UFO:Alien Invasion
Development => Artwork => Topic started by: Destructavator on July 31, 2010, 10:46:39 pm
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One area where I've found the game to be a little lacking was good civilian models, especially children, so I'd like to introduce all of you to this little character.
He's a boy somewhere in his teens, more than capable of running around causing all kinds of trouble and mayhem, even when he hasn't gotten XVI, complete with the attitude to back it up. He points and gawks with the "Oh wow, cool!" mentality when he sees a military dropship come out of the sky, land in front of him, and real soldiers with real machine-guns and stuff come running out blazing away, and yet he can run around screaming in terror when he sees an actual alien.
I kept in mind that the game takes place some 70 to 80 years in the future, and obviously since I can't know what youth styles will be like by then, I kinda thought one up loosely based on some of the newer stuff I've seen, but mostly tried to avoid anything archaic or very old-looking. I also didn't want to go too outlandish with anything too futuristic (I considered, but then decided against Visual Kei*). The only major thing I need to finish, besides minor touch-ups, are the hands, which I didn't do yet. I'm also thinking about making a version with a jacket or second shirt of some kind.
I should also mention that this kid hangs with the GPL crowd, although he doesn't mind Creative Commons kids too much. Anything else he has a problem with.
So, what do all of you think? (Don't be afraid to give constructive criticism, but on the other hand don't be too harsh, he's a bit sensitive!)
*(If you're not familiar with it, Google it!)
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Not bad. It looks fine to me, the more variety we get in map stuff and civvie models, the better.
Regards,
Winter
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Thanks!
I found adding animations was very easy, it took just a few minutes to copy a skeleton from my soldier models and adjust it for this one. Since most of the soldier animations I did before were done, that makes this model almost ready to use also, because even after adjustment all the animations are carried over with the skeleton.
I still have to do the hands and touch up a few other texture areas.
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Agreed, more civilians are needed. This civilian is good. Nice work.
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Here's what the kid looks like in the game at this point (I'm still working on the texture).
I intentionally made him smaller than the big, burly and muscular Phalanx troops because of his youth, I just hope I didn't make him too small.
Side note: Something with the current AI seems to be working, because he ran for help straight towards the middle of where the Phalanx troops are, which makes sense.
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make him a little bit bigger please - a teenager should already be almost the size of the soldiers (this would e.g. be needed for the bounding boxes, too)
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OK. Will do.
Side note: At present the game doesn't give me a good way to test most animations with civilians, especially combat/firing animations (when infected). Would it be possible to add "Civilian" to the list of teams in skirmish mode? I already see just about everything else in that list.
Edit: Right now, all I can do is try skirmish over and over and hope I get the boy as at least one of the civs, and even then only the computer controls them, I don't have a way of testing specific animations or actions.
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Is'nt there a way to use that size? It add more diversity than another "skin"-like people
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I would agree he should be a little bit bigger. I think the top of his hair should come up to the soldiers' shoulder height. Also, it would be useful to see him in perspective with other objects in the world, not just the soldiers, and from a more top-down view.
It's hard because most maps/objects in the game don't maintain a very consistent sense of scale (see the dead kid by the van and the car, the van looks huge compared to the car and the kid). But if we can see a shot of the kid in amongst several different objects, and especially in reference to the standard height for a level, it might make it clearer whether he needs to be bigger or not.
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Yeah, I think I did indeed shrink him a bit too much - These are side-by-side orthographic shots of him next to a soldier. I think the kid needs to be at least a whole head's height taller, unless he's going to be a very young kid, which isn't what I had in mind.
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Side note: At present the game doesn't give me a good way to test most animations with civilians, especially combat/firing animations (when infected). Would it be possible to add "Civilian" to the list of teams in skirmish mode? I already see just about everything else in that list.
you can edit seq_modelview.ufo and type seq_start view to the game console
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you can edit seq_modelview.ufo and type seq_start view to the game console
I looked at that, that doesn't help too much because I really need to control a unit with the kid model on a map with other objects. Only then can I see if the TAGs for holding and firing weapons and such (for an XVI-affected civ) are in the right place and the animations work properly.
