Physics cloaks/capes possible in this engine?

WhyMustItBe

Seeing certain recent industry releases it occurs to me that the addition of the relatively standard physics-enabled cloaks/capes can mask even outdated graphics and animations and keep a title feeling new for many years. ESO has done a pretty good job keeping the graphics updated, but the animations are feeling a little dated at this point.

I think the addition of a new gear slot for capes/cloaks with full physics would really breathe new life into the game and add a whole new options for repeat revenue through customization.

@ZOS_GinaBruno is this something there are currently any plans to add?

Amottica

No

That is no, it would not work well with the game. Devs have already said as much.

mocap

they made IK for legs a while back, also velvet animation already exist for flags (banners?). So obviously they can make cloaks.

Needles to say that Havok physics engine perfectly supports all that stuff.

WhyMustItBe

These two comments are contradictory. One says the havok physics already in the engine CAN support them, the other says the devs say it can't.

Does anyone have a link to the devs saying it can't?

drsalvation

I'm not sure if physics themselves would work, but it doesn't mean animated capes wouldn't... maybe like sharing the argonian/khajit tail rig.

mocap

also im talking about full physic based cloaks. Now simple cloak (without rag doll physics) is just pff&meh for ESO programmers. This is basically another hip flaps, just a bit different shape and size, placed at the back + some static animation (like Khajiit tail).

And despite it is super unlikely that they will make 100x3+ motifs for new armor slot, this can use disguise slot.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

We have seen capes in game already.
In beta they had them and dropped them.
Just look at the "Breton Hero" costume and you will see why. It was horrible.
It has been quite a few years, but yes, devs said no to adding capes.
Is it time for the "No Capes" meme?? Lol
Huzzah!

Lumenn

Didn't they remove capes in beta? Clipping issues and what not? I wasn't here then but I think I remember reading that 2nd beta or some such. Breton hero costume.../shudder

WhyMustItBe

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

We have seen capes in game already.
... It was horrible!

And yet, capes and cloaks with physics remains one of the most popular Skyrim mods of all time, and virtually every modern title includes these by default. It isn't just industry standard, it is TES standard at this point, at least among the modding community. Surely Zenimax can do better than a bunch of freelancers working for, well, free?

But here's the thing. I am not inclined to accept "devs said no lol" posts without at least an effort made to post an actual link to substantiate such a claim.

Furthermore I don't understand how anyone who actually invests money in this game would NOT want to see more development and new things added to the game. Passion projects are what keep a project alive. If everything becomes too formula-driven, and people give up on innovation, that is the moment a game begins to die.

EDIT: Also who honestly cares about a little clipping? Half the outfit combinations you can make have clipping issues, and I don't hear people asking for the outfit system to be removed. Also, a lot of the costumes ZOS sells on the crown store have clipping issues out of the gate, be it different races with head shape issues on helms or whatnot. I don't really see this as a reason not to do anything.

Finedaible

The 'custom engine' which ESO is built upon is far too old to support realistic physics, let alone actual cloth physics. This is why certain styles or costumes like the Breton Hero costume have terrible 'capes' and probably also why khajiit have texture fur and pool noodle tails.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

We have seen capes in game already.
... It was horrible!

And yet, capes and cloaks with physics remains one of the most popular Skyrim mods of all time, and virtually every modern title includes these by default. It isn't just industry standard, it is TES standard at this point, at least among the modding community. Surely Zenimax can do better than a bunch of freelancers working for, well, free?

But here's the thing. I am not inclined to accept "devs said no lol" posts without at least an effort made to post an actual link to substantiate such a claim.

Furthermore I don't understand how anyone who actually invests money in this game would NOT want to see more development and new things added to the game. Passion projects are what keep a project alive. If everything becomes too formula-driven, and people give up on innovation, that is the moment a game begins to die.

EDIT: Also who honestly cares about a little clipping? Half the outfit combinations you can make have clipping issues, and I don't hear people asking for the outfit system to be removed. Also, a lot of the costumes ZOS sells on the crown store have clipping issues out of the gate, be it different races with head shape issues on helms or whatnot. I don't really see this as a reason not to do anything.

Skyrim is a SPG and uses a different engine. It's apples and oranges.
Just like how you could do underwater in Skyrim, but it's not possible in ESO.

