Pose Choice?

[JFox]

Hello all, I’m really enjoying the portrait generator, though I couldn’t help but notice that all the characters are facing the camera head-on. I’m curious as to the reasons behind this; like was it a conscious decision?
Aesthetically speaking, IMHO a slight angle for the entire body (or at least the face) looks nicer.(Especially if the character isn’t staring me in the eye all the time :D)
On the other hand, sometimes the straight-on look works really well, and it probably offers more options for different types of usage.

Can anybody shed some light on this?

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to criticize or anything, it just piqued my interest. I’m no artist, and understand that trying to make something this massive with interchangeable pieces that actually fit together is tough.

[LBandy]

Hi there,

Sorry for the late reply.

We found that this body pose can be used the most universally along other choices. Since we try to give as mush freedom as possible to our users we’ve opted to go with this one.

I hope this helps, feel free to post other questions or suggestions here though. 🙂

[JFox]

Yep! I had intended to follow up my question with a suggestion, but forgot to, so here goes.

I had given a little bit of thought as to how an adjustable pose would be possible, but I don’t know how well it would work in practicality. Maybe some clothes could replace the torso entirely? For example; with a shirt that didn’t cover the entire chest, the shirt could have a skin texture covering the base body.
If it were possible to lay down a field of transparency that makes all the layers below it transparent as well, that would solve the upper layers not completely covering the lower layers.
Alternatively (or in addition), the head could be replaceable.

Both of these ideas (assuming you interpreted my jumble of words correctly) would probably require cutting the body into sections though, so not sure how that would work.

Would something like this be possible?

[Kelemelan]

Not that I know what I’m talking about but something tells me that this would be akin to an ePic Season 3… 😉 😛

Welcome Aboard J, btw ^^

[LBandy]

We already have options to make parts of the body transparent (take a look at the supernatural packs), and it’s just a matter of how the config is set up, so the transparency can be applied on other layers too. Keep in mind that the software in it’s current version is just layers of images on top of each other, it doesn’t have any information on 3D meshes or textures. If you want to experiment with your ideas you could grab the developer pack and see what you can do, I’m happy to help you getting started as well as how this can be achieved by the current config system, given I understand your idea correctly. I’d be interested to see if variable poses can really be achieved in any other way than simply rendering the characters and all the items from all possible angles, which is obviously not really an option. 🙂

[JFox]

[quote=”LBandy” post=3652]I’d be interested to see if variable poses can really be achieved in any other way than simply rendering the characters and all the items from all possible angles, which is obviously not really an option. :)[/quote]
I was thinking only certain clothes or suits would appear to be at a different angle, covering the body parts they replace. Or, if they needed to be in a different position, making the layers with the old body parts disappear. Maybe put the torso/head on a different layer and toggle the visibility when the replacement part is added.
Admittedly this idea would be limited to single sets of clothes, so it wouldn’t offer much in the way of variety, unless there was an entire pack dedicated to the replacement clothes/heads.

I have no clue as to how your system works, so my idea is probably scrap. What 3d program would I need to experiment with? I’m running KUbuntu, so unless it’s something like Blender, I doubt I’ll be able to do much tweaking. (Then there’s also the fact that I don’t have the time to spend learning the ropes and figuring things out. The reason I got ECG was because it was fast enough that I could actually use it without falling behind with everything else :D)

@Kelemelan: Thanks!

[LBandy]

Well it’s a bit more complicated than that, as lots of layers depend on and interact with each other, but it’s an idea worth investigating in the future.

The system works purely on PNG images. I understand you’re not having the time to play around with it, but thought I’d mention there’s a way to try out new ideas in case you are interested. 😉

[Kelemelan]

I’m quite confident you’d be able to do what you want with linux soft.

So far, I only used gimp or krita where sade was using photoshop for instance and it worked okay so… well, as far as I understand the developer pack (once again, I didn’t try my luck there but still), there’s no big trouble I can foresee on your end.

If something arises, it should be on LBandy’s side

Or maybe I’m completely confused, I’m just a bystander here… 😉

[neilmoore_2000]

I think this is a great idea for a future release even if this meant the clothes and body parts within weren’t compatible with the original “front on” release’s. I like the idea that within a game, the “front on” depiction of a character might be what you see on their character card, but where that character is also depicted in an event card, seeing this character depicted from a different angle, (interacting with other characters or performing some kind of generic action for instance) would produce a more pleasing/realistic aesthetic.

My main use for the ePic Character Generator (when I commit to it) will be for the characters in the boardgame I’m working on. So if I’ve purchased the Pro Bundles, does this entitle me to make my own version of a character generated by them, but with a different aspect (ie from behind) and still legally utilise it within the game? Or in other words does the copyright/license using characters generated by the ePic Character Generator cover other versions of such a generated character made outside of the ePic Character Generator?

3D character models I’ve purchased the license to use have this one great advantage over those made in the ePic Character Generator, ie they can be positioned at any angle before the final shot of them is taken for incorporation in the game. But the sheer range of characters the ePic Character Generator can potentially make, makes this program a very likely purchase for me when I move onto creating characters for the game. I’ll be even more interested in it if I’m free to also make differently angled versions of characters made with the ePic generator or if a future pack might explore such a possibility?

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