[Suggestion/Feedback] Why not make the Void Cowl follow 'headbase'?

[Hornete]

For those who are unaware, many animations in the game were changed to have their hat layers fit more properly so that the Void Cowl does not disconnect. E.g, issues such as these (This one, unironically enough wasn't actually fixed in the recent patch, but things like Wolfgangs lift animations, jump animations, etc were)

This means that any creative animations where the hat is off the player character is removed or is (likely) going to be changed.

This seems like a very obtuse way to go around it, and I must wonder, why not make the Void Cowl follow the headbase of the player rather than their hat? (It feels like such an obvious solution that surely I'm missing something to it, but I figure I might as well write this down)

This would make the cowl conform to the matrix and rotation transformations of the headbase rather then the hat layer. It does come with it's own issues, see(Layered underneath body and offset to the right a bit too much):

But from what (limited) testing I did it seems like it would be much better to go from fixing here rather then going through many animations and working away at them only to reduce their creative movement(subjective), and make the hat layer rigid to the player model.

P.S.

If devs do decide to go this route, don't forget the electrification sprite and headbase-4!

 

[-Variant]

This'd be the best case scenario, I imagine. I am not a fan of them changing the existing animations to account for the hood in the slightest.

[-Nick-]

Any change than the one we have in the beta is a good change.

[ADM]

I really look forward to see the individual custom character eyes to return as there wouldn't be layering issues with this.

[Duck986]

That's some smart move here, I wonder why Klei didn't do that from the beginning?

[maradyne]

37 minutes ago, Duck986 said:

That's some smart move here, I wonder why Klei didn't do that from the beginning?

Hindsight is a hell of a thing.

[WhackE]

I would much prefer this over Klei having to redo/edit certain anims because of a single item.

[Chesed]

Funny story: I have a mod character who has "hats" (masks) that work like this to 1. keep them positioned correctly on his head 2. allow the masks to have unique faces. So, when I saw the Void Cowl I was like "oh! Neat! Klei did the same thing I did in my mod - it even has custom faces!" I was surprised to see how different they actually were.

I'm some random artist with too much time on my hands, not someone with a comprehensive knowledge of these things, but I've never had any glaring issues with my character's "hats" misbehaving visually, outside of mod compatibility. Not to say it's a perfect solution; just to back up your testing.

I assume there's something else about the Void Cowl preventing them from doing this, otherwise I wonder why they didn't do it originally. Or maybe my character is just complete jank and doesn't work practically, which I can believe.

Having to redo animations completely seems like more of a headache than the back of the cowl being tucked into the shirt, but I'd understand if they were relunctant to change it now, considering they have already gone to the effort to do all that work.

--

EDIT: aaand it looks like in the meanwhile, Klei's made a statement that they're still working on it, so I guess we'll see what method they end up going with in the end!

[-Variant]

On 6/13/2023 at 5:42 PM, Hornete said:

It does come with it's own issues, see(Layered underneath body and offset to the right a bit too much):

Coming back to this topic, would this not be solvable by switching around the layering?
I know a friend had done something identical a while back, following his example line here.

inst.AnimState:SetMultiSymbolExchange( "x", "y" )

Even if it's not this simple I think this is still a far favorable approach. 

[NikMik]

7 minutes ago, -Variant said:

Coming back to this topic, would this not be solvable by switching around the layering?
I know a friend had done something identical a while back, following his example line here.

inst.AnimState:SetMultiSymbolExchange( "x", "y" )

Even if it's not this simple I think this is still a far favorable approach. 

I was that friend, hi.

 

owner.AnimState:SetMultiSymbolExchange( "swap_hat", "headbase_hat/headbase" ) depending on what they use. 

[Bombobbit]

Please clay make it work like this

[Hornete]

10 hours ago, -Variant said:

Coming back to this topic, would this not be solvable by switching around the layering?
I know a friend had done something identical a while back, following his example line here.

inst.AnimState:SetMultiSymbolExchange( "x", "y" )

Even if it's not this simple I think this is still a far favorable approach. 

9 hours ago, NikMik said:

I was that friend, hi.

 

owner.AnimState:SetMultiSymbolExchange( "swap_hat", "headbase_hat/headbase" ) depending on what they use. 

Good attempt gentlemen, I'm almost proud.

However symbol exchanges are cleared when setting skins, so be sure to fix that case issue.

Perhaps my toning was off in main post, there's a million and one ways(exaggeration) to fix that layering issue, just didn't mention since the developers know what they're doing. They know of sort offsets and the what not .

If you have been using that function in your own personal mods, I would suggest going back and fixing the issue case with your mods.