Question about the HeroEngine

[Ouardajason]

Is there a reason why we cant have hair while wearing a hoodie? I tried to compare other games that used the hero engine, like elder scrolls online.. and I'm seeing the same problem.. well some what.. at-least they were able to show bangs.

 

is there a known problem with the hero engine?

 

 

sorry on android phone =)

[Eshvara]

I don't think it's the engine, Vaylin has hair under her hood. I think they just don't want to make every hair style change its appearance under a hoodie. It's quite some work unless it all turns into one single style. Which honestly is still better than being bald. Edited November 5, 2016 by Eshvara

[AllisonLightning]

Is there a reason why we cant have hair while wearing a hoodie? I tried to compare other games that used the hero engine, like elder scrolls online.. and I'm seeing the same problem.. well some what.. at-least they were able to show bangs.

 

is there a known problem with the hero engine?

 

 

sorry on android phone =)

 

I doubt it- since there are head pieces you can use to hide the hood- it's not too complex as far as that's concerned and you've got species in the roster who disable the hood by default. As far as hair in the mood, it'd require a whole roster than just a default hair for female and male characters shown underneath which they should at least do.

[LordSkyKnight]

Elder Scrolls Online doesn't use the hero engine. They dumped it during development and used an in house engine for their released product.

[Tessie]

Is there a reason why we cant have hair while wearing a hoodie? I tried to compare other games that used the hero engine, like elder scrolls online.. and I'm seeing the same problem.. well some what.. at-least they were able to show bangs.

 

is there a known problem with the hero engine?

 

 

sorry on android phone =)

 

ESO doesn't use HeroEngine the same way that SW:TOR does. From what I read it was used for prototyping and design, but in the end they're using a different engine for graphics.

[KyaniteD]

I don't think it's the engine, Vaylin has hair under her hood. I think they just don't want to make every hair style change its appearance under a hoodie. It's quite some work unless it all turns into one single style. Which honestly is still better than being bald.

 

I agree in both points. Some default "hood hairstyle" (keeping the chosen hair color) would be better than being bald.

 

I suspect hoods and caps use something like the same "outfit slot" as hair. A "hood hairstyle" (and maybe a "cap hairstyle") might be feasible, but no more. They would have to adjust all the different hoods and caps to that, for 8 body types, if they also had to consider all the individual hairstyles, it would be quite a lot of work, both for existing items and new ones. (And the bug reports forum could get its own sub-forum for "broken hood hair".)

[dr_mike]

Elder Scrolls Online doesn't use the hero engine. They dumped it during development and used an in house engine for their released product.

 

Actually their story development team used it to write out the story and then they recreated it on their own platform.

 

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-Doesn-t-Use-the-Hero-Engine-Developer-Says-272344.shtml

 

And swtor is a fork of HeroEngine from eons ago. BioWare developers haven't pulled code from HeroEngine for nearly as long.

 

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1070748-President-and-COO-of-HeroEngine-comments-on-SWTOR-coding!

 

I have a HeroEngine license although it's no longer installed. If the poster really wants, I can sit here for most of the afternoon to see how it handles hoods and hair if he or she wants me too.

 

edit: A quick google shows that HeroEngine handles hair as at least 2 separate images, one of them being bangs. If that's correct, looks like it possibly could.

Edited November 5, 2016 by dr_mike

[Darcor]

Is there a reason why we cant have hair while wearing a hoodie? I tried to compare other games that used the hero engine, like elder scrolls online.. and I'm seeing the same problem.. well some what.. at-least they were able to show bangs.

 

is there a known problem with the hero engine?

 

 

sorry on android phone =)

 

Ok, I’ll try to give my 2credits.

 

The reason, I think, is kind of simple. As you probably know, each hairstyle is its own model. That’s the reason you can change it on the character select screen. The character underneath is still bald, and the hairstyle is place on top.

 

The hoods are scaled to a character without hairstyle (since characters are bald when in hood), depending on what body type you’re using (as far as I can tell). If hair was kept underneath, it’d clip through the hood (like some helmets do) since it’d be difficult to scale to hair as they have different heights, widths etc.

Now, why don’t they add new models for hair that display when the hood his on? Let’s use the human hairstyles for example (they’re shared across a number of species after all.)

 

There 34 human hairstyles for males if you count the unlockable ones. 29 if you don’t. Now, afaik know the original hairstyles had no overlaps between genders, and females have 44 without unlocks, so that’d be 29+44 hairstyles for vanilla humans alone. That means that they’d to make ~70 new models, hairstyles (since it’d likely be difficult cutting them up and have them look good, and even then it’d be a lot of work) for humans alone.

 

To that we can add that there are at least 3 different styles off hood in the game, ranging from tight (some inquisitor outfits) to very wide (temple guardian robes). Likely, these can’t use the same model. So then they have to, in actuality, make 70*3 new hairstyles (210, and again just for humans). This also means that they have to make 70+ new models every time they make a new hood type. It also means that every new hairstyle added to the game will in fact be at least four hairstyles (one for without hood, three for each type) at least. Now add the Cathar hairs, with two genders.

 

Perhaps it’s not surprising this is not something they wish to do. It’s a lot of work, after all. It might be that cutting the existing hairstyles up –could- be done and that it –would- be easier, but I’m still pretty sure the work would outweigh any benefits. So… That’s likely why.

 

That said, I see no reason the ‘hood toggle’ idea some people had wouldn’t work since Togruta (to my knowledge) already do this with any robe they were, so the functionality is already there.

