UFO:Alien Invasion
Development => Artwork => Topic started by: Destructavator on May 23, 2009, 02:50:24 am
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Alright, I had a little spare time recently and felt inspired to give it another try at making a new soldier model, taking a break from the SFX.
Interestingly, I found it was easier to start over with a new human base model from MakeHuman, and I modeled most of the lower half (from the belt downward) of a new soldier, and although I didn't even start on the upper half yet this only took me about an hour, compared to more than one day with the first one. :)
I've already added some material groups on the lower half, different parts of the texture will go in the areas of different colors shown in this shot (the tan/beige areas are where the camouflage will go).
When this one gets done, after the top half is done, I think it'll look much better than the old one, which became a cluttered mess. :P
Edit: For those who don't know modeling, this model will be symmetrical horizontally, which is why the other side is missing right now - as one of the more final steps the one side will be copied and mirrored to make the complete soldier.
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Seems I'm getting addicted to this modeling stuff, I couldn't resist making a version with armor plates added... :D
The red areas are where some type of armor plate texture could go.
(Yes, I know it still needs some work...)
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http://www.destructavator.com/92dl/Soldier_Armor_1.blend
This isn't perfect, but anyone is free to play with it - please tell me what you think.
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That last one looked preatty good! When I finish up adding animations to the skeleton (Been busy with graduation stuff), I'll download it and see how things work
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That last one looked preatty good! When I finish up adding animations to the skeleton (Been busy with graduation stuff), I'll download it and see how things work
Thanks, I was just about to ask you about that - glad you noticed this thread.
I still need to make some minor adjustments and cleanups to that last model, but for the most part the basic shape and size won't change, so if you can get the skeleton to work with this one then it should work fine with the final version once I'm done with it.
Congratulations on your graduation! 8)
Edit: Just realized I forgot to glue the fingers together as "mittens" - I think I can do this without too much hassle, I'll see what I can do...
Edit2: Here's a somewhat cleaned-up version, I re-did the texture and made numerous other changes:
http://www.destructavator.com/92dl/Soldier_Armor_1c.blend
The textures are still coming out a little strange, but much better than the old soldier model I put together. Even after adding animations, textures should be very easy to update though.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to do with the hands, perhaps with the skeleton they could be posed with the fingers all together? This would also easily allow the model to be re-used for a program/game that does use fingers and hands, as well as this project if the game is ever re-written with a new engine that supports attaching bones and such with fingers. (I'm not holding my breath on that one, but I think it would be good to at least leave the door open to it as far as the model goes, in case someone does try to start such a thing.)
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I did more work on the texture, and made a number of versions for different camo color combinations. Here are the textures.
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I'm not good at anatomy, but i think that his arms and legs are little too thin.
I think that some time ago i already posted this program:
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php
Maybe it could be somehow useful for prototyping models.
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Yes, I know about MakeHuman, and in fact I actually already used it for a base model before adding details. Thanks for the tip anyways, it is indeed a very nice program.
As for how thin/stocky the model is, the base model I started with (from MakeHuman) was created with settings for a model of someone lean but muscular, which I think is good for an elite soldier. I remember someone saying that they thought the old existing models were far too stocky, and I've seen models of humans for other games much thinner than this that were labeled as "normal." I'm not trying to argue or say you're wrong, but perceptions do vary quite a bit.
Of course people vary quite a bit too - I've seen real soldiers who stay in shape and are quite thinner than this model, as well as other, stockier soldiers who are gigantic, hulking muscular figures.
Still, if others here agree with you then it wouldn't be too difficult for me to thicken the arms and legs a bit.
Actually now that I think about it I'm wondering if there could be several versions, different builds and body types, it would make the game look better if the soldiers didn't look like clones from the neck down...
...but before I make more versions of this:
@vedrit: Does this model come close to working with the skeleton and animations you're working on? If I'm going to add more details and adjustments based on this model, I'd hate to do more work only to find that it doesn't work with the animation part.
P.S. - I'm also hoping at some point that BTAxis, Mattn, and especially Winter would comment on what needs to be added/changed.
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Hm...The arms do look a bit thin compared to the rest of the body...not much, but just a little.
As for detail, so long as the areas around the joints arent messed with, there should be a problem. Looking at it, I think that the current verticie positioning is great, and will help
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Yeah, now that I look at it again, I think both of you are right about the arms, I'll thicken/enlarge them a little.
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How is this?
Changes:
- Arms are a little thicker
- Boots have more detail
- Texture is smaller, now a 512x512 JPEG instead of 1024x1024 texture
Edit: If this is acceptable or close to it, I'll let this be released under GPL terms, version 2 or higher, with no other restrictions (meaning use in other games/projects is OK).
