Female and male clothing items?

Currently the idea is there will be some specific female and male outfits to give a bit of uniqueness to the gender. Most items however will probably have a male and female version.


EDIT: To be more specific:

• Gender specific items will have a gender sign (m)/(f) and can only be worn by corresponding gender. (only one sprite needs to be made)
• Interchangeable items (e.g. t-shirt or armor) will not be gender specific. They have small adjustments to match the male or female base sprites. Depending on which base sprite you equip it corresponding sprite will be viewed. (two sprites will need to be made)

So basically if you want to wear female only stuff you should be able to easily create a new character on your account, but I still think there will be some male and female items like what LT said.

That's not to say you can't make dresses etc to fit the male sprite

I'm not wearing a dress D;

I think it should be so clothes that are usually only worn by a specific gender stay that way, like a tutu or something for example. But like a T-Shirt or sweater can be worn by both genders.

There's just something about "male" characters running around in frilly little tutu's and EXTREME "femaleish" dresses and stuff that just irks me.

Just sayin though.

like it was in FO?

---

We actually had a discussion about this and minche came up with a great idea. The item only exists once in your inventory but can have two different sprites attached, one for male and one for female. So you might see a particular chest-piece armor in your inventory. Then when you put the item on, it chooses which sprite based on what base sprite you have. This limits the number of items in game so that there aren't duplicate items with little (M/F) tags after the name. Also it is possible that some items have the same sprite set for both M/F.

Also, I just want to say that minche's suggestion is just that, a suggestion. I kinda posted looking for feelers to see if anyone likes it.

Would hardly call it an idea hah just an explanation on how i thought it would work anyways
And yeah, nothing's set in stone, so suggest away

Well, I say it was an idea because I hadn't thought of it and was going the traditional norm of 1 sprite per item and just flagging them as M/F. Having a single item in game that maps to two different sprites I think is a great idea.

When the question came to me, that's how I felt it would work as well (separate sprites but a single item). I only fear the amount of work it would take to make two sprites for every single wearable item in-game. Say the art contest costumes made it in-game (which they probably will). In all the contest rules I've seen so far, it has been stated by LT that the submissions must be for the female or male sprite... so would all the work the artists have done need to be copied and modified to fit both sprites? I know nothing about pixel art, and I don't know how long that process would take, in theory. It could just be me being paranoid again.

And Archangel, I was thinking the other way around when I thought up the question. There are plenty of girls out there who prefer a tomboyish look both in-game and out. If a woman wants to wear a leather jacket, a dirty pair of jeans, aviator sunglasses, and tote a badass-looking minigun, then she should be able to.

Not that there's anything wrong with men wearing women's clothing in-game and out, either. I've seen plenty of outfits that, while they are classified as women's clothing and take a minute to understand, work quite well.



EDIT: Okay, maybe not the best example.

Ah, sorry for being the disruptive one, having started the thing and all. :s 
I was thinking like Minche that it was making sense to manage numbers of items to do like that.
But I mentioned [in the beta art thread, but this post is clearer] the idea of having both the sprites attached to the item while being able to switch at will ("interchangeable"), and in general, following the gender specifications but not enforcing them.

Two reasons for that :
-Hack some good combinations. Who know, maybe someone can pull-off an amazing outfit with that red sparkling dress and some bloody hat for a  mort rouge avatar (male, Fantôme de l'Opéra). It's like additional free content, except it's the player's role to check what works and what don't.
-Broaden the choices. This is more in those particular cases I fear where the creator makes an amazing item but forget to make it for both genders, or that the two version are way too different (example : tuxedo and dress as the same "item")

Now, I understand some people can find the avatar of a man with a dress or a woman with a flat chestplate not fitting or unsettling.
I probably biased my own view considering female clothes as just a "refined, delicate" version of male "rough, rugged" version, while in fact it stands in term of purely practical "male/female" sprite differences.
Is it even important if my avatar can't wear that awesome red dress or that some girl's avatar can't wear that armor so bulky it would cover her eyes? Llamaquest doesn't aim to break or subvert given rules in our society after all. It's not their role.

Also since the "interchanged" sprites aren't meant to fit, it will lead to broken sprites.
In the review, I tweaked the base sprite so that it's still a gender-based one, but doesn't look broken on the other body type.
This was simply done by including the outlines in the sprite. I know my schematics and intentions were unclear. I shouldn't have used the "unisex design" word since this wasn't it. I'm just saying that technically, it can work.
Trying to override limitations (to a certain extent) by clever design. But yeah, this is not a perfect alternative.

For fun's sake though, I would advocate for interchangeable outfits.
Even if we ends up with broken outfits because they weren't meant to be used in that way.
Of course, wishful thinking would be that every item will get an adapted version when needed...

I hope I'm not confusing or dramatic. 

I think the whole convo started because of differences (or planned/suggested) in the male and female sprites. The body types are a little different.

And ApathyBear, the number of spritesheets won't change. Only the number of items in game will. For every item in game that has a M/F counterpart like an armor chestpiece. The difference in the two methods is that there would be either one item with both sprites assigned or two items each with one sprite assigned. Both spritesheets are needed. And if something were made as unisex, it would be possible that a single item had both the M/F fields pointing to the same spritesheet.

Example source data

{
   'id': 1,                    //The id of the item
   'name': 'Iron Chest (M)',   //The name of the item
   'gender': 'M',              //The gender, could be either 'M', 'F' or null to mean unisex.
   'sprite': 'iron-chest-m.png', //The name of the sprite image for this item
   ...
},
{
   'id': 2,                    //The id of the item
   'name': 'Iron Chest (F)',   //The name of the item
   'gender': 'F',              //The gender, could be either 'M', 'F' or null to mean unisex.
   'sprite': 'iron-chest-f.png', //The name of the sprite image for this item
   ...
}

Option 2:

{
   'id': 1,                    //The id of the item
   'name': 'Iron Chest',       //The name of the item
   'mSprite': 'iron-chest-m.png', //The name of the sprite image for this item
   'fSprite': 'iron-chest-f.png', //The name of the sprite image for this item
   ...
}

And in the second option, if there was a unisex item, both the 'mSprite' and 'fSprite' fields would just point to the same image.

The second option also prevents accidental purchases of items from the opposite sex that you couldn't wear.

I think it may also be a good idea (if easy coding) to make an npc where you can just change the gender of your character. Maybe there could be a small fee.