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Work in Progress / [LOCKED] 3D Character Maker - LOCKED (new thread soon)

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 24th Dec 2007 17:46 Edited at: 24th Dec 2007 17:48
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Hello All!

This thread will track the progress of my 3D character model creation application that has been in (and out of) development for the last couple of years.

For those unfamiliar, 3D Character Maker is a tool to create character models. It will be sold as a base pack. I will continue to add both free and not-free addons to it. The character models are fully rigged and animated. You will be able to use them in any of your games with no royalties. Pretty much everything on the characters is able to be changed. Skin Color, muscle tone, body hair, body part size, proportions, facial features, clothes, hair styles, and on and on.

After I had finished Enhanced Animations, I decided to completly re-vamp 3D Character Maker. Pretty much everything has changed since my last WIP thread. The GUI is now completely written in Visual Basic (the 3D render window is DBpro). This gives a lot more flexibility to me with the design and has a lot more professional feel than when I was using BlueGUI.

The character models exports to ~2500 polys. I completely re-created the face mesh area adding a LOT more detail. I also added bones to the face to support full facial animation.

I am also looking to add automatic generation of normal maps. I'm not sure if that will make it in initially though.

Currently, I have a lot of the features DONE (or at least most of the code written for them). I just have to make the features accesible through the GUI. After that, it will mostly be adding lots of content!

Here is a quick screen shot of the new look of 3D Character Maker. Ignore the eye and teeth color! I quicly applied to skin color to EVERYTHING!

edit:
Also, I just remembered, I currently don't have ANY of the face texturing being applied either. So, look for a LOT more detail on the face soon!
Also, FYI, the texture resolution is now 2048x2048




a.k.a WOLF!

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Lazlazlaz 1
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Posted: 24th Dec 2007 18:21
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So does this program auto-create character models for you?

As with most people I jump around which projects I work on and which I drop for a while.
Currently I'm back working on Sioux, a Hollywood Western RTS.
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RUCCUS
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Posted: 24th Dec 2007 18:27 Edited at: 24th Dec 2007 18:29
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If I remember correctly, it lets you quickly create characters by adjusting various attributes.

Great job as usual Wolf. A suggestion:

Have an option to quickly export a set amount of "random" characters. The user fills in how many characters they want, a skin colour / tone range, muscle colour / tone range, etc, for every attribute, then the system creates the specified number of characters with random attributes effected by the ranges specified, and exports them as numbered models with whatever prefix the user wants as the name. That would be such a life saver for quickly filling cities with pedestrians, especially if they're pre-animated like you say.

Even better, though this is probably a long shot, if you could somehow make a plugin for DBP, that had commands that you could call which would execute the Character Creator program hidden (or just use it's functions), DBP users could just randomly create characters themselves with code. But then you'd run into people creating their own character creators using yours and a bunch of other issues, so thats probably not the best idea.

Looks amazing so far.

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 24th Dec 2007 18:38
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Quote: "So does this program auto-create character models for you?"


YES!

Quote: "Have an option to quickly export a set amount of "random" characters. The user fills in how many characters they want, a skin colour / tone range, muscle colour / tone range, etc, for every attribute, then the system creates the specified number of characters with random attributes effected by the ranges specified, and exports them as numbered models with whatever prefix the user wants as the name. That would be such a life saver for quickly filling cities with pedestrians, especially if they're pre-animated like you "


That is actually a nice idea. I was planning on adding some "random" buttons to individual selections, but I could definitely look at something as you have suggested

Quote: "Even better, though this is probably a long shot, if you could somehow make a plugin for DBP, that had commands that you could call which would execute the Character Creator program hidden (or just use it's functions), DBP users could just randomly create characters themselves with code. But then you'd run into people creating their own character creators using yours and a bunch of other issues, so thats probably not"


This one is a bit touchy and would be harder to do. Most of the "work" of this is done in DBpro code. If I wrote more (there is some) in C++ dll's, then it would be more do-able. The problem is then it offers a way for EVERYONE to completely circumvent any kind of copy protection that I would write by simply wrapping all of my stuff! I'd like to be able to do something like this though for more commercial projects. I might be able to work out some kind of "developers license" way of doing things. I'll have to think about it more.


a.k.a WOLF!
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Lazlazlaz 1
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Posted: 24th Dec 2007 18:59
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Fantastic, and what model types does it export in?
Also can you change the average number of polys for characters within the program, to make higher or lower poly models?

