Units look.. samey

[RiderOfEternity]

Hey all

I've been following the progress of this game for some time now and everything looks pretty amazing. There's just one thing that's been bugging me all this time. I've noticed how all the human units' different features (like facial features, detailed textures) are very distinguishable, making them all look like identical twins. Past RTS titles have not had this problem because features like these aren't quite as disinguishable as they are in this game. So I was wondering if you have any plans to get around this.. Like a few texture variations and the like? It is mostly the heads that make them look completly identical.

Sorry if you don't understand.. it's hard to explain these kind of things

-RoE

[Centurion_13]

Well We are still early in devolepment of randomisation of units so hopefully soon your troubles will be over.

[Aeros]

So I was wondering if you have any plans to get around this..

Yes, we do

Like a few texture variations and the like? It is mostly the heads that make them look completly identical.

Exactly that. The programmers are currently working on our actor randomization code, but when its done it'll allow us to give different features and different shields to the units. Having different faces and hair color for units has been something we've always wanted.

[RiderOfEternity]

Wow sweet. I noticed you mentioned Programmers. Does that mean it won't be from different texture files but different hues generated by code?

[Dnas]

Well, you need programmers to implement and fine-tune randomization before you really can use it. Besides, most of the unit art you're seeing is placeholder.

[Aeros]

Does that mean it won't be from different texture files but different hues generated by code? 

No, though that would be cool

I mean there needs to be code that randomly picks a texture for a unit and will also update that texture to show damage or seasonal changes or whatever other things we might throw in.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Six people reading this thread at the moment. One of the goals of the game is to get away from the "attack of the clones" look we see in modern RTS and RTT titles, such as Rome:Total War. As othes have already said, the plan is to include randomization features in hair color, face, and shield textures to help make those classical age armies truly "come alive." There are also plans to implement some cool naming conventions that I won't detail here, as well as possibly a "casualty list" of sorts. There are also multiple upgrades to each unit (basic, advanced, ultimate), each one providing a unique appearance to units. We just havent had the randomization code to implement these things. So, be patient.

[RiderOfEternity]

Ah, this would mean you'd need a lot more texturers I guess.....

*walks away smiling*

[Dnas]

Well, techinically, making the variations usually inviolves at most 5 more minutes per texture.

(Of course, this is only for slight color or switching some pieces type variations.)

[Caesar]

I really like the fact that the 0ad units will show a lot of detail because of their size then the AoE and AoK units, although it may present more of a challenge to modders. What are you planning for the dying animations in the area of realism- i.e. will it be really bloody like the real ancient battles, or will you be toning it down (I did have an idea for severed body parts, but that might be too gruesome)?

[Acumen]

It's funny how often the same questions are asked. Fortunately, this is why we have a FAQ ...

Audience: We want our games to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible. History can be brutal, and ugly. The wars of the ancients were also outrageously violent, employing methods that are barbaric by modern standards. We hope that people of all ages will be playing 0 A.D., so we're obliged to circumvent mature topics like child sacrifice (Carthaginians), bloody heads on poles (Celts), and nudity (Greeks and Celts).

[Quacker]

I doubt we'll be including body limbs and such, as the "cool" factor doesn't really outweigh the time it would take (which wouldn't be a whole lot), the possibility of turning away people, and the lack of usefulness.

[Centurion_13]

although if you feel that you want yours to be as gorey and disgusting as possible, no one is going to stop you making a mod.

[Mythos_Ruler]

well, "barbaric" is a relative term. Personally I see no difference between stabbing someone with a gladius and blowing them up with a grenade, as far as barbarism goes. In fact, IMHO, the way war is becoming so impersonal encourages atrocities. The U.S. military is even developing the world's first combat droid. Now our enemies won't even get the common courtesy of being shot by a human being.

[Centurion_13]

world's first combat droid.

I hope they dont turn out like cylons

[Mythos_Ruler]

Or T-1000s

[Bakayaro]

So are there also going to be randomly assigned hp, attack, armor, etc values to have some "randomness"?

[Aeros]

No, because the key factor of the game is using strategy to win, not random luck.

[Centurion_13]

and people would keep killing off their lower men to have an army of extra strength, anyone who didnt do this would be disadvantagd in battle

[Wijitmaker]

Quick query on this topic. How would you guys (non-developers ) establish the limits of what is too random? So random that you have a hard time telling that the units of a particular type are the same unit?

Do you notice details like?

* Shield Shape

* Helmets

* Plumes on helmets

* Horse color

* Faces

* Hair color

* Weapon color/shape

* Clothing color/style

* Saddles

* ... anything else you can think of...

Of those (or something you thought of) what is the most identifying feature? How much do you pay attention to what unit types the units are? Or do you just amass a mob of units and don't care?

[friedd0g]

Hey Jason um.. im thinking it starts getting too random when the shields are completely different... as in squares for some and circles for other (keeping in mine we are talking about different variations of the same type of unit ofcourse) it could be all right if maybe the textures were very similar on both shields or if maybe each type of unit has a differing txture to another type, therefor each type of unit could have different shields as long as the texture of the shield was associated to that unit type.. lol im not sure im making too much sense with this but.. the largest feature needs to be the recognisable one.. its great to have different hair styles and colours as well as facial differences and skin tones , even saddles but there needs to be a large associated feature for each unit type be it they all have round shields and spears or they all have that same helmet with a sword and round shaped or half cresent sheild. Horse colours are good as they are naturally different. Hope this helps mate

[Aeros]

We haven't finalized exactly how to organize units with their shields like that, but my idea is that all units in an army (ctrl+f1 to make your group), will all get the same sheild so that you can identify them that way just by looking at their sheilds.

[Lord Zorinthrox]

That is a really cool idea, Cheezy.

You could do a similar thing for helmets, but that would be less beleivable than shields. If you did the sheilds, there should variation within a certain shield design. For instance, all the shields of one design have the same design, but they have scratches and wear marks in different places. Just to liven up the screen.

[Titus Ultor]

That is an excellent idea. For the Imperial Romans, that would even be quite historical. However, usage for most other civilizations would be difficult to levy with historical data. This may be a case of playability over history.

[Aeros]

The idea behind random shields (and in some cases weapons) is that each militant in your army brings his own family shield with him to battle. Once again, we haven't finalized the details on exactly how the many many different shield textures we have will work since we're not at that stage in the game where we work in minute details like these, theres much more important work to do.

Another option is to have all player shields be the same color but have different designs on them, that would work as well - however another thing we want to do is use as little player color for units as possible so that all art in the game maintains its historical acuracy and isn't dabled in Blue or Red or Green like in other RTS games.