Exchangeable Heads

[Springheel]

Ok, it sounds like our modelers are in favour of making bodies that can use multiple heads, to create more variety. I also support this. I think the more variety we can have with the AI models, the better.

 

What I'll do, starting with the guards, is include 2 different heads for each body type. Whether we can swap heads from one body type to another, I don't know. I guess it depends on how seamlessly the necks can be made to look.

 

We don't need to do this for the builder models, since they all wear the same headgear.

 

For regular guards and for civilian AI I think it will be most significant.

 

I'll post the elite guard tomorrow and then post my complete list of AI models for you to check over.

[oDDity]

I was thinkng the exact opposite.

Only the uniformed models should have head changes. THe civilians should all be wearing differnt clothes as well as having different heads.

It doesn't save any time or resources anyway. Obviously we'd have been using the same body model and textures for the hammers, citywatch guys etc, since they all look near enoug identical. I wouldn't have been modeling identical copies of hammer armour from scratch every time I made a new face.

I think 3 body types of each would also be required though, as well as the head changes. (one short and fat, one tall and thin, one average)

I'm quite happy mainkg entirely different version of nobles, though we can also swap their heads around if you want.

It's a matter of 2 minutes work loadign up two models and swapping heads.

[Domarius]

And no one thought to consult the programmers who'd be having to peice these bodies and heads together in real time?

 

Haha, it won't be hard. This is good news Last I remember, we were undecided about how complicated it would be for the modelers, or something. I'm glad to hear this feature's making it in.

[oDDity]

There's no piecing together to do for the programmers, it's all done in the modeling apps.

[Springheel]

It doesn't save any time or resources anyway. Obviously we'd have been using the same body model and textures for the hammers, citywatch guys etc.  It's a matter of 2 minutes work loadign up two models and swapping heads.

 

Ok...that's slightly different than what I was thinking, but it's fine with me, as long as it isn't going to add a tremendous amount of disk space.

 

I think 3 body types of each would also be required though, as well as the head changes. (one short and fat, one tall and thin, one average)

 

We should throw some different body types in for variety, but I don't know if we need three versions of every single one. We would want a fat noble, for sure, but we don't really need a fat city guard.

[Domarius]

You mean you export all the head & body combinations as seperate models?

 

Isn't that a waste of RAM when the game is running?

 

And if it was done with the programming, you could make the heads random so that the level designer didn't have to personally worry about making all the guards look different.

Edited January 17, 2005 by Domarius

[oDDity]

Well, I'll look onto how they did it in Doom. It's probably pretty simple.

[sparhawk]

Seeing how they did this in Doom would help a lot. A simple solution is not always the best.