Belcher Creature (wip)

[Schatten]

Louis Armstrong

Dizzy Gillespie's cheeks pwn Armstrong's!

[Springheel]

The tail does look much longer than the original shots, because of the perspective, I guess. It certainly looks long enough to balance him now, though I wonder if it's going to create clipping problems.

 

Can't wait to get home and check out the animations.

[ascottk]

I didn't realise how long the tail was judging from your previous screenshots... perspective problem?

The first screenshots were taken in Maya & it has a lower fov. Maybe I'll turn it up in Maya.

 

The legs and arms look separate from the rest of the body, like they've been crafted separately and then glued on. Would be nice if they flowed into the body more seamlessly.

I was wondering how to accomplish the integration. Maybe separate meshes around the the legs and arms? I'll have to play around with it.

well this animal hasn't got 4 legs like a stegosaurus to keep him in balance. I think because all the weight of his body is on the front it needs a long tail to keep him balanced if your going for realism. How many bones does the tail have? With 3 or 4 you could make a nice wave anim for the walk/run.

The tail has three joints. Yeah, I'm trying to get a delayed snap with the tip of the tail.

[ascottk]

Hey, that's looking great! We had originally envisioned a sack under the neck that inflates before they expel the Belch, kind of like how frogs or Louis Armstrong look when they inflate their faces. Not sure how difficult something like that would be, but just wanted to throw it back out there. It was just a small detail to differentiate our guys from the originals.

I'm merging the arms & legs to the body so this gives me a chance to fix what's been bugging me & make the sack better I originally didn't want to merge the legs & arms to the body because I knew it'd be a pain the in ass. I was right it is a pain in the ass but it'll look a helluva lot better in the long run.

[ascottk]

Whew! That was a lot of work Now they look a lot better (the uv mapping after combining the meshes was painful). Both the belcher dino & the belcher salamander have new textures:

 

The dino's head texture needs some lovin' (& distort the scales so they don't look so even) & I gotta figure out how to make them belch gas. Maybe the salamander needs some bumps like a toad.

 

Interesting side note: I know why the animations were not keeping the same joints as the mesh on the other AI (why I've been adding -addoptions keep *joint names* to every def file). The rigs need to be exactly the same between the meshes & animations.

[Crispy]

Awesome! The legs look much more natural now. I'm digging the scale texture too (though as you say, it still needs some ).

 

I assume they're going to get eyes at some point too.

[ascottk]

Mommy? What's the meaning of life?

[Ishtvan]

That's awesome! Does this mean you made a ragdoll for them already too?

[ascottk]

That's awesome! Does this mean you made a ragdoll for them already too?

It's a tweaked humanois tdm skeleton so I'm using the guard_base for now. I added head joints, tail joints, a barrel joint (in the mouth for the gas), & rotated & translated all of these joints to fit the mesh. It will need its own af though because the jaw is open & the tongue & teeth clip through the mouth, the tail needs to be accounted for & the arms clip.

[sparhawk]

The dino's head texture needs some lovin' (& distort the scales so they don't look so even) & I gotta figure out how to make them belch gas. Maybe the salamander needs some bumps like a toad.

 

They look much better now. As for the gas, you might check out the gas arrow. This is already working and the gas clooud should be what you need. Also probably this should be done as a projectile, maybe you can just give them some hidden gas arrow to spawn in front of them. How far can they "belch" anyway?

[Crispy]

It'll need to trail gas though (instead of just puffing at the impact point), and you'll probably want to make it slow down faster and have a fairly short range.

[sparhawk]

Whats the range of them anyway? I think T1/T2 had a pretty far range for them, where they shoot this rocket kind of trail out.

[Springheel]

Looking even better. Man, I'm itching to do some skins for these guys.

[ascottk]

They should be on svn now. Meanwhile here's a video of them in action:

http://208.49.149.118/TheDarkMod/models/as...lcher_anims.avi

 

& I revised the "salamander" normals then added eye textures:

 

EDIT: here's the uvs:

[greebo]

Great job! The guard humming along to the belcher animation is priceless!

[SneaksieDave]

Both the model and anims are looking really good.

[Springheel]

Damn. These guys are looking cooler than I dared hope.

[PinkDot]

That's true - they look thousands times better than on the first screens. Will you make size variations as well? (children) and maybe male and female?

[sparhawk]

They look pretty cool! Good work!

[ascottk]

That's true - they look thousands times better than on the first screens. Will you make size variations as well? (children) and maybe male and female?

These are definitely versatile so we could have different genders, species, sizes, a whole slew of different belchers. There's already two types already: the smaller "salamander" (amphibious) belchers & the more "traditional" dinosaur type.

[Ishtvan]

They do look and move great!

 

I was wondering: Do we have to exactly copy the belching gas behavior from Thief? What if it was more like spitting venom? Will they have a secondary attack where they just bite a chunk out of you? I'm fine with wherever you want to take them, but personally I wouldn't mind if they just spat venom from far away and bit you when you corner them.

[Springheel]

There's already two types already: the smaller "salamander" (amphibious) belchers & the more "traditional" dinosaur type.

 

What about making the 'swamp belchers' (I like the term 'mucker' for them) able to swim, alligator style? Since the tail is nicely rigged already that should be a fairly easy animation to make, and it would be a cool touch to see one swimming in a dark, foggy swamp somewhere.

 

Will they have a secondary attack where they just bite a chunk out of you?

 

Yes, they should have a bite attack as well.

[Ishtvan]

hehe, couldn't resist:

 

 

The reptile riders fell upon the city at midnight.

[Crispy]

Haha, that's great.

 

First we look at Mount&Blade for ideas about melee combat, and now this! We should totally have a mounted combat mode. Imagine a mission where the Thief has to rob a mansion and then ride one of the Lord's pet muckers across a swamp to escape while being pursued by the Lord's personal guard, a battalion of spear-throwing salamander-riding bodyguards!

 

Looking forward to seeing these in-game, I'm syncing now.

[ascottk]

Finally getting a handle on that confusing, crazy, af editor so the belchers have their own af now Still needs some tweaks (they keep wiggling around depending on their position).

 

Here's some great info on the af editor on d3world:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...ghlight=ragdoll

 

It is still confusing though