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FPSC Classic Models and Media / Gettting Back on track with my Character Modelling

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Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 28th Aug 2006 23:07
lol, thats kinda scary, but thanks


Butter fingers
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Posted: 28th Aug 2006 23:30
realise this is going off on one now, but I just wanted to but in and say, absolutely sterling effort Jon.

I have seen your stuff over the last few months, and you really have made an exponential improvement. And it's not like you sucked in the first place!

Still. Good job taking it to a higher mental level man. It's all about elevation, and challenging what your mind can concieve!

Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 28th Aug 2006 23:38
cheers butter fingers, i see you understand aswell,

its all so obvious to me now, looking back i can see so much i skipped, or went too hard on


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 00:07 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 00:52
well, i had a go at rigging it, im still slightly confused as to the rigid parts and the type-in weight, im getting some strecthed results, and as you said, it is very painful, selecting all of those verts, ah well, i'll have the confidence to do it later on, for the mean time...

im going to try and normal map it, if i can make a high res mesh


Cut scenes
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 01:02
dude if you can normal map it the puddle of drool below my desk will turn into a flood
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 01:09
lol, ok

just dont know if i have the time to go any further, gotta get back with corepak volume 2, and finish those weapons!


bond1
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 01:39 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 01:40
Quote: "well, i had a go at rigging it, im still slightly confused as to the rigid parts and the type-in weight, im getting some strecthed results, and as you said, it is very painful, selecting all of those verts, ah well, i'll have the confidence to do it later on, for the mean time..."


Hehe, yeah... I read a tutorial by Paul Steed where he rigs a character similar to this, a mix of rigid and organic body parts. He says characters <2500 polys he always rigs with manual weighting, it just gives better results. Envelopes just won't cut it for a character like this.

It helps to have a very specific workflow. Start with the foot, weight the verts, lock them, and move on to the next part. And if you haven't checked out a maxscipt called "mirror weights" then get it. It's by a guy named Martinez and can be found at scriptspot. It allows you to weight verts then mirror them to the other side for symmetrical body parts. Cuts you work time in half. You should be able to rig this character in an hour or two with this script.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://hyrumark.zftp.com/FPSC/hyrumarkfpsc.htm
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 01:55 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 01:57
interesting, thanks for the tip, i'll have a look for it

wasnt paul steed once working for ID software, i think on the orginal Quake, and he's got that book right?


bond1
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 02:17
Yeah he worked for ID on the Quake and Quake III arena games, made the characters and animations. Then moved on as creative director for XBox. He has the modelling book for max, which is somewhat dated now. But he has some great articles on rigging and animating, can't remember where I saw it.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://hyrumark.zftp.com/FPSC/hyrumarkfpsc.htm
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 02:35 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 02:37
hmm, well i'll have a look around, i feel i am an idiot when it comes to rigging and animating organic objects, im going to definately have to put some more time into it, i want to buy another book, though i suppose i havnt gotten the best practice anyway, usually just importing the standard aniamtions, would be worth stopping once in a while and playing with the bones.

right, im actually going to take another shot at rigging it, to hell with normal maps, just a waste of time (for me) i doubt i could get anything decent anyway

ive bookmarked scriptspot, seems like an invaluable website


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 03:39
alright! got the armour rigid! much easier than i thought actually, even though there is still alot of deformation in other places, the central armour, shoulders and top headguard is perfectly rigid, and thats all i need basically, there isnt too much deformation elsewhere.

i'll see how this goes, and see if i get can a render of a pose with a weapon

sorry for pumping out the questions, but got any advise on how i could make the cloth/cape look realistic, i set up a heirarchy with the biped instead of attaching it to the main model,


Prince
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 03:40
jon lemme say that ur barbarian warrior is just a fabulous piece of work. am sure you have good amount of yrs of hard work behind it. I am stepping into 3D modeling and animation. I think it would be very helpful if you can guide me as to a starting point in 3D modeling. I have downloaded few apps like blender, gamespace and in the process of getting familiar with the interface and stuff...

have heard about u and bond1 around the forums. guess u guys r real pros any FPSC demo games you guys have made?

any suggestions on getting a good lighting and at the same time not reducing the performance?

