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Suggestion: Wearing male outfits on female character rigs etc.


Dithnir.4593

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Right now there's a phoenix light armour skin in the shop. I love how the male outfit looks, and I'm not keen on the female outfit.I'd love the male outfit to be able to be worn by my female characters. As Ihave many of them, it's the main reason I won't buy the package. I won't get enough utility out of the purchase.The Queensdale Academy Outfit's skirt and stockings look pretty cool on my female characters while the suit looks cool on the male, but I'm not sure why I couldn't wear the male version and carry off some bada$$ pinstripe pants look on my women.

I suppose there's a bigger question here over equipping pieces of armour across the sexes, and I imagine, with there being work to ensure skins look good on different character rigs anyway (e.g. Charr) a retrofit would be a lot of dev time.

If it was available for just the outfits I'd be delighted.

I understand there might be some pushback from people frightened about "cross dressing" in a game where Mistlock Sanctuary looks like the backstage of a Ru Paul convention, but I'm merely asking for more choice. It'll certainly lead to me spending more money. Thanks.

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The game's existing aesthetic is pretty OTT as it stands. The main thrust of my proposal is aimed at outfits which could 'reasonably' transfer across the different sex's character rigs, just giving the outfits, for example, more choice, as they're already limited in the sense you can't mix and match pieces.

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Male and female characters use different rigs from each other, each male and female rigs are going to be different in each race. In order to get what you're asking for with the Phoenix armor for example Anet would have to create a completely new armor with a similar appearance to the male armor as you've described, and on top of that make a different one for each race. Same goes for outfits. The cost to make multiple versions of an armor or outfit would be prohibitive, preventing new gear from being released regularly or at all, and making all armors and outfits the same between genders would PO at least as many people as that'd want it that way, myself included. Anet does the best they can in these regards, making some skins effectively gender neutral and others very much not.

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I presume from your believing the costs to be prohibitive you are, like me, a game developer. In which case, we probably don't have a common view of what it takes to apply textures to rigs. I'd be interested to understand what differences, within a race, there are between rigs, as the devs are already constructing very different 'female' rigs for the females in the different races. It feels like it's incrementally more work, for a great deal more player choice.

It's a suggestion for Anet really, they'll have the game telemetry to decide if there's a sufficient ROI.

I agree with you, Greyhawk, that there are some good 'neutral' options already, particularly in the wardrobe, but if they were to develop, going forward, the incrementally increased variety while their character artists are creating the outfits, they could at least learn if there's a sufficient market to make it worthwhile.

I'm a data point in their analysts' considerations for how to improve monetisation. It's why I'm expressing my view. I appreciate your thoughtful response. I had rather fewer thoughtful responses in world chat last night when I mentioned this :)

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What you are asking for is too complicated and too late and it will be a very huge project to implement and the examples you gave are just a few personal likings out of the hundreds of armors available that looks even better as they are now. ANet has limited resources to even bother with this and it will definitely cost them a big loss of armors skins sales as players only need to buy a few sets and they can fit all races and sexes.

And a big NO from me too. I wouldn't want to see a male Charr or male Asura or a male human in a female human dress or outfit... vomits

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Hey Mil, how do you know it's too complicated, late and hard to implement? The armours wouldn't look any different to how they are now, except for whatever subtle differences are made to accommodate the different rigs.

Of course I gave some personal likings, they were examples. Other players may have their own preferences for such a feature, as Westenev has in their comment. I'm not asking for this to apply to all wearables, but to outfits, because you can't mix and match pieces, so your options are limited and I think from Anet's point of view, they're losing money from players who have male and female characters but only like the one sex's outfit.

As for your not wanting to see males in dresses, have you seen the S+M wardrobe items and outfits that, as I said above, wouldn't look out of place in a Ru Paul convention.Besides, I wasn't actually asking for males in female outfits, so my particular request shouldn't upset you, unless women in trousers upsets you.

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would be an awful lot of work to make outfits cross-dress enabled, and it'd only be a small number of people who'd ever use it.there would be a small number of people who legitimately want to wear the other genders outfit,and the slightly larger number of troll who want to wreck their enemies as a big burly norn dude in a wedding dress :lol:

if work gets done on the outfit system it should be to chop up the outfits and sell the parts as armour skins, that is a gold mine waiting to be explored.i know most of us can think of one part of every single outfit that we'd like to use! and even if they made you buy the entire armour set just to use that one part,a lot of us would throw money at the screen to do it!

