How To? RPG character's dynamic appearance

[rommik7]

I’m puzzled with how RPGs make their characters’ dynamic appearance: The new faces, cloth or weapons?
I know some of members of this community have tried or released their own RPGs. Any tips?
How does the whole thing works, theoretically and in practice?

Thank you

[Kencho]

Well, you have as much solutions as your imagination gives. Anyways, I would use these approaches:
- For the character body (estature, musculature, face shape...) I would use some kind of vertex modifiers (bones could do the work, but I would suggest a vertex program or the morph targets capabilities that Dagon will have)
- For things like scars, tatoos, or such, a dynamic texture over the texture (alpha-blended multipass) to simulate all those decals.
- For clothes, armors... separate entities attached to the same scene node and sharing the skeleton instance. Kinda like Mr Potato, but animated
- For weapons or other static props, just attaching them to a single bone will do the work

Hoe that helps

[rommik7]

I dare you to make a tutorial !:-))

Well, the thing is, I assumed that how it works and after your reply 75% of it I was right.However, because I'm a newb in graphics & ogre, I have no idea how to implement all these

- For things like scars, tatoos, or such, a dynamic texture over the texture (alpha-blended multipass) to simulate all those decals.

Does it mean to load all the textures a character can have and simply alpha-blend those that aren't used at the moment? Is it memory consuming?

- For clothes, armors... separate entities attached to the same scene node and sharing the skeleton instance. Kinda like Mr Potato, but animated

If I would use vertex modifiers to change my character musculature, I will have to define the same rules for these entities as well?

- For weapons or other static props, just attaching them to a single bone will do the work

This one is easy, yay to me !:)

Thank you

[Kencho]

To tell the truth, it's not that easy.

The thing with scars or tatoos (decals in general) is quite hard to do without running without texture memory. The idea would be to have a separate dynamic texture (and hence a separate material too) for each entity. Then modify that texture to do whatever you want with the character.

About the musculature modification afecting the armour too, yes, you would need it to modify as well so it's quite hard to do, honestly

[Rixeh]

You could do this a couple of ways:

Texture. Fairly common, you've got a base mesh (1 male, 1 female) that doesn't change, and you just add different texture maps overtop of the UVs. So technically you could have multiple faces on one head. You'd be surprised how much a slight change in skin colour and some thicker eyebrows can do to alter the overall appearance of one character to another.

Swapping models. Build a bunch of interconnecting meshes (arm, leg, torso, head, etc). Make sure everything connects as it should. Rig up a skeleton inside the mesh. Then you can swap a 'head' mesh, etc. and connect it to the skeleton's "head" joint. This one's more resource-intensive, 'cause you not only have to load the new mesh for every character you see on-screen, but also the textures that go with it. May be worth it though, 'cause different topologies (smaller noze, different jawline,etc) will help to make everyone look more unique.

Also take a look at decals. These are little textures that can be overlayed ontop of a base texture. Things like bullet holes on walls, but also cuts, bloodstains, etc. Not as good for a part of the texture that's 'permanent' like a moustache, 'cause it means constant re-drawing of extras. But something to think about.

Hope that helped!
Rixeh

[BlasterN]

see this post in showcase: http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11062

It's really impressive their work. You must asking them how they do it.

But all kencho says it's what you have to do.