As with most people I jump around which projects I work on and which I drop for a while.
Currently I'm back working on Sioux, a Hollywood Western RTS.
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 24th Dec 2007 19:17
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Quote: "Fantastic, and what model types does it export in?"


Right now I am planning .dbo (obviously) and .x file format. I wouldn't mind adding some addition formats such as .b3d, but that can come later.

Quote: "Also can you change the average number of polys for characters within the program, to make higher or lower poly models?"

Not really. Some selections will, of coarse, use more/less polys, but there isn't any kind of poly reduction mechansim built in.


a.k.a WOLF!
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Diggsey
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Posted: 25th Dec 2007 00:29
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So it's a bit like the character creator in the sims

Will it create bones in the mesh for animation?

FREE 2D PHYSICS PLUGIN
ViewGUI - FREE DBP non-windows GUI plugin with WYSIWYG editor
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AndrewT
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Posted: 25th Dec 2007 01:34 Edited at: 25th Dec 2007 01:34
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This is looking sweet! I'll definitely keep an eye on this, 'cause I'm terrible at character modelling.

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Inspire
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Posted: 25th Dec 2007 02:05
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It would be cool if we could use different commands via a plugin in DBP, to allow for a character creator within our game. Not saying that you would do this, but that would be very tasty.

This looks very cool, I will definitely get it.

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Satchmo
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Posted: 25th Dec 2007 04:30 Edited at: 25th Dec 2007 04:36
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Quote: "It would be cool if we could use different commands via a plugin in DBP, to allow for a character creator within our game. Not saying that you would do this, but that would be very tasty."


Wink wink.


Edit: Didn't this used to be called EZ Character?

2nd edit: It was EZactor
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=71838&b=8

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 25th Dec 2007 04:58 Edited at: 25th Dec 2007 17:59
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Quote: "So it's a bit like the character creator in the sims

Will it create bones in the mesh for animation?"


I've never used the character creator in "the Sims" but I imagine it to be similar.
The meshes are boned and all verts are weighted nicely. I used to have a video somewhere that showed the model animating to the FPSC animation set. I'll have to try to find it.

Quote: "Edit: Didn't this used to be called EZ Character?

2nd edit: It was EZactor"


YES! That was the old name for it. I wasn't too crazy about the name because it wasn't very descriptive. I like 3D Character Maker MUCH more!


a.k.a WOLF!
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Silvester
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Posted: 25th Dec 2007 13:44
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Looks nice, But it did that a while ago too!

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Duffer
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Posted: 27th Dec 2007 14:03 Edited at: 27th Dec 2007 14:04
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@ Ron,

Looking excellent. Any chance of male & female base character released in first version? Could you have a feature to allow you to lock objects to the 3DCM character? ie. sword, helm, armour etc?
[edit] what is the gear option in the piccy above?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 27th Dec 2007 16:43
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Quote: "Any chance of male & female base character released in first version?"

The first version will be male characters only.

Quote: "Could you have a feature to allow you to lock objects to the 3DCM character? ie. sword, helm, armour etc?"

Yes. That will probably be possible. I doubt that I will have the item export with the character, but I should be able to make it viewable.

Quote: "[edit] what is the gear option in the piccy above?"

That is where you will select your clothing options. It will probably expand further once I start working on that part of it.


a.k.a WOLF!
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Aaron Miller
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Posted: 30th Dec 2007 21:39
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Quote: "This one is a bit touchy and would be harder to do. Most of the "work" of this is done in DBpro code. If I wrote more (there is some) in C++ dll's, then it would be more do-able. The problem is then it offers a way for EVERYONE to completely circumvent any kind of copy protection that I would write by simply wrapping all of my stuff! I'd like to be able to do something like this though for more commercial projects. I might be able to work out some kind of "developers license" way of doing things. I'll have to think about it more."

