Nothing is a hotter trend than Pogs. Sorry. I wanna wear one though.

Haha. It kind of is, that example is just really over the top.
The method is essentially the same.
You take a 2d texture/image and apply a mask to it.
Except instead of just being an alpha mask, the bump map also tells light sources how to interact with the texture/image to maintain its depth and perspective.

http://www.bricksntiles.com/communit.../preview01.jpg

This video is closer to Graal's perspective. The light at the bottom is basically how lights on Graal work at the moment, the light at his mouse cursor is affected by bump mapping.

Well sure, they're both masks but other than that... nothing is really similar lol.

Yeah I guess. I think I was just doing some wishful thinking.

This has evolved past the original topic, but...

For the record, this is already possible without the need for feature requests. Just learn how to use placeholders, and gani parameters to add shading yourself. The EASIEST way is to do this in a text editor - clone the definitions, replace BODY with ATTR#, change the ID, and clone the frames and change the target IDs, making sure to order it properly.

ALL of Graal 5 supports alpha layering. If you don't follow, don't worry about it.

This method would take the simplicity away from the feature entirely, though.

I support this idea more tbh but why a text editor? create custom ganis and have the shading mask as sprites. Also what crow said.

Doing it yourself means using all custom ganis, and doing a ****load of work that's not even compatible with existing work. Not worth the effort.

I wouldn't say that. Rather yet I would say it's worth it if you have a server that has custom ganis already (I'm talking starting out with custom walk, sword, lava, etc etc.) but for classic link's idea would be rather pointless.

I like your idea a lot dusty but the whole lot of it seems pointless as well. If you want shading on the body, why not add it yourself in the first place rather than create a mask section in the body template which you could simply add anyway over the body like your demonstration seems to show possible?

Hardly. The shading has to be body-specific anyway to look good, so it would have to either be appended to the body image, or a separate file for every body, to properly match the shape. The simplest way to implement this is channel-based coloring, which will allow shading in the same manner as the game already uses; all reds get colored to one color, all blues get colored to another, etc.

The gani method is byfar the easiest as modifying the ganis to support it using notepad, nano, vim, emacs, etc. takes roughly 1-2 minutes per gani if you know what you're doing (If you're using vim or emacs, you should be able to figure it out rather quickly ;))

You mostly just need to understand alpha layer concepts, mostly that the alpha layer is averaged, not added or subtracted.

How is that going to help for servers/bodies that are already existing? Let new servers do whatever they want, but that is not what this is for.

If you ask me it'd be easier to just add the mask over the body in one save and one without If you desire. I don't see the need as it seems to be just a want.

whats the problem w/ giving bodies more colors tho

You're kind of missing the whole idea.
In order to use the default body color system the body needs to have blocks of solid color; which means no shading. Adding a shading mask to it allows the body to have defined details and still have changeable colors with the shading added on top.

What you're suggesting is the production of a million free cars and the removal of all roads. You can't remove or modify existing systems, as it screws with what people have already done.

Some servers already use custom ganis for players, most of which change how the BODY image is used, and a good deal completely remove the use of the body*.png/gif files (Bomys for example, probably use the BODY param)

Not all servers will want this new feature, and if they do, they either make it or request it. Like I said, it can be done in a matter of minutes, seeing as you want it to apply to BODY - just choose a param that your server never uses and copy the defs, change the indexes and set BODY to PARAM#, copy the animation, change the indexes, then you're set.