Fully customisable or pre-set face and clothes?

K

KurganFr

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Hi everyone!

I'm at the design stage of a Fallout-inspired RPG and am throwing around various ideas. So here is the question: supposing the game is in full 3D and you can therefore zoom right in, would you prefer to be able to customise the face and/or clothes of your avatar, or would you prefer a pre-set one (with only a choice of male/female)?

This is not just a wild idea, I do have a very ambitious project; as I said, I'm still at the design stage so I am not yet looking for a team but that'll come, hopefully :wink:

Thanks in advance, and long live the real Fallout games!
 
The avatar or the PC? The avatar should reflect what you are wearing as far as armor or clothing. It would be cool if the player could choose skins or even make their own. The skins should be easy to copy into the avatar pcture too. Ideally condition of the player should show in the avatar too like in Doom.
 
JJ86, thanks for your reply.

To tell the truth, I'd momentarily forgotten about home-made skins since I'm pretty bad at creating them. :)
 
Here's my take.

Anyone here played Lionheart yet? Noticed the amount of time you spend standing in front of a chest? See how worn your F9 key is?

It is essential to have some level of customization for your character - but not to the level where it becomes a pain for those who strive for 'perfection' - there's plenty of them.

Ie, don't do seperate eyes/nose/jaw thing, if that's what you meant.

A large selection of pre-made faces should be sufficient, together with pre-made beards and hairdos.

Clothing isn't that important - remember that for the majority of the game the character's body will be covered in armour. Err, if its that type of game, that is. ;'D

Wibble.
 
You should also think about the capabilities of the graphics engine you are going to use since that limits how customizable the characters are. Design is very important and the technology used to implement that design is even more important. I second Stone-D in the amount of detail in characters because excessive detail translates into an unreasonable increase of the system requirements. Also, scrap any "use the fallout tactics engine" ideas you might have unless you are positive that you are not going to have interactive dialog in that game as the engine doesn't support it. My two cents in this matters and good luck and NEVER give up.
 
Well KurganFr, I'd say both of those choices would be good in the game. Some just like to chose pre-made ones other might want to start tinkering away and make their own..

Let us know how this project is going !!
 
SkynetV3 said:
Also, scrap any "use the fallout tactics engine" ideas you might have unless you are positive that you are not going to have interactive dialog in that game as the engine doesn't support it. My two cents in this matters and good luck and NEVER give up.
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I don't think he is using the FOT engine, it isn't 3d for one thing, there is no zooming, and obviously wouldn't work for this level of customization.
 
Thanks for your very useful replies! I'll have to re-think a few things, but it should hopefully be for the best.

I'll definitely not be using the Tactics graphics engine, because I'd like to take advantage of some of the newer elements we are seeing these days, such as rag-doll physics and totally destructible scenery.

My technical knowledge is a bit limited at the present, but I will be starting a course in computing and multimedia next February. For the moment, I have a lot of ideas and quite a few years of playing table-top strategy games and creating adventures for the old paper-based Warhammer. My project is shaping up as a cross between the universe of Fallout, the management section of Total War, and the freedom of Elite. I can't tell you any more for now because I'd have to test my turbo plasma rifle on you :wink: ; also, it's changing from day to day, thanks in no small way to the posts on these forums.

Have a good day!
 
Don't ever be disheartened by your current lack of knowledge/skill.

You have something that MANY programmers out there do not have - a goal for which you WANT to work for. Ie, not "make me a database that can do this and that by next month, oh and make sure it can flawlessly network between six cities, 2 branches per city!"

I learned Win32 Assembler because I wanted to make a really good utility for X-Tension (a crap game, but never mind). The fact that I had a goal I wanted to work for resulted in me releasing my first fully functional product within 3 days of first opening the MASM32 package.

Good luck and I wish you success.

BTW... what, exactly, can you learn in a 'Multimedia' course which you cannot find out in five minutes via Google or photoshop's online help?!
 
Good luck and I wish you success.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

BTW
Click to expand...

??

what, exactly, can you learn in a 'Multimedia' course which you cannot find out in five minutes via Google or photoshop's online help?!
Click to expand...

That's a very pertinent question. I'm not too sure yet. I know it includes electives in animation and programming. I'll tell you when I've done it. :wink:
 
Ahh, okay! Thought you'd pulled the same stunt that I did... I was required to pick 3 unrelated subjects as short courses for my degree. One was Secretarial studies - I quit after learning touch typing, the first thing they teach. :)

Gave me lots of spare time to concentrate on the actual degree... that, and getting stoned/drunk/laid etc. :P


BTW == By The Way.
 
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