I tried to temporarily edit the kid in as a soldier, but it made the game bomb back to my desktop I think because he doesn't have an armored version.
If I could control a civ unit in skirmish, that would really be what I need for testing.
If you don't want the game to really have a player-controlled civ team option, perhaps it could be disabled when compiled in "release" and not "debug"?
Edit: Either that, or is there a console command to control a different team once a map is loaded and a battle starts?
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you can also specifiy tags in sequences - but if you want to use the civ in skirmish you have to use it as solider and provide armoured versions
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I think I figured it out - I can copy the exact same model as an "armored" version into the armor model folders.
I scaled the kid a bit, now he's just a tiny bit shorter than the soldiers.
I think this looks much better.
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just the texture needs a little bit of work - it looks like it could need some smoothing here and there
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that's the job of the normal map no?
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really good work :D
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that's the job of the normal map no?
no - though a normalmap would be cool, too - but a normalmap can smooth the geometry and add normal vectors for lighting, but does not smooth the texture
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Yeah, the new scale looks much better.
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Yes, I'm still working on the texture, and I also have to do the hands.
I've also noticed that MD2 files have their own smoothness settings, in this case it was not set as high as it could be.
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Here is his playground:
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& here are his friends already waiting to play with him: :D
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Good work, btw.
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cool mcr. nice playground.
but this guy is a bit old for it. unless he wants to smoke there :/.
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Hmmmmmmm... Maybe you would make a high-school map with detailed classrooms? I'd like to kill an alien in a biology or chemistry classroom.
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Hmmmmmmm... Maybe you would make a high-school map with detailed classrooms? I'd like to kill an alien in a biology or chemistry classroom.
Then perform an immediate autopsy with the alien? ::) :D
Anyway, good work Destructavator!
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Actually, a school of some kind certainly would be good for a map, either a school or college of some kind. Then any civs encountered would be the few that were not evacuated in time, for whatever reason, by the time Phalanx forces arrive. (This could be explained in the mission briefings that hopefully we'll have at some point in the future.) I wouldn't recommend a mission where no one was evacuated though, because then the map would have to be filled with a *large* number of civs, specifically students.
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So this is a good idea? Wow...
But really, the school would be with 39 classrooms on 3 floors. There would be 3 staircases, 2 computer classrooms and other classrooms (languages - it would be nice for all language classes, including russian, german, french, lithuanian, latvian, english, polish, ukrainian, spanish and so on, math - same classes for everyone, chemistry and physics classrooms and 2 labs for these classes, 2 large gym classrooms and 1 small, a teachers lounge where 1 teacher would still stay and then search for lost students. How is my idea? Could it be possible to make this map?
Besides, i have mentioned my school, but it doesn't have polish, ukrainian, latvian and spanish language classes (so sad!!!) and second large gym class...
But if you'd like to model me to the game (some would kill me if they would want), so that i'd be a hostage in the game.
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one last note from my side - please use png not jpg when commiting new textures (use the svn rename feature to rename to png and then resave the image as png from your blender source - that way you will keep the svn-properties alive)
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Are you done with the model? I might try my hand at making another skin for this guy, just for kicks.
By the way, I think maybe something went wrong when you changed the head files to PNG, because I don't seem to be able to open them on my end. Anyone else having this problem?
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I think those are still jpgs, because Dave has just committed step 1 of 2 - Simply rename them to jpg & you will be able to open them...
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@ Destructavator:
I TOLD YOU !!!
YOU DID NOT LISTEN !!!
Look here:
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3505.msg35290#msg35290
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@ Destructavator:
I TOLD YOU !!!
YOU DID NOT LISTEN !!!
Look here:
http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=3505.msg35290#msg35290
No, actually that was way back from the old computer. The problem I'm having now is with the almost still-new computer's hard drive.
Yes, the texture issue is because the new computer's HD crapped out in the middle of an update process while I was making changes to the model's files.
