Tennogen Skin going Universal

[Bacl]

Warframe has a very complexe but cleaver unified or universal system allowing you to swap animations on the fly in the Arsenal.

I would assume that this is possible by following a strict rigging pattern and the same rules do apply to Tennogen skins as well since you can swap animation using those extra skjns and enjoy the compatibility.

Now thats out of the way, why not make Tennogen skins Universal?

The compatibility is there and some skins would greatly gain in popularity since some true master pieces are bound to rather dissapointing frames. This would nt be a gamebreaker and it would be a good way to encourage players to invest in a skin they truly like even if the warframe behind it is not to their taste.

 

What do you guys think?

 

 

Naysayers incoming!

[Ascythian]

Bad idea. 

 

Also not really the right place for such a discussion. 

Edited April 13, 2019 by Ascythian

[(PSN)lokaspoka]

they can share helmets if the rigging between frames are identical but skin na mesh are to different

[Zahnny]

I read the thread and thought an artist was giving away tennogen for free.

A man can dream...

A man can dream...

[Nukesnipe]

6 hours ago, Zahnny said:

I read the thread and thought an artist was giving away tennogen for free.

A man can dream...

A man can dream...

I read it and thought it was talking about Tennogen skins getting added to console versions.

I'm still not quite sure what OP wants.

[(PSN)lokaspoka]

15 hours ago, Nukesnipe said:

I'm still not quite sure what OP wants.

my homie wants helmets to be shared between warframes

thats a possibility see as the stalkers group

frost,excal,obern all share the same looking stalker helmet

[Nukesnipe]

On 2019-04-16 at 3:48 PM, (PS4)lokaspoka said:

my homie wants helmets to be shared between warframes

thats a possibility see as the stalkers group

frost,excal,obern all share the same looking stalker helmet

The Acolytes are also a specific enemy faction and the Stalker helmet is the unique identifier for that that shows that these Warframes are Stalker related.

Helmets are usually the most distinctive part of a Warframe's design.  Sure, there's some outliers like Valkyr's gauntlets, Titania's wings, Hildryn's thiccness or Umbra's horseshoes, but then you have Excalibur's horn, Loki's hammerhead design, Nyx or Ember's mohawks...

Sure, you can, within the limits of the engine, put Ember's helmet on Inaros.  But it would break the aesthetic and just look weird.  Therefore, they won't do it.

[MagPrime]

On 2019-04-15 at 10:46 PM, Nukesnipe said:

I read it and thought it was talking about Tennogen skins getting added to console versions.

I'm still not quite sure what OP wants.

TennoGen skins are already on consoles, have for quite sometime.

OP wants all skins to work on all Warframes though.  I wouldn't mind it, some nice skins that would look lovely on my Mag, but, rigging, meshes, etc. would have to be drastically altered for it to work and I'm not sure if it's enough of a monetary incentive to put that much work into it.

[(XBOX)Tanta Cinta]

2 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

TennoGen skins are already on consoles, have for quite sometime.

OP wants all skins to work on all Warframes though.  I wouldn't mind it, some nice skins that would look lovely on my Mag, but, rigging, meshes, etc. would have to be drastically altered for it to work and I'm not sure if it's enough of a monetary incentive to put that much work into it.

I agree, this would require so much hard work and a lot of time. 

[Lost_Cartographer]

11 minutes ago, MagPrime said:

TennoGen skins are already on consoles, have for quite sometime.

OP wants all skins to work on all Warframes though.  I wouldn't mind it, some nice skins that would look lovely on my Mag, but, rigging, meshes, etc. would have to be drastically altered for it to work and I'm not sure if it's enough of a monetary incentive to put that much work into it.

There wouldn't be new rigging or custom meshes.  From what I can gather from the OP, he wants to be able to use an Excalibur Tennogen in place of Mag, and that would mean [Tennogen] Excalibur... with Mag's power set.  At worst, some of the more extreme biologies might look a little weird if they have custom casting animations or very special gimmicks (thinking Atlas, Equinox and maybe Titania in particular) but otherwise, every Warframe and even the operators are all run on the same skeletal structure.  It's why our space kids can use all the same emotes as our Warframes.

Still, as cool as it would be... I don't see DE doing it.  The thing with class systems is that developers tend to be adamant about making sure other players know what they're dealing with at a glance.

[SirTobe]

Define "skins". I assume you mean textures, and that is certainly not compatible with different meshes in this game due to how UV maps work. That is why you see different Graxx skins for different frames, for example.

