Needed for Standalone: Animated Werebeast

[Springheel]

If you are interested in helping with some or all of these tasks, please contact me. If you know of someone who might be willing to help out, feel free to repost this.

 

We need to replace parts of the werebeast character. The body is a slighlty modified D3 imp, and all the animations come from D3 as well. The head and shoulder area come from a model Oddity did, so we can keep that part, as well as the tail. If there is someone who is willing to commit to doing the rigging/animating, I would be able to come up with a new mesh for the body.

 

 

Mesh: The visible mesh should be between 3000 and 6000 polys, with a simplified shadowmesh that makes up approximately 25% of the overall number of polys. For example, a 4500 poly mesh with a 1200 poly shadowmesh would be ideal.

 

Unlike the other characters, the werebeast cannot be rigged to our default humanoid skeleton. It will need an entirely new skeleton created from scratch. The head should be part of the main rig, rather than being attached separately. The jaw needs to have its own bone, but it's up to whoever does the work if they want to animate anything else on the head (only the jaw moves in the current version).

 

The final mesh needs to be in md5mesh format.

 

Textures: The body mesh needs to have a diffuse, normalmap and (possibly) specular. Size should be 1024x1024 max and format should be .tga. The current hair texture can be re-used, although the imp normalmap would need to be stripped.

 

Animations: This is a fair big job, as all the animations would need to be created from scratch. There are two versions of the werebeast-- the default is fully bipedal, but there is another version that walks and idles on all fours. Both versions are used in existing missions.

 

There are certain animations that must be created in order for the werebeast entity to properly function in game. The animations with a star beside them MUST be included. The others were present in our current werebeast but are not strictly necessary.

 

Bipedal:

 

* anim idle

* anim sight1 -- an angry roar

* anim walk

* anim walk_blind

* anim run

* anim search

* anim melee_attack1 -- a slashing swing

* anim pain

 

anim pain_head

anim pain_left_arm

anim pain_right_arm

anim pain_chest

 

anim melee_attack2

anim melee_attack3

anim sight2 -- an angry roar

 

Don't think these are needed but need to check if any maps use them:

 

anim evade_left

anim evade_right

 

anim jump_start

anim jump_loop1

anim jump_end

 

anim leap_attack

 

anim roofcrawlidle

anim roofcrawl

 

anim ceilinghang

 

anim zombie_feast -- wearbeast crouched and eating

anim zombie_feast_wake

 

anim outofholeidle

anim outofhole

 

anim offwallidle

anim offwall

 

All Fours Version:

 

* anim crawl -- a "walk" on all fours

* anim crawl_idle -- "standing" on all fours

* anim crawl_run -- a run on all fours

* anim crawl_search

* anim crawl_pain

* anim crawl_attack1 -- a slash or possibly bite attack

 

anim crawl_pain_head

anim crawl_pain_left_arm

anim crawl_pain_right_arm

anim crawl_pain_chest

 

anim crawl_attack2

 

Don't think these are needed but need to check if any maps use them:

 

anim crawl_evade_left

anim crawl_evade_right

anim crawl_evade_left_noturn

anim crawl_evade_right_noturn

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Springheel, I'm assuming that the werebeast has a behaviour similar to an imp from doom 3? do you have a particular physical/size in mind?

 

Also what's the go with 'beast' is it just mean't to be som unspecific hairy brutish fiend? I guess you don't want something specifically wolf like but similar to a werewolf.

[demagogue]

You can always make a quick room in DR and throw the existing D3-derivative werebeast in there and fight him to see how he behaves. I imagine we want the same flavor without flat out copying it. As I recall, he crouches, he's mean, heavy breathing, takes quick slashes, and will run after you with a quick gate and slightly exaggerated swinging arms. It's pretty terrifying having him run after you, or trying to fight him one-on-one, I remember.

[Springheel]

Springheel, I'm assuming that the werebeast has a behaviour similar to an imp from doom 3? do you have a particular physical/size in mind?

 

Also what's the go with 'beast' is it just mean't to be som unspecific hairy brutish fiend? I guess you don't want something specifically wolf like but similar to a werewolf.

 

At the moment he uses the same animations as the D3 imp, so his behaviour has been the same by necessity. The build is tall and lanky rather than muscular, and about seven feet tall (though he hunches).

 

The 'beast' bit was to keep it from being interpreted as a typical, modern werewolf. It isn't necessarily supposed to look wolf-like.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Ok cool because I had a concept in mind which was a bit more like a mix between a typical werewolf and the celtic Pagan god Cernunnos. I figured such a pagan intrinsic symble would appeal to the thief fan-base as a creature that could belong to the setting.

 

I diddn't have much time to work on it in the past few hours but I worked on some silloettes and a rough block out for the purpose of allowing for some feedback.

 

The one on the right is what I'm leaning towards at the moment. I plan to have a concept finished today and begin a turn around. I looked at various werebeast concept art and tried to mimic features that appealed to me most. I then took what i could from my small collection of silloettes and made a block-out.