Thanks

Prince
Cheesy Good
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 03:53
Awesome character. He looks just... Wow
bond1
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 06:18 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 06:31
Quote: "but got any advise on how i could make the cloth/cape look realistic"


Hmm, I think for the cloth I would use a spring controller like I mentioned earlier, it's a very versatile controller.

I would chain 2 or more boxes together and link them to the forearm bone of the biped. These will then becomes the "bones" which you will weight to the cloth. Assign each box a spring controller. The catch here is that you have to do this BEFORE you initialize physique or you will lose your previous weighting.

You can adjust the friction and wieght settings for each spring controller, as well as configure them to move only along a specified axis. I would just use x and y axis as you probably don't want the cloth bouncing up and down like a bungee cord. With the right spring settings, the cloth should sway realistically and move slightly behind the arm movements like real cloth would.

I did this successfully with the ponytail on my nurse model to have it sway with the head movement. It looked great, but I ultimately decided to leave it out completely, because the ponytail would often sway into the upper back geometry during extreme movements and it would have required a lot of manual keyframing to fix, and it just wasn't worth the effort for this pack. But I don't think you would have this problem with your model, especially if you are just going to be trying out different poses. And if this is going to be a showcase portfolio piece, you might as well go balls out and take all the time you need to get it perfect.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://hyrumark.zftp.com/FPSC/hyrumarkfpsc.htm
Scafcoch
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 08:17
Wow thats freakin incredible man good job
Gizmoguy
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 11:11
id vote for A.
but id love to see your characters released aswell

xxxxxoutxxxxxxx
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 16:30
thanks for the comments guys, and Prince, good to hear, im sure there are many tutorials on the internet, i havnt really used blender much but a google search should obtain large results, and my advise is to start with non-organic objects, i started with weapons, as they are made up of basic primitives such as blocks or cylinders, when you get a hang of manipulating these primitves you can move on to characters, where one method is to use cylinders to create the body, arms and legs, when you learn how to adjust the verts into realistic place, then you'll gradually get a hang of it

just practice, thats all i can say really, and good luck

@ Cheesy Good

cheers buddy!

Quote: "BEFORE you initialize physique or you will lose your previous weighting"


aww, thats not fair, lol, im not sure whether you can attach any max object to the biped in version 7, there doesnt seem to be much in the structure rollout, but thanks for the tips on the cloth spring controller, i'll have to have a look at that, but maybe if i make a high res version, i could just use cloth physics, but i have yet to suss out that stuff

@ Scafcoch

thanks

Quote: "id vote for A.
but id love to see your characters released aswell"


ah, i see, well i probably will release it, but to be fair, and generous, to owners of corepak volume 1.


bond1
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 17:54 Edited at: 29th Aug 2006 17:57
Jon, even before version 7 you could link any object as an additional bone to the biped. The structure rollout is just for general things like ponytails and tails. If you look at the ORIGINAL Half-Life SDK you can see that Valve was doing this with their bipeds even back in 1998.

But ANY max object can be a bone, it's an area where max and character studio is surprisingly flexible. But you have to link it to the biped using the link tool, or in schematic view.

Yeah it's really not fair that you lose your weighting. I wish there was a way to reinitialize physique to include extra bones that you have added, without messing up your previous weighting. Maybe with the skin modifier you can do this, I don't know, but with physique you can't.

When I decided I wanted to add a jawbone to my model I had to rig the entire character again, grrr.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://hyrumark.zftp.com/FPSC/hyrumarkfpsc.htm
Silvester
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 18:05
Quote: "Quote: "id vote for A.
but id love to see your characters released aswell"

ah, i see, well i probably will release it, but to be fair, and generous, to owners of corepak volume 1."


Thats the most fair indeed.you make people more happy who bought your pack 1,and you didnt make these characters to just release them publicly.

so i must agree on that point.

FPSC-Toolkit in the make.Progress log:
FPSC-Segments 35%---FPSC-Entity 's 0%---FPSC-Signs 0%
FPSC-Decals 0%---FPSC Characters 0%
Prince
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 18:08
Thanks Jon for your tips. I will try doing that. Have you made any FPSC games or samples of your work where I can get to see them?