Pieces from the mesh is another thing, like the Prime details, but will have to be manually edited for every frame to fit properly, which would be very timeconsuming and is not something I'd like take priority from other upcoming content.

Switching the whole body or helmet mesh is of course possible, but that would just take away the frames identity, so no. 

[MagPrime]

15 minutes ago, Lost_Cartographer said:

There wouldn't be new rigging or custom meshes.  From what I can gather from the OP, he wants to be able to use an Excalibur Tennogen in place of Mag, and that would mean [Tennogen] Excalibur... with Mag's power set.  At worst, some of the more extreme biologies might look a little weird if they have custom casting animations or very special gimmicks (thinking Atlas, Equinox and maybe Titania in particular) but otherwise, every Warframe and even the operators are all run on the same skeletal structure.  It's why our space kids can use all the same emotes as our Warframes.

Still, as cool as it would be... I don't see DE doing it.  The thing with class systems is that developers tend to be adamant about making sure other players know what they're dealing with at a glance.

Hm, I wasn't getting that from their post.  You are right though, DE wont do anything like that, for the reasons you provided.

[(PSN)lokaspoka]

3 hours ago, Nukesnipe said:

Sure, you can, within the limits of the engine, put Ember's helmet on Inaros.  But it would break the aesthetic and just look weird.  Therefore, they won't do it.

what limits

what aesthetic 

what would look weird

what are you on about

[Nukesnipe]

13 minutes ago, (PS4)lokaspoka said:

what limits

what aesthetic 

what would look weird

what are you on about

Okay so first, I was saying they could do it within the limits of the engine.  There's nothing in the engine that's stopping DE from letting you put helmets on everything.  And for the rest, did you even read what I said?  Do you have any idea how memorable visual design works?  How important a silhouette is, or being able to identify a character at a glance?  It's why Hildryn has such poor visual design, she shares the same "big bulky" visual aesthetic with Rhino, and are difficult to tell apart at a glance.  The helmet is the most strking part of many Warframes, especially the older ones.  Excalibur and Loki, for instance, look almost identical without their helmets, they have similar body shapes and sizes, and their base skins are very unremarkable.  But their helmets are extremely distinctive, and that's carried through all their other skins.

If you swap their helmets around, suddenly you can't tell who's who without glancing at your squad roster or seeing what abilities they pull out.  Obviously with some Warframes like Nidus or Titania or Octavia, you're not making this mistake, but it's still very important to keep in mind.

And as for making skins universal... that's asinine.  It just wouldn't work, especially not on Warframes with unique parts like Octavia's Mandachord, Garuda's talons or Titania's wings.

[Umbranoir]

Yes. What Warframe needs rn is for my Valkyr to cosplay as a Rhino. Priorities. :kappa:

[(PSN)lokaspoka]

17 hours ago, Nukesnipe said:

Okay so first, I was saying they could do it within the limits of the engine.  There's nothing in the engine that's stopping DE from letting you put helmets on everything.  And for the rest, did you even read what I said?  Do you have any idea how memorable visual design works?  How important a silhouette is, or being able to identify a character at a glance?  It's why Hildryn has such poor visual design, she shares the same "big bulky" visual aesthetic with Rhino, and are difficult to tell apart at a glance.  The helmet is the most strking part of many Warframes, especially the older ones.  Excalibur and Loki, for instance, look almost identical without their helmets, they have similar body shapes and sizes, and their base skins are very unremarkable.  But their helmets are extremely distinctive, and that's carried through all their other skins.

If you swap their helmets around, suddenly you can't tell who's who without glancing at your squad roster or seeing what abilities they pull out.  Obviously with some Warframes like Nidus or Titania or Octavia, you're not making this mistake, but it's still very important to keep in mind.

And as for making skins universal... that's asinine.  It just wouldn't work, especially not on Warframes with unique parts like Octavia's Mandachord, Garuda's talons or Titania's wings.

who are you do you play warframe are you a pc player

are you ps4 player are you a xbox player are you my friend who are you

[-QUILL_PETER-]

Remember the bug where you can put any Landing Craft skin on any Landing Craft? Imagine that, but on Warframes. That's why universal Tennogen can't (and absolutely never will) be universal. It's really really not complicated and I don't understand how you even thought this was remotely viable.

Edited April 18, 2019 by -QUILL_PETER-

[MagPrime]

28 minutes ago, (PS4)lokaspoka said:

who are you do you play warframe are you a pc player

are you ps4 player are you a xbox player are you my friend who are you

...why are you changing the color of their text?