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it look better, but can you post a screenshot of the wireframe model?
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OK, here's wireframe view - Is this what you wanted?
Also, FYI the vertex count comes out to about 873, I hope that's not a problem.
If you like this version I can also make more textures for it, for different camo pattern colors.
Also, it isn't shown in these screenshots, but the bottom of the feet have a texture for the boots.
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You need to widen the hips a bit, and increase the size of the boots relative to the legs. The small boots make the legs look overly long.
Regards,
Winter
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OK, will do.
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OK, here's a fixed version with those adjustments.
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...And wireframe views.
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Yeah, that's getting much closer to human proportions. I'd say you could afford to increase the hip size a little more, but I'm okay with the geometry as it is. :P
Regards,
Winter
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nice job - do you plan to add a women model, too?
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Yeah, that's getting much closer to human proportions. I'd say you could afford to increase the hip size a little more, but I'm okay with the geometry as it is. :P
Regards,
Winter
OK, I did a final adjustment on the hips, here's what is probably the final version of the male armored soldier. This .blend file includes six textures, Arctic, Black, Blue, Desert, Green, and Urban. (The Black version is actually still camo, just a blend of shades of black and very dark grey, I thought it would be good for a very dark "stealth" look.) If you want more colors, just ask. They're all packed into one .blend file (in different Scenes) so the materials and textures are all there, and messy import/export of materials/texures won't be needed if changes to colors are needed. This also allows easy re-creation of the textures for those who know their way around Blender.
nice job - do you plan to add a women model, too?
Yes, I certainly do, and I'll probably add it to the same .blend file eventually so that I can grab the same materials and keep the textures consistent.
For now, it might be good to add this to the data source as a backup, and later update it when I make the female version.
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Whoops! I realized I forgot to zap out extra duplicates of material textures, also made a few other minor errors.
Try this one instead:
http://www.destructavator.com/92dl/Soldier1h_Armor_Male.zip
This one also has a few more textures, now a total of nine, although some are probably best for multiplayer, I would recommend only some of them for a single-player campaign. Real soldiers probably wouldn't wear some of these colors, but with the extra ones its possible for a bunch of people to play a multi-player map at the same time, and everyone to have a different color.
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OK, here's the female version.
Except for the boots, which I'm still working on, how does it look?
(This hasn't been textured yet, but you can see where the texture groups are by the different solid colors.)
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Needs wider, rounder hips and narrower shoulders. Females are tough to get right in 3d so make sure you have reference images to work from. Overlaying said references onto the background is a good method.
Regards,
Winter
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I took a look back at the base model I used, from MakeHuman, and saw you were right.
I made some adjustments, here's how it looks now.
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Definite improvement. Only one thing I'm noticing now, and it's present in both models -- the knees seem strangely low down on the legs. The thighs look to be much much longer than the shins. Is the base model like that as well?
Regards,
Winter
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Hmmm... Now that you've pointed that out, I think you're right - I'm not sure if that's Makehuman's fault (with the original base models) or mine (with how I altered them). Regardless, I'll make some corrections.
Edit: Here are some adjusted versions.
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Hey, I tried uploading my work (Skeleton, some handles) to a folder I (tried, but dont know if it went) added to the SVN, but I got an error saying something like "403 forbidden"
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Hmmm... Now that you've pointed that out, I think you're right - I'm not sure if that's Makehuman's fault (with the original base models) or mine (with how I altered them). Regardless, I'll make some corrections.
Edit: Here are some adjusted versions.
Good. Now, two more things I've spotted! ;)
1: The geometry on the shins seems strange, kind of dented-in in places. Am I just seeing it wrong?
2: The male's legs are very very thin for the rest of his body. Just compare them to the female's legs and you'll see what I mean.
Regards,
Winter
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Hey, I tried uploading my work (Skeleton, some handles) to a folder I (tried, but dont know if it went) added to the SVN, but I got an error saying something like "403 forbidden"
I'm not an expert at the SVN system, but from what I've heard you would need special permissions to upload directly to SVN, as the SVN has restricted access (to prevent random people who aren't from the project from uploading things they shouldn't). I'd suggest uploading the files to FileFront or somewhere else where one of the devs can grab it and then add it to SVN. If you want direct SVN access I'm guessing you would have to talk to Mattn.
Good. Now, two more things I've spotted! ;)
1: The geometry on the shins seems strange, kind of dented-in in places. Am I just seeing it wrong?
2: The male's legs are very very thin for the rest of his body. Just compare them to the female's legs and you'll see what I mean.
