This is an aggregate of posts that I put together originally for my Supergroup: The Legendary. This is compiled all into one post here.
WARNING: BIG BLOCKS OF TEXT AND LOTS OF IMAGESI have played Champions Online off and on since its launch. While I never thought of it as any sort of replacement for City of Heroes, I thought of it as a decent change of pace that did some things worse and some things better. It took me a while to get a handle on the costume creator. But once I did, I realized it did indeed have many innovations which COH lacked.
When the announcement of COH closure came, my SG almost immediately turned to CO as the next game we would mostly meet in after Nov 30th. Now I knew that people would have trouble recreating their characters from COH in CO, so I did some digging around and asking for some help on the official CO forums. Specifically I wanted help coming up with a way to provide templates that re-created (as closely as possible) the standard proportions we are familiar with in COH. The default character proportions of the CO builder are what turn many people off. And it's VERY easy to wander into "Uncanny valley" territory since the proportion sliders are allowed to go to more extremes than COH ever did.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Character costume saves are done similarly to CoH in the creator, but are stored in a radically different fashion. There is no "Costumes" file in the game folder. Instead the costume file is saved as a JPEG picture file and is stored in the same place as your screenshot folder. (See below) It has all the costume data embedded into it. These JPEGS are easy to find. They will have a picture of the costume in question on a small JPEG picture that looks like a "1st Issue" Comic book cover with CHAMPIONS emblazoned on the top. If you have many of these, they'll tend to group together.
As far as building characters go, I remembered there were a couple of people on the CO forums that were good at building templates.
So what I thought was: How about I commission some templates made that more closely resemble the proportions of the character templates that City of Heroes provides you? You know - the basics, before you start tweaking with the sliders.
So, in City of Heroes, you have -
Male / Female / Huge
And although you have full control of the sliders, the game does provide you with some basic ideas. Within each gender category are basic settings -
Slim
Average
Athletic
Heavy
So I made screengrabs of the City of Heroes character builder at the basic proportions setting window.
I did this for all the type, making front, side and rear turnarounds for the CO forum to look at.
And asked in my post if someone could make CO templates based on those.Bluhman posted later in the forum with the following:
MalesSlim:Average: Athletic: Heavy: FemalesSlimAverageAthleticHeavy (This is one physique that Champions just can't do unfortunately.)
Huges
SlimAverageAthleticHeavyA few comparisons/observations made between CoX and CO characters (as explained from the perspective of CoX):
CO characters have comparatively much longer arms compared to CoX. Whereas a CO character's closed fist will likely reach about halfway down the thigh, CoX only reaches around the top of the leg/lower groin area.
CO Characters also have very large hands and feet. Especially with feet, which have to be driven entirely down the slider to resemble anything from CoX.
Related to that, CoX legs are more evenly sized as they go down the leg. In comparison, CO legs are much more curved. The same probably applies for arms, but if it does, it's not nearly as noticeable.
The one thing that is completely unchangeable between the two games: The neck area of CO characters is much more curved. CoX characters (particularly males) have a much flatter shoulder line in comparison. There pretty much is nothing I can do about that.
To use the above templates:
Copy the jpeg images found at the above set of links into your Champions Online screenshot folder.
Should look something like:
C > Program Files > Champions Online > Live > screenshots
If you're like me and acquired Champions through steam it will be this:
C > Program Files > Steam > steamapps > common > champions online > Champions Online > Live > screenshots
Remember - you might have 2 different Program Files folders if you're running certain types of windows boxes that use 64 bit. Look in both if you're not seeing it.
Then go in-game and go to a tailor and open up the character creator (or create a new character). At the bottom of the character creator are buttons that say "Save" and "Load" much like what COH has.
Click load and you'll get a subscreen with a list. Find the above template images and call it up.
Now instead of the game's default proportions. You can have something closer to CIty of Heroes to start with (in theory).
Here's a few extra templates that aren't based on COX but that you may find useful nonetheless:
Templates
Young Adult/Average - For the hero with a less-than-stellar physique. Good for agile heroes, young heroes, and citizen forms.
Child - Adapted from Smackwell's child templates from like 2 years back. Slight tweaks included, such as more realistic waist-hip ratios and whatnot.
Fatty - For the hero with a much less-than-stellar physique. Note that the female version of this one is highly experimental and I don't find it satisfactory.
Paragon - Tall, well-muscled, but still of a fairly balanced proportion. Good for the archtypical hero with super strength.
Androgynous - Female skeleton, more masculine proportions. Use it to create... Something.
Strongman - Kind of like the paragon, but with arms like hams.
Dwarf - If you want to play a comparatively short person from a fantasy realm, this should provide a worthy starting spot.
A late addition to the above referenced thread was a "Petite Female"
I hope this helps you out in your character building.
Next: Faces and facial slider guides.