Character customization (Haircuts, clothing, and other aspects) and aspects of gameplay

[loops]

I've been wondering this ever since 2022 when all the business with the leaks happened, the amount of customization of clothing, haircuts, and other thing's pertaining to the the two characters. After the first trailer, I've been wondering, how will rockstar add character customization to GTA VI—like all the customization from V and RDR2, but also new elements of character customization, such as clothing and it's influences on the story—since it's a Bonnie and Clyde inspired story—and how also characters react to haircuts or clothing choices.

I'm sure rockstar has updated their reaction engine in RAGE from RDR2, to be more reactive—I mean hell their is a patent of mood technology for the AI in the game.

Just my two cents, I feel clothing could also influence how people see you, such as Saints Row or Fallout New Vegas in a sense, such as dressing in a certain gangs colors and dressing more similar to their rivals might change their behaviors towards the player, or as well as the car the player drives might also have an influence in reactions—by it either being customized in the shops or a stolen sedan, either way the game would choose and weigh different scales of influence the player has, also if you kill more gang members of one gang, gaining rep with them, but the other gang is more prone to hostile behavior towards the player, so to disguise yourself as one of the members of the gang you have been attacking may change how they see you, but you'd also have to change haircuts and if playing as Jason, shave as well, sort of San Andrea's system on steroids mixed with elements from other games.

 

I mean what do ya'll think?

(Also rate the moves?)

[albkowski1993]

Other games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldur's Gate 3 have raised the bar when it comes to the character customization. I wonder if we will be able to customize boobs and genitals in GTA 6.

Edited June 5, 2024 by albkowski1993
Wrong word

[Totallycasual]

I'd imagine that it'll just be something like Red Dead 2, get a little chunky looking if we eat too much and don't take care of ourselves, then drop the weight off if we're going hard and not eating f*ckall.  I do hope that eventually they add a setting that allows you to lock in your current look, i think in the long term it'll end up pissing me off if i need to keep up with certain eating behaviors just to maintain my preferred look.  Aside from that, we'll no doubt have all of the barber options that V had, i just can't imagine a world where they release VI and it isn't an improvement of every aspect of the game they made previously. 

 

I really hope they make headphones/buds functional this time, i don't just want the appearance of them, i want to listen to music when I'm doing stuff on foot! 

[Jason]

1 hour ago, albkowski1993 said:

Other games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldur's Gate 3 have raised the bar when it comes to the character customization. I wonder if we will be able to customize boobs and genitals in GTA 6.

 

They really haven't lol. While your character looks great in both games they're both typical western AAA creators, they look good but have a lack of options and depth - BG3 has face presets and basically no facial customisation, while Cyberpunk has decent options but a serious lack of depth.

 

The best character creators these days are typically from JRPG's and MMORPG's, often Asian MMORPG's. They are far far far beyond anything we've seen in western AAA games. For a recent example check out Dragon's Dogma 2 and what people have made in that creator, it's miles beyond anything you can do in something like Cyberpunk or BG3.

 

That all being said, when it comes to clothing customisation R* are up there with the very best after RDR2, which has some of the best clothing customisation out there, physics, the layering, rolling up sleeves, open/closed jackets and collars, tucked in trousers etc etc. I can only imagine they'll go wild with this in VI with modern clothing and trends. GTAO2 will probably be god tier in this area.

 

The physical appearance of the characters though, idk. RDR2/RDO did weight and build and built the tech so clothing would work, so I'd assume they go w/ that again for VI/GTAO2. Face customisation is the part where I'm sus, I've said before that GTAO's issue was that almost all of the base presets were ugly, otherwise it was a much better editor than RDO's which was lacking some pretty basic face options. In any case, it should be telling that despite criticism of GTAO's "parent" system, there's a reason why many, many games including the above mention Dragon's Dogma 2 now use similar systems. RDO had better presets, but from a feature stand point was a big step back from GTAO for me.

[Montana...]

I think the ball was dropped following suite with GTA V's multiple protags. I expect to switch characters and lose whatever customizations I made to the previous one after a small amount of time. I was really hoping for a single protag with a unique amount of customization to our characters, almost like in The Division or other games where you can make your nose big, chin small, and every other option you can think of right down to choosing your own name even.

 

That said, I'm sure there will be unique and diverse options, as well as some innovation, but I just don't think it'll be enough to really make me bother with it. GTA V kinda ruined the whole "I'm going to buy clothing" stuff. What's the point if they are just going to change into their sweatpants every time I switch characters? That gives off AI vibes and not "this is my character" vibes.

 

Same goes with vehicle customization. If I park it and then it disappears, why would I waste my time? 