You could say "You can't use this command set to create a standalone character creator software, however you can use this command set to create in game automatic character generation which is NOT exported." Or even simpler "You can't use this to export models which can be used outside of the software." Just an idea.


Cheers,

-naota

With any luck you'll be able to turn a fully functioning program to a crashing program with just a little bit of coding.
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Fallout
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Posted: 31st Dec 2007 00:15 Edited at: 31st Dec 2007 00:15
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Quality. Glad to see this back on the WiP board. Looking forward to seeing the updates.

I for one don't see the point of any batch auto-generation type options though. I mean, it's already turning a 10 hour modeling job into a 10 minute selection process. Seems a bit unnecessary to me to cut that down anymore. It's already gonna be damn EZ. Plus I would envisage people just using it, looking through the generated characters, not liking a few, deleting them, and regenerating again and again, until they had a set they liked. People tend not to like truly random characters, because they often don't turn out different enough from each other. There's always one or two that are too similar, or are too boring, or are too extreme. I personally think a single randomize character option would be enough, and people can just keeping clicking it over and over until they get a character they like, then save it, then repeat.


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baconboy2
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Great job Ron! I always thought that that Character Studio TGC made was a bit complicated, so I will definetly get this!

Speaking of which, whats the price gonna be like??



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Dark Developer
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Does it support animation creating to the characters?
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 2nd Jan 2008 22:07 Edited at: 3rd Jan 2008 02:04
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Quote: "Great job Ron! I always thought that that Character Studio TGC made was a bit complicated, so I will definetly get this!"


Character Studio is really just meant to rig character meshes that you created into it's bone set. Then you can use it's animations with your meshes. This app creates the mesh for you, which is already rigged for animation AND includes animations. There really isn't ANY work to using this except selecting the options that you want!

Quote: "Speaking of which, whats the price gonna be like??"


It isn't set yet. I want to keep the base price pretty reasonable though.

Quote: "Does it support animation creating to the characters? "

I am [/edit] going to include animations, but the application will not have the ability to create your own animations. It is something that I am considering as an addon in the future though.


a.k.a WOLF!
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Dr Parsnips
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2008 00:58
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Quote: "I am not going to include animations, but the application will not have the ability to create your own animations. It is something that I am considering as an addon in the future though.
"


in your first post you say they are rigged and animated, just wondering if that has changed? Im very impressed with this! you have my money!

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 3rd Jan 2008 02:03
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Doh!

My bad! I wrote that wrong

The models WILL include animations. The application will NOT have any kind of animation editor built in though. That is what I meant to say!


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Dr Parsnips
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Good! as thats what i was hopping hehe!!

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Airslide
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If you made a make-a-character-in-your-game DLL you could just use a file format that only your DLL will read, so only people that own it could generate the characters from the file. Would be useful for RPGs or Sim-like games.


Vote today and play the games!
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Draglan
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Woah! Thats so cool. Once I learn DBPro (if I ever become less lazy to do so ) this would be soo much help in creating some random, awesome explorer game with no plot! Woot!!

I'm definetly buying this... whether or not I know DarkBASIC! Lol

<img src="http://www.danasoft.com/sig/PwnageUlmighty.jpg" border="0"></a><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px;">
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 4th Jan 2008 04:41
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Quote: "If you made a make-a-character-in-your-game DLL you could just use a file format that only your DLL will read, so only people that own it could generate the characters from the file. Would be useful for RPGs or Sim-like games."


The problem is that once it is loaded into DBpro, you can simply do a "SAVE OBJECT". So, a person could still basicly wrap all of the functionality and export the files for anyone to use.


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Silvester
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Thats true, and the only way to bypass that, is to make your own Object commands. Like "3DCM_PlayObject Objectnum as Integer", but that takes alot of time to create. Best choice is to just drop the DLL idea.

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Uncle Sam
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Looks great!

