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Tattooing, Painted Skin and Jewelry

AC Feedback and Suggestions
#1

Body paints are a “second skin” humans have used for all of recorded history, and likely long before. In fact, earlier homo hominids, such as Neanderthal, may have also painted their bodies. (https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/06/120614-neanderthal-cave-paintings-spain-science-pike/)

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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.

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Tattooing / Jewelry
#2

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 :relaxed:

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#3

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.

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#4

Body paint/tatoo tech as separated layer texture is already in the game engine:

Paints.jpg1600×1000 1.81 MB

How the AI will handle this, is still to be defined and will very much depend on development time.

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#5

\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.

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#6

Textures will probably be accessible, which do not means official mod support for release date though, as stated before.

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#7

:wink: Goctha!!!

I hope I don’t easily find textures and config files… then I might “accidentally” mod the game… :wink:
Wouldn’t want that to happen… :blush:

Anyhow, I can’t wait to see!!! \o/ :smiley:

#8

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.) ?

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#9

We have something like that in mind.

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#10

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.

#11

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.

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Click on woman to see her elaborate paint job. \o/
This very paint job takes about 2-4 hours to apply (trust me).

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#12

I read or saw somewhere body paint, not tattooing, was actually helpful in combat. It provided healing properties by what body paint was used.

#13

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.

#14

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.

Edit: couple of links.

#15

Tatoo and skin marking tech is already working in the game. AI need to learn how to use it if it has any meaning.
Jewelry is planned.

10 Likes
#16

Awesome, thank you for the information! :thumbsup:

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#17

Thanks!!!

Will you have body scarification?
(Probably could use a skin texture)

Below is an Anatolian early Neolithic woman with scarification on her shoulders.

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#18

There are peoples that still do it, like the Luba in Africa

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#19

Will it be used to designate class (brave warrior with many kills and conquests) and Chieftains?

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#20

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.

https://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=PMC3560943_10787_2012_153_Fig1_HTML&req=4