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Original post by Anonymous Poster i really dont see a problem here.

The problem isn't that big. I'm more interested in perspectives and opinions. Honestly, if it were only up to me, I'd go with full topless nudity. But I'm afraid of the negative consequences. People who dislike such nudity may be offended, and people who enjoy such nudity may be distracted.

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why dont you just have a top/bra which is worn when your character has no item in the armor-slot ? and if they dress a new thing, then drop it and make them wear the new thing. i cant see why there shouldn't be a standard-outfit or sth. she can take it off when she wears something else.

That was my #3 solution. It's certainly one of the things I'm considering the most.

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Original post by yapposai you could put a billboard with pixelated effect/black box on the naughty bits when they are exposed (similar to the sims, I think). then each clothing will have some flags "blnCoverLowerParts, blnCoverHigherParts" to know if the billboard/s will be shown. This can allow for more exotic costumes (like ermm... I dunno assless chaps?)[grin].

That would work really well, too. I mean the censorship bars, not the chaps [lol]

A new list for the solution to nudity:

A. Innocent nudity.
B. Innocent nudity and topless dancers (keep getting flashes of Total Recall).
C. Base-model under-clothing.
D. Hidden under-garment items that auto-equip when needed.
E. Have characters hide sensitive areas with hands.
F. Hide sensitive areas with censorship bars.

I've considered the possibilities of ApochPiQ's suggestion (E), and realize that I can take it pretty far. My character animations are subdivided into 'postures'. Such as a posture for standing with a club, standing with an SMG, crouching with an SMG, and walking with a briefcase. Some postures are not capable of performing all activities. It would not be difficult at all to create a posture for walking nude while covering up with hands. I actually kind of like the idea. Instead of having a fake-feeling character who doesn't mind running around blowing things up in their underwear, the character will be useless (no hands) until some clothing is given to them. But then that little fantasy comes crashing down in a blaze of destruction when I realize I need to deal with situations where they get attacked or killed. I guess it could happen, by chance, that the nice lady's hands land in the right place when she falls.

I consider the underwear option the best, it seems the most natural to me. If there were some kind of censored-boxes or the sims-style mosaic, it would feel somewhat unnatural and artificial.

You didn't tell us much about how the clothing system works internally, but I think that having some kind of special undergarnment item would be a lot of work, why can't you just make the "naked" texture have some underwear. IMO, that's the least work with the most natural result.

-Riku

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Original post by Kest B. Innocent nudity and topless dancers (keep getting flashes of Total Recall).

With 6 breasts, right? :)

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Instead of having a fake-feeling character who doesn't mind running around blowing things up in their underwear, the character will be useless (no hands) until some clothing is given to them. But then that little fantasy comes crashing down in a blaze of destruction when I realize I need to deal with situations where they get attacked or killed. I guess it could happen, by chance, that the nice lady's hands land in the right place when she falls.

Would you really opt for covering your private parts instead of shooting back if you were in a combat situation without clothes? Sounds quite silly to me.

To me, separate underwear clothing that's swapped out when you are wearing something else sounds like the best option. It's used in The Sims for example (in addition to them being nude in the shower) and works well with dresses that reveal the back or cleavage.

I think most games with high definition models these days use your #3 solution. The "base" models are completely naked but don't have nipples/genitals, barbie and ken style. But you never actually see these base models, because when you remove the clothing, underwear gets auto-equipped. It's the best solution if you want to avoid nudity; as you have figured out, it's the only way to have a decent looking bra/underwear and still be able to have backless dresses or thigh-slit skirts. Though, as you said, it's more work.

Alternatively, if your characters all have the same skin color, you could make the underwear a flat texture, and then have the backless dress include a skin-textured back that covers up the bra line. Or, you could do what some modders do when faced with this problem; create multiple copies of the backless dress, one for each skin color, with the different back skins on each, and then use a script to determine via race which to equip.

I've been working out how #3 could work and have come up with something that should be incredibly simple. Basically mix it with #2. To make a long explaination short, I can model the under-garments onto the character's flesh model, but keep them as a seperated texture subset. That subset can then be turned on and off at will, without any resource loading, without equipping or unequipping anything, without any additional game-engine changes. So the clothing will not be actual clothing objects, but an extension to their body. As far as the game is concerned, the characters will be naked.

It sounds very easy, but such things rarely are.