Edited June 6, 2024 by Montana...

[Agent Edward]

9 minutes ago, Montana... said:

I think the ball was dropped following suite with GTA V's multiple protags. I expect to switch characters and lose whatever customizations I made to the previous one after a small amount of time. I was really hoping for a single protag with a unique amount of customization to our characters, almost like in The Division or other games where you can make your nose big, chin small, and every other option you can think of right down to choosing your own name even.

 

That said, I'm sure there will be unique and diverse options, as well as some innovation, but I just don't think it'll be enough to really make me bother with it. GTA V kinda ruined the whole "I'm going to buy clothing" stuff. What's the point if they are just going to change into their sweatpants every time I switch characters? That gives off AI vibes and not "this is my character" vibes.

 

Same goes with vehicle customization. If I park it and then it disappears, why would I waste my time? 

It's just 2 protagonists this time, not 3, they can focus a lot more to address the issues you mentioned.

[loops]

41 minutes ago, Montana... said:

where you can make your nose big, chin small, and every other option you can think of. 

Do you think they'll pull a saint's row, where you have to go to a plastic surgeon to change your looks? That would be a cool gameplay feature, and thinking about the trailer now, maybe their could be some sort of shop like that. Idk, will have to wait and see when the game releases.

[squishyboithighs]

On 6/5/2024 at 9:10 AM, Totallycasual said:

I really hope they make headphones/buds functional this time, i don't just want the appearance of them, i want to listen to music when I'm doing stuff on foot! 

I was just thinking this the other day. We should be able to put in ear buds or something and listen to the radio stations whenever 

[loops]

21 hours ago, squishyboithighs said:

I was just thinking this the other day. We should be able to put in ear buds or something and listen to the radio stations whenever 

You know what would be cool about the earbuds and headphones thing, what if when you're wearing them in game, it dampens the sound around you. But there could also be open-back earbuds or headphones, letting in more sound as a result. Didn't think of that. I think Watch_Dogs 2 does the earbuds to gameplay transition very well, the sound is reduced a bit in the world due to music playing, but not enough to where you can't hear enemies or anything. I feel the next GTA might improve on sound, upgraded to something akin or above RDR2's soundscape system.

[mp412rex]

I hope they allow us to save like 20 outfits per character, that way when we switch they are wearing one of the 20 clothing presets we saved for them, even better if they let us choose some clothes for when we switch during the morning/noon/afternoon/night/. Imagine, we change Jason's clothes with this system and when we are switching characters after a while playing as Lucia he's wearing some sportswear we bought for him if it's the morning or he's wearing some cool biker jacket and jewelry if it's the evening.

Would be nice to choose how often our characters' clothes would change after switching to them, just wish it wasn't random like in V and I really really wish they wore the clothes I bought for them, not their standard outfits

Edited June 7, 2024 by mp412rex

[Jason]

2 hours ago, loops said:

You know what would be cool about the earbuds and headphones thing, what if when you're wearing them in game, it dampens the sound around you. But there could also be open-back earbuds or headphones, letting in more sound as a result. Didn't think of that. I think Watch_Dogs 2 does the earbuds to gameplay transition very well, the sound is reduced a bit in the world due to music playing, but not enough to where you can't hear enemies or anything. I feel the next GTA might improve on sound, upgraded to something akin or above RDR2's soundscape system.

 

If they go the earbud route I could totally see them making it feel immersive in the game yea, it'd be very R*. Their sound design in general is straight up 10/10.

[Ogivaldelta]

2 hours ago, Jason said:

 

If they go the earbud route I could totally see them making it feel immersive in the game yea, it'd be very R*. Their sound design in general is straight up 10/10.

I could def see that happening, these are the same devs that made it so wearing sunglasses in V would properly tint 1st person view for a few seconds.

[PauloJz]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

 

If they go the earbud route I could totally see them making it feel immersive in the game yea, it'd be very R*. Their sound design in general is straight up 10/10.

Seeing NPCs using it and not being able to use it is unfair.

[Montana...]

On 6/5/2024 at 9:51 PM, loops said:

Do you think they'll pull a saint's row, where you have to go to a plastic surgeon to change your looks? That would be a cool gameplay feature, and thinking about the trailer now, maybe their could be some sort of shop like that. Idk, will have to wait and see when the game releases.

 

Goodness no. I hope it's not anything extreme, just unique. I mean, they could go to extremes after say a first initial completion or some way of unlocking cheat codes that allows you to play through as a chicken... that'd be cool.