Dagoth_Rac

It is one thing to have cape physics in a single player game like Skyrim than to have hundreds of player capes on screen in ESO. They struggled to even make capes look good in beta, to make them look good and not impact MMO performance...

ArchMikem

ESO was developed upon a modified version of the Hero Engine, I believe. Which is ten years old by now. From what I remember, ZOS attempted capes, but we don't have collision physics and it just slogged the game's performance. It was deemed not worth it. Imagine Cyrodiil, but now with a hundred capes on screen.

drsalvation

as an indie game dev myself, making cape physics is tedious enough considering the collision needed on each specific set to be adequate. If it's skin-tight armor vs layers of armor.
ESO already has separate legs and torsos so that would be a huge override, not only that, this is an MMO...
Not only would the game need to support constant physics on your own toon, but on dozens of others who are in-screen.
Maybe if the cape was client-side only, but that would mean others wouldn't be able to see your cape (to which I'd have no issues with).
But nah, it just feels highly unnecessary, this game has a cartoonish style, cape physics would feel out of place.
Cape animations with bones would feel more appropriate and definitely doable. Just not physics.

ALSO:
Comparing games made by different developers has always been, and always will be, a terrible idea to set yourself up for disappointment.

Vaoh

Yes and no.

No, because a typical cape would be too stressful on the game engine. There are old pics of ESO characters with capes but they never made it into the final version of the game.

Yes, because they can create a static cape which follows a pre-defined motion. An Argonian‘s tale is a perfect example of this. It is basically a limb on your charafter which has animations for all the actions you’d take.

So in a way we could get capes 🤷‍♂️

JKorr

ArchMikem wrote: »

ESO was developed upon a modified version of the Hero Engine, I believe. Which is ten years old by now. From what I remember, ZOS attempted capes buy we don't have collision physics and it just slogged the game's performance. It was deemed not worth it. Imagine Cyrodiil, but now with a hundred capes on screen.

Nope. They started off prototyping on the Hero engine while they wrote their own.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/1480406/#Comment_1480406

Patros wrote: »

Yeah, you're right. Remembered something similar in May coming up. After a quick search I found it again.

Official response back then:

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Hi, folks. When we began development for ESO, we licensed the HeroEngine so that we could hit the ground running. We used it as a tool for things like area prototypes and design concepts so that we could begin honing the art style. HeroEngine was our whiteboard: a great tool to put our ideas in the game and seeing them while the production engine was in development.

As for capes and cloaks....By the Divines, the clipping for any character with hair, two handed weapons, staffs, bows, shields...the horrific clipping... Beta capes/cloaks went away when it was seen how much they didn't work. The Breton Hero costume had a lot of anticipation built because it has a cape/cloak then it released, and people saw how much it did not work, and stayed stapled to your butt no matter what, and the ranting started. There are probably games out there for the wanna-be caped crusader, try-hard swashbuckling rogue, and impractical thief willing to snag a cloak on walls, woodwork, drag it through puddles, and strangle themselves riding under tree branches, but it doesn't need to ruin everyone's game.

zaria

Finedaible wrote: »

The 'custom engine' which ESO is built upon is far too old to support realistic physics, let alone actual cloth physics. This is why certain styles or costumes like the Breton Hero costume have terrible 'capes' and probably also why khajiit have texture fur and pool noodle tails.

Does not really matter, shield and weapons on back and tails pretty much kill the idea, as an Khajiit this one has to be careful of the two handed weapon to use so it don't clips her tail.
Getting an cape inside that gap will be challenging.

Better hair and cloth physic, sure but update your system requirements.
Don't think ZoS will drop PS4 and One for it.

WhyMustItBe

If I were to approach the challenge I would probably start with something like this:

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/29012/

Low-profile simple capes with nice textures and basic rigging/painting so they move with animations but have no physics, and sit low enough to be below shields and weapons (which "float" a couple fists from your character's back as it is anyway, so plenty of room).

I would then create a Settings option much like with AO or other graphical options with multiple levels for physics/quality. Off would obviously just display these default models all the time. Then, depending on your rig's performance capabilities, you could increase the distance range in increments, with the lowest enabled being only characters within say 80 yards of your character getting physics enabled, then larger ranges for beefier rigs. This is much like how Faster HDT handles it via .ini config in Skyrim.