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Original post by Selkrank Quote: Original post by Kest B. Innocent nudity and topless dancers (keep getting flashes of Total Recall). With 6 breasts, right? :)

Haha, I think it was 3, and I think she was a prostitute. Maybe there were no topless dancers. I need to watch it again for inspiration anyway. Still, thinking of topless dancers in clubs with psychodelic disco lights and remixed 60's techno music gives me a huge sci-fi feeling for some odd reason that I can't even begin to comprehend.

Come to think of it, it does make sense. I can't think of any sci-fi games that haven't had those disco clubs. Although none of the dancers were half naked.

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Would you really opt for covering your private parts instead of shooting back if you were in a combat situation without clothes? Sounds quite silly to me.

Well, she (or he, but mostly she) wouldn't be alone, so they could easily hide or get behind one of the other footmen.

I appreciate all of the feedback.

For the topless issue in general, if you want to have partial or total nudity depends on whether it adds or subtracts from the world you are creating, and if you want that type of publicity for your game.

Another interesting issue is the fact that it is a roll playing game, and there are a few forth wall issues there.
One is that the NPC's may not want the player character to see them topless. Thus the player shouldn't be able to see them topless. So a #3 would be a good idea to prevent that.
Another is that the a male player could be roleplaying a female (or vica verca). Is it right to let him oggle him/herself? Or to have the players avatar detached from the player by being embarrassed about having the player see her topless? It's certainly a weird issue.

There are interface issues as well. What if the player wants to sell the armour the character is wearing?
KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights gave the player the choice of wearing nothing (with automatic underwear), which broke immersion and realism a because there was no role play reason for the characters to be in their underwear (apart from the torture scenes). The other option was for the player to manually equip clothes with no armour or gameplay value, which players didn't do because it was too much effort to put on.
Fallout, on the other hand, automatically clothed players who removed all of their armour. On one hand I suppose it was unrealistic that the player couldn't chose to strip down if they so desired. On the other hand, the player was often in situations where they would never walk around in the buff, so perhaps it was more realistic to just not let them. But if your game has sexual content then walking around in your underwear may be entirely appropriate at some times, but not others. Would you have the interface detect these times?

There are certainly a lot of issues regarding taste, immersion, realism, and the versitility of the system that you chose, with definate trade offs for each. I don't see a system that would work well in every situation.

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Original post by Kest But I'm afraid of the negative consequences. People who dislike such nudity may be offended, and people who enjoy such nudity may be distracted.

As you should be.

Here is how I see it:

1. you keep full nudity, potentially risking the selling of your game, all it gains you is potentially some kudos points with certain gamers (18+)

2. you simply make the characters wear underwear when not clothed in somthing else, no one is offended, it won't affect your distribution.


In short, is your game about nudity? if not, don't bring on all the problems that
nudity can bring to a game unless there is a VERY VERY good reason for it, just
throwing it in on a whim could end up being a stupid and costly feature.

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Original post by CIJolly For the topless issue in general, if you want to have partial or total nudity depends on whether it adds or subtracts from the world you are creating, and if you want that type of publicity for your game.

and

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Original post by EDI In short, is your game about nudity? if not, don't bring on all the problems that nudity can bring to a game unless there is a VERY VERY good reason for it, just throwing it in on a whim could end up being a stupid and costly feature.

I'm just not sure I understand why such a different outlook is taken on games than movies. I am indeed making my game in the spirit of R-rated sci-fi and horror movies, so my project's relationship is very close. Creating an R-rated sci-fi or horror movie these days is a good thing (at least in the US), as most people see anything less as not-daring enough to be worth their time. It's very strange that designers are not pushing games to be at this equal. Instead, we seem to be frightened into submission. Now that games actually have rating systems, you would think we could move on and stop worrying about such things. Games even have the massive added bonus of being capable of disabling nudity or bad language if someone is offended by it, making it seem like games would be even more daring than movies, not less.

Was The Matrix: Reloaded about nudity? Not even close, but there were still topless ladies dancing in Zion.

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Original post by CIJolly Another interesting issue is the fact that it is a roll playing game, and there are a few forth wall issues there. One is that the NPC's may not want the player character to see them topless. Thus the player shouldn't be able to see them topless. So a #3 would be a good idea to prevent that.

That's a very good point. I suppose that in such a case, trading clothing without swapping them would not be realistic. In a real life scenario, the character would be handed new clothing, go somewhere and change, then return with the old clothing. But this could become a serious annoyance in a situation where you might want to modify or use the clothing temporarily. You would have to buy temporary clothing for the character to wear while you fiddled with it. So yeah, #3 is needed.

