UFO:Alien Invasion

Development => Artwork => Topic started by: maackey on April 02, 2010, 06:20:34 am

Title: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: maackey on April 02, 2010, 06:20:34 am
I have some bipedal (and some quadropedal) mechs that I've modeled/textured/animated for another game, and was wondering if anyone wanted to perhaps use them as some sort of alternate ugv. If you have any specific ideas or concepts for a completely different UGV I could try and make that too. Even for something completely different, like guns or props or anything really. I've read the "models needed" a few times, but apparently a lot of things are already done, apart from humans, which I still feel I'm quite inadequate modeling/texturing/etc... so I'm not really sure what to start out on.

I also like to get requests because then when I inevitably fall behind, I have someone to remind me not to be lazy and finish what I was working on  ;D

Sorry I don't have an actual portfolio but here are some excerpts from my image dump:
http://img638.imageshack.us/i/iconz.png/
http://img205.imageshack.us/i/m82.png/
http://img17.imageshack.us/i/aegis.png/
http://img43.imageshack.us/i/blastwing.png/
http://img13.imageshack.us/i/m1color.png/
http://img410.imageshack.us/i/stormhqu.png/
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: Mattn on April 02, 2010, 09:24:20 am
if you have them animated, please upload them somewhere - and what would be the license you release this work under?
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: MCR on April 02, 2010, 10:28:57 am
Hey maackey !  :o

This really looks like you have quite some skillz in modelling  ;)

I am quite sure we could need dozens of different models here, look here :
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4200.0

Maybe you could make some (animated) vegetation models also, look here :
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=4476.msg34323#msg34323

Also I would suggest that you just play the game, look around on the battlescape, there could be lots of stuff needed there (trees, cars, furniture...) that also fits a little better into the scenario of 2084 ;)
& do not forget this (I could not say it better so I will quote from the wiki):

Quote:

Style

In this game we're doing fairly hard sci-fi that has to obey at least some of the laws of physics. We want to see much more 2001: A Space Odyssey and Space: Above & Beyond style than Star Trek or Star Wars.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: BTAxis on April 02, 2010, 01:35:30 pm
I'd probably use one of them as an alien assault bot.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: freegamer on April 02, 2010, 01:56:40 pm
The linwarrior3d project could do with better mechs.

I'll point them in this direction.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: Winter on April 02, 2010, 03:35:54 pm
I'd probably use one of them as an alien assault bot.

I think the 'm82.png' would be most suitable for that role. I like the shape. Just needs a bit of work changing the weapons over to our style, probably particle beams for a heavy walker.

Regards,
Winter
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: BTAxis on April 02, 2010, 03:52:21 pm
Agreed. And it would need a texture, natch.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: misiek on April 02, 2010, 06:03:54 pm
I have some bipedal (and some quadropedal) mechs that I've modeled/textured/animated for another game

What game? Great work.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: maackey on April 02, 2010, 08:32:29 pm
I have most of them uploaded already in a semi-completed state here (http://planet-wars.eu/ModelBase/Units.aspx) hrmm... it appears to be down at the moment. If you have anywhere to upload them to I can do that. Seems to be up and working now. My apologies if the directories are a little messy; I've been meaning to adapt a more professional and presentable standard to my works, just haven't gotten around to it yet :P

They are CC-BY-SA I think. I'm not really too invested in all the legal mumbo jumbo. All I'd really like is that nobody uses them to get money (or if they do, I'd like a cut :))

Some are animated and textured, although not at the level that I'd *really* like them to be. But they certainly are passable imo.

They were originally made for the game Complete Annihilation (http://www.caspring.org) -- which I've plodded along for a while now every so often adding units.

I'm not sure that the animations are compatible with UFO:AI, but I don't really have any idea how most of the stuff is handled here works, something that I'll have to pick up soon I suppose.

I have yet to learn how to do ambient occlusion and normal maps and some other advanced stuff, but I did notice some mention of them while lurking in the forums so hopefully I'll be able to practice :) Organic people and plants are also a bit foreign as the Spring engine doesn't really support mesh deformations (yet). So there is a lot of stuff I still need to learn, but I'll try and get some workable assets made and finished.

@MCR: heh... I knew someone would bring previous threads up. :P The thing is its kinda hard creating a model/texture of something if you don't know what it should look like. Which is why when someone describes something that they specifically want or have some concept art it helps a LOT. (that is if I don't already have an idea of what I want to make -- which I don't at the moment) I will eventually come up with something, I was just hoping to probe for a little push for inspiration ;) But yeah, playing definitely gives me inspiration, although sometimes it can take a while.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: Mattn on April 02, 2010, 09:18:03 pm
They are CC-BY-SA I think. I'm not really too invested in all the legal mumbo jumbo. All I'd really like is that nobody uses them to get money (or if they do, I'd like a cut :))

i'm sorry - that is not compatible with the gpl - ufo:ai might be sold.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: MCR on April 02, 2010, 09:39:28 pm
@ maackey  ;D:
I'm really sorry for forgetting to make some artwork of how plants, cars, furniture looks like  ::), but I know what you mean  :D:
As artist you need a guidance & you also need critics & criticism, but also applause & respect for your work. That I do understand ;)
But again, if you play this game & look around you will find lots of stuff that could be there, but isn't. Maybe plants & trees does not fit your normal modelling style, but if you could do that it would be a good beginning. Tropical plants for example. Or desert ones.
If you say that you make those I will even try to organize some artwork or pictures regarding this subject, I would even make some artwork in GIMP exclusively for you  ;)
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: Destructavator on April 02, 2010, 11:42:14 pm
Quote
I'm not sure that the animations are compatible with UFO:AI, but I don't really have any idea how most of the stuff is handled here works, something that I'll have to pick up soon I suppose.

