Great article. It's such a seemingly trivial detail - modelers adding a piece of apparel (high heels) that ends up potentially having huge unintended consequences by physically altering the height of the player model when equipped.
I remember playing an early 3D game that had a similar problem when they added support for alternative animal mounts. Most of the physics, structures, etc. were built with a standard horse model in mind, so the dragon mounts, etc. introduced all kinds of goofy looking clipping issues.
Slightly related, but whenever I see high heels in video games I'm reminded of this comic by Double-XP:
One of my favorite exaggerated examples of this is the (completely sidestepped) challenges of anime mods like Grand Theft Neptunia V, and the entirety of the Loyalists channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MboDzmsrFHQ
When animations are hardcoded based on an original character's dimensions, do you try to scale your mod's girl-sized models to the original character sizes? Do you try to remake all the animations? Or do you just focus on making the funniest possible content? The latter approach is taken here, and it's an absolute joy.
(As one might expect of GTA dialogue, this likely isn't the most SFW of demos, so caveat emptor.)
This problem exists in the Dead Rising series as the main character can put almost any item on. There is hacks in the code specifying things down to the bone id to try to overcome this issue.
I love these easy-to-illustrate examples where a request seems simple, but adds a lot of trouble for the person implementing it. "It's just adding a new skin for their footwear, how hard could that be?"
This just reminds me of the gross laziness of EA and its Sims franchise. The last installment costs well over $1000 to buy in full but they never bothered to implement height difference in a game that pretends to simulate daily life. And sure enough, putting on heels in the game just makes the character shorter to compensate.
And they recently told their consumers to go fuck themselves, as they won't ever make a sequel and instead continue pumping lazy "content packs" for a buggy game that's obviously running on an outdated and very tired engine.
As someone who writes code for a living, I've also helped people ship a few games (freelancing).
But trying to make my own 3D game from scratch is more often than not in a standstill, because doing the art is difficult and so is getting good at it.
Even something as simple as wanting to scale down my country's geography into 7x4 km chunked terrain presents problems - while the geological features are there, even with work on making the finer details look more realistic, I'd still need to make rivers that flow realistically from higher altitude above sea level down to it and then merge with the sea, which is easier said than done.
Don't even get me started on the idea of modelling, rigging and animating characters with complex finite state machines and whatnot.
Of course, a part of it is probably just managing scope and expectations (this project might take a decade without going full time to release something mediocre, even if learning a lot in the process), but it's pretty cool just how many details there are to the craft.
Not only do heels modify someone's height, they also modify the range of motion for doing something like squatting down.
For kids this isn't a problem, they can squat all the way down without issue. But as an adult, regaining that lost mobility is a process!
But, try this: elevate your heels by an inch. Then try 2 inches. You'll find that you can more comfortably squat down the more your heels are elevated. It also impacts center of balance and the angles at which your back is at while squatting.
I read once that people in a certain country were accustomed to doing work in a squat position, perhaps due to lack of chairs/seats for the poor, but I thought it was cool after being forced into a chair/desk posture for my entire life. I've also heard that catchers in baseball retire because their knees give out after the constant squat/crouch position, catching pitches at home plate. Should catchers wear high heels? Got to watch "A League of Their Own" again...
The physical world stiletto shoe challenge rests on the engineering of the "shank and heel" piece, the actual heel and the weight supporting shank that arcs under the foot between the in and outsole.
These can be steel, titanium, thick plastic, etc. The integrity and trustworthiness of the stiletto relies on these often very thin pieces staying undeformed and rigid wrt each other despite human mass scale forces bending, twisting, rolling and threatening to break the heel and shank join.
Meanwhile I'll note that raised heels were originally menswear - derived from riding boots, where the heel keeps the stirrup in place, but gradually got taller for conspicuous display, then disappeared along with most of the rest of peacocking.
vunderba|11 months ago
I remember playing an early 3D game that had a similar problem when they added support for alternative animal mounts. Most of the physics, structures, etc. were built with a standard horse model in mind, so the dragon mounts, etc. introduced all kinds of goofy looking clipping issues.
Slightly related, but whenever I see high heels in video games I'm reminded of this comic by Double-XP:
https://imgur.com/a/pUg6sCV
btown|11 months ago
When animations are hardcoded based on an original character's dimensions, do you try to scale your mod's girl-sized models to the original character sizes? Do you try to remake all the animations? Or do you just focus on making the funniest possible content? The latter approach is taken here, and it's an absolute joy.
(As one might expect of GTA dialogue, this likely isn't the most SFW of demos, so caveat emptor.)
petermcneeley|11 months ago
Timpy|11 months ago
thrance|11 months ago
And they recently told their consumers to go fuck themselves, as they won't ever make a sequel and instead continue pumping lazy "content packs" for a buggy game that's obviously running on an outdated and very tired engine.
voidUpdate|11 months ago
KronisLV|11 months ago
But trying to make my own 3D game from scratch is more often than not in a standstill, because doing the art is difficult and so is getting good at it.
Even something as simple as wanting to scale down my country's geography into 7x4 km chunked terrain presents problems - while the geological features are there, even with work on making the finer details look more realistic, I'd still need to make rivers that flow realistically from higher altitude above sea level down to it and then merge with the sea, which is easier said than done.
Don't even get me started on the idea of modelling, rigging and animating characters with complex finite state machines and whatnot.
Of course, a part of it is probably just managing scope and expectations (this project might take a decade without going full time to release something mediocre, even if learning a lot in the process), but it's pretty cool just how many details there are to the craft.
samcheng|11 months ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY6lHjZjYXE
littlestymaar|11 months ago
It's quite fascinating to me that you can become so powerful while having such a lame insecurity at the same time.
InDubioProRubio|11 months ago
slowtrek|11 months ago
nvahalik|11 months ago
For kids this isn't a problem, they can squat all the way down without issue. But as an adult, regaining that lost mobility is a process!
But, try this: elevate your heels by an inch. Then try 2 inches. You'll find that you can more comfortably squat down the more your heels are elevated. It also impacts center of balance and the angles at which your back is at while squatting.
AStonesThrow|11 months ago
bobthepanda|11 months ago
QuercusMax|11 months ago
nottorp|11 months ago
mplanchard|11 months ago
Jun8|11 months ago
tarr11|11 months ago
https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/
IvyMike|11 months ago
lmm|11 months ago
JumpCrisscross|11 months ago
defrost|11 months ago
These can be steel, titanium, thick plastic, etc. The integrity and trustworthiness of the stiletto relies on these often very thin pieces staying undeformed and rigid wrt each other despite human mass scale forces bending, twisting, rolling and threatening to break the heel and shank join.
pjc50|11 months ago
unknown|11 months ago
[deleted]
AStonesThrow|11 months ago
[Please don't ask me how I find these people]
johntitorjr|11 months ago
[deleted]
DecentShoes|11 months ago
[deleted]