More IS Less? The customizaton ruse: Casts VS Beast W/PIX

[AzureBlaze]

Ok I went into the customizer last night again and now I have seen pretty much EVERY PERSON you can possibly make on psu.
Before you say "o no you cant of theres 50,000+ guys" Ummm no. It is a trick that everyone has gotten all hype over, just like they wanted. This is separate from the original thread because it has a different theme and that old one had 4 pages and went off the page.

Share & Share Alike? (BLAH!)
Ok, so far there's a whole lotta sharin' going on, and it's not cool. I realized that Newm Beast and Humans all share the same clothing. Their colors vary a little but each (male and female) ONLY has a choice of about 3-4 outfits. And I am talking the actual *Structure* here, the cut of the clothes. The colors change, but the outfits don't. You can mix/match by choosing shorts vs. pants vs. stockings or something, but there's nothing exclusive to anybody.
PSOVIEW
PSO SEEMED to have less options but at least all the clases dressed differently. Here, they all share every piece of clothing. Sometimes PSO clothes would change arbitrarily based on skin tone, which was odd, or one color would have a different shirt, forcing you to wear it if you wanted color X.

***EDIT***
Don't mind the above paragraphs, yes it's a beta and also they're just inscentive to buy better clothes in the stores. It makes sense now that the stores opened. (they werent, during the post) And AERO showed what you can do with a bit o' cash. Looks like no need to worry...unless you're a cast.

Face Shareing Among Fleshies
It looks like all the fleshies share eachother's faces. I caught onto it with the girls ALL having a freckle face as their last face. The diff is minor, and lays with Beasts. A beast has a mandatory "Cleft Lip Shadow" and a bump on the end of their nose, but ALL their other features are shared with human/newman and flesh-face casts.
PSO-VIEW
There is a distinct absence of "Personality Faces" from pso. This includes:
Scars * Face Paint * Tattoo Faces * Patches/bandages etc. (ramarl) * & Masks
This REALLY SUCKS because if you're going to force everyone to have a varient on the same 5 faces, at least dress up the faces! PSU phails vs. PSO on this aspect. This is quite glaring and so far stacks up as 'failure-est' so far.

***EDIT***
Mind not changed. Non-accessory faces still suck and they havn't proved they can accessorize them anywhere.

Artificial Roster-Padding
ST's doing it. There are quite a few options that DONT MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I went through the eyebrows (no shots cause my glitch) and it's like there's 20somthing of them, but no one will ever notice. Also, why do the brows when you can use the face slider that also moves and shapes them? Apart from thickness or some of the 'waxed brows' there's no real need to throw around 20 of 'em. They are raising the 'custom stats roster'.

It's sorta-the same with shoes/sock combos. They threw in a great roster of shoes when they could have had a super selection of 'facial enhancements' like earrings, headbands, masks, tattoos, makeup etc that really help your personality. In this case more IS less!

***Edit***
These are indeed super for micro-managers. Of which there are plenty, and that is quite cool. I would take back the eyebrows in a heartbeat if there were the above other options, or even -proof-

Let's grow some Facial Hair
If you notice, the guys have tons of options for the their faces. Why? It is for tweaking facial hair that few people wanted anyway. What they're doing is comboing "Oldness/Wrinkle-Line/Jaw Structure" with about 5 selections of sculpted facial hair. So that means theres "oldhair1, oldhair2, oldhair 3" etc and then "younghair1, younghair2, and so on" They are matching it FOR you to pad the roster of choices. Yes you can get every combo, but why?
Eyelashes- I can't comment on how useful they are because of the glitch

Cast Party!
It seemed in PSO that the casts (esp. males) got dumped on. Well not so here! On PSU cast actually may be the MOST customizable person you can get. Their heads vary wildly as you'll see, and since you can top the artificial faces with various 'hairs' there's a lot of combos to mess with. Also they're not dealing with sharing because there's only 1 race of casts, so it makes them come across as more unique. The flesh-faces also can have most of the options that the live ones get, (minus facial hair) meaning they have practically double the options on anyone else.

Where's the beef?
Again it's with the male casts. They ended up with loads of similar looking faces and their designs arent NEARLY as wild or slick as some of the females.
Underwear for Casts:
All casts have an underewear layer too, and its dissapointing that you can't just trot one out in the skivvies because it's like a panneled/plate suit thing that actually looks pretty cool. But it vanishes when you do their armor in most places.
Armoring your Cast:
For each type you get 3 arms 3 legs and 3 torsos, and you're free to mix n' match. The legs come with various "butt accessories" including a skirt & floating bow, mini-tail and hip-tubes or shorts for girls and coat-tails/boxy flap/can & flap for boys.

Thanks to therealAERO, we now know that you can buy more clothing options, as those seen in his shots on the screenshot thread show different designs as well as different structures. (this was expected) the real question is:
are Casts going to get any of the clothing shop goodies?
Will they sell tattoos, masks or facial decorations to humans?

