The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

Rudolfson · **Posted:** Sat May 01, 2010 6:43 am

I game in 1st person, and other peoples hair is... well theirs.
I'd rather /sit was not an emote but that it was possible to sit in first person. So that I could sit watching a speach or people trying to get onto an elevator, or whatever, without having a out of body experience. Then I would only be pleasantly reminded of my looks during game actions. I give my hair an odd tint so that friends can recognize me more easily in a crowd.

kaelisebonrai · **Joined:** Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:14 pm **Posts:** 902

vidroth wrote:

Nalates wrote:

Punk Hair Styles seem to be what most people complain about. There are people that like the bright colors and spikes. I've seen some 12 or 18 inch (24 - 36cm +/-) spikes. Where does one person's presences override another's?

If we're looking for hair justifications: when you couldn't put it under a safety helmet, it's no longer something a person could wear to explore a cave. I'm fine with that as a hair restriction... "must be able to wear a safety helmet, like an actual person has to do when he/she leaves the visitor trail in a cave."

But I'm not trying to micromanage things to my arbitrary narrow preferences. I'm just trying to avoid running into video game characters. As long as the avatar looks like an actual human being who might be able to explore strange and dangerous places, I'm OK with personal style.

Black leather Village People biker outfits with chains? Knock yourself out. Plate armor and bat wings? No thank you.

Smiley-face sunglasses? Sure. Purple skin and fangs? Pass.

Clown makeup with the puffy red nose? Ummmm. Er... what was the question again?

May I note, however, we may be in a cavern, but, none of us are ever required to wear a safety helmet. =P

And the only places we enter that are cave-like, are D'ni locations, really. And all of those were part of a cave system that has been inhabited for 10,000 years. By people without safety helmets.

Also, in uru, as much as many of us wish it were different, we *never* go direct from the surface to D'ni. =)

So, needing the hair to fit under a safety helmet? uh, sorry, not a valid requirement to stop things from being included in uru.

For one thing, i'd be much more worried about going barefoot. Well, that's an option we /do/ get.

Requiring that the outfit be safe, well, that rule is already broken, by cyan. Sorry.

vidroth · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 3:25 am **Posts:** 869

kaelisebonrai wrote:

So, needing the hair to fit under a safety helmet? uh, sorry, not a valid requirement to stop things from being included in uru.

At some point we surrender to the video game, clearly. It's a matter of taste, I suppose, where one draws the line.

I do note that for all the explorers' supposed safety, there are still plenty of danger barricades around, and should they ever return, the ResEngs always are careful to wear good caving helmets with lights.

"Valid" requirements? It's a game. There aren't any "valid" requirements, other than the ones people make for having fun. I don't think mine are unreasonable. Fortunately for those who want green skin and elephant trunks, I'm not in charge of anything.

JulyForToday · **Joined:** Fri Nov 10, 2006 9:00 pm **Posts:** 13

Simplest solution is that eventually when the source code is released, there can be some coordinated (and regulated) fan work on improving aspects of the avatar system, and adding customizations.

I do find my biggest frustration with the avatars (on the gamer side, as opposed to the developer side) to be the lack of customizations. I'm not big on changing outfits like crazy, but the face and hair are really where it hurts. Granted the game is from 2003, but there are other games now that are such worlds ahead of this one in the area of making believable avatars that can look pretty close to the person they are representing. But this game is U - R - U. I personally am tired of not being able to have a simple flip cut after all these years. I've always felt my avatar never really looked like ME. And everyone else' avatars look the same. It's hard if not impossible to tell anyone apart by their face, which is bad in terms of realism. So if we ever get the option as fan developers, I'm fully behind improving and enhancing the avatar system.

Another thing: has anyone been able to import an actual avatar into Blender? Not a custom avatar (like Yeesha or Rand) but like the generic male and female models? I vaguely remember trying to import them, but they would crash not matter what. It would be nice to have those to play around with, maybe start making customizations (just to see what can be made).

The Importance of Avatar Hair ... not so?

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