@H-Hour:
No, it isn't completely finished yet, but is almost there.
Don't make a new custom texture just yet, I have to re-unwrap the body and change the map anyways so the fingers in the hands look right (right now they don't).
I'm done mapping the head, though, so if you want to have fun doing something to the kid's face, go ahead. You can rename the .pngs to have a .jpg extension.
Last, I didn't update the source .blend file in the data_source yet, but I have it backed up.
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No worries, I'll wait.
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News Update:
I found the exact cause of the problem - the actual physical hardware on the new computer is OK, which is good. The problem came from the BIOS and firmware for controlling the hard drives, along with the drivers for the hardware SATA controllers, they were not all-the-way up-to-date coming from the factory. It was after the machine was shipped that Dell found bugs in some of that stuff, bugs which cause increasing, progressive corruption to hardware partitions over time until the volumes on any hard drives would eventually get so corrupted that they would fail, and have all kinds of errors, which is exactly what happened - I was getting all kinds of error messages even copying or moving files in Windows Explorer, about files being damaged or not existing where they should. CHKDSK kept trying to fire up when I rebooted the machine.
I've updated the BIOS and everything else, but the damage had been done to the filesystem, so I've backed everything up and have erased the hard drive, and re-partitioned it too.
At this point I've got Windows 7 re-loaded with basic software installed, and now I'm reloading all my crap from backups and setting things up again.
Most of the really important software has been reinstalled, but it will be a while before I'm back in business. The hard part is done though, and I've been up all night working on it.
I haven't put Linux back on yet (I multi-boot all my machines), but I'm just glad I didn't have to buy a new hard drive.
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OK, I've got Blender re-installed.
I quickly re-mapped the texture for the kid (yet again), and this is probably going to be the final texture map because now everything shows properly on the model.
@H-Hour:
Sometime later I'll put stuff in the SVN, if you don't want to wait for the Blender source file and instead want to play with the texture directly, you can grab it from this post, which has it as a JPEG at 2048x2048. Keep in mind the in-game texture will likely only be 1024x1024, so this allows you to draw on the image and then scale the whole thing down in your image editor (GIMP, Photoshop, etc.) with anti-aliasing and make things blend nicely.
On the other hand if you wait for the Blender source file later, that will have a 8192x8192 PNG inside to work with, as well as all the components and layers I used for all the parts.
I'll also export the MD2 and upload it shortly, so you can apply any texture you make and see the results.
You can also un-comment the lines in civilians.ufo to see the kid in-game. (Animations still need work, though!).
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Also, here is a version with parts labeled, to make your life easier.
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Btw, have you seen this (http://vimeo.com/13812115)?
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Thanks Destructavator. I've never used Blender so I'll just be painting over the texture. Let me know when the MD2 is up so I can see the skin on it, but no hurry. This is just going to be a fun little side project for me.
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Destructavator, I like how you've put your avatar on the shirt. ;3
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OK, the updated MD2 should be in the SVN now. I still need to update the animations, but the texture map won't change again.
Destructavator, I like how you've put your avatar on the shirt. ;3
Yeah, I thought that was a nice touch, adding my personal "mark."
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I wanted to try a skin because I want to get a bit better at painting organic objects. My first task is to figure out how to wrinkle the pants. I tried lots of variations with more wrinkles, but in the end lots of wrinkles looked out of place, so I settled for just a few bits around the knee. Just the one leg for now...
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I wanted to try a skin because I want to get a bit better at painting organic objects. My first task is to figure out how to wrinkle the pants. I tried lots of variations with more wrinkles, but in the end lots of wrinkles looked out of place, so I settled for just a few bits around the knee. Just the one leg for now...
Wrinkles, ripples, folds, etc. can be hard to do and get looking right - I don't know if these would help or not but I have some ripple textures in the SVN that can be blended in various ways with a solid texture to look kind of like folds and wrinkles in clothing:
http://ufoai.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ufoai/ufoai/data_source/images/textures/tex_destructavator/
Of course it also depends on what type of material you want to make the clothing look like - light and thin, heavy and thick, wool/cotton or athletic polyester/nylon (or some blend material that combines them), denim, etc. They all wrinkle or fold differently.
