First model from scratch w Blender

[Destructavator]

I was able to make the time to put together a model of a uniform boot (used by law enforcement/military/etc), after a pair I own myself, although I haven't textured it because I don't know how to do that yet.

Attached are screenshots of what it was based upon, and here is a link to the .blender file for people to play with:

http://destructavator.com/public/Unfiorm_Boot_1.zip

If anyone wants to texture this and improve it, be my guest.  I do *not* however recommend attempting to make an exact copy of the real design though, as the company that made these, Bates, owns the copyright/trademark for the original design.

Before you ask, I know the soldiers in the game already have boots, but this could be used for a high-quality rendering for a cinematic, which might look much better than grabbing a model already used in the game with less polycount (I hope I'm using the right term there).

BTW, for those who are rendering models for cinematics, practically any engine/language could be used, I've been slowly learning how to animate models with Irrlicht 3D engine and C++, a combination I picked simply because I heard that Irrlicht is one of the easier open-source 3D engines to work with.

For those trying to make higher-quality models for people in cinematics, I also found an open-source program called "MakeHuman" (it is on sourceforge) that is rather good, and even though it isn't finished it can export to blender as COLLADA and another format I can't recall at the moment (or any other modeling program).

EDIT: Almost forgot, I'll release it under GPL v2 license, if that works.

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[BTAxis]

How about attaching a screenshot of the actual model? I don't particularly care about a picture of a real boot.

[Destructavator]

Sorry, I'm still learning Blender and don't know how to make a screenshot within the program yet, but it's in the zip file.

[BTAxis]

Surely you can make a screenshot of blender itself with Windows/X?

[Destructavator]

Hang on a sec...

Ah! Here we go, found it - "Dump Screen":

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[Mattn]

what's the polycount? looks a little bit high

[Destructavator]

Honestly I don't know - but then again, I made this model

1) Because I'm new to modeling and wanted to see if I could learn Blender, and

2) Because I also think that this would be good for a high-quality source video that could be made into a cinematic, not actually used for the in-game engine, as I mentioned in the first post:

Before you ask, I know the soldiers in the game already have boots, but this could be used for a high-quality rendering for a cinematic, which might look much better than grabbing a model already used in the game with less polycount (I hope I'm using the right term there).

BTW, for those who are rendering models for cinematics, practically any engine/language could be used, I've been slowly learning how to animate models with Irrlicht 3D engine and C++, a combination I picked simply because I heard that Irrlicht is one of the easier open-source 3D engines to work with.

I agree, yes, that this probably is indeed too high-detailed for use in the actual gameplay, although it would be good (if textured) for a nice cutscene RoQ, to re-phrase my statement.

Sorry if I was unclear on that point.

EDIT: To further elaborate, when rendering simply a video clip for a RoQ, it wouldn't really matter if the polycount was high, because the modified Q2 engine wouldn't be dealing with it, it would just be playing the eventual RoQ.

[Destructavator]

I recall one of the ideas for a short segment of one of the proposed intro animations was to show soldiers running (along with alarms going off, etc.) while aliens were attacking, I think it was BTAxis who came up with that idea.

If legs were added to this, then it was put in front of a background of part of a corridor inside a miltary base, it would be easy to make a short video clip of a few seconds of soldiers running.

I'd like to give everyone here an example of what I'm talking about, but I don't yet know how to texture then animate the model (yet).  A picture tells a thousand words, and right now I can't implement the picture (in this case, the video clip), so I'm forced to settle for words right now.

EDIT/Update: Here, something like this:

http://www.destructavator.com/public/boot_run.avi

This is a quick and dirty depiction of what I'm thinking, but if this was done with many feet going by quickly (running, with a different background to look like a military base hallway), it might make a nice cinematic fragment.

Or, if you don't mind live video, I can dig out the chorma key background screen and film it with better lighting, edit it, and create it that way.  I also have camo pants in several color combinations, as well as black (Ultra Force brand).

[Destructavator]

So what would be best?  Modeling, live video, or a combination of both?

[Psawhn]

The polycount is in the upper-right corner. It's given in faces, which counts both quadrangular faces and triangular faces. Currently yours shows 272 faces. By the looks of that, most of them will be quads, so if it were in the game it'd be 544 triangles or fewer.

If you want to give more than just an OpenGL screenshot, you'll have to do a render. This uses the lights and the camera in the scene. This is also the way to showcase more advanced materials. It's found in the scene panel (the part on the bottom, the little icon that looks like a photo of mountains) - it's the big button labelled "RENDER." A shortcut to render is to press the F12 button. To save the render, press the F3 key. If you accidentally close your render window before you save it, you can pull up the last render by pressing F11 and then save with F3.

There's plenty of tutorials about to learn how to use blender. The main wiki at http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Main_Page contains a multitude of resources, plus links to more. If you're a visual learner, try http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com/ or search for blender video tutorials on google.

[Destructavator]

Thanks, I'll look into these tips later when I have the time.

Before rendering though, I'll have to figure out how to texture the thing, something I haven't researched yet.

Again, I'm doing this for the two reasons I mentioned, I didn't actually intend for the game engine to use it as an in-game model, but I might use this eventually for building part of a roq movie clip.

- Dave

[Psawhn]

Alternatively, you may be more comfortable photographing a real boot with a simulated studio setup (using a few blankets and sheets and lamps) than trying to model and texture a photorealistic boot.

Actually, photographing your boot isn't a bad idea if you want to texture the 3D model. That way you can use the clone/stamp tool of GIMP/Photoshop/etc to help add a lot of realism to your texture. For reference images (eg: how the specular ("shineyness") of the boot behaves) you can photograph under differing lighting conditions (such as a softer light, or harsher direct light).

[Danimal]

just a question can we use and export blender materials instead of textures to the ingame engine?

[Destructavator]

I think so, yes.  I've heard that there is a way to take a material generated with Blender and export it to a solid square graphic BMP or JPEG or something that can be a texture for use in something else, if that's what you're talking about.

Now that I think about it, yes, I've actually seen examples of it being done, although I don't remember exactly how - I'm not an expert with Blender.  I recall it was something with the face unwrap and rendering, if I'm thinking of the right thing.  I also remember I looked this up myself at one point and had to do a lot of digging with Google to find it.

[Mattn]

i think we have some links in our wiki that may be handy to solve this task