Pre-Beta Question re-visited
What happened to the booby slider?
Supposedly there was going to be a slider to tweak...well a boob. You could get custom chests for females and not be stuck with the one on the body slider produced solely by the build. It was also supposed to customize solidity of the soft tissue. And the guys would have some sort of equivelent slider for torsos or arms or something since female arms don't really vary much but guys can. It seems to of vanished, despite being quite the hot-point in magazines back in the day. I mean, what would YOU rather have? 20 eyebrows or a body customization that people will actually SEE?

Build Customizer Goes Flop:
Do you like being average? Normal and the same as everyone else? I hope so! Cause with this thing, you sure will be. Either that or fat. There was a picture along the line (pre-beta) that showed ETHAN with his shirt half off or sleeveless or something and he looks -ripped- compared to anything you can do. SAD.
In the following shots, watch the position of the ring in the graph. The SAME BUILD is in all 4 corners. How is this possible? They are supposed to be the extremes, but they are precice clones. I did tall, kiddie, wide, fat and way thin.
*I did the boob adjuster-type-area on the girls and not a whole lot happens.
*You can get rail/beanpole guys but the girls will NOT go as thin as they will. So it makes the girls more 'uniform' looking since you can't overly slim one down.
*Fat people are better this time, in that male/female can get an actual beer-gut instead of just going all strange like on PSO. (HUmar in teh fat pantz!)
*Making a kiddie type character does NOT kiddie up the face as in PSO. You have to use the facial slider to do it, which is just fine, as not all short people are children.
*Fat faces arise when you go 'reallyfat'
*The manual thing said that "Beasts are a tougher hardier race with larger people than humans/newman" well not true in the body-slider. They're THE SAME. Remember on PSO where you couldn't make a FOnewm as big as a HUmar? The newm is supposed to be a lighter magic-er race so naturally they won't get huge fat people or like wide hulks. Beast should come naturally more 'athletic' or 'big-boned' then everyone if they want to match their own plot. But they won't with our current slider.

Pics are now available at: http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/PSUShots/BodyShotsPage.html
and
http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/PSUShots/HeadShotsPage.html

First one is pretty much all bodys for beast/cast the next is the heads in various combos. All with comments, all rightly sized. By looking at those and the original page, you can see just about 99% of what the beta offers. And you do need to SEE this stuff to back my above points up.

Rundown:
* We NEED: Better body slider with more build-possibilities
* We NEED: Facial accessories for fleshies because they all have the same 5 faces
* We NEED: A person to try to go clothes-shopping with a cast and see what happens (remember there was a huge green dude with unmistakeable WINGS in one of the pre-beta shots you cast-fans! Where is this guy now???)



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: AzureBlaze on 2006-04-26 21:57 ]</font>

[Brus]

Ummm... not sure about this, but hasnt it been confirmed that there's only like 1/100 of the customizable costumes and such available? I mean it is BETA. I'm pretty sure they didnt take out costumes from the final game.

[Axios-]

I'm not sure about it being 1/100, but I think that it's highly possible that the customization is limited in the beta. Everything else is limited, why wouldn't that be too? Although, it would be odd for anything on a slider or such to be limited, so that's still disappointing...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Axios- on 2006-04-26 16:22 ]</font>

[TheStoicOne]

OMG!!! I laughed so hard!! As long as you dish out the bad news I won't be angry!!LOL!

[Kupi]

They just now opened the clothing shop. I don't know how extensive that'll be in the final game, but you can get more clothes beyond the initial offerings. In essence, you're complaining that the newbie-level clothing offerings are too similar to one another. I say, good. Dollars to donuts the finished game is going to use clothing as its status symbol-- the high-level players will have the coolest clothes that they saved up for and bought, not got out of the character generator.

The rest I don't have the time to argue, but suffice to say that I disagree.

[REJ-]

I hope they get things fixed up before it comes out. The customization can be a big deal to some people.

[vitius137]

i havent been able to make a character but it does sound like the build slider could use more options. i think they will add more faces/costumes in the full game.

[physic]

I like this guys reports they are detailed, fair and unbiased. He mentions the fact that this is the beta in his post, and tells you exactly what is available. And yeah i noticed before this that all the humans seem to share the same build possibilities, and all thier clothes. Hopefully as teh optimists hope, there will be a lot more cutomization, I definately want to see the huge (muscular) people, as far as being ripped, that is probably a skin issue, so it prolly wont happen.

[Iecur]

Bah, I could've been reading my book instead of that! T_T lol Sorry, I just don't care for aesthetics. Well, clothes/character wise. Now if my sword looks like a door I'd be pi...no wait that'd be okay with me. Wow, it could be a wireframe game and I'd love it as long as I got to kill stuff... http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime2.gif
-goes off to read Choice of the Cat- Woot! http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/anime1.gif

[vitius137]

hmmm a door as a weapon... i think you may be on to something.
Monster: Icant beleive i got slayed by a dooooooooooooor... [dies]

[oShojino]

If you notice in the "network of" video as well, theres no face shape/eye shape modifier in this beta.. in the video it uses a box much like the proportion box and you can slide a cursor around it in to determine the jaw shape/size and eye shape/size. Eyebrow customization is for cut in chat. Also, there are more clothing options in the "network of" video at the start.. I think sonic team is really just using an older version of PSU and betaing , and updating as the beta goes on.. I dont think they want to reveal the whole game just yet.

