Are the canon alternate skins not in the randomized pool anymore?

[Xionahri]

I've been playing a lot of Sandbox again since the last update, and I always randomize my animals' colours and patterns. Yet I've not yet seen one of the non-standard skins. Not even in the Velociraptors, which have a lot of alternate skins.
That I have random patterns activated too doesn't seem like it could be the cause, since animals will sometimes have blank patterns too. Also, it has been working 'normally' in the previous versions, as far as I remember. I distinctively remember having had a wild mix of different-looking raptors before, all from the same clutch.

If it truely is a removed feature, take this thread as a suggestion to add it back in. Maybe as a toogle if some people don't want it. But I like having some different-looking oddities here and there.

 

[Pixelated Sparkster]

I noticed it too, I personally appreciated it as I liked having random skins that don’t include the movie variants, but I see the appeal of having the option to include movie skins to the selection.

A highlight feature would be great to choose a batch of skins to randomize from, that way it will be random but within a selection the player likes to have chosen from.

So you could pick a batch of greens, yellows, and reds for a particular dinosaur and randomize from that batch. Highlight everything but movie skins, or highlight everything with movie skins depending on preference, or not highlighting the blank pattern skin if you want all incubated dinosaurs to have a pattern included.

 

[Mjmannella]

I think it’d be best if legacy variants were a separate cosmetic from the base skin, allowing them to have the same variety of colours and pattern colours as their standard counterparts (Including randomized options).

 

[Jens Erik]

If it truely is a removed feature, take this thread as a suggestion to add it back in. Maybe as a toogle if some people don't want it. But I like having some different-looking oddities here and there.

I've reached out to the team about this

 

[Xionahri]

I've reached out to the team about this

Thank you!

 

[Xionahri]

I think it’d be best if legacy variants were a separate cosmetic from the base skin, allowing them to have the same variety of colours and pattern colours as their standard counterparts (Including randomized options).

That would be awesome, but thinking about it more, I'm not entirely sure how feasable it is.

For the animals that have only one or two patterns, sure, but let's lets look again again at velociraptor and its nine alternate versions. If what you propose would happen, the number of unique looking raptors would rise from 93 to a whooping 840, if I did the math correctly. Now, not only will each skin and pattern have to be recoloured (which I assume has some manual work behind it, not just colour sliders), but the textures may need to be redrawn entirely, depending on how the designers used layers. That all seems like a lot of work for one species.

I however do think getting more colours, patterns, and even base skin designs in the future. After all, Planet Zoo got some more colour diversity in later updates for some species, so the possibility is there that'll happen too.

 

[Mjmannella]

Now, not only will each skin and pattern have to be recoloured (which I assume has some manual work behind it, not just colour sliders), but the textures may need to be redrawn entirely, depending on how the designers used layers. That all seems like a lot of work for one species.

This processed is already manageable, as the game uses modified hue values projected onto a blank brown texture to create each base colour and pattern colour. All that would really need to be done would be creating patterns for each variant, which could be carried over directly from the standard variant. I have full faith that this is something Frontier could reasonably accomplish given sufficient time.

 

[Xionahri]

This processed is already manageable, as the game uses modified hue values projected onto a blank brown texture to create each base colour and pattern colour. All that would really need to be done would be creating patterns for each variant, which could be carried over directly from the standard variant. I have full faith that this is something Frontier could reasonably accomplish given sufficient time.

Now that does sound reasonable after all. This is not how I imaged it working. Interesting method!