Regards,
Winter
1. The preview mode for "solid" view in Blender sometimes shades model parts strangely and makes them look funny like that, which doesn't occur with a final texture, but I'll double-check the models.
2. OK, I'll get to work on the legs.
Edit: FYI, although it might not be apparent in these shots, the male model is actually slightly taller than the female one.
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Hey, I tried uploading my work (Skeleton, some handles) to a folder I (tried, but dont know if it went) added to the SVN, but I got an error saying something like "403 forbidden"
Maybe you should try uploading to tracker?
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=805244&group_id=157793&func=browse
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OK, I did a bunch of tiny little fixes, worked on the legs, and merged a ton of unnecessary edges and vertexes that really didn't need to be there (many were so close with such tiny little polys the player would *never* notice them) and cut the poly count down to just 763 vertexes.
If this looks OK, I'll also clean up the female model as well.
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Here's the cleaned-up female model, with a vertex count of ~909. I couldn't really cut out any more trivial details without affecting the female curves and such, although before I fine-tuned it the poly count was gigantic.
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OK, here's a link to the latest Blend file, with all the latest corrections for both the male and female version. All the textures have also been re-built and included in the file.
http://www.destructavator.com/92dl/Soldier2_Armor.zip
If these look OK, I'd say go ahead and go with these. (At least to the data source, obviously they can't be included in-game yet until Vedrit animates them and I make heads for them.)
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please keep in mind that you also have to set tags - they must be animated, too (move with the model)
tags are there for letting the engine know where to hold weapons, there to put the head and so on. afair hoehrer wrote a blender script for exporting them, too.
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tags? eh....I know nothing about tags. And at the moment, its not animated, since its not even fully rigged. I just wanted to get it on the SVN so that anyone else that wanted to could help with rigging and the eventual tagging and animating
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i've added some more information to the modelling articles in our wiki
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I did some research on tags - In Blender they are "Empties" which are attached to parts of bones in the skeleton.
Vedrit, if you can build skeletons for the latest male and female models, I think I can add the tags quite easily if I read the right information I found on the web. Basically the tags are parented to specific parts of bones so the game engine knows where to attach weapons in the hands, the head on the neck, etc.
Adding the tags shouldn't be too hard, I'd imagine the skeleton and body animations will probably be the most work at this point.
Edit: Vedrit, do you have any place to upload what you've come up with?
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IMHO, a tag should be a bone, then its more something for animator.
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IMHO, a tag should be a bone, then its more something for animator.
True, it would probably make it easier to animate a bone where the tag will go with the rest of the animation, then attach a tag to that bone, yes, I agree, that's a good idea.
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Aside from FileFront, no. The SVN I used for my game stopped working.
Im still a tad fuzzy on the "tag" concept. Where would the bone thats a tag go? Theres a bone for the hand, so why not tag that bone? Then the object will move with the hand, and I and any other animator dont have to worry about an extra bone
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Im still a tad fuzzy on the "tag" concept. Where would the bone thats a tag go? Theres a bone for the hand, so why not tag that bone? Then the object will move with the hand, and I and any other animator dont have to worry about an extra bone
OK, a tag is kind of like a bone, but instead of being attached to the same mesh or object as the rest of the skeleton it tells the game engine "When I want to attach a weapon to the palm of this models hand, this is where it is and how it will be positioned in the hand." With the palm of a hand, yes, you could probably get away without an extra bone to show where the weapon goes and how it fits in the hand, if you make the tag for the weapon a child of the hand bone which is the parent. Yes, you could just slap the tag right on the palm, but you wouldn't be able to do special animations such as having a character twirl a gun in his hand (showing off after shooting something).
An extra bone on top of the neck, for the head, is definitely necessary unless you don't want the character to be able to turn his/her head in any animation.
So if you include a "head bone" on top of the neck and animate it as if the model had a head, instead of putting a real head mesh up there you replace it with a tag that tells the game "this is where a head mesh will be, it just isn't included with this file."
It's kind of like having an armature controlling multiple mesh objects in the same scene, except one is replaced with a tag so that the other object included elsewhere with the game files goes there. The tag itself isn't really an object and isn't rendered.
I admit that's a clumsy explanation, parts of which you might already know, but I hope it helps.
Aside from FileFront, no. The SVN I used for my game stopped working.
If the file with the skeleton - just the skeleton - isn't too big in size you could attach it right to a post in any thread here, the max attachment size is currently 1024 KB, and you could also compress it in a .zip file to make it fit.
Alternatively you could email the whole thing, my email address linked to my forum profile takes attachments up to 20 MB or so if I remember correctly. I could then put it on my website server with the other files I've linked to, or pass it around other ways.