I think casts have the most customization so far though, but thats also because the three fleshy races share the same clothes as you mentioned.

[DarK-SuN]

In terms of physical editing, they're all equal, or almost equal.
Clothes wise, you need to buy the great majority of stuff from stores; you only get a fraction of the stuff on character creation.

The "boob slider", as you put it, is done by moving the vertical proportion slider on females.
Up is smaller breasts, down is bigger breasts.

Some of the things you complain about aren't entirely logical.

Of course face selections can be the same through races of the same gender, since it's physically possible for any race to have a similar face to another.
In technical terms it gives everyone equal chances of creation while saving on game resources.

About eyebrows, maybe for you there's no difference, but I'm sure people who like to "micro-manage" their appearance will greatly disagree.
It counts towards having something more unique than other people in your character.

[vitius137]

lol, boob slider XD i lol'd

[Ryo_Hayasa]

One thing that i did notice that would be important about making your character.

Will One be able to go back and completely re-edit their character? As in completely start from scratch with their apperance.

Unlike PSO where as you chose your preportions and face, you could not re-change them.

SURELY SURELY you'll be able to buy ear-rings and eye patches and scars int eh game. it would be absurd to not be able to, those are some of the Key things about Creating a character. Being able to do those things.

As for character builds all being the same, i seriously believe that will be changed.

[RoninJoku]

Wow 20 eyebrows now? It's better than I thought!!! XD I really like the eyebrow customization...

Now I haven't gotten to play with the proportional slider... But if you can't make your character too beefy, I too will be upset... I planned on making at least one Muscle-head character... But I might have to go with a big, fat HUcast again if extreme muscle isn't an option...

[ANIMEniac]

well im not in the beta, but i can tell that Azure has very valid points, but this is a closed beta, so i doubt that many of these "problems" we have will be that bad in the final. lol and yea i actualy remember the booby slider from EGM, i couldent halp but laf. well all i say is that Azure's analysis is VERY indepth but should probably just relax till the final product, then Azure can come back with his full game analysis for all to read <(^_^<)

[AzureBlaze]

I am glad this is as well-recieved and well-read as it is. I like to write and sort things out. It's what I'd of wanted to see if I didn't make the beta. I edited some paragraphs into the original post to make it better too.

Pics are now available at: http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/PSUShots/BodyShotsPage.html
and
http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/PSUShots/HeadShotsPage.html

They're also going into the scrn shots thread. As for responses and further thoughts:

If you havn't seen the screens, you NEED to. The post is less signifigant without them. Also, I'm not knocking any of the present options AT ALL. More options ALWAYS=Better. Any option is a good option. (Did you know humans also have ear options? "Big" and "Normal")

What I am NOT a fan of though, are forgoeing cooler options for less-noticiable ones. I too micro-manage at times, but I like to micro manage things that other people are sure to see. I also don't like 'trumping up game stats' with like forced combos of beard/face just to say you have more stuff. I also understand faces play a more important part due to Cut/In chat, all the more reason to accessorize them not just sculpt the hair.

It's a big help that this is only the beta and stuff might be left off it, like outfits or colors. It's also good that they opened the clothing shops, so now my worry is
can casts buy stuff in there too?
It will be my next mission to try and buy something for a cast in one of them to prove what it does. And also show you what you can buy. The possibility of rare clothing and rare cast-pieces is EXTREMELY exciting. Naturally, they'd want it to be a surprise!

Main Worry Leftover Personal Note:
If you didn't know, I'm a cast, and a big one. It's part of the char's personality to be huge and HUcast. My RAmar is a masked one with a military cut. It's his personality to be ex-military and also have a facial defect that forces him to wear the mask and makes him shy. My main and secondary character are in serious jeopardy on PSU with the current option line up. This is just a personal note.

Keepin' The Hope up:
There's more proof then I'd thought on stuff being better on the final. The winged green cast, the AERO buying better clothes photos, the 'inscentive to upgrade your guy by buying' motivation angle etc. It also flat out wouldn't be logical to make fleshie clothes upgradable and then NOT give cast more heads. (But is ST really Captain Logic?)

But what worries me:
As was said earlier, there's doubt that the slider for buffness will be altered. More selections I can see, but something NEEDS to be done with this! Look at the shots to understand. Anyone with access to the BBS and beta PLEASE complain with babelfish.

Anyway, hope everyone finds the shots as useful as I did, and if there's any questions or requests...

[physic]

I dont know what others say but i think the buffness factor is gone, Im sure there will be more clothes in the final versions and mroe accessories, but i dont see any reason why they d take a buff build out of the beta, as well the slider the way it works is pretty logical, if they have a make the arms and shoulders wider and dieseler option it would have to be on the slider already. Sad but true, I was also one of the many super buff hucasts back in the day, seems those days are gone...