On 6/5/2024 at 9:20 PM, Agent Edward said:

It's just 2 protagonists this time, not 3, they can focus a lot more to address the issues you mentioned.

 

Ok but, if the focus was more on one character, then wouldn't your theory of focus still apply and we get 3x as much?

[Agent Edward]

6 hours ago, Montana... said:

 

Goodness no. I hope it's not anything extreme, just unique. I mean, they could go to extremes after say a first initial completion or some way of unlocking cheat codes that allows you to play through as a chicken... that'd be cool.

 

Ok but, if the focus was more on one character, then wouldn't your theory of focus still apply and we get 3x as much?

Maybe you're right, Franklin was much more customizable than Michael and Trevor, more hair and beard styles, more tattoos... you name it. But GTA5 was a game developed in only 3 years, while GTA6 will have a 7 years long development with a muuuch bigger team than the previous game had by the time it releases, even if we count 2020 and 2021 as 1 year because the pandemic was stronger in those 2 years, we'll still have a 6 years worth of development time by 2025 (2018-2025).

 

With all this in mind, the least we can do is hope that issues like those are no more.

Edited June 9, 2024 by Agent Edward

[Jason]

As a general rule comparing 3 years of development 10-15 years ago to 6 years of development in the 2020's is not a 1:1 comparison.

 

Same stuff that could be whipped up in a day 10-20 years ago can take several days etc. Asset creation is a big reason why there's 0 genuine interest in going to 8K anytime soon, cause it'd inflate development times significantly.

[Agent Edward]

4 hours ago, Jason said:

As a general rule comparing 3 years of development 10-15 years ago to 6 years of development in the 2020's is not a 1:1 comparison.

 

Same stuff that could be whipped up in a day 10-20 years ago can take several days etc. Asset creation is a big reason why there's 0 genuine interest in going to 8K anytime soon, cause it'd inflate development times significantly.

I understand where you're coming from and I respect your argument, but this can't be said for everything in the development process, if everything took this long to make nowadays compared to back in the day the games would be what... 10-20% the size of the previous games? RDR2 already was developed with 4K in mind (for the XOX/PC anyway) and it's undoubtedly Rockstar's biggest game before GTA6, Arthur and John are the most customizable protagonists made by them, you name it...

[Jason]

4 minutes ago, Agent Edward said:

I understand where you're coming from and I respect your argument, but this can't be said for everything in the development process, if everything took this long to make nowadays compared to back in the day the games would be what... 10-20% the size of the previous games? 

 

If team sizes stayed the same, yes games would be 10-20% the size of games in the past. But team sizes didn't stay the same size.

 

The reason games cost so much to make now, in general, is because they have to pay teams of hundreds to thousands for 4-6 years.

 

We had gigantic games in the past with tons of content, unique assets, voice work, big maps, loads of quests, etc. Those games 15 years ago took 2-3 years of full development, with a bit of pre-production beforehand. Now it's 5-7, with a bit of pre-production beforehand.

[Agent Edward]

6 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

If team sizes stayed the same, yes games would be 10-20% the size of games in the past. But team sizes didn't stay the same size.

 

The reason games cost so much to make now, in general, is because they have to pay teams of hundreds to thousands for 4-6 years.

 

We had gigantic games in the past with tons of content, unique assets, voice work, big maps, loads of quests, etc. Those games 15 years ago took 2-3 years of full development, with a bit of pre-production beforehand. Now it's 5-7, with a bit of pre-production beforehand.

I covered the part of the development team being much bigger now, RDR2 was made by what... 1500 developers and 1000 actors? I forgot the exact number now, but GTA6 reportedly got around 3000-4000 people working on it overall, considering that GTAO's credits page with more than 6000 names in it, who many aren't working there anymore, reason why I suggest a lower number initially (before patches and DLCs).

Edited June 9, 2024 by Agent Edward

[Jason]

47 minutes ago, Agent Edward said:

I covered the part of the development team being much bigger now, RDR2 was made by what... 1500 developers and 1000 actors? I forgot the exact number now, but GTA6 reportedly got around 3000-4000 people working on it overall, considering that GTAO's credits page with more than 6000 names in it, who many aren't working there anymore, reason why I suggest a lower number initially (before patches and DLCs).

 

RDR2 was made in the period between 2014ish to 2018. The complexity of games and the time to make assets has increased since. It's again why comparing dev times between generations as if they're 1:1 doesn't work.

 

More complex physics, AI, animations, movement and combat, higher quality models, textures (beyond RDR2), all new ambient sounds, etc etc.

 

It's the core of the whole big budget AAA gaming is unsustainable argument, because what it takes to make your even bog standard AAA games is far beyond what it used to be, and the cost (ie amount of people x time) is still going up. If a GTA V still took 3 years of full development to make today everyone would be making GTA V's.

