default animations + some unlikely things

mysteriousfaun

It was suggested recently that the initial character creator should have some default poses so users can get a feel for what their character looks like in action. Perhaps a few default animations could be provided as well, even if they are just idles or walks. Seeing the character you just made start moving naturalistically would be amazing.

I have also been wondering about the possibility of Y2 allowing you to animate transformations in the characters beyond just inflation, such as changes in size, muscle mass, colour, etc. I have no idea if this would be feasible though, I just know that a lot of people like seeing their characters change. 

My other suggestion is to focus on giving the models good eyes. They are the secret to a convincing character and if they look dead the whole scene loses something. Unity has addons that generate natural seeming eye movement, perhaps you could take inspiration from that. 'My eyes are up here' jokes aside, users are going to be looking at them an awful lot and they'll want to see life behind them.

odes

Hi there mysteriousfaun!

We intend to include a poser with the character creator, so you can pose your character in any way you like. Hopefully we'll manage to include it for the first release.

The problem with animating character size (as in, growing stronger and bigger in a nice fashion) is that these operations affect the skeleton and base textures (normal/ao maps for the shape). This is quite a heavy process to calculate, and while we will include it in the character creator, it would not be suitable for real-time animations. HOWEVER, now when I come to think about it, perhaps a custom slider could be introduced in addition to the inflation sliders, that is like a user-authored shape target that can be configured in the character editor. If it's simply a shape, then that shape and its affection on skeleton and textures could easily be pre-calculated and then just blended in. This would cost a lot of memory however, especially regarding the textures, so I'm not sure it would be a feasible method.

Just scaling the character would be much easier, but it's not quite the same (obviously).

And yeah, eyes are extremely important. We haven't really gotten to them yet, but we'll definitely try to make them as appealing and customizable as possible.

mysteriousfaun

Hi odes
Thanks for responding!
I suppose you think I have a thing for size increases now haha. I just picked that as a random example of bodily deformations people are into. I don't know what I'm into, just that transformations are in demand. Pretty sure any animatable change in the character's shape/look would be welcome. But yeah, I imagine they'd require a lot of memory.
Also, with the posing thing, I was actually talking about actual looping animations like a walk or an idle or a dance. It'd just be fun to see the character actually move somewhat.