[ANIMEniac]

another thing i just thought of is that in japan, manyheros, ecpecialy in anime, arent nesecarily buff. like i was whatching advent shildren yet again and was like "look at cCloud, his arm is no bigger than mine and he weilds his gianomus sword in one hand like a umbrella or something" but still i would like atleast a bruce lee tone if not BUFF.

[_Tek_]

Although I think the customization is pretty dam good, thanks for the information and criticism on the current CC situation with he beta. These pics are excellent. Well except for the one's without eyes. lol

I was thinking you should find someone to take the images for you. Perhaps with more people working on it, they could make a site to display everything.

Arg, what to do, girl or boy cast...

Oh and thanks for showing the proportion extremes, the differences indeed are quite small.

[RoninJoku]

That's because the Japanese dig the whole "pretty boy" look... Which worries me... But hopefully someone will complain, and the slider will be tweaked a bit to increase buffness... Even the slightest bit would be nice... Damn, it almost seems like the proportions are broken or something if that whole upper right corner creates a character exactly the same as one in the dead center... My fingers are crossed >.> But It won't be the end of the world if it stays the same in the final version <.<

EDIT~ As for bust I think that it gets busty enough! I don't wanna walk around seeing tons of little newman girls with Doly Parton breasts... My only complaint about breast proportions (oddly enough) is that I think they should be able to get smaller... There are plenty of girls who are totally flat-chested... And the flattest you showed us was NOT "flat"...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RurouniJoku on 2006-04-26 23:16 ]</font>

[Non-Toxic-Crayons]

wow, thats some interesing stuff! Thanks so much for the time you put into this in depth character creation thread...
I dunno, I'm not big on huge muscular characters, but I would rather they did allow it... so then more ppl would stay away from my "average proportions" XD
Hopefully casts can get new head and armor pieces in the shop.... Even if they can't they still look like they have a pretty fair selection
The problem is... how many ppl are gonna want to use some of those more eccentric heads...

[Ffuzzy-Logik]

Meh, this doesn't really bother me, since I never really liked big characters anyway. I did, however, always make my characters max height, except for my RAcast, since tall RAcasts are invariably bulky.

[physic]

the 4 corners matching arent really that crazy, it just means that they are showing coordinates that are like a circle in a flat way
for example if you are on a world map, all the corners actually represent spaces really close to each other, though they seem really far away. thats one model that might make sense, it may not exactly be teh case but thier are other realtionbships that might cause a similar 4 corner thing

[Non-Toxic-Crayons]

On 2006-04-26 23:16, physic wrote:
the 4 corners matching arent really that crazy, it just means that they are showing coordinates that are like a circle in a flat way
for example if you are on a world map, all the corners actually represent spaces really close to each other, though they seem really far away. thats one model that might make sense, it may not exactly be teh case but thier are other realtionbships that might cause a similar 4 corner thing



I understand what your saying with your world map comparrison... but the weird thing isn't that the four corners are the same, but that they are all the same as the dead center of the field...

[_Tek_]

Its like: We start at the center, and when we move over we aren't able to travel too far on the metaphorical "world map", we're still pretty much in teh same place.

In pso, the extreme just seemed farther apart. You could look like a stick man, or a man in the shape of a ball.

[Non-Toxic-Crayons]

Yes, but pso needed work.... In pso, each character basically only had two extremes not counting height....
For example: HUmars can become Muscular at the left end of the scale, and super corpulent at the right end....
HUneys however worked on a different scale... where the left side made for the "ideal" female proportions i.e. Bigger bust, bigger hips, while the right side made her look like she was doing steroids... giving her a very masculine muscle structure...

So, theoretically, since psu's height scale is now separate from the proportional scale.... The UP and DOWN on the scale should be free to deal with two more extremes. Making for a total of 4 extremes, each represented in a different quadrant...
So heres what I think... Let's work with a female character for an example.
1.The top left corner would make your female sexier... with larger bust, and larger hips... this is the ideal corner....
2.Underneath that, in the lower left corner, your character would get scrawny... putting the slider here would kill your characters muscular tone and bust/hip size...
3.The top right side would be the muscular side. This would be for the more athletic, to the almost man-like musclular girls...
4.Finally, the lower right corner would be the fat proportions.

The sexy proportions would be opposite the fat proportions, and the scrawny proportions would be opposite the muscular proportions. And in the center, would be an average of all four.

I think this system would be perfect. The only place it falls apart is for male characters.... Where the "ideal" proportion square might be too similar to the muscular square... Although they could make the muscular square more extreme on males....
thoughts?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Non-Toxic-Crayons on 2006-04-26 23:44 ]</font>

[_Tek_]

Yeah that is true, there's more customization, but when you compare the smallest to the biggest, its not as great as in PSO.

But PSU's certainly seems more realistic.

[Sev]

Either way it's still more customization then most games out there... Especially WoW and FFXI. I guess we'll see what they add in, and what they take away. I'd love to pick each piece individually myself. Head, Body, Left/Right Arm, Left/Right Hand, Left/Right Leg, Left/Right foot. Altough I don't wanna see someone walking about with 2 different colored shoes. It'd be kinda distracting.

