Ultimate Customizability in Character Creation: Challenges and Innovations

2. Ultimate Customizability in Character Creation:Challenges and Innovations What went right and what went wrong while developing two complex character creators • Challenges we faced and solutions we developed • Overview of tools and pipeline

3. Goals and Overview

4. Goals:Champions Online • Ultimate user customization • More of everything! Variety of themes, total parts, and asymmetry • Modularity (motivated partly by Marvel license) • Ex. Give away Spider-Man’s gloves, belt, boots and mask, reserve unique eye pieces and emblems

5. Key features:Champions Online • Part and color selection – extreme variety • Large degree of asymmetry and variety • Presets for head and body types • Advanced options for bone scaling in face and body • Nested options • Material and texture swaps

8. Facts and Figures • Champions Online • 2140 geometry parts (per gender) • Over 5500 total textures

9. Goals:Star Trek Online • Remain faithful to IP while allowing freedom of expression • Differentiate from Champions’ “kitchen sink” approach • Focus additional depth and complexity in fewer, key areas • Heads and uniforms

10. Key features:Star Trek Online • Parts separated into “buckets” by Species • Certain parts reserved for certain Alien races • Presets for head and body types • Advanced options for bone scaling in face and body • Nested options • Material and texture swaps

12. Facts and Figures • Star Trek Online • 1240 geometry parts (per gender) • 70 ear types, 150+ head textures • Over 100 bones in face alone

13. Pipeline overview

14. Pipeline overview:Modularity • Standard construction hierarchy • Skeleton -> geo -> material -> texture • Modular “paper doll” • Character comprised of numerous individual parts • One part per bone • Break points • Parts built only within deisgnated areas per bone

15. Pipeline overview:Champions Online

16. Pipeline overview:Part Creation • Part creation • Modeled, skinned, and UV’d in 3DS Max • Naming convention based on bone and breakpoint rules • Proprietary exporter tool • Textured in Zbrush or photoshop • Real time updates (in-engine) • Engine processes and updates geo (export) and textures (save) in real time

17. Pipeline overview:Part Creation • Challenge = asymmetry yields twice the parts to make and weight, numerous seams across which to match normals • Solution = custom in-house Max scripts • Mirror weights script • Seam vert snap tool • Seam normals align, etc

18. Pipeline overview:Body Scaling • Challenge = one body to fit all sizes • Solution = body scale animation + bone scaling • Bones specifically for “muscle” growth • Body scale animation created in 3DS Max from skinny to hulking • Additional bone scaling in-engine per bone via slider

19. Pipeline overview:Body Scaling

20. Pipeline overview:Texture Creation • Challenge = allow players to customize colors on any texture • Solution = pattern mask texture • Defines areas within which players can select any color Bk= color 0 R = color 1 G = color 2 B = color 3

21. Pipeline overview:Texture Creation • Challenge = allow player to define how muscular they look without creating many different normal maps • Solution = muscle normal map “blends” over a second detail normal map

22. Pipeline overview:Texture Creation • Challenge = more depth for customization in Star Trek alien head textures • Solution = unique pattern and normal map blending

23. Pipeline overview:Texture Creation • Challenge = more depth for customization in Star Trek alien head textures • Solution = unique pattern and normal map blending

24. Pipeline overview:In-game setup • Challenge = create and organize thousands of parts and materials • Solution = data definition system • Text files point to assets (geo, mat, tex) and assign them properties • Assign data flags such as: region and category part restrictions (what works with what), random weight, order, display name, etc

25. Pipeline overview:In-game setup • Definition system • Ex. Material definitions reference only a few basic material templates (shaders) but allow “swap” texture for default rather than creating a new material for every single instance Default Matte “Cloth” Material Cape Cloth Material Def Use Cape Texture instead Shirt Cloth Material Def Use T-Shirt Texture instead Jeans Cloth Material Def Use Jeans Texture instead (etc) (use “swap” instead)

26. Pipeline overview: Regions and Categories • Data flags allow parts to work together without interpenetration or conflict • Region • Head, Upper body, Hands, Lower body • Category • Head = Beast, Insect, Monster, Humanoid w/ hair, Humanoid w/ helmets, etc • Upper body = Tights, Robot arms, Chest armor, Full shirts, Jackets, etc • Hands = Short or Long gloves • Lower body = Tights, Robot legs, Pants, Short skirts, Long skirts, Hip armor, etc

28. Pipeline overview:Costume Creation tools • Challenge = needed to efficiently build countless costumes • Solution = innovative, easy to use editor tools • Copy and paste, part selection, and linking functionality • Intuitive drop down menu options • Bone scaling beyond that offered to players

