Noble Man Character

[ascottk]

He's the least realistic character of the bunch & he's . . . um . . . weird . . .

 

Nothing a texture makeover can't fix . . . I hope

 

animations (pathetic): idle, walk, run

 

EDIT: Not on cvs yet (connection time out)

[Springheel]

Yeah, obviously that one wasn't made by Oddity. I actually didn't think it was good enough to use--we had a contributor remaking it, but he apparently has vanished without finishing it.

 

Now that you've got it in game it's worth seeing if we can make it useable. The head is definitely a problem and we may have to just cut it off and use a different one. I can probably fix the textures everywhere else, however.

 

The shoulders in that shot look kind of weird, like they're lower than the actual joint would be. Is that the model or just the screenshot?

[ascottk]

Yeah, obviously that one wasn't made by Oddity. I actually didn't think it was good enough to use--we had a contributor remaking it, but he apparently has vanished without finishing it.

Whoever did this needs a lesson in anatomy, his arms were extremely short

 

Now that you've got it in game it's worth seeing if we can make it useable. The head is definitely a problem and we may have to just cut it off and use a different one. I can probably fix the textures everywhere else, however.

His neck is missing mesh anyway.

 

The shoulders in that shot look kind of weird, like they're lower than the actual joint would be. Is that the model or just the screenshot?

I had to stretch his arms so the vertices in the arms didn't match the upper arm joint too well.

[Springheel]

What do you think the chances are of getting him useable? We're not exactly in a position to be very choosy, but at the same time we don't want a huge quality difference between our AI models.

[ascottk]

What do you think the chances are of getting him useable? We're not exactly in a position to be very choosy, but at the same time we don't want a huge quality difference between our AI models.

He should be on cvs now if you want to take a look.

[New Horizon]

Personally, I would dump it. No offense to the guy who made it, but it's just not up to the quality of the rest of the characters. It's a shame oDDity had to leave, but those are the breaks.

 

I'm in the midst of recruiting someone who just might be able to deliver some character models that will fit better with our existing characters...well, if he uses oDD's templates it shouldn't be a problem anyway...but his texturing looks quite good too. I'll keep you guys posted.

[SneaksieDave]

Is it that bad? Only the head seems really weak and I assume that'd be replaced.

[Springheel]

As long as Ascottk thinks it can be rigged to share animations with our other characters, we should keep it, at least until we have something better. The body doesn't look that bad at the moment. I'll be able to fix the texture.

 

edit: Here he is with another head--still not great, but not so bad that we shouldn't try to use it. I'll see what I can do with the texture. The uvmapping is pretty poor, which isn't helping.

[oDDity]

THe problem these textures have, and what I said at the time is was shown, is that they are made in the old style - for engines with no normal or spec mapping, so everything is put into the colour map, wrinkles, shininess and all.

What you need to do is paint out the highlights and shadows and wrinkles, and make a normal and spec map to do that work. Also desaturate the colours, these garish ones don't work in the doom engine.

Apart from that, the model is ok.

What happened to all your character modelers anyway? You had a couple signed up a few months ago and they looked pretty good, and BlackThief looked as though he was getting good at it as well, but there don't seem to have been any new characters made since I stopped.

[New Horizon]

What happened to all your character modelers anyway? You had a couple signed up a few months ago and they looked pretty good, and BlackThief looked as though he was getting good at it as well, but there don't seem to have been any new characters made since I stopped.

 

They seem to drop in, and then disappear just as quickly. I don't know if it's because they didn't anticipate it being more work than they expected, but whatever the reason...it's damned disappointing. Hopefully I'll hear something from this new guy.

[Springheel]

I see there are hat textures...is there a hat model to go with this? That would help make the D3 heads look a little more appropriate.

[Springheel]

I've been working on the textures and have made some improvements. After experimenting with the D3 heads, however, there's a problem. The collar of the shirt is too small for the D3 necks. Virtually all of them clip right through (edit: just tested and even the default head does this...). Don't know if there's a fix for that. Other than that, however, he's not looking too bad.

 

 

The default head is absolutely unusable, so we can scrap that.

[SneaksieDave]

Finally saw him in game. He's ...uh... tall and thin, huh? I see what was meant by a needed anatomy lesson - his proportions just seem off.

[Springheel]

He's not particularly tall compared to the guards. The only major problem with the anatomy is the back--it's too flat at the moment, giving him a thinner chest cavity than is realistic. It's not *that* noticeable with the big shoulders, however. He's certainly not going to be one of our best-looking models, but I don't think it's bad enough that we shouldn't use it (since we're not exactly in a position to be choosy).

 

The head, on the other hand, is bad enough that we certainly can't use it.

[Springheel]

Ok, this is what I've been able to do with him so far (before and after shot below).

 

 

 

He's not too bad, really. There's only two things that I need to fix him:

 

1. The problem with the neck. The collar is too small for any existing neck. If they could be widened (preferably, because then they could hide the seam) or removed (in a pinch) that would improve things.

 

2. I think I can fix the problem with the back by attaching a bit of cloth there that looks like a hood thrown back (can't really describe it, but I'll draw it shortly). I'd need someone to model it, and then I could def_attach it to the spine in a way that it hides his missing shoulderblades.

[SneaksieDave]

Definitely a big improvement. I assume the animations are temporary... he's actually walking like the old Thief 1 bugbeast thingy.

[ascottk]

The neck has been widened & there's a new wip walk animation (my walking animations suck). I tweaked the skeleton for most of the new AI so we can't use other AI animations due to the different joint rotation.

