[Joachim]

Me an micke have been writing on a tutorial on how we work out the realtime characters in our game this week.
We wrote this as a "hype" thing our producer requested, so the content is written for more than artists to understand, so easy reading ....
anyway, if you care to take a look just pop into my site : Joachim's Place

aumh ! I've wasted enough time for today, time for sleep...


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Joachim's Place

[This message has been edited by Joachim (edited September 13, 2000).]

[Bizarde]

sorry ! ...i'll check it...

~bizarde.

[black_fish]

Man! You guys have a weird way of doing lo poly chrcaters: I've never seen anybody using extrude. But it works for you, so that's what important. Your model turned out pretty good. I don't really like his face but it's purely a matter of taste.
Good job
I just hope your game won't required a 1 Ghz pc with 128 megs of Ram and Geforece 2 to be playable

[Sergenth]

Thanks Joachim and Micke. While information light (due to the thousand and two ways to do these things), the article was inspiring.

My greatest succes with lowpoly models does come from extrusion, definitly not from additive or subtractive sculpting so far. Of course, the probelm at the end is not having a solid mesh, but that is beyond my abilities at this point anyway.

How many separate skin files were used to create this here eyes-rolled sniper? (btw, he should have one eye squinting from using that scope all the time :P)

Good job on the face Micke! I recognized your style through the angles used and the pseudo-oil warm colored lighting

[Frost]

joachim/micke: Good tutorial, although a little vague for a beginner (for example, unfolding UVs to a bitmap could be referenced to Unwrap as it's been mentionned here in the past few days).

I'm glad you wrote this up... I hope many people read it because that's exactly what the next generation of games and 3d hardware will do (skeletal deformations). I might have to write up something like that myself eventually... (only 40 times bigger... (sigh)). =)

[Sergenth]

Ah, the video just downloaded. Joachim, is the animation your work, similar to those other anims you had on your sight?

Excellent bounce and secondary movement on "cloth" right above the boots and on the coat sleeves.

I have a question about the walking and the looking around though. The sniper looks like he goes through 6 walking step rotations and he twists his torso as he periodically looks left and right...

How'd you do that?

Is it 2 seperate models like in Quake 3 (torso vs. pelvis/legs) or did you just hand do all the walking steps or does the program you use have a pose copy feature: Where you can copy some bone movement from one frame to another?

[Joachim]

sergenth, quick answer before I go to sleep Yes, I did the animation. The bones attachment have no IK or gravity stuff whatever. About the whole cycle. First of it was a normal 2 steps loop, and later I've just repeated the whole sequence about 6 times and deleted the upper body keyframes and animated it all over throughout the 12 steps, so it's pure and manual pain in the ass work to make sure the whole body moves separatly but still being affected by the walking movement and keeping the balance and rythm... . I like to do all that hard labor actually, kind of gets 3d animation closer to traditional animation -I guess I'm silly that way ..

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Joachim's Place

[Dhabih]

I NEED to know how you make that background..how do you have a nice gradient in the background and have it match the ground while having a proper shadow?

-dhab

[Icannon]

damn good question, dhab. i've been meaning to ask that for a while.

[Gambit]

The tutorial is great, guys. The character "winter sniper" turned out awesome! I can't wait till IGI comes out. IS Innerloop going to realese a demo before it goes gold? You guys really have your act together Thanks for the post...

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Gamingvault.com

[dEATH.Tool]

Wow! Really uhm?.....different process! Really cool looking character too! What game is this for again? I have some friends launching a new site.....mind if they use it? Ofcourse they'll credit you guys....couldn't have friends that wouldn't! I'll give you the site addy when it's up!

[Joachim]

uhm, uh....

frost, yeah I agree this tutorial don't deserve a medal for it's highly innovative and well explained content. Hehe, I know that's not what you said, but I say it anyway. It's more like a "step by step-how we do the characters in our game" thingy
damn, it's difficult to do tutorials, not my thing .

dhabih, well, that's not very hard I will explain (this is for 3dstudio though). First of all, background has been set to greadient. Just choose gradient background and tweak the colors and position of them according to the world.

The shadow, make a box beneith the character, but instead of applying a map, the material type must be Matte/Shadow and turn on the "recieve shados" and "at object depth". Then the box will only display shadows from the objects, but with no material. That should do the trick.

oh and, thank you all for your comments

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Joachim's Place

[This message has been edited by Joachim (edited September 14, 2000).]

[AKIRA_x]

I am no gamedeveloper, and have really never gotten into the whole boxmodeling area, but I wanted to make a lowpoly model. So I used the tools I know. This is for 3D studio MAX.

Spline modeling.
Like you would to make a highrez model with splines..you build the rough outlines, and ad a surface. Default settings for surface modifier is 5 (this gives a smooth organic look). If you set this to 0, it will take the spline model and just ad a surface to it...presto..instant lowpoly. (keep in mind you have to THINK low poly as you build the spline...keep the shape smart)

What to keep in mind during spline modeling: Keep al vertexes to corners, no bezier and no smooth. THEY ALL MUST BE CORNERS. (this is for low poly thinking)

Why I like it this why? I can build my object with a more whole image in mind (instead of starting out with a box). And for me coming from tradional drawing it feels more comfortable to "just start drawing" instead of extruding or pulling vertexes. I build up two outlines (front and side) and just ad splines between the two shapes. There are some tutorials on spline modeling at www.3dluvr.com.

As I said..I am no game developer so there might be somethings I havent thought off, and not saying this is the best way..just putting my 2 cents in.

Joachim: Man..that face..I..I have no words. its awsome..and a great model. Jeg m� komme innom snart � kikke litt mer..hils Paul og de andre.

Thomas

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Whos ya dady!!

[Danny]

Cool tutorial Joachim (and Micke). It's always interesting to see the working methods of others. You mentioned you didn't use IK, so I guess all was animated with FK instead. Must have been a pain, then again so is Max's current IK engine.. so it's a trade-off.
Shame you couldn't make it to ECTS, I would have loved talking to you about this kinda stuff. Maybe next year..
I'm amazed at the amount of stuff you two have been posting to the forum this past week. I mean it's not like you guys have a crushing deadline hanging over your head or anything..




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Trust in Trance

[Muzman]

Hey looks like you guys made it onto bluesnews (actually, since you're working on a bonafide game it wouldn't be that hard)
Named and everything. Kudos lads!

[Joachim]

Danny, Hehe, I guess we are somewhat hyperactive. but, even though we have so much work to do at Innerloop, my greatest relaxation and when I have most fun is when I draw stuff for personal pleasure.
yeah, sad we couldn't meet up. I will make sure to be there next year. Or, maybe you can join Tim over here some time, and we can show you how we the vikings choose to fight against alcohol by consuming it

muzman, oh that was quick. I posted it less than 24 hours ago. Seems like those guys keep themselves updated.

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Joachim's Place

[Icannon]

yep, thanks a bunch

[Fred Flick Stone]

THis is a very cool tutorial. Thanks for posting it up. It is really informative and very well written. Now if only I could finish mine...do you know where I can purchase some time? I seem to keep running out of it...

[Farwalker]

Wow, they sure did.
Good stuff

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Gamingvault.com

[Dhabih]

awesome! thanks guys!