Redo of Soldier Body model

[Destructavator]

I really wanted to get that second soldier body model out the door, to go with the new animations and so that others could base things upon it, but I've re-opened the file and found that its still quite messy from being hacked apart and put back together again, as well as having un-needed polys in strange places.

I found it was actually quicker and easier to start over with a body from the newer MakeHuman software.

This model only took an hour, is much simpler, is very clean, and has many less verts and polys, and I think will work better once polished a little in a few places.

Yes, I know this is the third time, but I think it'll work much better.  (They say "third time's the charm...")

Here's what it looks like so far.

[Destructavator]

Here's what it looks like scaled (almost but not quite right) with one of the new heads.  I know it looks a bit funny right now, but when I'm done it should look nicer.

P.S. - I decided to go without any armor for this one, so it can work as a base for the others, I think no armor is a better starting point.

[Destructavator]

Re-did the scaling, enlarged and worked on the boots and feet.

[Destructavator]

A little more work, made some texture corrections in places where I messed up previously.

[Destructavator]

I think I finally got the boots and feet about right...

[Winter]

Just a heads-up, the head's still quite small in comparison to the body.

Regards,
Winter

[Destructavator]

Just a heads-up, the head's still quite small in comparison to the body.

Regards,
Winter

OK, I'll make some minor adjustments.

How do these new ones look for a vest?  (This would be if no armor was equipped.)

Edit:  In the last one I re-did some scaling, this should be closer to the proper head-body ratio size.

[Destructavator]

Got a working skeleton for animations!  It just needs a little tweaking with vertex groups, but mostly the skeleton is done for a few basic poses.

[vedrit]

if we could get a rigger to do a quick rigging job, that would be awsome.
If not, then I can take over and stop my slacking

[Destructavator]

Glad to see you're still around, Vedrit!

I actually created the skeleton for this one by studying the one you made for the older, second incarnation of the soldier body.

Would you still be up for creating the animations?

I know this doesn't have handles that you mentioned - As an alternative, if you don't like the idea of animating in Blender, I could start some animations, as I'd like to learn anyhow and think it would be fun, and you could watch and comment on how they come out, guiding me and telling me what they would need to look more realistic.  I know Winter would of course still give final approval/disapproval, but I could show them to you first and learn that way.

Otherwise, when I'm finished attaching the skeleton I'll just upload the Blender file and you can get to work on it.  (And I can practice animating other stuff...)

What do you say?

[vedrit]

I encourage learning animation. I think its fun, and not all that hard to do. You just have to understand how the body moves, and how the clothing will impeed movement (Normally, something called Paint Weighting would be used, and that would affect how the clothing moves and bends, etc, but its very complex, far beyond my comprehension)
Handles are only there to aid in animation, but arent necissary. We can split up the list of animations. That way, the list gets taken care of a little bit faster, you learn to animate, and I stop slacking

[Destructavator]

Great!  Sounds like a good plan.

I'll upload the Blender file shortly - I just have to fix how the bones attach to the fingers in the hands, the rest pretty much works.

Regarding the model:  Winter hasn't given final approval to this particular model for a soldier, but it could still be animated and other soldier models (all the armor types and such) could be based upon it, and should work with most of the animations - altering the model may just mean re-attaching the skeleton to changed areas.

[Destructavator]

Actually, I realized you would probably want to re-do the hands of the skeleton anyways, since I did the hands from scratch and probably didn't do it the best way, so here it is:

http://www.destructavator.com/92dl/Soldier_Armor_v3_30.zip

~1.5 MB download, around 4.5 MB uncompressed.

This also contains a lot of textures, the older second soldier model (which is quite messy, please don't use it), all the camo textures, and one head.

The head will eventually be replaced with an MD2 tag, but for now it is in there to make animating where the heads will be in the game easier.

I almost forgot: The upper and mid torso bones are attached a little funny, I didn't finish those yet.

Last, this model as it is is GPL, with no restrictions on use in other games and such.  (I might actually also use it in one of my own little pet projects.)

[Winter]

The head proportion looks better now. Just one more thing niggles at me now -- the neck looks very thin for that size head, and it doesn't have quite the right shape.

Regards,
Winter

[Bartleby]

this is looking better and better. even though i am not able to help i would like to know if its possible to change the width of the model without the need of an animationchange? that way it would be possible to have different builded bodies (hm.. as a feature the strength of the soldier is seen ^^). just dreaming .