Spider Concept

[oDDity]

I knocked up this evening...just a sketch

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Woocha, not bad.

[oDDity]

Wth some antialiasing might help it..

[oDDity]

Here's it animated. THis gif is quite big though, but I think we're all on DSL anyway. I have to make these super fast to play at a decent speed in opera or IE, so firefox users will see it too fast.

 

[Springheel]

Certainly creeps me out.

[New Horizon]

GAH!!! That's freaky as hell.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

That's excellent, but i would make the suggestion of having the legs bend as the move, rather than staying stiff.

[oDDity]

I don't think spider's legs bend at the 'knees' as they walk, but then I've never studied tham that closely.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

They do, here's some videos of spider movements, 1, 2, 3, 4.

 

 

 

(on a side note, i did find this which is creepy in it's own right. Also, some great tits. )

[oDDity]

1 and 4 don't show the spider walking forwards normally though, which is what they're doing in the game. I didn't say they never bend their knees, just not in a normal walk.

2 is pay per view and 3 won't download.

Thoese pair of tits were great though. I especially liked the one on the right, it seemed more pert than the other one.

[mrdes]

I've never even animated a non bipedal character so I'm no expert but the walk cycle looks a bit odd to me. The head section looks totally stiff like it's moving forward by itself unaffacted by the legs. If you took out the ground beneath him it would look like it could be a flying spider animation as well heh. I think it's because there's no real weight bearing poses maybe? But I'm not sure how that'd work really since spiders dont have much weight and are really strong as well. But also, the two front legs look like they're mostly just sliding outward to the side.

 

Like I said though, I don't know much about animating character with more than 2 legs, and I am certainly no expert on spider walks so I could be wrong about this all. Damn thinking about it now, animating something with 8 legs must be hard as hell.

 

I think I remember liking the spider from lotr, but I have a horrible memory. Maybe a good idea to check it out though.

[oDDity]

It's not the actual walk cycle, just something I put together in literally 40 minutes using endomorph shapes, it isn't boned or weighted, just to let people see the basic effect of it walking. THe head ins't animated at all since it has no morph targets.

It isn't translated forward either, I just pulled the ground backard)

It's actually a very easy animation if it was boned, a lot easier than a human, and the spider won't need many different anims either.

[oDDity]

So, since there's been no complaints about the model, I take it people are happy with the spider, and I can carry on and get it in-game?

 

[New Horizon]

I say go for it. It looks great.

[Springheel]

So, since there's been no complaints about the model, I take it people are happy with the spider, and I can carry on and get it in-game?

 

Yes, please do.

 

Just out of curiosity, what's the scale on this fella?

[oDDity]

Dunno, I haven't worked it out yet. It's all about making the hairs small enough on it, If you make them too big is looks like a ordinary spider under a microscope.

THe same size as the Thief spiders I suppose, though the same model can be shrunk and used as smaller ones as well.

[Renzatic]

I'd think that for the animation you'd wanna go with whatever looks the most unnerving rather than what's most realistic.

 

Have em bend at the knees if it looks better, even if real spiders don't. As long as it looks creepy as hell then it's good.

[Diego]

looks great! i think the animation could have some more work, but i supose that was more of a test for visualization.

about the hair.. that is particle, right? you can use it for generating the normal map? that'd be great!

[sparhawk]

Here's it animated. THis gif is quite big though, but I think we're all on DSL anyway. I have to make these super fast to play at a decent speed in opera or IE, so firefox users will see it too fast.

 

I'm using firefox and it looked quite normal to me. It looks good. Not natural, but probably good enough for gameplay purposes. The spider itself is excellent.

[Domarius]

Hey, the hair - how are you going to represent it in the Doom 3 engine?

 

BTW the reason most of you find the anim unrealistic is that the spider is just hovering along and the legs are not pushing the groudn, they are just sliding back and forth regardless of the ground speed. But oDDity said he jus whipped that up in 40 mins so I wouldn't take this anim into account for the final anim.

[sparhawk]

No. This is not the reason. IMO the ground moves jsut fine with the animation. It is just the tha feets are to rigid which makes it look like it walks on sticks.

[oDDity]

I wonder where to get a good reference of a spider walking..like I say, I just made that up.

The hair can be done with aplha maps, but it's probably not going to look as good as that.

[sparhawk]

I wouldn't worry about that. AFAIk the spiders will not be seen in such detail in normal maps.

 

I compared this image to yours and you can already see that the legs are much more bended then yours. I haven't found an animation yet though.

 

[sparhawk]

I just found a nice spider animation which looks much more realistic IMO. I uploaded it to FTP.

 

Spider Animation

 

The site where I found it is here http://runevision.com/show.asp?id=42

 

Don't watch it when you have arachnophoiba. It looks pretty creepy.

[Domarius]

No. This is not the reason. IMO the ground moves jsut fine with the animation. It is just the tha feets are to rigid which makes it look like it walks on sticks.

Yes, this is the reason. You're talking to an animator who got a High Distinction at Uni. Watch where the feet touch the ground, they don't push the spider along at all, they slide back over it faster than the ground is moving.