This I can help with, once a completed model is together that is accepted for UFO:AI.  One thing I would need to know: What program do you use to make the models?  (Maya, Blender, etc...)

Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: bayo on April 02, 2010, 11:54:47 pm
cc-by-sa allow commerical use. For non commercial use it exists cc-by-nc-sa, but mattn allready said it is not compatible with gpl.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: BTAxis on April 03, 2010, 12:23:38 am
So stick the GPL on it for our game?
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: geever on April 03, 2010, 02:00:43 am
So stick the GPL on it for our game?

Only CC-BY-SA 3.0 is DFSG compatible of the Creative Common ones (which allows commercial use), I'm not sure about GPL but if we wanna put our game into major Linux distros - which should be a goal IMHO - we should stick to DFSG compatible licences.

-geever
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: maackey on April 03, 2010, 02:55:03 am
@MCR: I'll get started on some tropical plants then. Perhaps a big banana tree? That should be simple and fun. We used to have some out back before this harsh winter killed everything  :'(

@Mattn: yeah, I know.. in my ideal little fantasy world I would get compensated for my work. I actually don't mind that much what people do with it, but it just feels weird to me that someone can sell something that they didn't make. If I really need to change the license to GPL its not a terribly big deal, but tbh I prefer CC a bit more. Doesn't GPL usually apply to just code? I was under the impression that one could use non-GPL artistic sources with GPL code.
I made my models cc-by-sa (instead of strictly nc) at the promptings of I think it was the ubuntu repository packager on the Spring forums. Primarily because it was "DFSG" and it could be stored in the repositories.
Anyway, all this talk of licenses and stuff is almost as bad as politics or religion  :-X I can make my stuff GPL, but I would prefer cc-by-sa.

@Destructivator: Thanks for offering the help! I'll probably take you up on your offer soon enough :P As for the modeling program that I use, I <3 wings3d. I am however trying to learn blender, as it does have a few things that wings does not, but the ui is abysmal and the learning curve is so steep its not even funny. So it might take me a bit longer than usual (beware I'm a pretty slow/sporadic worker) but eventually I'll have everything figured out.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: Mattn on April 03, 2010, 07:45:46 am
it's not that your stuff must be gpled - but it must be in some way compatible. in general that means that using the content for commericial games/apps must still be allowed - otherwise it isn't really free. in fact the sa license works for us - see http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/License
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: MCR on April 04, 2010, 12:06:47 am
@maackey:
I hope this means for me that I do not have to make the artwork 4 you anymore  ;D
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: maackey on April 04, 2010, 09:16:20 pm
@MCR: only if you want to ;) but now I've got a reasonable list that should last me a little while at least.

So for my first model I was thinking that I could make a base auto turret. Its not anything like tropical plants, but it does have some functional use.
(http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3817/turret.th.png) (http://img97.imageshack.us/i/turret.png/)
668 tris.

Any thoughts? Does it need more/less polies? Is the style acceptable? Should I go ahead and start uvmapping/texturing it? How exactly are textures handled in the engine? Keep the texture to 1 uvmap?

I am also curious as to what I need to keep in mind for the animation. Separate pieces for object translation probably, but I'm not quite sure how to show the ammo belts looping. Should they be hollow cylinders that just rotate, or should the texture be repeated/shifted and different pieces would be swapped to emulate movement?
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: MCR on April 04, 2010, 10:10:16 pm
Hey maackey  ;D !
The problem is that I have no banana tree  >:(

Regarding your questions :

668 tris should be okay (just comparing your data with the wiki).

Regarding the textures: You should use sizes that use the power of 2 like 256x256 or 512x512 or 1024x1024. I think png is the currently prefered format for them, you can use tga for sure, please do not use jpg because of artifacts.

Regarding the animation: Everything is possible that is supported by the md2 format AFAIK, so you should provide the whole model in md2 format, but almost all other formats can be converted somehow.
Interesting is the fact that you can provide up to 4 different LODs for your model, but I am quite sure that everything I tell you here, you have already read in the wiki anyway ;)

Regarding your other technical questions: I am not an expert in this field, so maybe others can help...

Regarding the style: I like it, but cannot decide anything here  ;)
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: Destructavator on April 05, 2010, 07:01:32 am
Regarding animation:  The game uses MD2 files, as mentioned, but also TAG files which are normally only for MD3.  The game also uses vertex-based animation, although for editing and creating the animations it is usually much easier to use a rigged skeleton, which moves the verts, and when the animated model is exported out of Blender (or whatever you're using), it saves the exported vertex movements but not the skeleton.  This isn't a problem though, because once exported the skeleton isn't needed anymore, just the motion of each vertex.

If that sounds confusing, I'll help you along when we get there once the model is finalized and animation starts.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: freegamer on April 05, 2010, 01:36:02 pm
http://img13.imageshack.us/i/m1color.png/
http://img410.imageshack.us/i/stormhqu.png/
Hey maackey, where do I find these two models?  I wanted to forward them to the linwarrior3d project.  I can't seem to find them in the Complete Annihilation model depot link that you posted.
Title: Re: mechs? other art contributions?
Post by: maackey on April 05, 2010, 03:22:06 pm
Oops. Linked to the wrong page... ish. This page opens up if you click on models: http://planet-wars.eu/ModelBase/Models.aspx
And then if you select my name from the list of authors it still should be on the front page (or just search the names for m-1 or m-2 respectively)
Some of the info (like the licenses) is a bit outdated because there is no batch command to change them all. I am working on updating that info and cleaning up the directories (some have unneeded files, or perhaps an older version etc...) so please forgive the mess.