Redo of Soldier Body model

[Destructavator]

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

OK, this should be easy to fix, the neck right now is actually one of the least complex parts of the model and very easy to change.

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 .

Yes, it's very easy to scale selected parts of the model on a specific axis to make it look stockier or more slender, and the skeleton can easily be scaled with it, so no additional animation work would be needed.  This would only take a few quick minutes, and is actually something I thought of before in the past, so the soldiers don't look like clones from the neck down.

[vedrit]

The bone connections, or lack thereof, at the hips is whats concerning me most about the skeleton. How it is now, the bones in the hip will move in relation to the entire scene, rather than to the bone that it stems from. Did you start making the skeleton from the waist up?

[Destructavator]

Yes, it was made from the waist up.  Thanks for pointing this out, I missed this issue.

I actually found a "connect" button for the hip bones that almost fixes this - only the program wants to connect the hips to the top of the torso bone instead of the bottom when I press it.

Edit:  I did a quick test, I found that extruding from the other end of the first initial armature bone doesn't work - it won't connect on that end of just that first bone.  Funny how Blender is designed to do that - I had no idea the developers of Blender would do something like that.

Do you want me to try to re-build a new skeleton?

[Destructavator]

@Winter:  I did some work on the neck, how does this look?  (The posture will of course change when the animations are done.)

[Mattn]

add more muscles to the arms and legs please.

[vedrit]

I find that working from either the neck  down (Preffered) or the feet up works best

[MXcom]

add more muscles to the arms and legs please.

Is the model shared between male and female actors? I wouldn't add too much then. Or consider seperating it.

[Destructavator]

Is the model shared between male and female actors? I wouldn't add too much then. Or consider seperating it.

No, this is just the male version - I'm just working on them one at a time, with the goal of finishing one completely before starting the other.  If I were to do both at the same time, it would be slower because when changing features I'd have to go back and re-do parts of two models instead of one, and it would take more time and work.

[Winter]

Yeah, the neck is better like that. Maybe increasing the side of the head a tiny bit would be good as well, at least the width. There's something still ever so slightly off about the proportions, although nothing so bad that we couldn't use it as it is.

Regards,
Winter

[Imposeren]

There's something still ever so slightly off about the proportions, although nothing so bad that we couldn't use it as it is.

I think that hands are little bit short

[Mattn]

hands should not be modelled in high detail anyway - currently we don't even have fingers. and as we don't have bones it wouldn't make sense to add to much detail there.

[vedrit]

Like I said before, if the game will support individual fingers, they can be made

[Destructavator]

I remember the previous discussion about the fingers - IIRC they were decided to be OK for cinematic cut-scenes and movie clips (high-detail), but the models for in-game battlescape missions during gameplay (lower detail) would *not* have fingers, just "mittens."  Did I remember correctly?

Anyways, It'll be a few days before my computer is fixed - the one I have the models on anyways (details posted elsewhere in the forum).

[Mattn]

I remember the previous discussion about the fingers - IIRC they were decided to be OK for cinematic cut-scenes and movie clips (high-detail), but the models for in-game battlescape missions during gameplay (lower detail) would *not* have fingers, just "mittens."  Did I remember correctly?

yes - that correct

[Destructavator]

OK, I heavily re-did much of the model, keeping in mind all of the suggestions here - The scale of everything is driving me crazy, I beefed up parts of the limbs to look more muscular, and kept trying to adjust all the scaled parts here and there, not to mention also to match the head.

I've been re-scaling and adjusting the thing for so long that now its hard to tell what would look right.

On a positive note, I was able to glue the fingers together for this version, I'll save the high-detailed version for video clips for later.