Hello! In this rather casual article, we would like to tell you about the way we create outfits and camos for operators.
In Caliber, there are a number of customization elements that change the appearance of operators.
We treat every customization type differently. It’s not entirely connected with the artistic side of things, but rather with technical limitations.
But first things first.
Camos change colors of the operator’s base outfit.
One of the main advantages of camos is that they’re fairly easy to create and they don’t take too much space on your PC. That’s why we can create a great number of them, much more than other customization types. They’re cheap and common.
Given how simple it is to create a camo, their number in Caliber reached the point when it became quite difficult to use them. We started to solve this issue by improving the way players interact with all customization elements. In the 0.18.0 update, we introduced filters. In 0.19.0, we updated the rarity system.
Now let’s talk about disadvantages. Camos can be applied only to four parts of the operator model: weapon, vest, body and head.
We are gamers just like you, and we often talk about how good it would be to paint, for example, pants one color, and paint the top the other. Unfortunately, it cannot be done at the moment.
Historical camos and some other camos that can be received only during some events are the only exceptions. These camos are completely new textures, they are not applied to existing ones.
And a few words about epic and legendary outfits. Logical and technical problems prevent us from applying camos to them. When we come up with a solution, we will think once again about the way to apply camos to these outfits.
In epic outfits, we can change colors of the operator’s base appearance as well as some parts of their equipment: head, vest, weapon with a scope, etc. It takes less time to create this outfit than a legendary one, but more time than a camo.
One operator can have several outfits with alternate color schemes. Here’s why.
1. Epic outfits are distributed in many ways.
Some epic outfits are created specifically for events. Players have to spend time and show effort to earn enough currency for purchasing. We believe that it’s fair that such outfits have to be unique.
If a player prefers to play in PvE game modes, they will not be able to get an outfit from a PvP event unless they leave their comfort zone. That’s why such outfits with alternate color schemes can sometimes be featured as a reward in a PvE event. And vice versa.
It’s one of the reasons why we create so-called «paintovers». We want all players to get an epic outfit, even with different coloring.
2. Epic outfits must be less rare than legendary ones.
A number of variants of one epic outfit can be increased if there are interesting ideas for various color schemes. Or if an outfit with a special color fits the tone of the event.
3. Limited resources.
We hear players who would like to see less «paintovers» and more epic outfits with changed operator models. We try to fulfill these requests, but currently we do not possess as many resources as we need.
When a 3D model artist works on an epic outfit, they cannot work on a legendary one.
Sometimes there is so much work that we have to decide whether to create another epic outfit with different coloring or do nothing. We choose the first option.
Legendary outfits change operators completely and are the rarest customization element in the game. These outfits are the hardest to create. Because they are the rarest, we release them not as often as other customization items.
When creating legendary outfits, we use references. Sometimes it’s difficult to find information from open sources. In this case, we look for similar units with peculiar appearance.
If we cannot find even similar units, we start modeling a credible outfit.
For example, this was the case for the first legendary outfits for SSO RB called Bodyguards. You can read in detail about these outfits here.
It’s funny that some reference-based outfits can look less convincing than the ones we create from scratch. For example, we used real photos for «Nomads» of the GROM collection. However, «Guard» for the Vympel collection is just a fantasy.
Players want to see different things. Some want more realistic outfits, some root for diversity.
We try to create outfits that would satisfy all players who can be divided into these categories:
Please bear in mind that there is an option "Hide non-historical camo used by other players".
We believe that there should be several customization categories:
It’s important to understand that even during exotic outfits creation, we use real equipment references. Such equipment can be used actively or remain as a prototype.
When creating operator base models and legendary outfits, we always try to use real references. However, when we deal with camos and epic outfits, we let ourselves experiment a little.
This is how we would like to see camos and epic outfits:
These numbers serve as some sort of a guideline and are prone to change.
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