[Agent Edward]

24 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

RDR2 was made in the period between 2014ish to 2018. The complexity of games and the time to make assets has increased since. It's again why comparing dev times between generations as if they're 1:1 doesn't work.

 

More complex physics, AI, animations, movement and combat, higher quality models, textures (beyond RDR2), all new ambient sounds, etc etc.

 

It's the core of the whole big budget AAA gaming is unsustainable argument, because what it takes to make your even bog standard AAA games is far beyond what it used to be, and the cost (ie amount of people x time) is still going up. If a GTA V still took 3 years of full development to make today everyone would be making GTA V's.

Well... if they aim to create a "GTA5" with the same asset quality it had, it can be done in 5 years more or less lol.

 

But seriously now, you mentioned developers avoiding 8K in one of your posts, do we really need a resolution bigger than 4K? Can't console and game companies focus on something more interesting like using future hardwares to make games less dependant of LODs, make 60FPS standard once and for all, things like that... Sometimes when I play GTA5 I swtich back and forth between Fidelity Mode (4K) and Performance Mode (1440 upscaled to 4K) and I swear that I can't notice a difference.

 

Imo we don't need a bigger resolution, we need innovations in the games themselves, more natural and responsive animations and such.

Edited June 9, 2024 by Agent Edward

[Jason]

9 minutes ago, Agent Edward said:

Well... if they aim to create a "GTA5" with the same asset quality it had, it can be done in 5 years more or less lol.

 

Yea but no one is gonna do that lol. Graphics are very important in selling AAA games, even if we know graphics aren't the be and end all.

[Agent Edward]

20 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Yea but no one is gonna do that lol. Graphics are very important in selling AAA games, even if we know graphics aren't the be and end all.

Unfortunately, I could use some GTA5-like games while I wait for Rockstar's very own releases. 

[loops]

On 6/8/2024 at 3:50 PM, Montana... said:

unlocking cheat codes that allows you to play through as a chicken... that'd be cool.

Peyote Cheat codes would be cool

[hehnl]

I think it's safe to assume it'll be like RDR2, but more in depth. Tattoos, hair dye, and jewelry are likely too. Lucia and Jason have jewelry as part of their default looks so I'm guessing its toggle-able. I also expect a similar mechanic to RDR2 where NPCs comment on your clothing / amount of dirtiness etc. I'd like if it had some overlap with gameplay mechanics, like changing your appearance to no longer match a description the cops have of you after you commit a crime. I also hope the masks actually work as intended instead of how they are almost useless in RDR2.

[Guest]

On 6/8/2024 at 12:49 AM, mp412rex said:

I hope they allow us to save like 20 outfits per character, that way when we switch they are wearing one of the 20 clothing presets we saved for them, even better if they let us choose some clothes for when we switch during the morning/noon/afternoon/night/. Imagine, we change Jason's clothes with this system and when we are switching characters after a while playing as Lucia he's wearing some sportswear we bought for him if it's the morning or he's wearing some cool biker jacket and jewelry if it's the evening.

Would be nice to choose how often our characters' clothes would change after switching to them, just wish it wasn't random like in V and I really really wish they wore the clothes I bought for them, not their standard outfits

I always want this feature too. We decide what's their default casual, formal, or sport outfits. Even if switch scenes change your clothes, at least it's a combination we have chosen.

[Ser_Salty]

Posting this here, so it doesn't get buried in the general thread, and because it's the most recent thread about character customization I could find:

 

Quote

 

I don't think it's necessarily cutscene. One thing I've noticed about the trailer is that there's not that hard quality difference between protagonist/story characters and random NPCs that we usually see. They seem about equal for the most part, usually it's only when they're a bit further away that they look a bit worse, but that's probably just some effects like subsurface scattering and stuff not being applied to characters a certain distance away, for performance reasons.

 

So, you could be right and J&L are offscreen or one of these is our Online character or something, but this could just as well be a random NPC interaction.

 

I've theorized over in the Bikini girl thread a bit that maybe Rockstar is doing something similar to Saints Row 2, where all characters in the game are part of the same framework, though with a much more advanced system in regards to physics and putting custom models for protagonists and story characters into that framework. It would mean, like I already said, no major difference in quality between story characters and random NPCs, would allow for much more variety for the NPCs if they have things like bodysliders for height and weight, would give us a f*ckton of clothing options right off the bat if we could also get most of what NPCs are wearing, and, almost the most important thing, would result in much higher quality Online characters.

