Perhaps give the Sectoids a bit more culture and work through ideas for better markings to differentiate the various types from that.

For instance, Sectoids don't wear armour, or even clothing, so maybe they have an idea of Warpaint - or maybe even chromatic skin - which they use to designate rank and abilities. Thus rather than full body torso paint for a Warrior, they have a series of blood-colored chevrons and / or dots. Of course, Sectoid blood is green, so bright green patterns make sense. :)

Just a thought.

That's true and it's what I initially had in mind. But I tried warpaint symbols but the difference wasn't obvious because of the distance you normally see them from ingame. That's why I went full-torso mode, for them to be distinguishible.

That will be a problem. Hm. Could you make the 'warpaint' patterns glow? That could aid with visibility at a distance. Keep the patterns simple for easy identification - just like when creating a good font.

Not in the way I had in mind. I can certainly make them glow but small size+glow will make it a lot harder to identify than just small size.

Unless you mean big, full body (or not but you get what I mean) warpaints that are easily visible (like th ones I have but with more interesting shapes). In that case tho' the sectoid will look like a walking lamp and that's not a good idea (maybe for april fools). I kinda like the soft glow that they already have and that's why I left it in. I'm hessitant of adding glow to everything because the mod will look like a christmas tree in the end.

Have you seen the "Vilanous visual variety" mod? Maybe you could do something like that to differentiate your sectoids. Obviously, different skins from that one and all, but still. Personally, it'd look a lot better than the current sectoids, which [in my opinion] look like they just spilled printer ink all over themselves.

:D

I agree with you on how they look. Altho' I don't really like how this mod looks. A good example of the look I'd like is the sectoid mod from Farkyrie. I'll edit to add link to check it out.

My problem is that I could easily go for a look like this but in this mod I need like 8 varieties which means different colors for the most part to be easily distinguishable ingame. The problem is that his black texture covers the majority of the sectoid and if I'd change that for let's say deep purple it'd look like it took a bath in paint.

Here's the link to the mod https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=655821827

Originally posted by Atheran:

:D

I agree with you on how they look. Altho' I don't really like how this mod looks. A good example of the look I'd like is the sectoid mod from Farkyrie. I'll edit to add link to check it out.

My problem is that I could easily go for a look like this but in this mod I need like 8 varieties which means different colors for the most part to be easily distinguishable ingame. The problem is that his black texture covers the majority of the sectoid and if I'd change that for let's say deep purple it'd look like it took a bath in paint.

Here's the link to the mod https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=655821827

Hm... Well, i think i have an idea for at least a few of the sectoid varients. Add me on steam, and we can discuss them, if you wish.

On Sectoids, how about using an upscale version of the old mouthless mesh from EU/EW? I've mentioned in other places that I've got (all of) the extracted files and can help convert to XCOM 2. Or help walk someone else through extracting files.

Tygan only said he'd never seen the smaller, less intimidating variety. Nothing about teeth.

The head of the old variety is proportionally much larger and limbs much thinner. Thus changes to the mesh or creation of a morph animation to prevent distortion may be wanted. Not that a larger-headed mouth-less version of the current creature couldn't be created.

I haven't renamed the bones on the Sectoid/Sectoid Commander meshes to fit XCOM 2's unified skeleton system yet, but it's high on my list.

And alternatively, I think a better texture than the current can be done by changing the glow color but leaving skin-tone between pink and grey. Purple glows are psi offensive or zombie-raising, whiter are support, soldiers have duller glows. Red for vampiric (not really). Even playing sectoid animations with the distorted stun-lancer mesh ( http://imgur.com/a/haqiF ) is better looking than the current chaps.

I actually have a friend that's working on some custom armor for sectoids.. ill try and get him to come in here to take a look

Any way to get the XCOM EU/EW Secoids into XCOM2?

Would be fun to see them as grunts for the bigger ones.

As for varienty, I would suggest different skin colors instead painted chests.

People keep suggesting to bring the old sectoids back so I guess I have to address it...

Probably you're not going to like the answer but here it goes...

Problems with doing it.
1) Different mesh resolution will look bad, I'll have to fix that
2) No idea if the units in the old games are compatible with xcom2, that means I'll also have to resize them probably
3) Most important. Legal issues. While we have access to the xcom2 stuff we do not have access to EU/EW stuff and even if there are tools to extract meshes/animations using them would be copyright infrigement. Add to that that messing with the old games has a bunch of EULA violations. Even if we had the okay from Firaxis a lot of assets are probably by third party developers and we're back to copyright.
4) I don't want to because the visuals are completely different.
5) If I did it I'd have to make all models/animations/textures from scratch and hope that noone has copyrighted the look of the sectoids of the old games.

TL:DR Not happening. Either for sectoids or for weapons/armors from previous games.

How about ritual/tribal scars on the sectiods?

We did experiment with some more subtle markings, but details don't seem to come out very well on the actual model. Had things that looked great in the editor, but kind of washed out in the game.
I also think that skin colors are probably our best bet at the moment, but finding 5+ colors that look well is not as easy as it sounds.

Originally posted by DerBK:

We did experiment with some more subtle markings, but details don't seem to come out very well on the actual model. Had things that looked great in the editor, but kind of washed out in the game.
I also think that skin colors are probably our best bet at the moment, but finding 5+ colors that look well is not as easy as it sounds.

Is there no chance of changes more intense than colour changes? i.e. direct armour changes, or shape changes other than rescaling?

@Badman There is. Just not right now as I'm VERY busy with uni exams the next 2-3 weeks. After that I'll have nothing to do for most of the summer (except hopefully a part time job) so I'll have a lot of time to learn how these things work in the editor.

I can make models like armor to add on the sectoid soldier for example. But I have to find out how to add it in the editor and have it appear ingame without animation problems