Graphical avatars (split from accessibility of interface)

[Dudel]

I've done 21.6% in 5 days. (Not counting jewelry since I'm not sure if it would make sense to include those since they so small). If I keep up this speed it should be done in about 18 days.

Wow Seko your a beast... I ment that in a good way. Also I think jewelry would be best left in text format for the same reason as you state. Just don't forget any headgear. No matter how stupid or silly that headgear may be. (Crown of Roses... seriously?)

[Piscator]

If you would send me the resized dummies we could finish even earlier.

edit: Resized them myself. You just increased the height of the female dummy, right?

[Idriveayugo]

Seko has my vote for Cantrian of the year

[Idriveayugo]

So how is the work coming along?

[BlueNine]

Thought I'd just chime in with a big ol' "yaay" for this idea

[SekoETC]

I haven't had time to work on this for a while but all of the shoes are done, while skirts, pants and undershirts/underwear are almost done (each category missing just one item). Socks are missing two items. Piscator is working on hats.

What haven't been started yet are jackets (except for the hemp coat), gloves, robes, masks, scarves, dresses, belts, cloaks, vests, aprons and jewelry. So there's still plenty of stuff that needs to be done.

One thing that has proved a bit problematic is making it so that stuff doesn't flow over the "seams" of items that are on top of it. Cantr hides some stuff like underwear when it's covered by some items, but for example socks should be visible even if shoes or pants are worn, and it has been difficult to make them narrow enough. Also leg warmers are in the same category with socks and they might be worn on top of pants in real life but the categories most likely have to have a fixed stacking order.

[Piscator]

I'm also a little stuck right now and there are other things I have to do first, so I won't be of much help the next few weeks.

[Andu]

Seko, are you doing it with layers or something similar, as it easy if things like socks allways goes under everything else, and then goes uppwards trought the cloth categories.

[SekoETC]

Yeah, layers are used. I should've originally started from the bottom but instead I started from the shirts and pants, so I've had to go back and widen some of them in order to avoid shoes and socks spilling over the edges of pants. Also with corsets they don't actually make the waistline any thinner since then the base of the avatar would be showing through, so I've had to create an illusion of thinning through use of shadows.

(Sample. Breaking gender norms here.)

One thing that might be considered (not now but later on after all the clothes are done and if it's discovered that there's annoying spillage) would be separating the cuffs and fronts of shirts from the sleeves and other parts and displaying only this when a shirt is worn under a coat, that way there wouldn't be a need to avoid drawing fluffy sleeves just because spillage might ensue. And similar modular building with other categories as well.

Edited to add a visual.

[Dudel]

Wow Seko your doing a great job with these. I am excited to see the full complete set up implemented. Your doing such a great job.

Everyone who's doing a good job should be told as such.

Also Question about hats and stuff... are doing those or are you leaving them as jewlery since my brain says a majority of them are.

[SekoETC]

Piscator is doing them. And jewelry might be done in the end, there's just the problem that it might be so small that it doesn't show.

[QueenofBlades]

God Seko can I just say you rock? I mean you did this in like *plkj*. It's scary.

[SekoETC]

Thanks. I started working on it again yesterday after a pause and it shouldn't take too long. I think now I'll draw the outlines first to check that stuff doesn't spill through seams and only add texture and masks once the outline is final. That way if I need to make fixes, it'll require less work.

[joo]

If you have a problem with each clothing type being restricted to a certain layering order, I suggest you assign each individual item of clothing a specific z-index. Items with a higher index would appear on top of lower items, and if two items have the same index they will be layered arbitrarily (depending on the method used to render them) -- of course, ideally , no two items should be able to appear having the same value.

Imagine it as a top-down 3D view with the z-index representing distance from the ground.

You could start with setting default indexes for each clothing type, maybe in multiples of 10 to give yourself freedom to make minor adjustments later, for example like the following:

Cloaks - 0
Underwear - 10
Shoes - 20
Trousers - 20
Shirts - 30
Dresses - 40
Jackets/Tops - 50

Then if a certain type of boot goes over the pants, set its value to something like 25.


This could be used directly in CSS positioning, if the images are to be composited on the client-side, or to order a list of components when buidling a server-side image using PHP or what have you.

[SekoETC]

It would be greatly helpful if the z-order wasn't limited by category, but there are hundreds of clothing articles and if each of them has a specific z-order, where would that information be stored? It would need to be added to the database. Although in the long run that might be a good option since the other two options are a) strictly limiting each item to a layer defined by it's type and leading into some awkward-looking things or b) having exceptions included in the code itself ("if (itemid==n) object.style.zIndex='1'"), which would make adding further exceptions more difficult.