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OOOOOohhh! I see. Yeah, it might be handy for idle animations. Add a little "Pizzaz" to it
And I attached the blend file. Its the skeleton and what handles I put in
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OOOOOohhh! I see. Yeah, it might be handy for idle animations. Add a little "Pizzaz" to it
Yep, and as you can see, once a skeleton is in place adding the tags is quite simple.
And I attached the blend file. Its the skeleton and what handles I put in
Alright! I've been itching to see some of these new models running around animated - I'll try this skeleton with the latest models ASAP and report back later on how it works with both the male and female models, or at least the male one.
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OK, I lined up the skeleton you made with the most recent male model, just two things:
1) The knees look a little low to me, probably because the final model of the male soldier has higher knees, but this is easy to fix if it really is an issue - I could be wrong though.
2) The hand bones line up OK, but there aren't any for the fingers. I could go back and glue them into mittens, but personally I think it would look the best in the game for the soldiers to have animated fingers, while the tags for weapons and items would attach to the palms. For most weapons and items, the fingers could cup around in a generic pose, although for special animations the fingers could do things, and perhaps for idle animations a soldier could flex a hand or something. Animating the fingers would also look good for throwing grenades and such, when a grenade leaves the hand the fingers spread out or something.
One other thing - do you have a version of the file where the vertex groups are already created and the skeleton is attached to the model already? If not, I could take care of this if you want, or you could do it.
Other than that, the skeleton looks great to me, much better than my clumsy attempt with the first soldier model I made.
Edit: I'm guessing the boxes and disc are the "handles." I can see how they would assist for some animations, although personally I wouldn't need them if I were animating, but that's just me. (Not that there's anything wrong with them.)
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1) Yeah, the knees arent adjusted for the update. Like you said, easy fix
2) I thought that we werent allowed to do individual fingers. If we can, then HECK YEAH!! I'll gladly add bones for fingers and the joints
3) The only group I made was for one of the hands, mostly to check how the mesh was reacting to the handles. But I can get the file where the mesh is attached to the bones.
Yeah, the boxes and circles are the handles. Its part of the job, and really makes animating easier if the rigging (thats what its called. Putting on the bones and handles) is done right.
Thanks. I havent done much in the way of rigging since my first year of animation. If you asked how to do it in Maya, I would be able to say
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2) I thought that we werent allowed to do individual fingers. If we can, then HECK YEAH!! I'll gladly add bones for fingers and the joints
Now that you mention it, I remember Mattn saying something about how the old models weren't set up to use fingers, with their "mittens."
I guess we'll have to wait for Mattn to make a decision on this - but for what it's worth, I'll say this: The new models support it, it sounds like you are capable of making the fingers work for all the animations and are willing to do it, and with the way the tags can attach the weapons to the palms I think it would work fine - great, actually, and look much better in the game than the mittens - and I don't see any issues, at least not that I can think of, that would prevent fingers from working with new animations. As far as coding goes, I'm guessing it wouldn't require any substantial changes, as long as the game engine attaches the tags together OK.
It certainly would be nice to see pressing buttons and other special animations that use fingers.
I'd almost say "I vote for including fingers in the new animations," except that this isn't really a democracy.
As I said, I guess it's now in Mattn's hands, as he's the boss here, so he'll have to decide (unless he delegates that decision to one of the other primary developers).
'nuff said, I've made my case on the matter.
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I just hope it doesnt turn into "its in his mittens", heheh
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it's only a matter of how the modellers can make this lock good in-game - there is no restriction code wise. it's just heavier to make it look good and nobody will ever zoom that close that it really matters to have single fingers imo. but if you can work with lod models, please add your fingers - they will allow us to create higher res cutscenes. and if you don't waste that much tris for the in-game model and the animator can make this look good - they go and also add them to the game.
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I'm glad you mentioned LOD models again, because I've been doing a little research on them and I think I can make more than one version of this soldier model (for both male and female) that have different levels of detail. First, I'd like to tweak a few extra fine-tuning points to this model as it is with the texture, and make that (with fingers) a high-detail version for cutscenes and if the player zooms in to look at something or for any other reason. (I actually zoom in temporarily for various reasons during gameplay myself, I'd imagine others also do this from time to time.) Once that's done, I think I can make a lower-detail version without too much trouble for when the player zooms out to look at more of the map.
Question: Does the MD2 format in the game support LOD models in any special way? Or do I just make more than one version of the model to export, and let the code swap models when the player zooms or the camera's distance from the models changes?
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there is no support for lod models (yet) - if you can provide different lods i will gladly implement it.
for now we have to export different files