New York Comic Con 08
by Drew Sikora, Oluseyi Sonaiya

Contents   Introduction   Getting a Job in the Industry   Writing for Games   Video Game Journalism   Making Iron Man and The Hulk   Ambulation in EvE Online   Printable version   Discuss this article

Ambulation in EvE Online

The presentation begins with a quick recap of avatar creation and appearance in EvE so far, and the stylized cartoon-type results. The look was deliberately achieved, but with the new ambulation features and 3D avatars, a more realistic look is desired. There’s a significant increase in detail all around with the Trinity expansion pack released last December, and the planned avatar creation process will seek to bring player representations up to the same level of visual fidelity.

Character creation is a combinatorial system allowing for a wide range of characters without adversely impacting game performance. Players select:

• a bloodline for their avatar, which determines the starting skull shape;
• a physique;
• skull structure modifications;
• complexion, incorporating elements like freckles, which appear appropriately all over the avatar body, not merely on the face;
• facial modifiers like scars – with an intensity/transparency slider allowing you to create a character with an old, partially-healed scar or a relatively fresh one, telegraphing different things about your character – or makeup;
• head hair, including style, texture and color; and
• facial hair, from stubble to five o’clock shadow to full beard to mustache…

From a technology perspective, CCP has implemented a system that supports infinite morph targets apparently by cleverly using vertex shaders. Rather than keeping a basic mesh and morph target per avatar in memory, blending at runtime, the vertex changes are baked into the shader for the avatar.

Speaking to the literal meaning of ambulation, things like weight affect the appearance of the chin (double chins, for instance), cheeks and jawbone (roundness) as well as the character gait when walking. A heavyset player will walk with the arms further away from the torso and a pronounced step, as well as a slight waddle.

CCP has partnered with Morpheme (NaturalMotion) for more advanced animation blending. For instance, if a player was displaying a happy, smiling expression and transition directly to a frowning expression, somewhere during that interpolation you’d have a very weird face. Thanks to Morpheme, the mouth can transition from smile to neutral to frown while the eyebrows, say, go directly from smile to frown, yielding a much better looking overall transition.

To ensure that user experience is never hampered by some downright ugly looks, CCP has created an elaborate content pipeline for costumes, environments and other visual assets with multiple sign-off to ensure visual coherence and consistency.

CCP also has architects assisting with structural/environment design, incorporating a “functional block out” step during which an early build of an environment is examined in a manner similar to the content pipeline above to ensure they “feel right.” For instance, QA goes through the environments to ensure that hallways aren’t too long – a simple but important balance issue.

Ambulation is designed never to be a necessity. Its intended function is to enable players socialize, with all the complexity that entails, adding another layer to the game. It is entirely optional, and CCP anticipates that some players will launch the character creator simply to get a new-style avatar and then never use ambulation. It has no direct impact on gameplay, though it could potentially create meta-effects where to players further their cooperation or deepen their animosity thanks to social interactions undertaken via ambulation.

nvestments in character and outfit creation will be encouraged/rewarded by, for example, assigning a value to a player’s appearance (as well as objects in the environment) such that as players walk by their avatar will turn to look at the highest rated object – including other players! A player could, for instance, walk into a bar and have everyone turn to look at them, making a dramatic entrance. Another player, however, may have modifiers in place such that seeing such a reaction from players around would trigger an I’m-not-impressed expression and pose. A little soap opera, but definitely very interesting.

Overall, CCP seems to understand the dangers in radically altering the formalized gameplay in EvE, and are consequently using ambulation to add another in-game “extracurricular,” much like the trading of GTC for ISK.

Session coverage by Oluseyi Sonaiya