Character Ages

[ProgrammingFreak]

How hard would it be to make a game where the character ages. I want to make it where the it is as releastic as possible, the guy dosen't age in 2 or 5 days. There is a time system and a it has month, days, years, ect. So every year or whatever day his "birthday" is on he will age. I was wondering if this would take a lot of code or not

[ggambett]

The question, as you put it, doesn't make any sense. I can answer as follows :

1) It's trivial. nAge++;

2) It's impossible. Procedurally modeling the evolution of the bone structure and generating aged the skin textures is extremely hard.

[electronicStar]

It would be a lot of work and I'm not so sure it would be worth the hassle. Anyway I wouldn't put it as a priority.

[Ricardo C]

What effect does ageing have on the character?

Is the game 2D or 3D?

How detailed is the player, graphically speaking?

Does ageing affect the players appearance, or his stats?

[ProgrammingFreak]

Well I was thinking about making it 3D using Blender, but if takes too much bone strcture and skin texturing, maybe I'll wait until I am more advanced with 3D Modeling

[Nexic]

Your question is still really hard to answer. If you were to use say 10 different models, each one dipicting the character at different points in their life then it would be as simple as increasing an age variable, and then changing the model when you reached a milestone (like 5 years old, 10 years old, 20 years old etc). But if you want to do the calculations in real time, then it would be extremely hard if you wanted them to be realistic. But I think such a system would be overkill in any game.

[jwe]

There is one excellent game example: Fable.
You start as a boy, after the tutorial you switch to a young man.
After time passes, you are getting older, this is not only done with mesh changes but mostly with texture changes.
Mesh change with the strength of the Character. A strong Warrior looks different then a Mage.

Anything else would spoil the game (who wants to walk like a old man?) and would add incredible amount of work.
(Not only mesh changes, but also any dress equipment)

[ProgrammingFreak]

Maybe I will start simple with the character as a kid at age 1-5 and them make him look older at age 5-10 and then as teenager 12-18 and then as a grown adult at 18-50, then as an old man 50-80, the game will probably end around that time, if I were going to that