Anyway, I think the customization will be enough. There's room for improvement anywhere, just try not to get too deep into it and ruin your actual experience with the game. Some people think too deeply and just ruin it for themselves.

You did have a really good report though. Let's hope some of the issues you had get settled. I don't really remember hearing anything about things I'd want, like bandaged arm choices and such. Just small things that I can live without though.

[Axel3792]

On 2006-04-26 16:37, Kupi wrote:
They just now opened the clothing shop. I don't know how extensive that'll be in the final game, but you can get more clothes beyond the initial offerings. In essence, you're complaining that the newbie-level clothing offerings are too similar to one another. I say, good. Dollars to donuts the finished game is going to use clothing as its status symbol-- the high-level players will have the coolest clothes that they saved up for and bought, not got out of the character generator.

The rest I don't have the time to argue, but suffice to say that I disagree.




Honestly this is how I would like it to be.

[mechatra]

Now I'm just looking forward to a nice pair of "prison white" K swiss trainers ^_^

[oShojino]

Alright, I was wrong.. there is a eye shape/jaw shape adjustment slider.. I just must of missed it =/.. Ah well, Ill be sure to remember it the next time I make a character.

I wouldnt worry about customization too much though, I mean theres already a slew of outfits in parum and in gc.

[bstm300]

Are you kidding me whoever said anime heroes aren't usually buff. Go watch Dragon Ball Z, lol. Yeah I know they should keep the buffness feature it was cool, as well as the fat feature. Back on PSO on Xbox, I made a Santa Claus character that was short fat and red and I used him to give away items to noobies, hahahah!

[_Tek_]

Even the fattest settings give the guy a six pack.

I think its just realisitc that way, all the psu guardians are going to be healthy, no matter if they are a bit overweight. We aren't talking terminally ill from obecity here.

Anyways, here are 2 pics, of the hugest male cast I could make.
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/3250/fattestcasta6yv.png
http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/2601/fattestcastb4hb.png

And for the dome brain head:
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/5994/glassbraindome5ye.png

oh and I don't have that problem witht he eyes, so I'm gonna try and take a screenshot of as much as I can to help update that site of yours.

WE COULD DO EVERYTHING! MWAHWHAWHHWAW.

[mechatra]

Lol. That first bulky cast you made tek...

It's name is "Parnbot" >_<

[DizzyDi]

is that a metal mustache he has?

[Violation]

that would be awesome tek!

[Itsuki]

But what worries me:
As was said earlier, there's doubt that the slider for buffness will be altered. More selections I can see, but something NEEDS to be done with this! Look at the shots to understand. Anyone with access to the BBS and beta PLEASE complain with babelfish.

I think I'll elaborate on the sliders a bit, so people can tell what they do:

Hume Male Slider Grid (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/Male_Sliders.jpg)
(Up/Down/Left/Right are the extremes, corners are half way points, like 50% right 50% up)
Left-Right: For both male and females, this is almost the same as the original PSO left-right adjustment. Its a bit more "realistic" though. And by that I mean that the extremes aren't quite as extreme, and its not as "boxy". Going left widens your shoulders, going right widens your waist.

Up-down: For males, this functions for limb thickness. You can make really scrawny males and really thick males. For women, it adjusts bust size. You can go from a AA-cup to like F-cup.

Diminising effects: Theres an interesting thing that happens when going towards the extremes. The further you are towards the extreme of one axis, the less of an effect the other axis gives. This makes it so that the corners are equivalent to the middle. It lessens the absolute extremes, but makes it so all characters look relatively realistic. And gives you alot of micromanagement on that within reason level. Ends up looking somewhat like this if you put it in a gradient:
Gradient example (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/Slider.jpg)

Hieght: Hieght is pretty similar to PSO, but like the other sliders, the results are a bit more "realistic". Head and waist size don't adjust as fast with hieght. That isn't something new (I don't think head size changed at all in PSO), but its handled in a way that more realistically makes short people look like kids and tall people look like adults. Not just like smaller people and large people.
Short character head count (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/FHCSmall.jpg)
Tall character head count (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/FHCTall.jpg)

Eye structure slider: This one is interesting. This is where you can truly change how old your character looks. Up and down adjust eye size, while left and right adjust eye "straightness/roundness". Its easier just to show it in a picture:
Eye Structure slider example (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/FaceSlider.jpg)

Its not bad, it just seems tailored to allow you to make characters that look different by age rather than by size. You may not be able to get a huge guy, but you can get a defined looking older gentleman, or a spunky looking young one. Where as in PSO you basically had Average looking, Super-buff, and Chibi, in PSU you choose between Adult, Teen, and Child. That all falls appart a bit when making Casts though.

[_Tek_]

Yeah he has a metal moustace.

Also I've noticed for female character, that sliding up and down on proportion, only changes the boob size. (when you sliding exactly ont he vertial line up and down)

And for left and right its similar as above but its for muscles vs fatness.

Now the male characters are bit more confusing. Its seems up and down are just about the same as left and right.

When you slider onthe middle line all the way down, you see a boney liookinh guy, but right at the top or, on the right you see fat again. And on the left poitn yous ee alot of muscles.

