Character Creation Options!

[Soukyuu]

By the way, I seriously doubt that sliders will be ever implemented. The FFXIV character creation is composite, meaning that it's not based on mesh deformation, it composes selectable elements in order to create different results.

I don't think it's composite, it wasn't in alpha. At least when it came to adjusting height. Also when you select a different face, the body model for female characters gets deformed.

If SE are going as far as re-using armor models (with different textures/blend-able parts) to save resources, I really doubt they would load a different model for each character template - that would be a waste of resources.

[Enthy]

No, thanks, seriously, no race/gender changes. That goes a tad too far.

By the way, I seriously doubt that sliders will be ever implemented. The FFXIV character creation is composite, meaning that it's not based on mesh deformation, it composes selectable elements in order to create different results.

Turning character creations from composition-based to mesh deformation-based wouldn't be a transformation, but a complete redesign. They simply would have to scrap the whole character creation implementation and make a new one.
Thing that, by the way, would inevitably and automaticly change the looks of the characters already present in game, because there's simply no way for an engine to recalcolate with sufficent precision all the deformations necessary to reproduce perfectly a predefined mesh.

Considering that the vast majority of results obtained by a deformation-based character design are actually unviable (ugly, deformed, simply bad looking, even with restricted sliders), it's much more efficent (and wastes much less resources that are better used elsewhere) to add more options to the current system.

The only slider I'd consider would be an age slider that would overlay a texture and a normal map to simulate skin aging, and that doesn't require deformation.

I don't think you read my original post in this thread. I think sliders are a bad idea too. As for race/gender change... why not? whats it to you? If you don't want to you don't have to. personally, i don't plan to race/gender change. but i think people that would like to should be allowed to. ....But seriously, why would that bother you?

[BlaiseLallaise]

I am all for additional options, at least twice as many. But as far as sliders go, I play a game with a high degree of customization, such as Dragon Age, where every facial feature has a slider, and it overwhelms me. I usually just cycle through hair style/color, eyes, height, skin tone, and other noticeable things, and skip over the small things like jawline, eye socket depth, nose flatness, etc. Let's not take it too far, just give more variety where it counts.

[Keith_Dragoon]

I am all for additional options, at least twice as many. But as far as sliders go, I play a game with a high degree of customization, such as Dragon Age, where every facial feature has a slider, and it overwhelms me. I usually just cycle through hair style/color, eyes, height, skin tone, and other noticeable things, and skip over the small things like jawline, eye socket depth, nose flatness, etc. Let's not take it too far, just give more variety where it counts.

I thought it was just me LOL

[Lamhirh]

only disadentage of sliders is i can spend few hours finetunig them <_<

[Abriael]

only disadentage of sliders is i can spend few hours finetunig them <_<

Nope. Only disadvantage of sliders is that it's extremely easy to get extremely ugly/unnatural results and extremely hard to get actually good looking chars.

And that's a big one.

[Kroma]

When we are able to alter our character's appearance, will that include race/gender, name, guardian, and/or birth date?

[Soukyuu]

Also, sliders seems like a bad idea to me... I've seen a few games where they let you use sliders when making your character and it usually ends up making the gear look horrible.

Only disadvantage of sliders is that it's extremely easy to get extremely ugly/unnatural results and extremely hard to get actually good looking chars.

And that's a big one.

I don't see a problem. There is a wide range for a slider system, just limit it so that the chars don't look ugly and add enough presets for the lazy people. And let me have the freedom of designing my own char.

edit:

Cool, nice to know its on the radar.

My only concern with sliders is : will they cause problems in cutscenes and can they be developed with a reasonable amount of work? ( This depends largely if they developed facial sliders for internal development purposes, otherwise they're gonna have to do a whole deal .)

They shouldn't cause any problems, it's just a transformation (scaling) matrix multiplied with the base model (simplified example), it doesn't even take much processing power. And since they are already using character models in cutscenes and don't care much about collision detection anyway (miqo'te tails sometimes piercing through armor etc), it won't get any worse visually.

[Enthy]

I don't see a problem. There is a wide range for a slider system, just limit it so that the chars don't look ugly and add enough presets for the lazy people. And let me have the freedom of designing my own char.

Give SE a break... making sliders will make it take even longer for them to finish designing gear.

[Soukyuu]

Give SE a break... making sliders will make it take even longer for them to finish designing gear.

Tell me how a slider will take them longer than making presets. Answer: it won't. It's simply another way of representing presets just that you will create a slider with min-max parameter and fluent transition in between instead of multiple presets with set amount of difference between presets.

Not to mention the slider system is already in the game (options dialog, transparency etc) so it's not like they have to invent something completely new to do this.