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Extending Transmogrification
🕑 Added 2021-04-28 08:48:53 +0000 UTC(These ideas were bounced between The Lost Codex and myself.)
So the idea here is to make the 3d assets (called Collections in the game files) to be toggleable in the transmogrification menus. It’s easy to demand, suggest, or hope for any feature players come up with on paper; it’s another to actually design that feature in the game itself. The goal here is to utilise Blizzard’s own system and suggest a realistic feature that uses the way models and 3d components appear and function in game.
Sometimes, the extra added pieces don't fit with the rest of the transmog outfit, so it would be a nice addition to have options to disable them.
In this example, the geosets (the term used for individual 3d assets of a Collection) are separate for the wrists and the fingers. These are further separated out by left / right hand. So, you can optionally hide all parts of the hand, show all parts, show only the wrist parts, or show only the finger parts.
This functionality exists in game normally to reduce clipping with "sleeve" meshes, such as when you were a chestpiece that has long sleeves that cover the wrists. So using this capability in the transmog UI is less a question of whether or not this is possible, and more about how it can be implemented in the transmog UI. This is especially prevalent in armour such as the Blood Elf heritage armour gloves. If you look closely, the finger parts are still left enabled while wrists are disabled, as they're separate geosets.
I did the same with pants as well. These are actually one geoset, so I did have to split these into 2 parts. I don't think doing this significantly modifies anything though. As a result, there are 4 options - disable completely, enable completely, left only, and right only. The more parts tied to the pants, the more options there are. Usually pants have at most 2-4 geosets, for thigh and shin, but sometimes they split up the knees as well and may have additional "dress" parts.
And of course the same with the chestpiece - the snake arm and chest jewel are separate geosets already, so it's just a matter of toggling each individually.
Additionally, not yet shown in the thread, as one may suspect by the icon on the helm and the bow, I worked on a helm hair toggle and arrow enchantment. I've also worked on a quiver slot, as well as a position slot.
First I'll start with the hair. Many helms will hide hair, but not all hairstyles need to be shaven. In this I've given the player more options to choose from. A player can preview how the hairstyle works in the preview frame, as well as save a hairstyle for a specific helm. What this also means is that if a player unequips a helm, their default barbershop hairstyle will be shown, but when equipping the helm, their saved hairstyle tied to that item will show. If a player has an outfit for every spec, they will have the option for each spec - and even more so if they have multiple sets of gear. This solution also resolves having to go to a barbershop and spending a large amount of gold to choose a hairstyle fitting for something like a headband.
Next is the quiver position. I personally love archery, and I may be biased here (if choosing a hunter didn't give it away). I acknowledge fully that World of Warcraft is a fantasy game, and I'm not asking for changes in a default quiver position - but there's often a debate about how video game / movie quivers look silly when on the back vs. on the hip, or even debating if quivers were used at all. I'm not really going to get into that, but rather just present a secondary option that fits well on the character model without too much clipping. In this image, I present 2 options - Hip and Back quiver. This same position I feel should also apply to weapons as well, but that will be discussed later.
In this next image, I also wanted to preview selecting the quiver individually, but it does come with a few caveats in its current iteration, and maybe solutions on how to fix them.
Currently there are a LOT of quivers that are either unused or are now "obsolete" (ie appearances made between Vanilla - Cataclysm that are no longer shown.)
Adding this option would allow for so many more options. And who knows, Blizzard may pursue this one day and then decide to add more unique quivers with unique arrow appearances, such as arrows that appear to be made out of magic. Perhaps, maybe, Blizzard could give a short little quest for Thori'dal users to explain its backstory as to why it exists and why it's unique to the Sunwell.
The caveat as I explained however is that quivers currently do not dictate the arrow appearance. And yes, arrows do have appearances - they've been uniquely tied to Bow appearances since Legion. The issue is that Bow A will be chosen, Arrow A appearance will be tied to Bow A. Quiver B will be chosen and have built-in Quiver B appearances. A quick solution is just defaulting arrow appearances to quiver, and if no quiver is chosen then it defaults to default Bow arrow appearance - job is done, and resolved. The arrow itself is a separate geoset from the bow, and is only tied via db2 database, not physically in the model so it's wholly possible to tie to quiver appearances instead. But that's also a large simplification, there are likely many other issues with this. It's not an impossible issue, but it does come with its hurdles.
Tied to the arrows is another option - allowing illusion appearances to be enchanted onto arrows to modify their appearance. This can help fill the fantasy of a Spellbow, enchanting arrows with various effects.
Referencing back to the quiver position, there's one last idea I'd like to discuss - weapon positions and bringing in cosmetic melee weapon slots. Cosmetic weapon slots are easy enough to add back in; Hunters had melee + dual wield weapon slots since Vanilla and such persisted until Mists of Pandaria removed the melee weapon slot. What I'm not asking for is to bring back melee item slots again, but instead add a purely cosmetic slot for melee weapons.
In this I display the melee weapon transmog positions (which could be applied to all classes similar to most previous options.)
Rangers have always historically been skilled in both melee and ranged combat, not "useless" in melee and usually not shooting a bow when in melee range. The Hunter should have something to swap to melee animations when within 5 yard range of the target. This just makes for an aesthetic change I feel overall would fit better for the Hunter. Mechanical precedence for this exists with the already-existing "dead zone" range of hunters in Vanilla, where at the 5 yard mark they swap weapons and animations. The numbers for damage calculation would simply be pulled from the Bow + rest of the hunter's gear as it does now, making it purely cosmetic rather than any sort of actual damage advantage.
And so that's my thoughts on extending Transmogrification for the Hunter class. Keep in mind this builds upon the idea of Class Accessories. In place of a quiver, other classes could receive things such as poison belts / throwing stars for rogues, shaman totems, druid idols, paladin librams, warlock soulshard bags, etc. If a hunter has a gun, they can select from an ammo pouch, or a bolt quiver for crossbows. This is simply going over one of the 12 classes.
Other Notes and Technical Limitations
Among other things, there should be some things stated. Some glove models are not inherently asymmetrical between left / right hands. That isn't to say they can't all be made into such, and many already exist as such (displayed in this gif below).
It's also hypothetically possible to recolour the 3d asset geosets individually from the texture it came with, but I believe that concept may be very quickly overcomplicating things, so I've chosen to simplify that aspect.
It's also currently impossible to have 2 different glove textures on the body, as the body pulls from a singular material UV texture on the body. Not to say that the body can't be split in half to pull from a different texture (the method I use for asymmetrical body textures), but I think that also overcomplicates things very quickly and may have other unintended consequences when it comes to armour textures, and it may potentially increase resource usage, as you nearly double the body textures used and pulled from.
It should also be stated, these are custom made reworks of the interface. This UI does not exist in game, and each model used was an individual render specifically posed and positioned for the purpose of each frame. It was necessary as the existing amount of transmog slots and preview frame items would not suffice. An early empty preview is shown in the image below.
Anyway, thanks for reading this writeup, I hope to collaborate further in the future and present other ideas similar to this one.