This would allow a nice visual improvement and extra gear slot for set combos and theorycrafting that even consoles without the power to handle physics could enjoy, with the option to enable physics to whatever degree your system was capable of as a visual/quality of life feature.

It would also have absolutely ZERO impact on server lag since it is a purely client-side graphical setting with no information being exchanged with the servers.

xaraan

Considering the game barely works as it is right now, I'd guess no, we won't see anything like additional item physics added, even if the engine at its base would support it.

Gaeliannas

Kiralyn2000

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

We have seen capes in game already.
... It was horrible!

And yet, capes and cloaks with physics remains one of the most popular Skyrim mods of all time, and virtually every modern title includes these by default. It isn't just industry standard, it is TES standard at this point, at least among the modding community.

Hmm, do you know the name of the mod? I just checked Nexus's "top mods" list, and the only obvious one (Cloaks of Skyrim) was at #34 on the non-adult list, and that one's just animation-rigged, not physics.

(personally, I don't use capes & cloaks whenever it's possible, because they cover up my character's outfit/etc. And I haven't bothered with the 'real' collision-physics mods for Skyrim, due to the processing power they suck up + not having many mods that need it.)

WhyMustItBe

[snip]

@Kiralyn2000 the classics are Cloaks of Skyrim and Winter Is Coming. In pre-SSE Skyrim these both had physics extensions as a separate download. For SSE and AE (Anniversary Edition) I use Artesian Cloaks of Skyrim and Faster HDT (ONLY use version 1.36 ATM however as newer versions have problems the author is working on).

[Edit for non-constructive statement.]

wenchmore420b14_ESO

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

Lmao! This was just the meme I was waiting for! Thank you @Gaeliannas .
And no, these are not against ToS. If you had researched "Capes & Cloakes" in search history, you would see that this has been a classic for 8 years.,..
Huzzah!

And once again, because it worked in Skyrim doesn't mean it will work in ESO.
WAY more priorities the Dev's need to focus on...

FeedbackOnly

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

We have seen capes in game already.
In beta they had them and dropped them.
Just look at the "Breton Hero" costume and you will see why. It was horrible.
It has been quite a few years, but yes, devs said no to adding capes.
Is it time for the "No Capes" meme?? Lol
Huzzah!

Since then we had better mesh on clothing. Maybe we can work from there

Arunei

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

[snip]

@Kiralyn2000 the classics are Cloaks of Skyrim and Winter Is Coming. In pre-SSE Skyrim these both had physics extensions as a separate download. For SSE and AE (Anniversary Edition) I use Artesian Cloaks of Skyrim and Faster HDT (ONLY use version 1.36 ATM however as newer versions have problems the author is working on).

[snip]

That said, it's obvious with long hair and the crotch/butt flaps on various Motifs and Costumes that they don't have proper physics for hair and clothing. These things sway and move even when your character is standing still and don't move right when in motion. Capes and cloaks would be even worse.

[Edit for off topic.]

Gaeliannas

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Quoted post has been removed.

Lmao! This was just the meme I was waiting for! Thank you @Gaeliannas .
And no, these are not against ToS. If you had researched "Capes & Cloakes" in search history, you would see that this has been a classic for 8 years.,..
Huzzah!

Thanks! There should never be a cape discussion without Edna having her say. And to whomever's reply to it got deleted, I am not against capes, I am FOR humor, this is a classic meme and a very memorable movie line as well.

Northwold

Even if it could, I imagine realistic cloth physics (rather than a preestablished fixed flutter animation) would cause very serious performance problems for many players. Imagine you're somewhere like Belkarth on a Saturday evening and your system has to render realistic cloth physics on 40 players at once.

Sugram22

my massage tp SOZ: get a new engine that works better so we can get rid of bugs and better performance and can get capes in game

skyrim had capes and i think oblivion had cape mods so capes can be done without taking more resources from PC then it currently takes, u just need better engine

starkerealm

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

These two comments are contradictory. One says the havok physics already in the engine CAN support them, the other says the devs say it can't.

Does anyone have a link to the devs saying it can't?

Yeah, I can't find it right now, it's almost 2am, but we've had dev confirmation in the past. The issue, IIRC is that the engine supports it, but when it tries to run at scale, the wheels come off the wagon.

Alpha and early beta screenshots have capes on characters, but this was removed because of framerate issues when you had lots of players with capes on screen at one time.