[Bioness]

While I like the idea in concept, in practice it would ruin so much of the game.

- lost of class fantasy

- lost of diversity of looks among players

- lost of money for DE and creators since you would no longer feel inclined to buy skins for different frames

- lost of excitement for new skins as they would be compared to a much larger pool rather than just the few skins on each frame

[trst]

Considering that with the way Zaw's are coded DE is currently unable to allow skins to be used on them it seems safe to assume similar restrictions would be present with frames.

Regardless of that however DE has also said that they can (and will?) eventually fix the Zaw issue thus if it existed for frames as well it might also be fixable.

 

But ultimately it would still require adding the casting animations to the rigging of every frame for every ability. Not only would that be a lot of work but would compound with future frames needing to be animated for every past ability; this is the reason we get so few "grip" types for new guns. DE was concerned over adding spear guns to the game because they required two new idle animations per frame thus increasing the work required for every future frame as well.

Also there are the issues with it making frames less unique.

So I doubt DE would ever even consider such an idea.

[Nukesnipe]

4 hours ago, (PS4)lokaspoka said:

who are you do you play warframe are you a pc player

are you ps4 player are you a xbox player are you my friend who are you

I don't see how it's relevant but this should answer your question.

4 hours ago, MagPrime said:

...why are you changing the color of their text?

It's making me think of 4chan, where "quoting" someone changes the color to green.

>like so

 

[(PSN)wintersfrozen]

So OP seams to have a bit of a misunderstanding. The way each frames mesh works isn't universal. I imagine there are some standard rigging's for animation but for the actual design of each frame they have a different set up. A bit hard to explain in technical terms (still learning this stuff myself) but to put it simply you can't just stretch a graphic from one character over another and expect it to look good. By that same effect you cant just scrunch one up and expect the same desire. Take Sayrn for example her body is drastically different from someone like Atlas. A skin that works on her would not work on him due to these factors.

1) the 3d models are not the same.

2) There mesh (how the computer knows what to put where when putting down the image we see as a skin) is going to be different to account for it.

3) Any additions made to one may/will not translate to the other in a visualy appealing since.

Helmets might be transferable but its unlikely that will happen biased on simple character design. Again though there are problems as titanias neck and say frosts neck are not the same. There is also the addition that a big part of character design is being able to tell one character from another at a glance. this is usually down with some sort of visual markings. For war frame they use Siloutees for the most part. Excal and Nidus wont be confused at a glance because there silloutees are different enough. Excal and Loki look similar but there helms are different enough to tell them apart again at a glance. Its like how you know dearth Vader from a storm trooper. Its all part of good design. Sadly good design means that things that make a character unique stay unique to that character.

 

5 hours ago, MagPrime said:

...why are you changing the color of their text?

Thank you.

 

[SilentMobius]

On 2019-04-13 at 3:32 PM, Bacl said:

Now thats out of the way, why not make Tennogen skins Universal?

This is really simple:

The mesh defines the shape

The UV map defines the mapping of the textures to the mesh

Yes, animation rigging appears to be done to a common skeleton, but that has no bearing on textures.

For a texture set to work on a mesh it needs a suitable UV map. Each Tennogen texture set is designed for only one UV map and mesh combinations it will not work at all on any other, at all, ever.

So, if you are suggesting that any Warframe should be able to use any mesh and thus any matching UV map and texture set, DE will never ever go for that, it completely ruins the character that they have fought hard to bake into each warframe.

Let alone the special meshwork that others have pointed out with Garuda, Limbo, Gara, Khora, Nidus, titania, Octavia.

Edited April 19, 2019 by SilentMobius

[Bacl]

On 2019-04-18 at 8:04 PM, (PS4)wintersfrozen said:

So OP seams to have a bit of a misunderstanding. The way each frames mesh works isn't universal. I imagine there are some standard rigging's for animation but for the actual design of each frame they have a different set up. A bit hard to explain in technical terms (still learning this stuff myself) but to put it simply you can't just stretch a graphic from one character over another and expect it to look good. By that same effect you cant just scrunch one up and expect the same desire. Take Sayrn for example her body is drastically different from someone like Atlas. A skin that works on her would not work on him due to these factors.

1) the 3d models are not the same.

2) There mesh (how the computer knows what to put where when putting down the image we see as a skin) is going to be different to account for it.