I was hoping, when you get to that point, if you could show two screenshots of two different characters made with the program so that we can see how much variety the program can do between the two?

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 4th Jan 2008 22:04
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Quote: "I was hoping, when you get to that point, if you could show two screenshots of two different characters made with the program so that we can see how much variety the program can do between the two?"


Definitely

Progrss continues. I have all of the "skin" options working with the GUI. I'm not reall happy with how the "brightness" modification works right now, so it may take some more tweeking. I'll come back to that later.
Now it is time to move on to designing the GUI for the "face" options.


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mrniceguy
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Will the animated characters work in FPSCreator 9 and X10?
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Zeus
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Quote: "<img src="http://www.danasoft.com/sig/PwnageUlmighty.jpg" border="0"></a><div style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px;">"


Your sig should be (without the spaces) [ img]http://www.danasoft.com/sig/PwnageUlmighty.jpg[/ img]

Result:


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 7th Jan 2008 14:50
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Quote: "Will the animated characters work in FPSCreator 9 and X10? "


I have used the same bone system that the characters in FPSC 9 use. So, it should work without any problems (that is one of the goals ). I haven't talked to Lee about FPSC X10 compatibility yet.


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gbuilder
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Posted: 8th Jan 2008 23:44 Edited at: 8th Jan 2008 23:46
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Well, I'll probably get some flack for this but why shouldn't people pass on or even sell their creations from a program like this? It's good to see you back onto it Wolf.
The way I see it, if a person labours to get just the right mix of character and textures, and it could take hours or even days to get something suitable, then make it so they can do as they wish with the character once exported. I'm thinking that this won't hurt you because you'll be doing updates and improving your generic characters etc. Look at the difference between Poser 1 characters and Poser 6. I tend to look at 3d Character Maker as a potential tool and by not limiting it's uses the Indie scene will finally have a Universal Tool that has a good chance of becoming an industry standard.

gbuilder.

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 9th Jan 2008 04:23
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Quote: "It's good to see you back onto it Wolf."

Thanks!

Quote: "Well, I'll probably get some flack for this but why shouldn't people pass on or even sell their creations from a program like this?"


Quote: "The way I see it, if a person labours to get just the right mix of character and textures, and it could take hours or even days to get something suitable, then make it so they can do as they wish with the character once exported. I'm thinking that this won't hurt you because you'll be doing updates and improving your generic characters etc. Look at the difference between Poser 1 characters and Poser 6. I tend to look at 3d Character Maker as a potential tool and by not limiting it's uses the Indie scene will finally have a Universal Tool that has a good chance of becoming an industry standard. "


That all sounds nice in theory. I do understand what you are saying. I just don't think it would work like you think. One problem is that there would be "helpful" people that make free models for non-customers (It won't take hours or days to create a character, it will be able to be done MUCH quicker than that). If people want to "use" the models created with this app in their software, then they should purchase the software and create the character themselves. I think that is fair, don't you? If people want to create models to sell, then they should learn to do it properly with their own created content.
In the end, the more support that I get, the more I can justify devoting more time into adding additional content. Remember, I already have a couple of years poured into this project!

Thanks for the comments!


a.k.a WOLF!
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Tochiro GE999
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This looks like an excellent utility. I look forward to it coming out and would definitely purchase. Nice to see something which allows the graphically-challenged coder to introduce some originality into his / her projects. Keep up the good work! ^_^

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Duffer
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@ Ron,

How goes it with 3DCM>? Any new demo vids on the horizon?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Ron Erickson
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Soon.
I was using TextureMAX for some of the texturing and ran into some problems. So, I am currently doing a quick update to TextureMAX to fix some of the issues. That shouldn't take very long to finish. Once it is done, then I can continue to use it for 3DCM development. I can then finish off the "FACE" mode and show some more cool stuff.


a.k.a WOLF!
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Duffer
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@ Ron,

How's it going, the Face mode etc? First time around the characters faces seemed very samey sometimes and you were looking at that again this time around...