Also keep in mind that some 80 yrs in the future they may have even more materials, and who knows what will be in style for youth clothing by then?
Add to that the fact that often there can be more than one style that's popular at the same time, depending on where a kid is from (where they live) and what crowd they are attracted to. Here in America, today, when I see kids I see variations of styles that can fall into at least a good half a dozen categories, each with various informal names that they call them. ("Ah, your one of those [catagory] kids...") Heck, I can't keep track of all of them anymore, there's more than there used to be here. Some styles also come back after a while, but evolved with changes (more like mutations as I put it, some that I've seen lately are very strange).
Lately I've seen a lot of young people who are fascinated by 1980's styles, and use that as a starting point (but don't copy exactly, they change things). I've also seen plenty of "Harry Potter" kids around where I live, although now that the Harry Potter thing is declining they are evolving into stranger things I can't identify. Goth and Punk styles are still alive and well around here, as well as hip-hop culture looks. Some kids I admit I just can't tell what the hell they are... ::)
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Thanks for the links to the resource images. I want to learn to paint them myself so that I can get a better sense of actually making shapes and not just random folds. But the resource images can be useful for other texturing purposes, and I've got them saved to my local folder of sampling images.
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Just the pants so far... any critiques are welcome. Though I probably won't spend much time on this skin, it will help for the future.
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Just the pants so far... any critiques are welcome. Though I probably won't spend much time on this skin, it will help for the future.
Not bad - I can certainly imagine a teenager wearing something like that. It also looks like a different material from the original, which is good because it adds variety.
I'd be interested to see what you could come up with if you did the whole thing.
What program are you using - the one Kildor mentioned?
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I'd be interested to see what you could come up with if you did the whole thing.
If I finished the skin, would you be able to make a copy of the head with adjusted hair? I'm thinking the hair style is very distinctive, so it would be good if we have a second skin to use a different hairstyle. You don't need to make an entirely different head because I can make the face very distinctive with the texture. Just the hair, something short and simple, whatever's easiest really.
What program are you using - the one Kildor mentioned?
No, I'm just painting over the PNG file in Photoshop. Nothing fancy that couldn't be done just as easily in Gimp I'm sure.
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If I finished the skin, would you be able to make a copy of the head with adjusted hair? I'm thinking the hair style is very distinctive, so it would be good if we have a second skin to use a different hairstyle. You don't need to make an entirely different head because I can make the face very distinctive with the texture. Just the hair, something short and simple, whatever's easiest really.
Yeah, sure, I was actually planning on having an alternate head/hair anyways. I'll be rather busy with other stuff outside of UFO:AI today, but I'll get around to it sometime soon.
I'll try to keep the same texture map with a new head, and just have some verts where the hair is in different places.
I'm curious to see what you'll have in mind.
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the programm I've show you was Blender. but this feature is not released yet.
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Some more work done... Not entirely satisfied with the shirt wrinkles and the arm hair, but best I can do for now.
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Some more work done... Not entirely satisfied with the shirt wrinkles and the arm hair, but best I can do for now.
Looks pretty good to me, actually. We can certainly use different variants for different ethnic/racial backgrounds. I haven't had time to make an alternate head model yet, but as I said when I get around to it I will probably use the same texture map coordinates, just the verts for the hair will be in different places.
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Body completed. I couldn't find where this boy is in the data_source. Have you uploaded it yet? I'll throw my file into the source for now until the head is worked out. But for future consideration, what should the skin file be named, boy02 or boy01b?
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Body completed. I couldn't find where this boy is in the data_source. Have you uploaded it yet? I'll throw my file into the source for now until the head is worked out. But for future consideration, what should the skin file be named, boy02 or boy01b?
Looks good. I actually forgot to upload the updated source file, I'll try to find time to do that soon.
As for the naming system, I'm not sure about that one - I'd check with Mattn or BTAxis (or one of the others who has been here longer).