 

Basically, while it would be a fair bit of work upfront, it could make things a lot easier in the long run. They would no longer need to make seperate clothing models for story characters, NPCs, male Online characters and female Online characters (e.g. some of the Work Jackets in V that are available to both Franklin and Online characters).

 

While I wouldn't bet money on it, I don't think it's that unlikely. They would be working on a very advanced and detailed custom character creation for Online anyway, so there's not just two base models with different heads like in current Online. RDO already had more of that with weight variations, but they'd probably want to up it even further. I think it would make sense for them to get more use out of all that effort and save themselves from having to model hundreds of different NPCs, or making an entirely different NPC creation system as well. I think the more questionable part of it would be how much protagonists and story characters are tied into that system. Would their unique body and face shapes work with the clothes modifier so that we could also wear dread guys tank top and glasses? I don't know enough about it. To me "No, that's too much work/would be too glitch prone/would look silly" seems just as likely as "Yeah, it's not that much extra work to have the tank top adjust to Jason and Lucias bodies and look good".

 

 

Though I'm likely fully talking out of my ass, I think it might make for some interesting discussion to fill the time.

[Retro_Causality]

i feel like Jason and Lucia will obviously have limitations in story mode that fit with their character and personality in terms of customization

 

but i do think both individually will have a deeper customization than Michael, Franklin and Trevor had in V

Edited January 18 by Retro_Causality

[Ser_Salty]

11 hours ago, Retro_Causality said:

i feel like Jason and Lucia will obviously have limitations in story mode that fit with their character and personality in terms of customization

 

but i do think both individually will have a deeper customization than Michael, Franklin and Trevor had in V

I think, or at least hope, that we'll have more freedom to shape the vibes of the two characters through the customization. GTA V was way too restrictive with this at times, where you couldn't really alter the characters sense of style. Like, Trevor can only wear crazy people clothes, Michael can only wear rich retiree clothes. Putting the silly joke options aside (which should still be in VI, though), San Andreas did a pretty decent job of it. You could really lean into the gangbanger look for CJ, or just give him more "average guy" clothes, or more relaxed clothing, or some rougher functional clothing, or later on give him a suit, and you could style that suit to either just look like a formal, professional suit or if you throw a gold chain over it, put on a bowler hat, maybe pick a different coloured suit, now you've got a pimp suit.

 

So I hope that we get that sort of freedom again, and not just "Jason is a redneck, he gets to wear redneck clothes." Let me dress him modern and stylish with expensive sneakers, nice jeans, sunglasses and a chain if I want to, or give him some cargo pants and a flannel shirt for a practical, rural look, or just some formal but low key clothes like just some slacks and a dress shirt, or put him in a track suit with a gold chain like some old school sh*t. Or let me dress him like Dexter for that serial killer chic. You know, options, vibes.

[Phantomkick]

3 hours ago, Ser_Salty said:

I think, or at least hope, that we'll have more freedom to shape the vibes of the two characters through the customization. GTA V was way too restrictive with this at times, where you couldn't really alter the characters sense of style. Like, Trevor can only wear crazy people clothes, Michael can only wear rich retiree clothes. Putting the silly joke options aside (which should still be in VI, though), San Andreas did a pretty decent job of it. You could really lean into the gangbanger look for CJ, or just give him more "average guy" clothes, or more relaxed clothing, or some rougher functional clothing, or later on give him a suit, and you could style that suit to either just look like a formal, professional suit or if you throw a gold chain over it, put on a bowler hat, maybe pick a different coloured suit, now you've got a pimp suit.

 

So I hope that we get that sort of freedom again, and not just "Jason is a redneck, he gets to wear redneck clothes." Let me dress him modern and stylish with expensive sneakers, nice jeans, sunglasses and a chain if I want to, or give him some cargo pants and a flannel shirt for a practical, rural look, or just some formal but low key clothes like just some slacks and a dress shirt, or put him in a track suit with a gold chain like some old school sh*t. Or let me dress him like Dexter for that serial killer chic. You know, options, vibes.

R* has a traditional way to keep aestheticly lore-friendly, which worked well for CJ due to his young, rags-to-riches story.

 

Based on the leaks and trailer I think the story could also work for Jason and Lucia. Once they start making that criminal money, they’d likely spend it on fancy clothes (up to the player of course). I hope this time they gave us lot of styling choices to choose ranging from clothing to hairstyles. 

 

On 6/13/2024 at 4:09 PM, One of Wisemen said:

I always want this feature too. We decide what's their default casual, formal, or sport outfits. Even if switch scenes change your clothes, at least it's a combination we have chosen.

Agreed on this.