3) Any additions made to one may/will not translate to the other in a visualy appealing since.

Helmets might be transferable but its unlikely that will happen biased on simple character design. Again though there are problems as titanias neck and say frosts neck are not the same. There is also the addition that a big part of character design is being able to tell one character from another at a glance. this is usually down with some sort of visual markings. For war frame they use Siloutees for the most part. Excal and Nidus wont be confused at a glance because there silloutees are different enough. Excal and Loki look similar but there helms are different enough to tell them apart again at a glance. Its like how you know dearth Vader from a storm trooper. Its all part of good design. Sadly good design means that things that make a character unique stay unique to that character.

 

Thank you.

 

Sorry i am late for the party (final exams so my life was a tad "exciting").

 

Well to make it short: The animation in warframe or at least the stances (noble, agile and idle) are all based on a universal system, this is why you can pretty much equip any animation on any frames without too much clipping or rigging artifacts.

The other neat thing about tennogen skin is that they have to respect the original rigging model otherwise every skins from the tennogen would be subjected to massive clipping issues and aberrations, i do own a few skins already and playing around with different stances made me realize that.

Since all skins are rigged in a way to fit a universal skeleton (this what they use in MMORPG with custom made characters) that can assume any animations equipped to it and the requirements a skin as to follow to be part of the tennogen well it should in theory already be feasible.

Using my Graxx Atlas skin on Oberom for instance: Oberon with the Atlas Graxx skin is no different than having Atlas, with the Graxx skin equipped and using Oberon animation set. We can already switch things around in the current system and because of said system it should be possible to equip any skin to any warframe since the limitation of a rig and a mesh is bound to animation and well animation in this game is not that difficult to change over.

[(PSN)wintersfrozen]

16 hours ago, Bacl said:

Sorry i am late for the party (final exams so my life was a tad "exciting").

 

Well to make it short: The animation in warframe or at least the stances (noble, agile and idle) are all based on a universal system, this is why you can pretty much equip any animation on any frames without too much clipping or rigging artifacts.

The other neat thing about tennogen skin is that they have to respect the original rigging model otherwise every skins from the tennogen would be subjected to massive clipping issues and aberrations, i do own a few skins already and playing around with different stances made me realize that.

Since all skins are rigged in a way to fit a universal skeleton (this what they use in MMORPG with custom made characters) that can assume any animations equipped to it and the requirements a skin as to follow to be part of the tennogen well it should in theory already be feasible.

Using my Graxx Atlas skin on Oberom for instance: Oberon with the Atlas Graxx skin is no different than having Atlas, with the Graxx skin equipped and using Oberon animation set. We can already switch things around in the current system and because of said system it should be possible to equip any skin to any warframe since the limitation of a rig and a mesh is bound to animation and well animation in this game is not that difficult to change over.

So I think the issue comes down to a misunderstanding in the differences between a Skeletal Animation and a Mesh. Skins that we see used in tennogen only effect the Mesh as they essential replace the color of the preset model, while yes it is likely that all warframe models share the same generic skeleton the mesh or rather the 3d aspect of that skeleton is different.

"So what exactly is skeletal animation? Skeletal animation is the process of taking a skeleton, which consists of a set of interconnected bones, animating it, and then attaching the vertices of a mesh model to the skeleton. Then, when the skeleton is posed and keyframed, the vertices of the mesh go along with it. The skeleton serves as nothing more than an intuitive handle for the animation process." 1 "Skeletal animation is a technique in computer animation in which a character (or other articulated object) is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called skin or mesh) and a hierarchical set of interconnected bones (called the skeleton or rig) used to animate (pose and keyframe) the mesh." 2

Its a little hard to explain so please try to bare with me. Best way I can think of describing this is to look to dolls. If I give you say a Barbie doll and a ken doll, they can move in the same ways. they might have some slight differences in height and build but for the sake of argument that's kind of the point. (after all Atlas and Oberon do not share the same build) but the important thing to note is that Barbie's cloths aren't necessarily going to fit on Ken and vice versa. The reason for that would be the joints that allow them to move would be the skeleton while the "mesh" would be the plastic for the dolls themselves and the molding that goes into their creation. 

The clothing would be the tennogen skins in this case. As you are likely to find some items that with a bit of stretch and pull could easily work from one to another while other items wouldn't work in the slightest and would leave patches of uncovered plastic (or unfilled mesh for the game). With the amount of work it would take to make some skins work on all frames it would be more of a hassle then its worth.