I think it would be great in the game to allow body painting. One method would be to expose the body texture files so people could simply paint over them in their favorite image editing software. Texture files are easy enough to manipulate and would allow the player to individualize their culture a little. This could also be extended to ceramic textures for pottery.
Scarification, paint, piercings, and more could be readily drawn onto the textures (no mesh work or UV mapping needed).
P.S. This isn’t quite modding, nor is it clothing, which is why I made a new thread.
I’m not much into body painting but most researchers tend to believe it was common. What I would like to see in the game though is the application of the body paint. I’m sure it was important, almost ritual, and could greatly augmente immersion if implemented
I have hypothesized in my writings that it could be both ritualistic and also just commonplace. In short, people may have just applied paint each day, such as makeup is applied today.
I came to this conjecture by watching documentaries and reading about contemporary tribal societies. In every such society I read about or watched, people applied paint as both part of their normal daily activities and as part of rituals. Examples include the Himba (the tribe I researched the most) and about a dozen Amazon rain-forest tribes. Many of these peoples applied paint daily as though it were clothing, but tended to apply larger and more complex designs for ritual. Paint was often left to smear and fade over the days.
\o/ Hooray! I had not seen a little villager close enough to see this. You folks really thought of everything! \o/
Anyhow, I’d love access to texture files to make my own, but that’s just me.
Could this decoration be informative for the player? Can classes or occupations be derived from certain patterns? Or certain colors that only a guild used (e.g.) ?
Not sure that classes would exactly exist, but one might suggest that paint might be applied with respect to what a person is doing. As I said earlier in the thread, in my own writings I have hypothesized body paint may have been used almost like decorations on clothing. Perhaps one applied paint based on what they were doing. We’ll never know if that was true, but it’s certainly matches but we see some contemporary tribes doing. It would also be, of course, useful in the game.
One other important thing to consider is that most paint applied to the body and contemporary tribal societies is not in the form of simple shapes and markings, but usually encompasses large portions of the body. Entire arms and legs might be painted one color all the face another.
Illustrations depicting prehistoric people typically draw simple almost Rune like shapes on the people, but this doesn’t match up with what we see in cultures that use body paint. I would suspect that body paints should be vastly more covering. I watched documentaries for Amazon tribal women have spent as much as half of the day applying paint which would last for several days.
I believe I have read that in reference to plants like woad.
If I recall (totally off memory without references, mind you) that was something used by the Picts and had that effect.
Wondering if there will be any possible options for tribal tattooing or jewelry?
These options could be used as citizen upgrades or for possible trading income. Of course the amount of technology and resources gathered would allow for better upgrades.
Otzi the Iceman was found with 61 tattoos. Oddly, they were small lines in groups. They remind me of kill icons placed on airplanes when a pilot shot down an enemy. Of course, that’s just my take on it.
Goctha!!!
