like that when they run they are A) pushing their TRIBBLE to break the tape a DD earlier and look like they have a stick shoved in one of they places you don't want a stick shoved into. :mad:

1. From OP "For the most part, the geometry and skinning..." No animation at this time.

2. Also, as trek21 pointed out: that's an opinion that not all will necessarily share and not technically broken while the other issues arguably were.

3. Finally, the female character movement is determined by the stance *you* choose. Average and Thoughtful offer *the same exact anims* as the male, for example. So if you want less exaggerated female anims, choose less exaggerated female stances.

mightybobcnc · October 2014

If we could choose the run cycle separately from the at-rest stance I would be a happy clam.

I like the feminine stance but I too hate the feminine run cycle.

Separately, I've also long wished for the ability to switch stances on the fly* without needing to make a separate costume for each stance.

*like a persistent emote available the same way the normal emotes are with a /command or with the emotes menu on the chat window. Like, I'd make a "/stance" chat command (/stance Creature) and add another menu under the emotes menu for stances for mouse clicking.
Here's a UI mockup with the additions highlighted in blue:

https://i.imgur.com/UhsRzA4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/AQ7CWVZ.jpg

hyperionx09 · October 2014

While I understand that for now it's improving the female models and things such as clipping, is there a possibility of standardizing the color selection options for clothing in the near future? Either via a color wheel or a color selection box like MS Paint's? I find it admittedly frustrating that certain colors don't show up the way I'd like for them to show up due to the way some of them are designed, and certain colors outright don't exist (solid red or bright red, to name one).

Additionally, is there a future possibility of updated customization? Specifically, more hair and options for character customization. I'd like to give some characters an eternal smile or an eternal frown, or longer hair, or unicorn/bicorn/dragon horns (Alien Customization), or a Lion Mane (Male Caitian/Feressan), or borg implants visible through broken skin, Terminator-style (Borg).

zeuxidemus001 · October 2014

This makes me wonder is the KHG for females ever going to be fixed? lol

somebob · October 2014

mightybobcnc wrote: »

Separately, I've also long wished for the ability to switch stances on the fly* without needing to make a separate costume for each stance.

We've been asking for this in CO for as long as it has been out.

Also, I'd love to see costume restrictions be lessened - Caitians should be able to run around barefoot like the Gorn (and skimpy-Orions almost) do all the time.

kintotech · October 2014

Yeah, my question is pretty much 'does this mean more outfit combinations'?

pulserazor · October 2014

bust and hips and leg sliders to 200 please.

I like the shape of the female aliens, but anything else is just too lanky.

leviathan99 · October 2014

crypticjoejing wrote: »

For now, just the upper arms in the Odyssey jackets when males use the "Thoughtful" stance.

A few points of insight on this...

1. We typically make the male versions of most assets first and many times the female version is pretty much "squished" to fit the female skeleton and existing assets. So unfortunately the assets sometimes suffer from that lack of being built from the ground up to properly fit and animate well.

2. Speaking of ground up...early in STO development, the above was especially true and female versions were given almost no time to create and crammed in last minute. Creating a frustrating foundation for us to continue expanding. Imagine an oddly proportioned, jagged, and poorly skinned base body. And now you have to put pants and skirts and shirts and jackets on it...and they all have to fit together. So by default they will be lumpy and ill fitting and add in the fact that time constraints to do it are so tight that more corners are cut and you end up with less than desirable results...and every new item is based on these assets...and it's a perpetuating challenge. Again, the female assets are in worse shape than the males in this regard.

3. Finally, in looking for the most bang for the buck in time to noticeable improvement, in general, male characters are *allowed* to be more rough around the edges in most people's eyes. Men tend to have harder edges, more rugged looks, arguably worse style, etc in real life. So when there's a slightly jagged polygon or something's a bit bulkier, lumpier, and/or ill-fitting than it should be - it isn't as detrimental on male characters.

While I can agree with all of this, I would say that while women have had 20 hairstyles added to the game and most new styles were added across most species and factions...

Playable males have had maybe two hairstyles added. Romulans got a handful of new ones that were not shared. This isn't to say that you guys haven't created some new hairstyles (Harry Kim, the Doctor, Worf) but they have been locked off from players, although the new Tuvok and Geordi styles are a plus..

And there's an odd tendency for female hairstyles to look fairly theme/setting appropriate whereas the men have odd, punky, anime, and comic book hair while having few conservative options and almost none with Star Trek sideburns. (And while the sideburns are commonly said to be a Federation thing, they caught on in many other cultures and there were even occasions when actors playing non-Starfleet and even non-Federation citizens not only grew those sideburns but had them glued or painted on by costume designers who wanted everyone to have them.)

I think you're absolutely right about female bodies needing more attention but I'd say that when it comes to hair, the problems with the genders in STO are flip-flopped. The result not only makes men cookie cutter in terms of appearance but the shape of that cookie is highly irregular for Star Trek. A lot of pony tails and face tattoos and Wolverine haircuts. Not so much in the way of conservative haircuts despite this being an IP full of a wide variety of conservative haircuts.

Pretty much every male in Trek managed to have a different kind of conservative haircut. Whereas 75% of the male do's in STO are wild anime looks and so if you wanted a crew with fairly restrained looks, you're probably looking at 5 guys with the same two haircuts.

Now, I'm sure you have lots of all female crews but aside from *ahem* the obvious reasons why some people do this, you can honestly have a 4 person away team, 4 space bridge officers, and a captain with multiple costumes that all use fairly normal female haircuts. With no repetition.

Do this with guys and you're much more limited on hairstyle choices, which tends to make everyone look the same. And that probably discourages using male BOs to begin with.