Prince
KeithC
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 18:10
I made the comment about putting them up for free on your site, but personally I think they're too good just to release for free to everyone. Giving them to the CorePack 1 people seems like a better idea all around (and might get you a few more sales).

-Keith


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 29th Aug 2006 20:05
yes, should be the right thing to do

Quote: "or in schematic view"


oh right, that, yeh ive linked things to the biped heirarchy before (the cape actually) i just didnt assume you could use it as a bone, rather attach it to one.


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 20:55 Edited at: 30th Aug 2006 20:57
OK, Ive rigged it into a position, holding his new weapon, a gert off huge hammer (not how it weighs him down, this will be hopefully show a huge momentum in the animation )



tell me what ya' think, just a matter of making the other character now, then fight to the death!


Silvester
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 21:18
if i could model like that and texture,ill be calling myself "God"

FPSC-Toolkit in the make.Progress log:
FPSC-Segments 35%---FPSC-Entity 's 0%---FPSC-Signs 0%
FPSC-Decals 0%---FPSC Characters 0%
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 21:29
lol, way to oversize your ego, lol, thanks


KeithC
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 21:37
Looks like he's getting ready to do some real damage with that tenderizer. Damn good work.


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 21:42
lol, thanks, i can almost picture the scene now, ive got a basic storyboard in my head, starting off from darkness, this guy runs in and clashes with an orc, if i make it very past paced then i may be able to get around the visual effects and keep the motion blur running


KeithC
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 22:14
Kind of like the opening sequence of WarCraft 3?


Gehngis Kahn
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 22:40
Wow...add a cape and he could be an "end of game boss" if you ask me. He looks mean, sweaty, burly and dirty. The facial expression actually projects personality as opposed to most 3D warriors I have seen...great stuff!
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 30th Aug 2006 23:37
cheers

Quote: "Kind of like the opening sequence of WarCraft 3?"


hmm, never played that game, though what i have been recently inspired by is the cinematics of the new warhammer games, Mark of Chaos, and Online. If i can find a good score to go with this it should be quite good, providing i actually have the skill to keyframe a battle sequence!


brummel
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Posted: 31st Aug 2006 00:01
Quote: "thanks, my brother even compared it to some of the renders out of UT2007"


Dude... Your brother just took the words out of my mouth... it really looks like its ripped out frm UT2007.

My site is now updated with info and a teaser about my game The Peacemakers. My blog is now ready and i have written my first contribution!

Check it out now!
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 31st Aug 2006 00:39 Edited at: 31st Aug 2006 00:40
lol, thanks, its most likely my "new rendering style", with light bloom backlighting


BULLSHOCK 2
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Posted: 31st Aug 2006 21:43
hey jon,

will you charge half of the price for the left half of a charecter??

j/k



great work as always. when you have time for freelance work, let me know, i need a fully rigged high-poly machine charecter...


http://www.seqoiagames.com/seqoiacorp/
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 31st Aug 2006 22:15
lol, thanks

high poly machine? that could be fun

im available anytime really, but for a high poly project i wouldnt really start now, got too much going on, i'll be sure to contact ya later on


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 20:37
uber bump.

sorry, ya must be getting pretty tired of this thread, especially seeing as im not giving anything away...yet

well anyway, i have started on the next character, which this guy shall be fighting later on in my demo reel (basically to show employers or people who have requests, what kind of animation i can do )

ive finished (kinda) the head, it will eventually be an orc/troll type warrior, here is an untextured render of the head...

(cant be bothered to use "clay rendering" will kinda screw up the image, especially faces )



i have copied the head onto another max file, because after this little project, i wanna go all out detailed on the face alone, for a high res project

remember, the TEXTURE does the job, so the model itself may not look amazing right now


bond1
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 20:40
F-nice! Are those eyeballs separate meshes from the main head? For animation? It sure looks like it.

----------------------------------------
"Your mom went to college."
My FPSC stuff at http://hyrumark.zftp.com/FPSC/hyrumarkfpsc.htm
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 20:42
F-thank you!

(lol)

yep, seperate objects, which will be controlled by bones in the face


Disturbing 13
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 20:45
I finally ordered that book you suggested, and hope to achieve the realisim you achived with the warrior model you made through it. Nice orc!

Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 20:47
thanks

the texturing book or Betty Edwards' RSOTB?


Disturbing 13
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 21:04
the textureing book by Luke Ahearn.

Betty Edwards??

Steam Assassin
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 21:05
That is really freakin' cool!


I used to have one of those signs, but then realized how annoying it was...
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 22:56
thanks,

Quote: "Betty Edwards??
"


i mentioned in the first post, about a book i have been reading, it is an art tutoring book that increases your artistic confidence, by learning to use the right part of your brain for creative tasks, this part being what perceives thought, and creates an image in your head.

its a great read, the book is called Right side of the Brain


KeithC
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 23:02
You've really come a long way in a short period of time, Jon. One of these days we'll be giving you an interview for an article.

-Keith


Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 23:24
lol, thanks


Disturbing 13
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2006 23:32
Quote: "Right side of the Brain"

cool deal, will give it a look.

Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2006 01:58
i havnt fully read it yet, but even the first couple chapters make some things so obvious, that you realise your flaws immediately

i have yet to read the actual training!

ive gotten a bit further with the model, down to the body and pretty much done the arms, im not going to show anymore renders untill finished, will probably ruin the final look


Benjamin A
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Posted: 5th Sep 2006 11:01
Quote: "A) release ALL characters from corepak volume 2 for FREE, and keep volume 2 as a weapons pack, thereby making the price fair, or maybe cheaper""


I'm picking this one. It would be a pitty if the models would never be released after all the hard work you've done. I don't think the models themselve are bead at all, it's the textures. But it seems you're progressing so maybe you can consider re-texturing the characters also?

If you split the pack in two sections, characters and weapons, I don't see whay you could not charge a small amount for the characters also. But I do see you're point in releasing them for free. It's hard to fit them in with current FPSC games due to the texture style.

So, I'll go for A.

I'm afraid the voting doesn't work to well in this thread, the new character is getting all of the attention instead.

http://www.gamefun4u.nl/index.html
GameFun4U, the ultimate funtainment. Cool Games and Resources for your own games.
Jon Fletcher
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Posted: 5th Sep 2006 20:09 Edited at: 5th Sep 2006 20:11
it wasn't a matter of releasing them free because they don't fit, it was because i personally don't like them anymore, i don't see them as anything that i could/want to sell.

even charging the slightest thing doesn't interest me, it would be showing desperation, i want anything i sell to be something i am happy with, this also means i'm going to be pulling down all my old stuff from turbosquid.

about retexturing, im afraid i don't even want to do that, i see many flaws, many the faces, it is on of the reasons the texture didn't work very well, and quite simply, i hate some of the geometry.

but thanks for your consideration.. and the bump


also, to anyone interested, started college up today, had my induction and got my timetable, it seems 1 year of the course (2 year ND in Media, Computer Games) is centered around training in 3D modelling, animation and environments, and there are some REAL newcomers doing it, later in the year, we'll have an assignment, where we must design and model our own character for the project. should be damn fun everyone there has never modelled in their life, they are the kind of people who think a model is just an "image on a screen" hopefully I'll stand out and get some good marks for that little project

one thing im very excited about is in February, next year, we will be going to a Games development conference type thing, we'll get to meet some Pros

anyway, nobody's probably interested in that anyway, lol, just thought I'd mention.


As a side note (even though this is actually to do with the topic) i will be releasing this character for free (the barbarian) on my website, i actually want to remake the human to make him look more noble and heroic, rather than an evil overlord but i shall still keep this as a portfolio piece, if anybody wants to get it in FPSC later on, thats up to them

just gotta update my site later on


Stamina
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Posted: 6th Sep 2006 01:14
I am speachless,,,,,literally speachless
Red Raven Media
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Posted: 6th Sep 2006 01:24
How come you said you're not the best modeler on the forums? I think you. God my best creation is a VERY VERY SHARP PENCIL
So really i find you the best of all the modelers.



Well atleast I think the best is a Pencil. Well the Pencil is my First finished model. I have a grenade somewhere and I have some other unfinished models but anyways, I think your the best modeler around thats not with a pro company that i know of.

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