 

TL;DR: Too much work, because reasons stated above.

Edited November 5, 2016 by Darcor

[dr_mike]

Perhaps it’s not surprising this is not something they wish to do. It’s a lot of work, after all. It might be that cutting the existing hairstyles up –could- be done and that it –would- be easier, but I’m still pretty sure the work would outweigh any benefits. So… That’s likely why.

 

Agreed but again it appears current Hero Engine does the hair as multiple pieces. It would be interesting to see when they added that feature in and it if was before or after the fork.

 

Probably afterwards.

 

What I'm seeing - http://hewiki.heroengine.com/wiki/Parts_Files

[Jamtas]

What you are playing on has little resemblance to the Hero Engine. You are delaing with the Hero/SWTOR engine that has been duct taped and rigged beyond recognition.

[BenKatarn]

I don't think it's the engine, Vaylin has hair under her hood.

 

That's because she was designed that way. Same thing with Nico Okarr. This hat and hair are the same mesh.

[Darkside]

Agreed but again it appears current Hero Engine does the hair as multiple pieces. It would be interesting to see when they added that feature in and it if was before or after the fork.

 

Probably afterwards.

 

What I'm seeing - http://hewiki.heroengine.com/wiki/Parts_Files

 

Swtor was pre-any fork. They took an alpha version of the hero engine, licensed it from Hero, and then modified it further. Early versions of hero were horribly limited and bug filled to boot, so we have a coding mess from the original devs.

 

The current dev team struggles with it since they didn't write the code. Hence the sheer amount of retarded bugs and limitations that we have today. It's also why we struggle to get anything really new, design wise and each year we fall further behind other mmos.

[KindlyOne]

Swtor was pre-any fork. They took an alpha version of the hero engine, licensed it from Hero, and then modified it further. Early versions of hero were horribly limited and bug filled to boot, so we have a coding mess from the original devs.

 

The current dev team struggles with it since they didn't write the code. Hence the sheer amount of retarded bugs and limitations that we have today. It's also why we struggle to get anything really new, design wise and each year we fall further behind other mmos.

 

This sounds about right.

 

Add to it a bunch of short-cut decisions due to budget (or going over budget) constraints, a bunch of last minute hacks to both engine code and design variables/scripting, and you've got an MMO that is a nightmare to maintain.

 

I do sympathise with the dev team and the live team running things, but I also sympathise with the players who have to put up with these bugs, glitches, and lower quality standards.

[KindlyOne]

The hoods are scaled to a character without hairstyle (since characters are bald when in hood), depending on what body type you’re using (as far as I can tell). If hair was kept underneath, it’d clip through the hood (like some helmets do) since it’d be difficult to scale to hair as they have different heights, widths etc.

Now, why don’t they add new models for hair that display when the hood his on? Let’s use the human hairstyles for example (they’re shared across a number of species after all.)

 

There 34 human hairstyles for males if you count the unlockable ones. 29 if you don’t. Now, afaik know the original hairstyles had no overlaps between genders, and females have 44 without unlocks, so that’d be 29+44 hairstyles for vanilla humans alone. That means that they’d to make ~70 new models, hairstyles (since it’d likely be difficult cutting them up and have them look good, and even then it’d be a lot of work) for humans alone.

 

To that we can add that there are at least 3 different styles off hood in the game, ranging from tight (some inquisitor outfits) to very wide (temple guardian robes). Likely, these can’t use the same model. So then they have to, in actuality, make 70*3 new hairstyles (210, and again just for humans). This also means that they have to make 70+ new models every time they make a new hood type. It also means that every new hairstyle added to the game will in fact be at least four hairstyles (one for without hood, three for each type) at least. Now add the Cathar hairs, with two genders.

 

Perhaps it’s not surprising this is not something they wish to do. It’s a lot of work, after all. It might be that cutting the existing hairstyles up –could- be done and that it –would- be easier, but I’m still pretty sure the work would outweigh any benefits. So… That’s likely why.

 

Nice try, but I doubt it's that simple.

 

They don't have to map one-to-one like you're suggesting. The current solution, in fact, is all-to-one (bald being the one in this case.) They could use a look-up table for each hair style. Styles that are mostly bald map to bald; styles that are mostly short map to short-under-hood style; anything longer maps to longer-under-hood style. Additional hair meshes needed? Two.

 

What about different hoods you say? At worst, add another couple of meshes. It's hardly the seventy plus meshes you're talking about.

 

What I'm trying to say is this: if they really wanted to, they'd add it. The mesh count isn't the deciding factor here. I don't know what the real reason for not having a better hair arrangement for hoods is, but it's likely more complicated than we know.

 

My guess? It's a combination of game engine decisions that limit current changes, art direction on how things should look in the game, internal politics between the teams within Bioware, and budget constraints/resource scheduling. I won't go into details as to what these may be, unless you want me to.

[Andryah]

Is there a reason why we cant have hair while wearing a hoodie? I tried to compare other games that used the hero engine, like elder scrolls online.. and I'm seeing the same problem.. well some what.. at-least they were able to show bangs.

 

is there a known problem with the hero engine?

 

 

sorry on android phone =)

 

 

Nothing to do with the engine in my view. It's to avoid a wide range of clipping issues I think between the various hair styles of the races and the different hood/helmet designs. Given how picky some players are and how much they complain about clipping in this game, I think this is a prudent move by the studio.

 

Sometimes simplification is the best approach to something. This is one of them.