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Alicia Dan
Student number: 10853656
BA(Hons) Game Arts and Design (5837)
Tutor: Celine Dearing
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To track my progress and tasks throughout this project, as well as dates that might affect the time I can work on this project, I created a Gantt chart within notion.
Here is a mood board I made within Figma to gather inspiration and comment on existing character customisation systems.
Ratings for the prototype itself were pretty positive, which shows that its a good project to take further and develop.
Users said they actually tend to make their own creation rather than themself, this could mean they want to be different, it could be a good direction to make a more supernatural character customisation system.
The aspects that didn't perform so well were the visual appeal and inclusivity, which I feel were limitations due to it being a prototype, so I would like to develop this in more detail this project.
And the same here both skin colour, lip colour and clothing performed lower, so these are areas I want to develop in giving the player more colour options and designs for different customisation features.
Here is a table with the rest of the questions and responses, I will highlight any parts that I think will be very useful.
| Participants | Question 5: How do you feel about the UI? (Customisation Menus) Does it look good visually? Does it make sense and flow well? | Question 6: What could be improved on existing features? | Question 7: What features do you think should be included if developed further? | Question 8: What could be done to make the system more inclusive, so that a player could create whoever they want, to promote a sense of identity? | Question 9: Any other comments? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Visually I think the customisation menus look good visually, it has good clarity on where all the options are located, flows well in terms of going through each part one by one and selecting each different part of the character | I think just giving a wider range of options is what could be improved on, I've given a mix of okays and goods for what is currently available due to the fact that there is an acceptable range already there, but I think adding more hairstyles, colours, etc would really improve the project much further. | Let me be a twink, and add more clothing options I enjoy playing dress up | I think to make it more inclusive I would personally look to add first off different genders, though as it is a prototype its perfectly fine to have it locked to one gender so far, I would add a few more skin tones as there was only a couple available being white black and in the middle, and I would also maybe look at adding skin conditions and other facial features that are inherited through genetics such as moles, freckles, etc. | yeah it good |
| B | UI is just very plain, seems boring like it has no style guide | ||||
| it's easy to use but doesn't look good | nostril depth seems to have the smallest option in the middle eyebrows should either change with hair or have their own colour option more options would be nice because it's difficult to create a unique character but I understand it might be difficult to add more | eye shape adjustments eyebrow colour more face shape sliders/options | more skin tones options and not just one dark skin tone black hair styles Asian skin tones as well same with the lip colours, a range of colours to match different skin tones instead of just matching the white skin colours | [No response] | |
| C | Looks appealing and easy to understand. | Picking colours from a colour wheel instead of options. | More clothes!! | Options of religious & cultural clothing/options (like face markings or scarfs etc...) | [No response] |
| D | Yes, it makes it flow well. I like the eyelash transition | I would have used a smooth rotation tool. Potentially used the arrow keys to rotate. Use the scroll wheel to zoom in? These are all commonly used and universal across all software. | See answer to question 6. | I would use a colour wheel or slider to include all colours, so that people can choose any colour they like. | It's a great project. Generally, people love customisations in games. Some people even spend hours making their character perfect... |
| E | The background was appealing and not too distracting from the main focus on the character, all the options fitted together in colour and nothing stood out as out of place. The text font was great and a good size to read. The 360 scroll bar was good for seeing my character complete, however, I would find it alternative key binds (using mouse to move around the model) easier to use. | ||||
| The scroll bars for altering attributes were really easy to use and it was easy to see the changes they were making. | |||||
| Also checking if you are sure to exit is a great feature, preventing miss clicks or if they (in future) forget to save and prevent the hassle of re-opening everything | More options for each section, especially hairstyles and outfits (similar to sims, creating different outfits and appearances) Design whole body not limited to just the upper torso and head. I really enjoy the different clothing options, thinking about the future of this, it may be better (if clothing gets too large) selecting the style and proceeding with colour from there as opposed to all colour variants laid out, however at this point seeing all options displayed in this way makes it easier to see what is available and makes your options seem less exhaustive. | An explanation when you first open the game for what you are doing and context on what you are creating a character for. A way to save many different characters as opposed to the game opening with the last character you designed. | Include gender as an option, focusing equally on both more masculine and feminine features to include (facial hair etc. for both men and women) Including skin blemishes to enable freedom for the person to add depth to their character. Addition of conditions, such as vitiligo or heterochromia, increases diversity and could aid story telling aspects for audience who enjoy adding lore to their characters, creating intrinsic backstories. Maybe adding ethnicity to recognise and connect to a wider audience When able to change the skin colour, the selection of others does not change or have a generic enough style to them having them either change with your preferences or alternatively be more generic (for example grey) would help it feel more inclusive Including other aspects, such as split hair colour help to promote the sense of unique identity for the player | Thank you for letting me try it out!! It was really fun to play around with! :D | |
| F | Works really well and feels very intuitive. It has some similarities to the character customization in 7 Days to Die, which is also easy to use, but this system goes even further. The customization options here are more extensive and give you far more control over creating the character you want. | Could use a few more options in things like skin and eye colour. | It would also be great to have clearer options for selecting a character’s sex—such as male, female, or other. At the moment, customization focuses mainly on the upper body, but expanding it to fullbody customization would make the system feel far more complete and immersive. | It would also be great to have clearer options for selecting a character’s sex—such as male, female, or other—and a wider range of skin tones to choose from. This would make the customization feel even more inclusive and versatile. | This customization system rivals those found in some mainstream titles—if not surpasses them. Excellent work. Any game development studio would be fortunate to have you as part of their team. while it doesn't have the broadest of options at this moment in time its much easier to use. |
Using the feedback from my prototype, and feedback from a new survey, I will plan out what I want to achieve with this character customisation system.
I will ask participants of the new survey to pick their favourite layout
I will ask participants of the new survey to pick their favourite design of the section indicators
This survey is quite short and simple, not aiming to research a wider area, just trying to gauge user opinion to aid my decisions
Questions to ask:
Final Year Project research survey
Users preferred Layout 1 & 2a the most, however due to the smaller sample size its not the best decider, as they have 2 votes whereas 3a and 3b had one vote. There are different benefits to each layout, for example: 1 looks good in a symmetrical way, with the central focus on the character, 2a & 2b are both even in occupied space and not too cramped, whereas options 3a & 3b allow more space for the customisation options, but less space for the character view.
This question was even in results between 1a, 3a and 3b. Some users did mention it was hard to read the text on google forms, so I was worried that the idea of the concepts weren’t appreciated. Users liked simple buttons on the side, either with an icon or text, but also liked the different sections being at the top of the screen. A lot of this depends on the final art for the UI, how many customisation options and sections are included so that it isnt too cramped or empty.
I think based on this question, I should explore a fantasy theme for this character customisation system. I was considering it but this confirms that users would appreciate this. I think it allows more opportunities to be explored in terms of types and number of options, as well as the creative details that can be explored that wouldn’t fit a more realistic game context.
Most users prefer a realistic artstyle for a character rather than a cartoon artstyle, this question is kind of a general version of the next two questions, as I realised that they were all quite similar.
All users said that they prefer high-poly character models, this allows more detail to be achieved through texturing, mesh detail and even animations.
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Most of these responses mention Baldur's Gate 3 and/or The Sims 4, which are well known for their character customisation, and the amount of options available to the player. I can use these games as good targets to aim towards, but also to do things differently from how they did.