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They should implement this change and also remove armor weights. Once upon a time, the armor weights were implemented to maintain a 'look' for the different classes, but that notion has clearly been discarded with the advent of outfits and cross-class armor pieces that have no appreciable difference in appearance. As for clipping, the list is already quite long, even for cultural items being worn by the correct race; clipping incurred by mixing and matching is a nonissue.

Any amount of work on old content seems to give ArenaNet the vapors, but given the FashionWars nature of the endgame, I think it'd be more than worth it for them to give this to people.

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@Liewec.2896 said:would be an awful lot of work to make outfits cross-dress enabled, and it'd only be a small number of people who'd ever use it.

I doubt wearing male outfits/armor on females would look bad, but female outfits/armor on males would look bad because of all the unfortunate windows.

@Smoosh.2718 said:Wait.. does this mean I'd get to wear the Male version of the Scallywag armour? Oh hell yes!If that one is too much... maybe a compromise? Barbaric?

I'm sure they could add some bandages over the boobies or somethnig.

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@Dithnir.4593 said:I presume from your believing the costs to be prohibitive you are, like me, a game developer. In which case, we probably don't have a common view of what it takes to apply textures to rigs. I'd be interested to understand what differences, within a race, there are between rigs, as the devs are already constructing very different 'female' rigs for the females in the different races. It feels like it's incrementally more work, for a great deal more player choice.

You don't apply textures to rigs.

Rigs are skeleton/joint/IK splines that allow for animation.Rigs are applied to meshes, which means rigs dictate how meshes deform for animations.Animations use IK handles on the rigs to dictate what transformations occur and when.Textures are a component of shading networks, which include many other components to dictate how light would interact with an object.Shading networks are applied to the polygons of a mesh, with UV mapping dictating how the shading network is applied.

And all of that is just the basics that anyone can learn. There are far more complex operations involved with creating a 3d object, making it look realistic, making it move, and allowing it to accept input from a user to dictate how it is all done.

To create the male outfit for a female rig is far more than just applying textures or creating a mesh. One example is weight painting, which would be different for different body shapes to simulate realistic motion.

I regularly use Maya 2018, and what I mentioned in this post is only a small portion of what goes into what you're suggesting.

EDIT: But yeah it would be nice if there was a feasible way of doing this. Tech just isn't there for feasible implementation though.

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Hey Rogue, thanks for the detail :) I'm a producer, I just worry about the team's health and productivity. You say the tech isn't there, you mean it isn't in Maya or isn't in the toolset the Guild Wars character artists use?From what you're saying it would seem like the IK handles that determine the transformation would have to be different enough between male and female, say human, to make the work to get a suitably similar quality transformation happening unfeasible (e.g clipping issues). Or, the meshes themselves are different enough that the cost is prohibitive. Is that the case with the GW2 characters from what you can tell?

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I love the idea and the responses. I love the tailored, masculine look on women. I also love the idea of wearing what you like and reflects your personality. It would be more work to map 2 skins onto 4 rigs than 2 skins onto 2 rigs.

Could there be any better way to put the argument over whether female armor is sexualized to rest?

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@Psientist.6437 said:Could there be any better way to put the argument over whether female armor is sexualized to rest?That argument was put to rest centuries ago since male armor is sexualized. Its not until the modern age that feminists once again has been shocked to realize that the female form look different from males, they would naturally wear a different kind of sexualized armor suited for their shapes.

I mean unless women want to wear a huge metal codpiece to show off their big... uh...

I wont judge.

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@Dithnir.4593 said:Hey Rogue, thanks for the detail :) I'm a producer, I just worry about the team's health and productivity. You say the tech isn't there, you mean it isn't in Maya or isn't in the toolset the Guild Wars character artists use?From what you're saying it would seem like the IK handles that determine the transformation would have to be different enough between male and female, say human, to make the work to get a suitably similar quality transformation happening unfeasible (e.g clipping issues). Or, the meshes themselves are different enough that the cost is prohibitive. Is that the case with the GW2 characters from what you can tell?

