Body Art Skill

[daehaz]

So, there have been a number of wish list threads about being able to customize your character with tattoos but I've been thinking it would be real cool if your character could become a tattoo and piercing artist. I'm picturing some sort of design window where you could draw the tattoo. This would require player skill as well, of course, but there could be ways around it.

At lower levels you could start with a very small canvas for your design and a few templates (like flowers, arrows, etc.). As you level up the canvas can get bigger and the templates could expand, also, as you level up you could have more freedom as to where the tattoos can be applied successfully. They would allow any player to create their own tattoos by combining them, but also if the player wants to do something completely original, they could draw it as well. I'm thinking about a pixel by pixel or square by square sort of painting, rather than freehand tracing, so you sorta color in a grid of NxN squares.

As a tattoo artist you could charge to apply tattoos on other players and charge to sell your designs as templates for other players, and I picture this as a real way to make a living ingame as I'm sure many would like to get them.

Also, as you level up you could get the ability to edit or remove tattoos (which might be necessary).

I guess it might be a while before something like this can be implemented but unlike other artist skills (like drawing, painting, glassblowing), this one is not in the job skills tab so I thought it could be added to the to do (someday) list.

[Karyuu]

I'm interested in all art ideas, and this one's neat.

Unfortunately, the potential for abuse with a blank canvas and complete freedom will mean that this won't go that far in PS. If anything, templates are your best bet. And whether most players want to admit this or not, -very- few of them are decent artists and most will scribble all over the models and make them look like crap. I guarantee it.

The technical problem with this, is laying the "tattoo" image over any arbitrary spot on the character model and not having the UVs distort it. It's impossible for a couple reasons:

1. the UV "squares" for various areas of the body are almost never the same size,
2. and the UV space is also very different per race/gender.

It's going to be madness to try to make this work as freely as it does in real life, and for very little gain in comparison to the effort. That's why no MMO allows you such incredible choice - their tattoo placement and size is always predetermined. (If there are exceptions I'm just not familiar with, I'd love to know.)

Neat in theory, but very unlikely in practice, unfortunately.

[daehaz]

That's why I thought of a grid color system. Basically, you have this grid and each cell gets color with a click, sorta like a magic board toy (where cells color up when applying pressure and the group of colored cells make up the image). That way, you don't need a steady hand to create your designs.

Maybe you could train to tattoo different races, meaning you acquire different canvases to work on. So, there would be a canvas for arm tattoos, one for chest tattoos, one for face tattoos, and so on, for each race. That kinda fixes the race differences... but I don't know about the UV squares.

Even if it is not possible for players to create their own designs, perhaps everything could be done with templates? I dunno... That would require tons of art...

Anyway, I still would like to see body art added as a job skill since it can really be profitable for players, even if it's just poking holes with a rusty nail for cheap earrings .

[Karyuu]

Maybe you could train to tattoo different races, meaning you acquire different canvases to work on. So, there would be a canvas for arm tattoos, one for chest tattoos, one for face tattoos, and so on, for each race. That kinda fixes the race differences... but I don't know about the UV squares.

I wish it were that simple, but that's not the case. Depending on the size of the tattoo, let's say something that runs from the shoulder down to the forearm, parts of it could be stretched because of the UVs. The only way to find out where this stretching will happen on a tattoo is outside the game client, when you're actually creating the art. And face tattoos are even more difficult, since heads have so much more variation than just an arm or a back. Having the same tattoo repeated 23 times to account for the different character models will be very messy, and when I was still working on the project, Luca really hated redundancy of any kind.

Even if it is not possible for players to create their own designs, perhaps everything could be done with templates? I dunno... That would require tons of art...

Right, but the main issue here is actually making this look possible in the first place. Even templates don't fix the UV issue.

[khoridor]

Going straight to a compromise may make all sides unhappy, but I have to mention this:
All existing craft skills use preset resulting products, like dishes, weapons, etc. A tattoo skill can probably work in the same manner, using preset designs and patterns, more complex ones requiring higher skills and longer time. And to me, technically, tattoos are no different than clothes; if you plan to have tailors, the 2 things could work similarly at the core.
No open canvas in game means that the most dedicated artists would have to also work outside the game and submit art to the devs (or even join the team).

[Karyuu]

Hehe, this is not similar to tailoring. Tailors, I imagine, would change clothes that would already be UVed properly, with all elements placed where there is minimal stretching. Freestyle editing simply cannot work, for the same reasons I mentioned. The UVs are not flexible. If someone, at the start of PlaneShift's 3D beginnings, imagined players being able to whip out clothes textures just like that, I doubt they were familiar with the technical aspects.

(Or better yet, tailors would be able to "create" clothes that are unattainable elsewhere - they would just be already created by the dev team.)

I'd love to see someone come up with a workable solution, without reusing the same art image 23 times and limiting its placement.

[Bguy]

I'd love to see someone come up with a workable solution, without reusing the same art image 23 times and limiting its placement.

Hope this is good enough...
Instead of going through the trouble of trying to get tattoos to appear on the images, you could instead do a work-around. When you examine a player with a tattoo, images of the various tattoos would pop up along with a description of where they are. These tattoos can be set to visible or hidden by the player, if its set to visible, it shows up, hidden means it is covered (so a player could "roll up their sleeve" to show ones normally hidden). Since it would be on a flat pop-up, graphical impossibilities are possible, and it doesn't have to be remade 23 times (the background skin could easily be set to different colors for different races correct?). Unfortunately, since it is just a pop up, there wouldn't be a difference of tattoos on your arm or on your chest, but I think it is a good simple idea that would satisfy many.

[daehaz]

Hehe, this is not similar to tailoring. Tailors, I imagine, would change clothes that would already be UVed properly, with all elements placed where there is minimal stretching. Freestyle editing simply cannot work, for the same reasons I mentioned. The UVs are not flexible. If someone, at the start of PlaneShift's 3D beginnings, imagined players being able to whip out clothes textures just like that, I doubt they were familiar with the technical aspects.

(Or better yet, tailors would be able to "create" clothes that are unattainable elsewhere - they would just be already created by the dev team.)

I'd love to see someone come up with a workable solution, without reusing the same art image 23 times and limiting its placement.

I think he meant art already UVed, like clothing, that players would gain access to via leveling and quests. That means, of course, producing a lot of art for this particular skill and not giving the player the chance to draw it themselves.

I'd love to see someone come up with a workable solution, without reusing the same art image 23 times and limiting its placement.

Hope this is good enough...
Instead of going through the trouble of trying to get tattoos to appear on the images, you could instead do a work-around. When you examine a player with a tattoo, images of the various tattoos would pop up along with a description of where they are. These tattoos can be set to visible or hidden by the player, if its set to visible, it shows up, hidden means it is covered (so a player could "roll up their sleeve" to show ones normally hidden). Since it would be on a flat pop-up, graphical impossibilities are possible, and it doesn't have to be remade 23 times (the background skin could easily be set to different colors for different races correct?). Unfortunately, since it is just a pop up, there wouldn't be a difference of tattoos on your arm or on your chest, but I think it is a good simple idea that would satisfy many.

You could still draw them over 2D images of body parts of different races (nolthrir face, kran arm, lemur leg, etc.).

How about body piercing, btw?

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

We've considered ways to do this for the long run, it may not turn out exactly as described but there is enthusiasm on the team for some system like what is being discussed here.

[Waylander]

So I guess daehaz haz dae good ideas!  Ba-dum-psh