29. Pipeline and Tools:Challenges • Tools built simultaneously with content creation • Asking for improved tools, features • Fighting for programmer time • Editing costumes and definitions solely in text files before editor came online

30. Pipeline and Tools:Challenges • While tools powerful, hand editing individual costume details can be time consuming • System depends on setup of underlying data structure • Based on swapping defaults by creating definitions for everything from geo, material, texture to skeletons, bones, regions and categories

31. Pipeline and Tools:Challenges • Abundance of categories and parts • Number of rules for interaction increases dramatically with new part locations, as does need for new categories to restrict them • More LODs needed = parts are dropped or decimated at distance

32. Pipeline and Tools:Innovations • Parts variety, asymmetry and modularity • Bone scaling allows one body to do it all • Strong foundation of region and category rules to avoid parts conflicting • Proprietary max scripts • Asset processing and updates in real time • Definition system allows for less data and more flexibility

33. User Experience: Flow and ease of use

34. User experience – flow and ease of use • Simpler to use menu items • Sub menus, drop downs, mouse-over updates • Big step forward from previous click-through options

35. User experience – flow and ease of use • Display names • Describe feel and intent • Theme consistency • Order numbers • Alphabetically? • By function? • By rarity?

36. User experience – flow and ease of use • Materials presented simply • Matte (cloth or skin) • Shiny (leather) • Reflective (metallic)

37. User experience – flow and ease of use • Challenge = Preset options vs. optional “advanced” settings • Pre-made selections for bone scaling, colors and costume parts aid players in finding a look or theme • Advanced options too hidden? • Players tend to choose the first / default preset • Too tempting to randomize all

38. User experience – flow and ease of use • Too many options? Too many categories? • Some players may find it overwhelming, while others thrive on it: • Escapist review: “I took extra care in designing my power-armor heroine to look exactly how I wanted her, and it took me perhaps an hour - and this was without ever even touching all the myriad sliders and extra options the game gives you. It's an incredibly deep character creation system, but it's also an intimidating one, and it's much easier for newbies to just use the Randomizer to come up with a cool-looking hero (which, thankfully, isn't that hard)” • Achieved our goal of massive number of options – but needed some way to ease flow for a “newby”

39. User experience – flow and ease of use • Solution = keep the complexity, but offer casual players an easy way in • Champions should have continued with preset philosophy to logical conclusion, offering pre-built, themed starter costumes

40. User experience – flow and ease of use • Opportunities for improved presentation in future • Tool tips • More than one choice at a time? • Tutorial videos • Walkthough FAQs • Originally considered this, but left it to fan community

41. Player perception and demands

42. Player perception and demands • Challenge = how to determine what players want? • Solution = connect with the fans • Forum communication, Polls, and research into IP

43. Player perception and demands • Challenge = aesthetic value of costume part vs. functional value of loot • Solution = a balanced approach • Champions players can make ANY hero they want at level 1 • Later we reserved and created parts as rewards, or for sale in store • (ONLY after all the standard bases were covered)

44. Player perception and demands • Too few options in some categories? • Weakest categories judged against the strongest • Players won’t complain about a missing category as much as one that only has 2-3 options in it • Star Trek has total parts spread out over numerous “species” • Lesson = meet a minimum number of parts in each category

45. Letting go:Leaving art in players’ hands

46. Leaving art in players’ hands:Champions Online • Fear = would players create goofy costumes to cause grief or poke fun? • Biggest danger not intentional bad costumes, but the random button • Many players take it very seriously; use parts in ways we never imagined

47. Leaving art in players’ hands:Champions Online • Challenge = players trying to copy IP heroes from pop culture • Solution = GM’s enforced a no-tolerance policy • Offending players notified and asked to change costume • Else, set by default to a t-shirt and jeans costume

48. Leaving art in players’ hands:Champions Online • Challenge = player desire to contribute art • Solution = Beta emblem contest • Gave players a template and a way to contribute in an organized venue • Reviewed all submissions and selected many for actual inclusion in our game • Results displayed on forums

49. Leaving art in players’ hands:Star Trek Online • Challenge = build the definitive Star Trek world for players to explore, OR to build a sandbox where people could create their own vision of the universe? • Ex. Allow a player to create a pink Star Fleet uniform? • Does it break immersion, or allow freedom of expression?

50. Leaving art in players’ hands:Star Trek Online • IP holders encouraged erring on side of expression • Star Trek more about diversity than rules of show SO FAR • We’ve never seen a blue-haired Vulcan; doesn’t mean they don’t exist • Solution = mix of series preset costumes and species, moderate color palette restrictions, and diverse “unrestricted” Alien creator