Ah then you'll understand why it wouldn't be feasible. The amount of labor hours is cost-prohibitive. You'll also set up a work load that both retroactively and proactively creates technical debt. A way around it is to just state, officially, that these operations will be done on only a few select skins, but now you have the branding issues to deal with. From a production and project management standpoint, the list of cons far exceeds the list of pros.

JThe meshes themselves would need to be adjusted. UV and shading networks adjusted for the different deformations of the new mesh. QA would have to test how the meshes work with different rigs and identify quality issues there, which would require more alterations to meshes, hypershaders, and any workarounds becauseit's now taking too long.

Meanwhile, while this retroactive project is underway, you devoted large portions of your 3d assets team away from the projects already underway for the future releases.

Software isn't smart enough to just do it on its own, it takes a lot of labor hours in every step to make these adjustments.

But again, would be cool to have.

As for the software they use, it's not just the design software, but the implementation of work-product from the design software into the game engine. This adds complexity as every game engine would be different, requiring its own set of labor hours. I'm only talking about the design side before it even touches the game.

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@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Psientist.6437 said:Could there be any better way to put the argument over whether female armor is sexualized to rest?That argument was put to rest centuries ago since male armor is sexualized. Its not until the modern age that feminists once again has been shocked to realize that the female form look different from males, they would naturally wear a different kind of sexualized armor suited for their shapes.

I mean unless women
want
to wear a huge metal codpiece to show off their big... uh...

I wont judge.

Where can I find men's Tyrian armor that is as sexualized as women's Tyrian armor? Or are you arguing from a general statement while ignoring that the general condition doesn't map to Tyria's specific condition. You are right that women's and mens's armor would be sexualized or designed to exaggerate features, but we don't see any parity in Tyra. A large portion of female armor looks like a Broadway theatrical performance starring women's pelvises. Only a small portion of men's armor use access to flesh as a design pillar.

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@Psientist.6437 said:

@Psientist.6437 said:Could there be any better way to put the argument over whether female armor is sexualized to rest?That argument was put to rest centuries ago since male armor is sexualized. Its not until the modern age that feminists once again has been shocked to realize that the female form look different from males, they would naturally wear a different kind of sexualized armor suited for their shapes.

I mean unless women
want
to wear a huge metal codpiece to show off their big... uh...

I wont judge.

Where can I find men's Tyrian armor that is as sexualized as women's Tyrian armor? Or are you arguing from a general statement while ignoring that the general condition doesn't map to Tyria's specific condition. You are right that women's and mens's armor would be sexualized or designed to exaggerate features, but we don't see any parity in Tyra. A large portion of female armor looks like a Broadway theatrical performance starring women's pelvises. Only a small portion of men's armor use access to flesh as a design pillar.

Really? A large portion of female armor? What ratio? I don't see this evidenced in any of the heavy armor sets that I have. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole to make a point?

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@kharmin.7683 said:

@Psientist.6437 said:Could there be any better way to put the argument over whether female armor is sexualized to rest?That argument was put to rest centuries ago since male armor is sexualized. Its not until the modern age that feminists once again has been shocked to realize that the female form look different from males, they would naturally wear a different kind of sexualized armor suited for their shapes.

I mean unless women
want
to wear a huge metal codpiece to show off their big... uh...

I wont judge.

Where can I find men's Tyrian armor that is as sexualized as women's Tyrian armor? Or are you arguing from a general statement while ignoring that the general condition doesn't map to Tyria's specific condition. You are right that women's and mens's armor would be sexualized or designed to exaggerate features, but we don't see any parity in Tyra. A large portion of female armor looks like a Broadway theatrical performance starring women's pelvises. Only a small portion of men's armor use access to flesh as a design pillar.

Really? A large portion of female armor? What ratio? I don't see this evidenced in any of the heavy armor sets that I have. Perhaps a bit of hyperbole to make a point?

What threshold would I have pass to qualify for "large portion"? There are a lot of butt capes as drawn stage curtains in light armor. Some in medium. If I look for "armor that uses access to flesh as a design pillar" I find obvious examples in heavy armor. Are you really going to argue that there is parity men's and women's armor?!?!?

I play female characters and often equip them with sexualized skins. I understand and experience the attraction but I won't pretend parity exists.

OP, forgive me if this seems like a high jacking. I won't continue.

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