Appearance of mounted characters in feed images

One bit of weirdness I've seen at EQ2U is that characters who were mounted when the feed was updated will appear mounted in the image, but without the mount (in mid-air with legs spread). This is very weird looking. The EQ2U people say they are just using the image feed as provided.

Now the old-style 'paperdoll' image was always of the standing character, regardless of whether the character was mounted ot not. I'm not sure how the image produced by the new feed is different. I'm still studying the new API and trying to understand how it works so I can integrate that into all my testing.

Bottom line here is that I'm trying to figure out what needs to be done where to get consistent character images with their feet on the ground. Suggestions?

 

It's true that we are just using the image that comes from the game at EQ2U.  We don't have any control over that.

However, YOU do have a little control over the image.  You can "pose" your character to a certain extent when you log out.  I've been able to dismount, target someone, hit the ~ button to go into combat, and then camp to desktop.  When I pulled up my paperdoll afterwards, my character had his weapons drawn in the image.

So you do have some control over the image that gets exported as long as you pay attention to how you look when you log out. 

Personally, I wish it never showed mounts and just acted as though you were standing all the time.  I'm guessing that the mounts no longer being drawn is a bug.

 

In the past, didn't the paperdoll only get exported when you used /paperdoll or some similar command in-game?

 

I'm not sure about that, but currently, an update is done every time you login, zone or camp.  Each update includes a snapshot of the stats as well as the paperdoll and headshot.

There has been some discussion about triggering updates on other events (quest completion, level-up, etc.), but I don't know the status of that.  The frequency is entirely up to each game team - the system behind the API is merely the pipe for those updates to be syndicated to multiple recipients.

We have discussed the use of a /paperdoll command.  Apparently this didn't go very well when it was available and the game team prefers to handle it more auto-magically.  Dethdlr has found a clever way to allow folks to "pose" for the process.

The game team has made a change to improve the issue around the mounts (from the OP).  That change is supposed to be available on the next update, scheduled for next Tuesday.  It won't bring the mount back into the paperdoll, but it will improve the posture of the character.

-dan

 

You know, this is a good time to grab your (or your friends&#39 paperdoll in this fashion to do some Stephen Colbert-style image manipulation.  

You have until Tuesday morning.

-dan

 

I'm not terribly good at resisting temptation, but I think I'll manage this time. It would be just too easy to get myself into too much trouble....

Dunno about any /paperdoll command, but SHIFT-PRTSCRN saves a local paperdoll instead of a full screenshot. That has no effect on what the server decides you look like.

The idea of adjusting posture is right on the mark. My original thought had been simply to ensure that the character was captured in nornal standing position regardless of being mounted, having weapons drawn, etc.

I mostly feel that character stats are captured often enough. The new system is way more dynamic than anything prior. For me, it's enough to know that my info is updated when the character camps. But my point of view is based on simple and less time-bounded needs. I just want everyone to be up to date when I browse EQ2U between play sessions. Others may have reasons for wanting more frequent updates.