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Work in Progress / EZactor - Character Creation Tool

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Airslide
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Posted: 7th Aug 2006 02:41
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The 1024x1024 textures have alot more detail! Keep up the great work!

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Duffer
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 14:54
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@ Wolf,

Howzit going? EA release eta? - pls understand, it's done when it's done and not being impatient (much) but eagre to know...

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 15:33
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Hi Wolf! Long time

This is a cool project you got going. Any plans to add in rendering? I'm working on a 2D game creation software called Simple Game Toolkit and it would be nice if users could use your application to render characters in 4 and 8 directions. Saved to a 8bit or 32bit png as a single tiled image.

I know there are many others out there who are into 2D and if your software isn't too expensive you could capture the whole retro and remake scene.


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 16:39
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Duffer,

I appreciate the eagerness
It is going well... again.
I wasn't able to work on it at all for over a week because of work commitments. I had to do some work at home for a few days. Then I had to go out of town on business for a couple more days. Usually when I get sent out of town I can work even MORE on things like this (no kids ) but I had to work from about 8am to 2am each day. When I returned from my business trip, I left the next day with my wife and kids to go camping for a few days. I just returned home on Sunday.
I am still working on converting all of the textures. It just so happens that I converted all of the easy ones first. It took a while to re-do all of the eyes because of all of the added detail. I am currently working on re-doing the hair and facial-hair textures which also have a lot of room for added detail.
Once all of the textures are re-done, I'll definately post some screens of the new/improved models up for you all to see. Unfortunately, I am probably realisticly a couple months away from being able to release an EA version.
Believe me, I want to get this released ASAP, but I want to make sure the quality meets the expectations.

DA,
Hey man! Long time no see. It is good to hear from old RGT'ers.
I doubt I would add "direct" support for that right into the application. But... I could easily write something SEPERATE from the main application that loads the model up and creates tiled images as you are suggesting. That wouldn't be real hard to do at all. I could probably knock something up to do that in a couple of hours. If that was the case, I definately wouldn't charge anything extra for it either.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 17:44
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Wolf:
Good to hear I know you got to get everything else working first but I'm eager to test the modeling and animation capabilities of your application. I'd be happy to promote it both on my website and in my manual once it works perfectly with SGT.


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Duffer
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 18:33
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@ Wolf,

All good stuff. You can probably gather from the entries on this thread that if you pull this off it will be the one third party tool over all others for DBPro for anyone attempting 3d games... especially those of us who cant model or animate for toffee...

You might want to consider (not with the EA release) some of these additional little ditty programs/utilities like the one DA suggests - useful for those of us who still yearn to create isometric 2d dungeon games etc....

Not sure exactly how much support for creating walk cycles / animation in general EZActor will cover? Or will it just be there to create the fully jointed DirectX models (a wonder in itself)?

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: 22nd Aug 2006 18:59 Edited at: 22nd Aug 2006 19:02
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Quote: "You can probably gather from the entries on this thread that if you pull this off it will be the one third party tool over all others for DBPro for anyone attempting 3d games... especially those of us who cant model or animate for toffee..."

That is what I am hoping
Now it isn't a matter of "if" I pull it off. It is more of "when" I finish it enough to release it

Quote: "You might want to consider (not with the EA release) some of these additional little ditty programs/utilities like the one DA suggests - useful for those of us who still yearn to create isometric 2d dungeon games etc...."

Most definately. While something like what DA suggested might not fit well within the 3DCM application itself, writing something to accomplish what he is after would be relatively easy to do and well worth the invested time. Things like that can and will be done.

Quote: "Not sure exactly how much support for creating walk cycles / animation in general EZActor will cover? Or will it just be there to create the fully jointed DirectX models (a wonder in itself)?"