 

Edited December 16, 2012 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[STiFU]

I am not a big fan of those antlers, but aside from that, that silhouette looks pretty cool. I'd just watch out that the proportions in the end product don't look too cartoony. It wouldn't fit to the rest of TDM...

[PPoe]

For me this is a big improvement.. Miles ahead from the current beast.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Yeah the antlers don't look right.. I have a concept for you tonight, I keep getting distracted by I promise you a complete looking prototype by the end of the evening. (Australian time)

 

The crazy proportions are owed to my belief in going over the top instead of under. I can bring it back down to earth a bit in the concept.

Edited December 16, 2012 by Mr Lemony Fresh

[Bikerdude]

What about a spriggen..? would need to be thinner etc - just an idea..

[Springheel]

I'm not quite sure what this is meant to be...are you creating an entirely new creature or is this supposed to be replacing the current werebeast? What happened to Diego's version?

[demagogue]

Yeah Diego's version was looking good and has already had a lot of work put into it.

But it might be worth having another beast in another vein, if you pushed your concept in another direction a bit.

[Diego]

I'm still working on my version.

I think the more people working on it the higher the chances of we having a werebeast! Besides, his concept looks so different that if we both finish we'll have two beasts to chose from. However, maybe one investing on a zombie could be more productive.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Perhaps I'll show this concept art and you folks can decide whether you'd like to see it in action.

 

 

There could be some neat stories happening with this, for instance perhaps the pagans performed a ritual on one of their kind in order to turn them into a dedicated protector of the forest, but instead it murdered them all and stalks a now haunted forest village.

[Obsttorte]

I think the main problem about those antlers is, that they are starting at the wrong place, they should start from the forehead

I'm not sure about it, as I saw the first images it reminds me a bit of the tree monsters from T2 which I liked, but this thing looks like a giant rat

 

maybe you can change the face and make it a bit less hairy

also the proportions seem not optimal to me

Edited December 16, 2012 by Obsttorte

[Diego]

I like it. I've never seen one in real life so I don't know if the antlers are right or not ;P

[Obsttorte]

 

what I've meant is that antlers normally start where the brows are (and pointing a bit forward maybe)

 

It's like with proportions. It could be a two meter high monster with ten meter long arms, but that would look "unnatural".

Edited December 16, 2012 by Obsttorte

[Diego]

I know, I was kidding

[Obsttorte]

I know

[Springheel]

I don't know, it looks like the kind of thing that could only ever be used once, maybe twice. It seems more like a special "boss" creature than a typical opponent. If you're primarily interested in making entirely new creatures, something smaller and more re-usable, like a giant rat or a wild boar, would be much more useful.

 

....Not as useful as replacing existing D3 assets, though.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Obsttorte, while it's true that the proportions are not identical to a deer, one thing i always consider is that fear of the unknown is a very powerful fear. To my the overall design tends override what you could compare it to when dealing with a horrifying creature. From a perspective of realism though I understand where you are coming from, and it wouldn't hurt to extend the roots down the the forehead.

 

Springheel: True, this thing could become old news after the first three missions. No need to compromise, I'm here to help. I understand you need something more generic so that it can have as many different stories attached as possible.

 

I'll begin work on a different concept. Perhaps you could supply images that appeal to you most and In the mean time I'll find some more popular representations of were beasts.

[demagogue]

I think the most useful things would be, first, replacing the Doom3 stuff we need, and then second, ambient animals, or even animal AI, like guard dogs, stray cats, bears, crows and ravens if you can deal with the flying issue, polish the belcher concept, things like that.

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

Don't forget, I can only make one thing from concept to animation, so if you really want one particular thing done from start to finish let me know. Otherwise I'll go ahead and make you a werebeast.

[demagogue]

It's Springheel's call, but If you want to concentrate on *one* thing, then I'd say do something that isn't being worked on, because as said Diego already has over a month of work already put into a werebeast -- http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14299-mod-monsters/page__view__findpost__p__300577

[Springheel]

Yes, I agree with demagogue. Werebeasts are rarely used to begin with, so having two different versions would not be as beneficial as some other things that need doing.

 

The most useful tasks would be the ones I posted in the other forum:

 

1. An animated skeleton mesh. We have nothing to replace the skeleton from D3. While not many missions use the animated undead skeleton, a LOT of them use the ragdoll skeleton. This skeleton would need to be rigged to our current humanoid rig and would probably need it's own set of animations (which it could share with the zombie, see #2). http://forums.thedar...mated-skeleton/

 

 

2. A set of animations for our existing zombie. While greebo made a new zombie mesh and weighted it to our humanoid rig, right now he is just using the same animations as guards. It would be nice to have a set of more appropriate animations for him. http://forums.thedar...nimated-zombie/

[Mr Lemony Fresh]

So you have a current rig for your humanoid characters? are you wanting the skeleton to fit into this rig, or do you want a rig that behaves the same way. I could probably do those animations. I'm sorta less keen to fit a character to a rig If I can help it. If the human proportions are peachy though, I wouldn't mind so much.. at any rate, I used maya so i hope you're equipped for that scenario =P