[vitius137]

On 2006-04-28 15:12, Itsuki-chan wrote:


But what worries me:
As was said earlier, there's doubt that the slider for buffness will be altered. More selections I can see, but something NEEDS to be done with this! Look at the shots to understand. Anyone with access to the BBS and beta PLEASE complain with babelfish.

I think I'll elaborate on the sliders a bit, so people can tell what they do:

Hume Male Slider Grid (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/Male_Sliders.jpg)
(Up/Down/Left/Right are the extremes, corners are half way points, like 50% right 50% up)
Left-Right: For both male and females, this is almost the same as the original PSO left-right adjustment. Its a bit more "realistic" though. And by that I mean that the extremes aren't quite as extreme, and its not as "boxy". Going left widens your shoulders, going right widens your waist.

Up-down: For males, this functions for limb thickness. You can make really scrawny males and really thick males. For women, it adjusts bust size. You can go from a AA-cup to like F-cup.

Diminising effects: Theres an interesting thing that happens when going towards the extremes. The further you are towards the extreme of one axis, the less of an effect the other axis gives. This makes it so that the corners are equivalent to the middle. It lessens the absolute extremes, but makes it so all characters look relatively realistic. And gives you alot of micromanagement on that within reason level. Ends up looking somewhat like this if you put it in a gradient:
Gradient example (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/Slider.jpg)

Hieght: Hieght is pretty similar to PSO, but like the other sliders, the results are a bit more "realistic". Head and waist size don't adjust as fast with hieght. That isn't something new (I don't think head size changed at all in PSO), but its handled in a way that more realistically makes short people look like kids and tall people look like adults. Not just like smaller people and large people.
Short character head count (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/FHCSmall.jpg)
Tall character head count (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/FHCTall.jpg)

Eye structure slider: This one is interesting. This is where you can truly change how old your character looks. Up and down adjust eye size, while left and right adjust eye "straightness/roundness". Its easier just to show it in a picture:
Eye Structure slider example (http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f369/Akukame/FaceSlider.jpg)

Its not bad, it just seems tailored to allow you to make characters that look different by age rather than by size. You may not be able to get a huge guy, but you can get a defined looking older gentleman, or a spunky looking young one. Where as in PSO you basically had Average looking, Super-buff, and Chibi, in PSU you choose between Adult, Teen, and Child. That all falls appart a bit when making Casts though.



thx for the post. you put me at ease a bit. i especially found the gradiency chart useful.

[Itsuki]

On 2006-04-28 15:36, _Tek_ wrote:
Also I've noticed for female character, that sliding up and down on proportion, only changes the boob size. (when you sliding exactly ont he vertial line up and down)

And for left and right its similar as above but its for muscles vs fatness.

Now the male characters are bit more confusing. Its seems up and down are just about the same as left and right.

When you slider onthe middle line all the way down, you see a boney liookinh guy, but right at the top or, on the right you see fat again. And on the left poitn yous ee alot of muscles.
Ya, I mentioned that up/down on girls is only bust. But heres the breakdown of the guy thing incase my explanation was a bit confusing:

Left -> Wider chest/shoulders
Right -> Wider waist/thighs.

Up -> All limbs thicker
Down -> All limbs thinner.

Making the limbs thicker looks similar to as if you going right on the slider, but going right is more of like a fat belly.

[Non-Toxic-Crayons]

hmmm... thanks for this analysis of the proportional scales...
That "gradient" example actually really helped me grasp how the proportions work...

[_Tek_]

Here you go, all extreme faces proportions, with like everything else on default or 1.
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1415/psufaceprops0fx.jpg
Sorry about the jpeg quality, it was too late before I decided how I was really going to do this, and I'd already made them all jpeg and ended up resizing and resaving in jpeg.

lol that really does look ****ty, I've wasted my time.

Anyways, left and right seems to make the face wider or thinner, and up and dine foces more on eyes. Is that right?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: _Tek_ on 2006-04-28 16:10 ]</font>

[Itsuki]

I think that your picture isn't bad, its just too small. Perhaps some zooming would be nice? Also as far as I can see, left and right on the facial structure slider doesn't make the face any wider or thinner. I think it would be more accurate to say that it makes the eyes and mouth straighter or rounder. Either way, it tends to make the face look more mature/stern/defined when its on the right, and more innocent/playful/happy when its on the left.

[AzureBlaze]

Thanks so much for the added screens and input, Tek & Itsuki!
The eye slider thing is a big help as I'd never be able to get it on my machine. Also posting up the brain dome has saved me a bunch o' time as well. And you didn't waste your time on the eye-comparison, people can tell what's going on, and it is fine. I would also bet that the mystery slider that controlls the colored speck on the HUcaseal forehead would control the zany brain color!
(However, in all reality, who needs brain-domes? I mean Dr Gero & Dr. Wheelo found out the hard way, didn't they? They seem a bit absurd, but to each it's own I suppose--the more options the better)

Catching the 'heads high' is also really excellent, as a drawing reference and also a reality reference. They've done much better with it this go, so people with children chars can really get it right.