There is no plans right now to include an animation creation utility within 3dcm. There are enough apps out there that can accomplish that much better than I can afford to try to compete with. It will, however, not only include the boned/jointed model, it will also come with it's own set of exportable animations. Right now I have the character models fully working with FPSC's animation set. Here is a video of it in action if you missed the earlier post:
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/xt/xt_apollo_download.php?i=951742
With addons such as weapon packs, I plan to include animations to go with them

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Duffer
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 19:23
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@ Wolf,

Have you finalised yet what set of animations the first release will come with - presumably walk, run, sneak, fall down, blow to front, blow to back, shoot and swing sword? (he says very cheekily/hopefully)...?

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: 22nd Aug 2006 19:35
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Initially, it will probably just be the FPSC animations. Did you check out the video? There are a LOT there.

hmmm...
I just tried the video link and it didn't work for me. Here is a link to a copy of the vid on my site:
http://www.gametoolshed.com/3DCharacterMaker/3dcmFPSCanimations.wmv

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 20:00
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Wolf:
You're not going to have tools for creating new animations? That's a bit sad The FPSC animations are nice but there are no sword swings and other fantasy related animations. It also didn't seem to have any recoil animations. Are you gonna make like animation packs to go with your model packs?


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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 20:11
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Wolf:
Ah, you're the creator of Texture Max! I was thinking of buying that for SGT later


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2006 20:12 Edited at: 22nd Aug 2006 20:17
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Quote: "Are you gonna make like animation packs to go with your model packs?"

Yes. For instance, when I create a "sword" addon pack, it will include all of the animations that go with swords: thrust, slash, block, taunts, etc....
When I create a "pistol" addon pack, it will include all of the animations that go with shooting pistols.

Since the models export to .x files, you can open them up in apps like CharacterFX if you wish to create your own custom animations.

I do have some ideas for an animation tool that I have yet to discuss, but that is way down the road. I hate to even tease that I might include a tool directly with 3dcm at this point, but you never know.


Quote: "Ah, you're the creator of Texture Max! I was thinking of buying that for SGT later"

Are you writing SGT in DBpro? TextureMax is only available for DBpro. It works pretty well. I am using it for the texture generation in 3dcm. The editor itself isn't my best work, but it does the job. When I get some time, there are a couple of bug fixes that I have done that needs to be sent off to TGC. I was kind of holding back though because there are a couple more commands that I wanted to add to the dll.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 00:11
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Yeah, SGT is 100% DBP. I'll be getting BlueGUI later and I'm thinking of using Tempest for multiplayer and when I want to make it use 3D I got a nice 3D engine just waiting for me. It's still long before I'm ready to add Texture Max though but for a game creation software it's a valuable expansion.


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zircher
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 02:16
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Just to plant a seed, when you get to pistol animations include left, right, and duel wield pistol animations please.
--
TAZ

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 03:07
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While we are at it add different recoil animations, some guns are more powerfull then others. Also add revolver, semi automatic and automatic handguns


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 03:53
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LOL

How about I finish the character creation part FIRST

Endless amounts of animations could be added. In fact, I will probably make that part of it completely open so users can easily share animations. I'll note all of the suggestions for now.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 17:31
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Sharing animations sounds like a good idea How would people make animations?


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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 18:19
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The 3dcm models export to .x files. You can open .x files in apps like CharacterFX (which is very cheap and nice for animation creation). The models can then be saved from CharacterFX with new animations. That animation data can be stripped out of the .x files and used with any character exported from 3dcm since the bone structures are the same.

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Chenak
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 18:57
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CFX does not import .x, only milkshape ascii, 3ds and obj are supported.
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 20:53
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Oh.. Sorry. I thought someone told me that it supported .x files.
Thanks for the info.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 21:42
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I don't think there are a lot of programs that imports and exports .x objects so most people would require a convertion software.


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Xenocythe
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2006 23:38
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Wolf, you live in Pittsburgh

Live in Ridley Park, right next to phily!





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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 24th Aug 2006 21:08 Edited at: 24th Aug 2006 21:08
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Quote: "Wolf, you live in Pittsburgh

Live in Ridley Park, right next to phily!"


There are a few people here that are somewhat close to me. Someday, I'll have to investigate hosting a convention

Well, I'm STILL working on updating textures. Here is a new pic of a model using the higher quality textures. I am still working on the hair. Al...most... Fin...ished....



