   wow armour?
  hi guys just a small question here more focused of the graphical side of games.What i would like to know is that how do big games like wow have so many different armor skins? like even at the lowest level in wow there was 100s different clothing options and 1000's of combinations.my aim is to create a small 3d rpg by christmas and was wondering would i have to create all the different combinations of armor or would i just have to make the armor and then somehow mold it to the player?how exactly do the pro's do it? for my game i am going to have about 5 different sets of armor. and you can combine different sets. for instance you will be able to wear the leggings of set 1 with the chest piece of set 2 etc... thanks :D   
  The pros do it by hiring a bunch of artists for a few years to crank out thousands of models, textures, animations, etc.40+? unsure how big the WoW team is. but they have money, so it's as big as they want it to be.;  In World of Warcraft, since you brought it up, pretty much everything is modeled as textures only. If you pay close attention to your character, you will see that only the helm, shoulders, cloak, gloves and boots are separate models. And there are only a few handful of unique models. Added onto these models, or onto parts of your character model, are just textures being changed for different items.There are, according to Wowhead, 822 cloaks in the game, but I would bet there aren't more than 4-5 unique cloak models, and I would guess far less than 822 cloak textures as well. Many of the lower quality cloaks share the same look. And looking at chest and leg armor, for the most graphically visible examples, they are exclusively textures you apply to your character, and does not introduce any models.To draw, say, a helm model, you determine two things; what helm base model to use and what texture to apply to it. To determine where to draw it, you use the skeletal information from your character to determine the position and orientation of the head. The helm model is designed around this skeletal information, and when drawn, will fit around the head.This way, you just have a base model of the character. When drawing parts of the model, you apply the armor textures. Then, you add the armor models, using the base models and textures, and have yourself a very flexible armor framework.;  As the person behind the Wowhead model viewer.. The only models that are added onto a character are the shoulders, helm, and any weapons/shields. The cloak, gloves, and boots are all a part of the actual character model, and are just hidden/shown as needed. Hair styles work the same way.For shoulders, there's a separate model for the left and right shoulders. For helms, theres a different model for each race/gender combination. Weapons/shields all use a single model for all characters.Most armor slots are simply textures, as are the faces, skin tones, etc. This is mostly what Brother Bob said, just a bit more detail and minor corrections.   ;Quote:Original post by DEbig3As the person behind the Wowhead model viewer.. The only models that are added onto a character are the shoulders, helm, and any weapons/shields. The cloak, gloves, and boots are all a part of the actual character model, and are just hidden/shown as needed. Hair styles work the same way.For shoulders, there's a separate model for the left and right shoulders. For helms, theres a different model for each race/gender combination. Weapons/shields all use a single model for all characters.Most armor slots are simply textures, as are the faces, skin tones, etc. This is mostly what Brother Bob said, just a bit more detail and minor corrections.You're the dude behind Model Viewer? For real?Thanks! As much as people complain about it not being updated, it's only because it's such a great tool (and because they're impatient twits :D )   