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Another is that the a male player could be roleplaying a female (or vica verca). Is it right to let him oggle him/herself? Or to have the players avatar detached from the player by being embarrassed about having the player see her topless? It's certainly a weird issue.

Ogling is actually something I want to avoid. In my opinion, nude dancers are far less interesting (distractive) than seeing normal every-day ladies (well, normal everyday sci-fi warrior ladies) in the nude. I really would not want to force such things every time armor needs changed. We're talking polygons here, but that doesn't necessarily make them less distractive.

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There are interface issues as well. What if the player wants to sell the armour the character is wearing? KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights gave the player the choice of wearing nothing (with automatic underwear), which broke immersion and realism a because there was no role play reason for the characters to be in their underwear (apart from the torture scenes).

Yet another extremely good point. Fortunately for me, my (future) world will be pretty sleazy anyway. There will be many people wearing revealing clothing, so someone in underwear won't stick out very much at all.

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The other option was for the player to manually equip clothes with no armour or gameplay value, which players didn't do because it was too much effort to put on.

[off topic so feel free to skip over]

This serves some purpose in my project. One is similar to Hitman, where the player and his lackies can dress up to take on certain missions. Business suits or janitor outfits, whatever the player thinks may work the best to get a job done. Clothing style attributes are scripted, and so NPC reactions can change depending on the levels of such attributes in certain situations. That means the player "fits in" differently depending on the levels of those certain values.

The style elements also control how you are initially judged by NPC characters, which controls how you must deal with them. A character wearing beach shorts and a T-shirt is seen as friendly and non-threatening, where armor or a business suit will put them on edge. This will need to be reflected in the player's dialog choices. A businessman will usually not get as much of what he wants by trying to be friendly, where a beach dude will not get his way often by trying to cut professional deals. It doesn't really limit gameplay, but it changes how well your dialog works when you play the role of your character.

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Fallout, on the other hand, automatically clothed players who removed all of their armour.

Fallout was forced to create entirely seperate resources for each armor. Which is most likely why armor wasn't a big part of the game. Every single armor type had to be rendered for every single frame of animation using every single weapon. That's rough. We were lucky to get the amount of armor we did.

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But if your game has sexual content then walking around in your underwear may be entirely appropriate at some times, but not others. Would you have the interface detect these times?

There won't be any sexual content. Or at least not sex itself. But having NPCs react to half-nudeness is actually something I still need to work on. I would need to infuse body parts with clothing style attributes, but those need to mean different things depending on how much of the body is exposed. I'll likely save this headache for later.

[Edited by - Kest on September 25, 2006 8:13:34 AM]

For this sort of thing you could take cues from the toy figurine industry, and how they deal with nudity: lack of detail. Consider "flesh colored empty areas" where other details would normally be found.

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Original post by Kest I'm just not sure I understand why such a different outlook is taken on games than movies. I am indeed making my game in the spirit of R-rated sci-fi and horror movies, so my project's relationship is very close. Creating an R-rated sci-fi or horror movie these days is a good thing (at least in the US), as most people see anything less as not-daring enough to be worth their time. It's very strange that designers are not pushing games to be at this equal. Instead, we seem to be frightened into submission. Now that games actually have rating systems, you would think we could move on and stop worrying about such things. Games even have the massive added bonus of being capable of disabling nudity or bad language if someone is offended by it, making it seem like games would be even more daring than movies, not less. Was The Matrix: Reloaded about nudity? Not even close, but there were still topless ladies dancing in Zion.

And damn-near everybody found that scene stupid and annoying as fuck. It felt like nudity/orgy shoed in for the sake of being risqué. Is that how you want people to feel about your game? "It was cool, but what the fuck was with all the gratuitous nudity?"

Add the underwear. Be creative and make the underwear funny, like having an extremely tough character have boxer shorts with superheroes or smiley faces or hearts on them.

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That's a very good point. I suppose that in such a case, trading clothing without swapping them would not be realistic. In a real life scenario, the character would be handed new clothing, go somewhere and change, then return with the old clothing. But this could become a serious annoyance in a situation where you might want to modify or use the clothing temporarily. You would have to buy temporary clothing for the character to wear while you fiddled with it. So yeah, #3 is needed.

It's a game. Stop getting so hung up on realism and add some abstraction. For instance, when you hand the character new clothes, a screen can come into view from the side, then swing away to reveal the character in the new clothes. It's sci-fi, after all, so what does "realism" even mean?

Seriously, this isn't a big deal at all.