However...everyone's still agreeing that their buff ain't buff enuff. It's been explained, graphed, screen-shotted, and experimented upon, and it looks like the consensus is "refined older man" is NOT what we are going for from people who had big guys on the last ones. Even the people who DONT want big dudes want big dudes to exist so people don't pile into average.

What to do? SHOUT LIKE HECK! ANYONE on the beta has gotta complain on the ST msg boards as much as possible. We gotta get a voice out there for wider scale people. Who knows if it's gonna do any good, but we gotta do something! I'm compiling a post this weekend, but it's gonna take more then 1 voice to get anyone to notice. Who knows what the JPs are saying, maybe they've already said something, but we have GOT to chip in for this or we'll be stuck with gymnast build for the next however many years it takes till they do a ver2.

[linkzone]

what would be totally awsome would be if you could design your own tattoos. nothing fancy, mostly tribal stuff. ya know like send the design to them for your tattoo on your character. pay some money either online or in real life. and bada bing bada boom. but thats just my idea. doubt itll happen.

[Alisha]

On 2006-04-26 22:39, AzureBlaze wrote:
I am glad this is as well-recieved and well-read as it is. I like to write and sort things out. It's what I'd of wanted to see if I didn't make the beta. I edited some paragraphs into the original post to make it better too.

Pics are now available at: http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/PSUShots/BodyShotsPage.html
and
http://www.phantasystardynasty.com/PSUShots/HeadShotsPage.html

They're also going into the scrn shots thread. As for responses and further thoughts:

If you havn't seen the screens, you NEED to. The post is less signifigant without them. Also, I'm not knocking any of the present options AT ALL. More options ALWAYS=Better. Any option is a good option. (Did you know humans also have ear options? "Big" and "Normal")

What I am NOT a fan of though, are forgoeing cooler options for less-noticiable ones. I too micro-manage at times, but I like to micro manage things that other people are sure to see. I also don't like 'trumping up game stats' with like forced combos of beard/face just to say you have more stuff. I also understand faces play a more important part due to Cut/In chat, all the more reason to accessorize them not just sculpt the hair.

It's a big help that this is only the beta and stuff might be left off it, like outfits or colors. It's also good that they opened the clothing shops, so now my worry is
can casts buy stuff in there too?
It will be my next mission to try and buy something for a cast in one of them to prove what it does. And also show you what you can buy. The possibility of rare clothing and rare cast-pieces is EXTREMELY exciting. Naturally, they'd want it to be a surprise!

Main Worry Leftover Personal Note:
If you didn't know, I'm a cast, and a big one. It's part of the char's personality to be huge and HUcast. My RAmar is a masked one with a military cut. It's his personality to be ex-military and also have a facial defect that forces him to wear the mask and makes him shy. My main and secondary character are in serious jeopardy on PSU with the current option line up. This is just a personal note.

Keepin' The Hope up:
There's more proof then I'd thought on stuff being better on the final. The winged green cast, the AERO buying better clothes photos, the 'inscentive to upgrade your guy by buying' motivation angle etc. It also flat out wouldn't be logical to make fleshie clothes upgradable and then NOT give cast more heads. (But is ST really Captain Logic?)

But what worries me:
As was said earlier, there's doubt that the slider for buffness will be altered. More selections I can see, but something NEEDS to be done with this! Look at the shots to understand. Anyone with access to the BBS and beta PLEASE complain with babelfish.

Anyway, hope everyone finds the shots as useful as I did, and if there's any questions or requests...



nice i like those cat type eyes. is that a beast only option? i also like how you can get the ears to blend in with the hair since that was an area concern for me.i take it you can chnage the color of the ears to match your hair as well?

[_Tek_]

Yeah I probably should've clipped them more, the ingame zoom was maxed. Its just that they fit so perfect together in one big image.

And um, oh yeah the cast head 1 and 3 are identical. Probably some messup

[TheStoicOne]

If I make a beast, it would definitely be a female. I hawever was never worried a bout ears, because Liina's ears are just fine. But when I saw other pics w/ beasts in them, I was like "WTF is that sharp thing on his EAR??!"

[linkzone]

that last post just made me think about the one major reason i hate online games. i dont know if its true in your case stoicone, but i cant stand guys that play as chicks or visa versa. its just creepy in a not good way.

[TheStoicOne]

Wow!! LOL!! It is a GAME! Funny it seems you are the reason I don't play most online games aswell. Go somewhere else to be so serious! I really don't care what you think!

[linkzone]

if you were a midget id kick you like a foot ball.

[TheStoicOne]

Uhh... okay.

[AzureBlaze]

Yes, the cat eyes are beast only.
Beasts get 2 versions of slit pupil eyes, one more noticible than the other. They also get a nearly-blank eye that may be semi-shared with humans. Also the beast ear is FORCED to match the color of your hair. You can't pick different even if you want to.
However, some of the beast ears have parts that stay tannish/white no matter what you do. I think the very tall ear and leos ear may do that. This can make them stand out a bit much, but that may be some people's goal with beast.

Also note that beast has a mandatory split upper lip shadow and a bump on the end of their nose that won't go away.