Eh. I won't beat this dead horse any further in this thread though.

Great work on the female bodies! :-)

zeuxidemus001 · October 2014

I want a female dinosaur now.

jodarkrider · October 2014

crypticjoejing wrote: »

For now, just the upper arms in the Odyssey jackets when males use the "Thoughtful" stance.

A few points of insight on this...

1. We typically make the male versions of most assets first and many times the female version is pretty much "squished" to fit the female skeleton and existing assets. So unfortunately the assets sometimes suffer from that lack of being built from the ground up to properly fit and animate well.

2. Speaking of ground up...early in STO development, the above was especially true and female versions were given almost no time to create and crammed in last minute. Creating a frustrating foundation for us to continue expanding. Imagine an oddly proportioned, jagged, and poorly skinned base body. And now you have to put pants and skirts and shirts and jackets on it...and they all have to fit together. So by default they will be lumpy and ill fitting and add in the fact that time constraints to do it are so tight that more corners are cut and you end up with less than desirable results...and every new item is based on these assets...and it's a perpetuating challenge. Again, the female assets are in worse shape than the males in this regard.

3. Finally, in looking for the most bang for the buck in time to noticeable improvement, in general, male characters are *allowed* to be more rough around the edges in most people's eyes. Men tend to have harder edges, more rugged looks, arguably worse style, etc in real life. So when there's a slightly jagged polygon or something's a bit bulkier, lumpier, and/or ill-fitting than it should be - it isn't as detrimental on male characters.

The fact that female assets were much worse before, and basicly made up in rush, was very apparent to me, and honestly, it was driving my pet peeve crazy, in the last year I've been playing the game. As it's quite often the case, to sideline female models in any game, because:

a) they are harder to model than males
b) female gamers (ugh, hate the term) are less in numbers, so there are likely to be less complaints.

So while I think "Hell, t's about time" females get some improvement, I also appreciate the time you and probably other character artists put into this.

Few points - I don't personally mind if female models were also a bit rougher and bulkier, it's simply matter of personal taste. I obviously did mind the stereotypically comic-book look of the model, when the females were tiny, with large 'assets' (We all know what that means), which were standing out no matter how you set the sliders in the tailor. I for one, even though it could still use improvement, like the fact we are slowly moving from comics-book style of proportions, being the 'default', and that the sliders actually, if desired, can mitigate this at least some.

Ad Odyssey uniform improvements - I personally would still like to see the belt height adjustment, as the Odyssey belt looks too low on female Long Odyssey jacket. Again, matter of personal taste here; the belt and uniform are great, but it seems that I'll just have to use another belt, like the regular Jupiter belt, on the long Odyssey Jacket, for better, and more desired look, comparable with males..

Ad) Feminine run & stances - The feminine run made my eyes hurt so much, that first thing I needed to do, when creating a Foundry character for making stuff, was to ditching that. It seriously made my eyes hurt. Created male character for checking new things on Foundry here on Tribble to save time and not have to gop through changing it. So yes, the feminine run is a sore eye. Under no circumstances, please never ever force that animation on all stances. Ugh.

Bottomline - It's great to see improvements. I could point out more aesthetic options/improvements, but in general, I've seen some of the improvements live on Tribble already, and in general, I like them - not entirely sure if all of those are live yet, and if they aren't, I'm gonna wait for them, with the extensive bug/clipping issues report. Generally, I think you guys would have save a lot of time having to fix things separately for females, if the skeletons were more comparable, with few additional 'assets' (preferably toggable, hush with smuggling ballooons under uniforms, if we so choose) but that's just me.

questerius · October 2014

trek21 wrote: »

Heh... even if a serious question or not, it wouldn't happen anyway, due to Rating T :P

I know. Would have only been available on planet Betazed and ferenginar off course.

nassiris · October 2014

crypticjoejing wrote: »

A big update of a lot of little things coming down the pipe.

For the most part, the geometry and skinning has been subtly improved for tons of assets: the female Odyssey variants, most legs, pants, skirts, feet, footwear, and a couple small anatomy tweaks.

Some of the more noticeable improvements here: http://imgur.com/M4wDfVN

Hope they correct the mistakes they made with the Orion females, they went from nice looking to down right dogish.

toiva · October 2014

Nice adjustments.

Also I never realised different stances had different movements asociated with them. I'll have to look at that sometime.

shantavi · October 2014

crypticjoejing wrote: »

A big update of a lot of little things coming down the pipe.

For the most part, the geometry and skinning has been subtly improved for tons of assets: the female Odyssey variants, most legs, pants, skirts, feet, footwear, and a couple small anatomy tweaks.

Is there any chance of getting back the old 'Feminine' stance that existed in the early game (Seasons 1-3)? It was much less 'Runway Model Stiff and Formal' than the current one.

Honestly, I don't recall *anyone* asking back then for the feminine stance to be changed at all, and once the current one was introduced on Tribble, there were many who asked to leave the old and just add the now current one in as a totally new stance (as something like 'Statuesque').

I don't see why we can't have more options, really, especially since none of the ones that include feminine walks seem to be 'natural' poses like the old Feminine stance was.

I also have to agree with the poster above that the 'feminine' run (and even walk) needs some serious tweaking too. The run is definitely much too 'typical tv/movie girly' and the walk is not *quite* runway, but certainly not all that natural. There are *many* other games that model female movement better (TOR and ESO come instantly to mind).

artan42 · October 2014

Any chance we could get an undershirt OPTION for the female Sierra, Antares, and Dyson uniforms?

Many female character improvements coming soon

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