Player Faces development?

[kamnet]

I realize that this is probably one of the least important parts of the game, but lately it's just come to irk me a lot.

The biggest thing that irks me is that the settings are not consistent. For example, here's how all the faces look when setting is set to "1".

faces.png (30.31 KiB) Viewed 7589 times

The only consistency is with the jacket and collars. I would at least think that all the facial features would be the same, the only difference being skin tone. Would it be possible, in theory, to get all of these settings to align equally and logically?

[planetmaker]

I realize that this is probably one of the least important parts of the game, but lately it's just come to irk me a lot.

The biggest thing that irks me is that the settings are not consistent. For example, here's how all the faces look when setting is set to "1".

faces.png

The only consistency is with the jacket and collars. I would at least think that all the facial features would be the same, the only difference being skin tone. Would it be possible, in theory, to get all of these settings to align equally and logically?

Yes. Those are only sprites with numbers in the base set(s). If you go and put them in a (more) logical order, it's something we can start talking about and re-arrange them in the base sets we have rights to modify.

[PikkaBird]

OTOH, do the OpenGFX faces currently correlate to the original faces? If you change the order, are (silly) people going to complain that "their" face now looks completely different to people using different base sets?

[kamnet]

Kinda... sorta? (BTW, whoever did the OpenGFX faces, THANK YOU! They look much nicer than original TTD faces!

[planetmaker]

OTOH, do the OpenGFX faces currently correlate to the original faces? If you change the order, are (silly) people going to complain that "their" face now looks completely different to people using different base sets?

That may be and I don't know by heart the amount of similarity. But I'm willing to risk breaking that. They look differently anyway, so looking differently different won't change much really while it can improve the average user experience.

The faces in OpenGFX were drawn by Ben Robbins, Zephyris and Jonha

[kamnet]

Also curious if you can expand on some features. For example, more earring and eyeglasses designs? And could you have more than just European or African faces available simultaneously?

[planetmaker]

Also curious if you can expand on some features. For example, more earring and eyeglasses designs? And could you have more than just European or African faces available simultaneously?

yes, under the same condition as applies to every feature which adds new sprites to OpenTTD: you write the corresponding patches and provide the necessary sprites, the patches for grfcodec and nml, and the necessary patches to integrate the sprites in at least openttd.grf (also OpenTTD) and ogfxe_extra.grf (OpenGFX). This may now sound more difficult than it actually is, though; each task is not very big and e.g. is done each time a new GUI sprite is added.

[Eddi]

... or you go all out and make a "faces" feature for NewGRFs, so arbitrary styles can be added without touching the base set.

[kamnet]

There's a couple out there already. It's not that difficult to do, but I don't think it would hurt OpenTTD to have a more multicultural face within the game (no pun intended). I think there's something to be said of the fact that you can play the game in several Asian or Central/South American languages, but there is no cultural representation for those people in the game.

[Eddi]

But take town names as example. we have some builtin ones, that we drag around for legacy reasons, but any new ones should be added by NewGRFs.

[kamnet]

I would suggest that OpenTTD stopped being a legacy game a couple of years ago.

[Eddi]

that doesn't mean we can just drop loading all existing savegames and start over.

[kamnet]

Expanding the faces UI would break savegames?

[planetmaker]

Expanding the faces UI would break savegames?

the player face settings are a per-company setting and as such part of the savegames. Thus if it would need some conversion code in the saveload section, if the meaning of the values, which describe the faces, are changed.

[kamnet]

That's not what I was talking about. We've already seen how that works though. OpenGFX nose style #1 isn't he same style as TTDX Nose style #1, but both of them are still nose style #1. So, that wouldn't change.

I'm speaking specifically about changes in the UI, such as expanding from two styles of figures (European or African) to more than two selectable styles at once. Would having the option of three or four face styles break older OpenTTD or TTD save games?

[FooBar]

OpenGFX nose style #1 isn't he same style as TTDX Nose style #1, but both of them are still nose style #1.

We're in the position to reorder OpenGFX sprites, so if the OpenGFX faces are somewhat consistent with the TTD ones, that isn't much of a problem.

More face styles breaks savegames as with any new feature that needs to be stored in the savegame: you cannot open the savegame in an older version of the game, but new game versions can still open old savegames.

[planetmaker]

expanding from two styles of figures (European or African) to more than two selectable styles at once. Would having the option of three or four face styles break older OpenTTD or TTD save games?

It would not break them. Yet it still would require to add all new options as new (higher) values to the existing options. If you re-order them to a more logical order as you suggested above, that would require some conversion in the saveload code.

[kamnet]

Phew, good! I'm not about to suggest a feature that stops old OpenTTD and TTDX games from loading, but no need to hold back if you don't have to.

[kamnet]

Revisiting an old topic.

1. How horrible would it be to replace the toggles for male/female and European/African to a drop-down list with more options?
2. How difficult would it be to switch gender-specific items (tie/earrings) to something else?

[SimYouLater]

Why did this topic never specifically mention the JapanSet faces? Or the older face set that I can't recall the name of? If someone already did it, then why so much conversation about adding a feature that already exists?