[Darkness_Falls]

I think the neck looks too wide now. Reminds me of a football (american) player ...

[Crispy]

I have to agree there. His neck makes him looks more like a thuggish bodyguard than a nobleman. On the other hand I'm not sure what to do about it, aside from modifying the head models themselves.

[Springheel]

I tweaked the skeleton for most of the new AI so we can't use other AI animations due to the different joint rotation.

 

Whoa, wait a sec. Isn't it pretty important that the AI be able to share animations? There's no way we'll be able to get all the animations done if they have to be made individually for each AI....

[PinkDot]

Ascottk - is the collar attached to neck? I think what you could do is to seperate the collar and neck (some space is needed between them), so it looks more realistic.

[Springheel]

The neck is fine, it just looks strange in that shot because the head is so low.

 

Did you change some joints around in the lastest update, Ascottk? I had def_attached a new belt buckle to him (that dorky ninja-star one is modelled right on), but now I'm getting an error that dummy_righthip (or whatever) doesn't exist?

 

edit: I'm going to upload my updates to the nobleman to CVS, with the belt buckle commented out.

[ascottk]

Did you change some joints around in the lastest update, Ascottk? I had def_attached a new belt buckle to him (that dorky ninja-star one is modelled right on), but now I'm getting an error that dummy_righthip (or whatever) doesn't exist?

It depends on the rigging. Doom 3 will only include the joints that are attached to the mesh. Each mesh is different so the rigging will vary and that's why I had a tough time when I first started.

 

Try the Hip since all meshes will be rigged to that joint.

[Springheel]

I tweaked the skeleton for most of the new AI so we can't use other AI animations due to the different joint rotation.

 

About the animations, does that mean all the animations for this nobleman would have to be made individually? Does he share the same rigging with any other characters? I'm waffling a bit about whether this AI is good enough quality to use compared to the others, and if all the animations for it would have to be made from scratch, that would definitely be a knock against it.

 

Begin animation philosophy rant:

I'm not saying this to be critical, but we have to be realistic--in the last six months we have only had three or four new animations added to our list (not counting ones that have been applied to new models). And most of our existing animations are still WIP. If we maintain that speed, it would take us at least five more years just to get through the absolute basic animations.

 

Unless we're going to get more animators signing up, we have to do everything we can to lighten the animation load, and sharing animations seems the number one way to do that. If a model simply can't share animations, then maybe it's not worth having.

 

Other opinions?

[ascottk]

About the animations, does that mean all the animations for this nobleman would have to be made individually? Does he share the same rigging with any other characters? I'm waffling a bit about whether this AI is good enough quality to use compared to the others, and if all the animations for it would have to be made from scratch, that would definitely be a knock against it.

 

Begin animation philosophy rant:

I'm not saying this to be critical, but we have to be realistic--in the last six months we have only had three or four new animations added to our list (not counting ones that have been applied to new models). And most of our existing animations are still WIP. If we maintain that speed, it would take us at least five more years just to get through the absolute basic animations.

 

Unless we're going to get more animators signing up, we have to do everything we can to lighten the animation load, and sharing animations seems the number one way to do that. If a model simply can't share animations, then maybe it's not worth having.

 

Other opinions?

It's totally unrealistic to have matching skeletons. Each mesh requires different treatments. The latest AI, the nobles and the builder forger, had to have their skeletons altered to fit their mesh.

 

When the skeleton is altered then the joint rotations are be altered. Thus animations from other guards will totally screw up other AI & they'll look totally distorted. That's why I couldn't use Doom 3 skeleton for TDM's meshes because the joint rotations were altered & the animations distorted the mesh because the rotations didn't match.

 

Since the nobles and the forger can't share animations then let's scrap them! Seriously though, we do need animators . . .

 

There is a way to share skeletons & have them use the same def file (d3's npcs.def):

export fred {
options -prefix ZOMBIE_ -keep eyecontrol rshldrpad lshldrpad Lknee Rknee Body Body2 Lhand Lhand1 Rhand Rhand1 headcontrol neckcontrol loneckcontrol SPINNER Rball_r Rtoe_r Lball_r Ltoe_r Chest Shoulders Luparm_orbit Ruparm_orbit Belly Lrib Rrib chair RHANDCONNECTOR LHANDCONNECTOR -parent RHANDCONNECTOR Rhand1 -parent LHANDCONNECTOR Lhand1 -parent headcontrol neckcontrol -parent neckcontrol loneckcontrol -parent loneckcontrol Shoulders  -parent rshldrpad Shoulders -parent lshldrpad Shoulders -parent Body2 Body -parent Hips Body2 -parent SPINNER Body2 -parent Waist SPINNER -sourcedir models/monsters/zombie/cycles/idles -destdir models/md5/chars

addoptions -align ALL

	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest labcoat -keepmesh labcoatmesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest suit -keepmesh suitmesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest jumpsuit -keepmesh jumpsuitmesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest tshirt -keepmesh soldiermesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest marine -keepmesh marinebodymesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh.mb -range 1 1 -dest player -keepmesh npcplayermesh -keepmesh npcplayerarmmesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest security -keepmesh securitybodymesh -keepmesh sec_rshldrmesh -keepmesh sec_lshldrmesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest skeleton  -keepmesh skeletonmesh
	mesh	npcs_mesh2.mb -range 1 1 -dest skeleton_w_mgun  -keepmesh skeletonmesh -keep eject flash barrel machinegun -rename mgeject eject -rename mgflash flash -rename mgbarrel barrel

Then we can share animations but the meshes must have to be roughly the same size.