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 30th Jan 2008 17:22
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Duffer,
I am still putting the finishing touches on my TextureMax application update. I can then use the new version to continue work on 3DCM. This update ended up being more involved than I had imagined, but some of the VB/DBpro interface is directly portable to 3DCM. Although I have been working on other things, most of the work can be applied to 3DCM as well.

Ron


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Duffer
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@ Ron,

How goes it with 3DCM>? Are we close now to some new videos of it in action?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Mobiius
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Nice, i'll be wanting this!

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Ron Erickson
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Sorry. No new updates yet. I am really busy with work at the moment. I am going to be traveling to Norway and the UK in the next couple of weeks. I doubt I will be able to touch any of this until after I get back.
I did finish my TextureMax update. I still have some testing to do with it (which will be done while working on 3DCM). After I am comfortable that all of the bugs are worked out, I can release it.


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Duffer
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2008 19:54
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@ Ron,

Hiya. How goes it? Any steps on 3dcm?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Duffer
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Ping

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qwe
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Quote: "
This one is a bit touchy and would be harder to do. Most of the "work" of this is done in DBpro code. If I wrote more (there is some) in C++ dll's, then it would be more do-able. The problem is then it offers a way for EVERYONE to completely circumvent any kind of copy protection that I would write by simply wrapping all of my stuff! I'd like to be able to do something like this though for more commercial projects. I might be able to work out some kind of "developers license" way of doing things. I'll have to think about it more.
"

what if you had an .EXE and a .TXT. a dark basic user could write to the .TXT file in a specified format, with all of the information needed to build the character model he wants. then, he runs your .exe via DB code, and the .exe will take the info from the .txt and make the model. then, the darkbasic programmer can load the model. this way other programs could have your character maker 'within' but you wouldnt have to expose any code
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Duffer
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@ Ron,

Good to read of the breakthrough with EnAn - how is the limb rotation thing coming along>? With 3DCM, how goes it?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Ron Erickson
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Joined: 6th Dec 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posted: 17th Mar 2008 02:27 Edited at: 17th Mar 2008 16:53
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Duffer,
Sorry for not replying sooner. I figured you were really just bumping the thread anyway.
Things have been pretty crazy with my work lately. I was out of town again last week working 17 hour days. Hopefully, things are starting to return to "normal". I'm still busy as hell, but I don't forsee any travelling in the next few weeks.
Consequently, I haven't had much time to work on 3DCM. I have done a couple of things. I was able to use the new version of TextureMax (that I am still testing) to continue work on the eye portion of the texture. This also required a special exporter to get the file into a format that will be extra quick loading. That part is done. I now have to make it part of 3DCM. Hopefully I will get that done some time this week. If so, I will post some screens.

Getting the *problem* in EnAn sorted was a real breakthrough. I want to look at some more speed optimizations for it and possibly look into the global rotation feature before release. It depends on how much time I have. I don't want to delay the bug-fix very long in order to fit this other stuff in. I'll judge where things are toward the end of the week and go from there. I really want to get it released before the end of the month.

qwe,
I will look into different possibilities of doing things like this once the app is done and released. I need to get at least that far first....


Edit:
Eyes are now done. I'll see if I can now get the mouth finished this week too



a.k.a WOLF!

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Duffer
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Posted: 17th Mar 2008 19:44
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@ Ron,

Looking good. Looking forward to your next post,

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 18th Mar 2008 13:18 Edited at: 18th Mar 2008 13:19
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Here is another! I got the mouth pretty much done last night:




a.k.a WOLF!

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Duffer
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Posted: 18th Mar 2008 20:25
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Again, looking good. Keep it comin!

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Ron Erickson
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Joined: 6th Dec 2002
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posted: 29th Mar 2008 14:55
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I've made a LOT of progress in the last couple of weeks. I've uploaded a video to show off some of the face editing features.

On the face, you can change the texture and modify the feature size/position for:
-Forehead
-Nose
-Eyes
-Mouth
-Chin/Jaw
-Cheek bones

This video shows off the Forehead, Nose and eyes. I still have to finish the Mouth, chin and cheek bones.

Enjoy!


a.k.a WOLF!

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