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Fallout
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Posted: 25th Aug 2006 01:08
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Screenie looks great Wolf! The face texture looks like a mirror image of each side though. Is the resultant UV map a whole face image, or just half a face image mapped to both sides of the face? The reason I ask is obviously if it's half a face image mapped to both sides, you can't edit the texture later and put unique features on each side (e.g. a scar on one cheek). Looking quality though!

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Duffer
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Posted: 25th Aug 2006 01:57
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@ Wolf,

If you'll allow me (and bearing in mind this software will still be a wonder of nature regardless), can I be a tad 'wolf-modellist' - a lot of your models look much alike... I'm fairly confident this is not the case and think it would be great if you could post some of the extremes as pics to reassure the punters.

Also, could you ellucidate a little on the in intended clothing / armour modding available on first release...?

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: 25th Aug 2006 03:41 Edited at: 25th Aug 2006 03:42
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Fallout,
None of the texture area is shared. Some of the facial features use the same "source" for both sides of the face, but it is mapped to different parts of the texture. I have attached a sample texture map from the 512x512 (low-res) version.



Duffer,
Yes. A lot of the images that I have posted DO look similar. I guess I don't tend to "play" much when trying out new content. Therefore, I don't ever stray far from the default. I'll post a screen or two later showing better variety.
In the first release, I intend to include mostly modern day common clothing options. Such as: Jeans, dress pants, a couple different shorts, muscle shirts, Tee-shirts, maybe a couple different collared shirts, etc....

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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 25th Aug 2006 06:30 Edited at: 25th Aug 2006 06:33
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Here is another quick pic of a little different looking character.
As you can see, the jaw line, cheek bones, nose structue, and feature placement are all a bit different. You can go to much further extremes with any of those things, but you have to be carefull not to make things look unrealistic.
I should add some kind of RANDOMIZE button



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Gil Galvanti
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Posted: 25th Aug 2006 06:42
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Looking awesome . Great job, and it appears easy to use too . Will it be able to make females too?

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Silvester
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Posted: 25th Aug 2006 17:30
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Quote: "Will it be able to make females too?"


as what ive read that will be an expansion pack

FPSC-Toolkit in the make.Progress log:
FPSC-Segments 35%---FPSC-Entity 's 0%---FPSC-Signs 0%
FPSC-Decals 0%---FPSC Characters 0%
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Fallout
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Posted: 26th Aug 2006 13:25
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Brilliant. Looks great. The layout of the UV is also really straight forward, so I could quite happily open that up and tweak it, put beads in the guys beard and a "I love you mum" tattoo on his left arm.

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JimB
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Posted: 3rd Oct 2006 22:11
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Hey Wolf how's EZactor coming along?
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 3rd Oct 2006 23:19 Edited at: 3rd Oct 2006 23:20
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I knew it was only a matter of time before someone asked

Honestly, right now it is going slow (hence the lack of news ). I am sharing time between it and an Enhanced Animation command set for DBpro. It supports animation blending and limb based playing of animations. So, with it, you can apply different animations to different parts of your characters. Since the animation addon is a much smaller project and I can get it knocked out soon, I am mostly concentrating on it.
When I do get the animation addon complete, I plan to release a free "dummy" 3DCM character that people can start using as a place holder in their games until the full version is ready.

I'll be posting more soon. I am going to be looking for some outside help for 3D Character Maker. Mostly what I need is a good texture artist to help with character textures and some GUI improvements.

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moogal
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Posted: 13th Oct 2006 00:36
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Dang, why isn't there a real game studio we could all work at? I mean besides Bethesda. (Yeah it's me again, down here in Morgantown WV!)

I haven't been following this for awhile, since I got burnt on that whole "Quikly Games Studio" scam a few months back. I've been looking at Beyond Virtual and GameBlender, but I'm not sure what to do right now. I'm still willing to help with textures, BTW.
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Ron Erickson
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Posted: 13th Oct 2006 20:41
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Cool. I am still working on this animation addon. I'll contact you sometime. Thanks for dropping by.

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