Right, I see where you're coming from now.

I was under the impression that modeling the armour for different builds would have been time consuming, and that you were designing around that.

I also didn't realise that build is essentialy synonymous with class in your game, and serves a purpose. I assumed that build would be the equivlent of race, and that they would then go on to further differentiate themselves through classes. If there is never going to be unusual combinations like a (to use D&D stereotypes) "gnome barbarian", or a "halforc wizard", then there isn't any point in modeling plate armour for the gnome.
You can see why having a gameplay element held hostage by a minor aspect of aesthetics seemed like a bad idea to me.

Quote:Original post by CIJolly
I was under the impression that modeling the armour for different builds would have been time consuming, and that you were designing around that.

It will be time consuming. In cases where I need a special model made, I have to model six new models, which takes quite a lot of time. But as you mention, it's easy to recycle models. In some cases, having universal suits that fit everyone will be more bang for less work. Such as in a case where I already have general models made for everyone, and I make a new texture to turn those into leather. Instead of giving one type of character leather pants, I'm giving six types of characters leather pants.

As always, I really appreciate your input, CIJolly.

Quote:Original post by hplus0603
An alternative is to deform the clothing procedurally, using something similar to cloth simulation. You only need to do this as a pre-process, and generate the fitted sizes as export.

One way it could work would be to model the meshes for the "medium" case, and then measure how far out from the medium model the clothing goes, and re-generate that geometry for the other models based on that data. The parameterization (which body part to measure to) is the main challenge of this approach.

This would be the most efficient design to use. But I don't think I would be capable of writing an algorithm that I myself would be satisfied with. Some armor will have a lot of grooves and hardened plates, along with non-skinned props attached to certain locations. I doubt I could write it in a way that all of these things scale and proportionalize (made that up) while maintaining their original design.

I want to be able to have some hardned shoulder pads grow slightly for the big guys or shrink for the small guys, but have some others stay the same size, depending on the type of look I'm going for. I guess I might just be a control freak.

Sizes other than medium will be rare for the player to gain control of in the game, so I personally don't think some seperation of compatable outfits will be much of an annoying thing. More of a special consideration thing.