[ShinMaruku]

All this talk bout boob sliders... I'm never going to let them live this down...

[TheDoctor]

So they might still have the boobie slider and such in the final or...?

[RoninJoku]

There is always a possibility... But I wouldn't get too excited about it... For the most part I imagine the game will be the same, except for a few new clothing and hairstyle options... And no abnormal restrictions on areas or weapons... But that's just my speculation...

[Authenticate]

On 2006-04-29 05:50, linkzone wrote:
that last post just made me think about the one major reason i hate online games. i dont know if its true in your case stoicone, but i cant stand guys that play as chicks or visa versa. its just creepy in a not good way.



In my oppinion, people who pick avatars with weird glowing eyes and some kind of roid rage thing going on creepier... Serisouly man, you've got some kind of pissed off serial killer look to your avatar. That's wrong. Pick an avatar that looks more like a sane person, plz.

Just kidding, but my point is your oppinion is just as dumb as mine. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[linkzone]

i like my avatar, i think it depicts my hated of midgets perfectly. lol. oh and i saw a chick in one of the previews with horns on her head but she looks prety human. is that an option when creating a character? horns and what not. maybe i was just seeing things. they say the water here is sorta... special...

[TheStoicOne]

The female character you saw was either the blue haired cast girl (no one knows her name) Or the red haired cast girl named Remlia Norphe. Yes you can have a cast with horns.

[linkzone]

sweet. anything else like a horn tail (devil like) or ram horns, things like that? or just pointy horns?

[TheStoicOne]

I think there are tails, I'm pretty sure there are, and I don't know about the pointy horns or the ram horns. I guess you'll have to wait a couple of months

[linkzone]

oh and StoicOne, my apoligies for saying id like to kick you like a midget. if you want to create a female character thats cool. it is a game. you should be allowed to be who ever you want to be, it is a phantasy after all.

[TheStoicOne]

LOL!! Never expected that! It's alright. Just make sure you buy it in japan and tell us all what the finished product is like ^_^! And lets stop posting on this thread, I bet people are saying "What the Fu*K"
Because they keep hitting refresh and find nothing regarding PSU.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: TheStoicOne on 2006-04-29 19:29 ]</font>

[AzureBlaze]

As it is from a pure STYLE standpoint, cast nor beast will EVER have such organic horns.
Casts get snub horns that are nearly always blunt or needle-like. They are always mechanical and usually rectangular. It looks like the blue-hair was some kind of proto-cast where they were experimenting with a more organic look for the human face casts.

Their style is to break apart cell phone shapes and put them on the peoples' heads. As for tails they are more like flaps and fins which are most always broad and blunted. You can see the pix on my other post and the first post on here links. I do not think the style will shift dramatically enough to get organic horns.

However for tails, we do know that transformed beasts do have them. (with a foof at the end, no less) you can see them in some of the pics.

[Itsuki]

On 2006-04-29 06:25, linkzone wrote:
if you were a midget id kick you like a foot ball.

FFXI / .hack joke, but http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/4135/tarowned4zs.gif

Also, keep in mind that it is pretty much assumed that not all of the hairs and not all of heads are available in the beta. Most of the older pictures of the character creator contain several extra choices.


Casts get snub horns that are nearly always blunt or needle-like. They are always mechanical and usually rectangular.
Ya, other than the multi/aquaplus (http://www.toheart-r.net/chara/image/chara_image_multi.jpg) ear-like head protrusions, they all tend to just be like random rectangles of various sizes and sharpnesses. Usually involving two "horns", a few things on the sides of the head, and a com-piece that looks like a hands free phone adapter.

[beatrixkiddo]

I tried to choose ears/horns for my cast that were as small as possible, since there was no option to have none, sadly. The main reason I made a cast was because my first char was a newman, and I noticed how insanely customizable all the casts were, so I made a new char. =D

[Sev]

I wonder if we know the same Tonberrylord. XD

And wow... multi/aquaplus... I mean... I know they looked like it... But I wasn't gonna go as far to say it.

And I just managed to not add anything to this topic... Sorry. >.>;;

[Itsuki]

On 2006-04-29 23:24, Sev wrote:
I wonder if we know the same Tonberrylord. XD
Tonberrylord and Quaj are two friends of mine who play FFXI on the Fairy server. I made that gif out of a scene from episode one of .hack//roots because right after seeing that scene, I couldn't get out of my head "Damn, I wish you could really punt a Taru."

Tonberrylord did play ep1+2 way way way back when it first came out for GC, so unless you know him from FFXI, I doubt its the same one.

[OdinTyler]

On 2006-04-29 19:23, linkzone wrote:
oh and StoicOne, my apoligies for saying id like to kick you like a midget. if you want to create a female character thats cool. it is a game. you should be allowed to be who ever you want to be, it is a phantasy after all.


Glad you think so. Midgets in game can be fun, especially dwarves! http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif Well, my beast will be the PSU equivalent of a dwarf: a short, blue haired midget that will kick ass with an axe! http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[linkzone]

NO MIDGETS. their evil little buggers.