1 Model and ∞ Customizations

Author: Salireths.

The goal of the month was to put the character-creation process "on rails", all to make it faster to create models of bodyparts for customization system, as well as plan out a unified skeleton that can animate both bipedal or quadruped, "anthro" or "feral" creatures at once!

Material on this topic is not the most presentable just at the moment - it's still deeply work-in progress, so instead we're talking about core design principles of our new Species Editor. But as more bodypart models get completed, you will be first to know!

Not Enough Customizations

Experimenting with stylistic choices - I thought it would be cool to give creatures some comics-like muscles with very sharp creases (like DC or Marvel), but it turned out it was off-putting for people who provided feedback.

To enable the craziest amount of customization possible, we employ a multiplicative combination approach - players select options that, when combined, create more than the sum of individual parts. Here is four main customization aspects:

1. Creature's Archetype (Saurian, Draconic, Therian, etc.) - defines body anatomy and further bodypart choices like arms, wings, legs, tails, what is under the tail, colors, patterns, textures…
2. Creature's Posture (Roamer, Glider, Strider, Stalker, etc.) - set of parameters: pronograde or orthograde posture, bipedal or quadruped locomotion, what animations to play, what that creature can do,  and what orifices it can have.
3. Sliders for size, proportions  and foot configuration (plantigrade or digitigrade).
4. Cosmetic customizations -  everything we talked about in the previous post...

Regarding the strange names I mentioned (Saurian, Therian, Strider, Glider etc.) above, I will be making a separate post in a few days explaining all about the taxonomy system I had to invent for this.

This slide should explain the granularity of bodypart replacement we chose for our customization system. Only one example here for now, but we'll be adding a lot more bodyparts very soon.

You can easily see how this approach with big sweeping choices creates an ungodly amount of combinations that alter how creatures look, play, and most importantly, how they are animated. To say it is ambitious would be an understatement, but if it is carefully planned out and uses all the cutting edge technologies - impossible can become possible. Let's take a closer look how:

Universal Skeleton

Quadrupedal posture test (the neck is protruding from the top of the head because there is two types of necks, one is short, another is long).

With our resources we can't model hundreds of unique creatures just to have something for each combination (and nobody should), instead we can use one skeleton for everyone that shares same bones and proportions.

Imagine an anthro canine character and a feral wolf in T-pose both (yes, real dogs can't spread their paws that far apart, but its just a model, so it can). Now imagine that both anthro and feral are merged into one - same limb length, same proportions, same muscle anatomy - this is how we need to author our character models.

Using this merged base-mold, we can create any amount of different creatures simply by changing proportions, bone positions, and some muscles (as long as they share the same amount of limbs and have them in relatively similar locations). Want to see a wolf-raptor or wolf-Dragon? No problem!

Additionally, there is more to be gained from this. Say we have ten different head options. Only if characters share the same skeleton, those heads can be attached to any body you chose (e.g. a wolf head on a Dragon body), as long as the neck mesh is compatible (and it will be). This means that we'll be creating more content for players to creatively express themselves with less time/energy required!

Animation classes all re-use the same model to provide vastly different postures, locomotion styles, leg configurations, and proportions.

Up Next

To keep the post reasonably short and readable I'm splitting it into a couple more parts - next up I will be talking about different planned Animation Classes (responsible for poses, animations and proportions) and Creature Archetypes (responsible for visual part like musculature, anatomy, bodyparts).

Everything is still in the planning phase, but there is no reason why you can't participate in that planning - maybe even suggest something that will make it possible to create your unique -sona!

- With lots of Dragon Love.
    Salireths.