Character Creation

[S8NSSON]

Ok...
I've taken the current pb2 character, imported it into max, sewed the head onto the body, removed all animations, set it to the default (arms straight out, legs straight) pose, split the model down the middle for symetric modeling, fixed the visor a bit, and optimized the polygons a little in preparation for adding more detail for the high-poly character version.

I did this in anticipation of Jitspoe wanting to keep the original model (shapewise anyways) as the mid poly character. I'm planning, if approved, to take this model and cut more detail into it for the high-poly model, and chop polys off of it for the low-poly model.

Some quaestions are pending, of course:

1-Do we want to go the route above (easier) vs creating whole new low-mid-high poly characters. The current character really wouldn't be bad as a mid-poly character.

2-Are we planning three separate skeletons for the three LODs? (I would recommend at least two (one for high-poly, one to share between low and mid. Three would give us maximum flexability. One skeleton would make life hard.

3-How much detail do want on the hand(s) of the high-poly character. Detail for low and mid is pretty much already dictated by poly-count, but we can concentrate our additional polygons for the high-poly character wherever we wish. We can spread the additional polygons to better physical detail, more detailed mask, better looking dextarity in the hands/arms/legs/waste/neck/hands. I guess the hands are important in that fully animatable digits would eat up a crap load of polygons. The less fingers we have the more polygons we save for other places.

With the current character converted, sewn, adjusted, and split in half it only added 46 polygons to the old character (610 original, 656 after modifications). This leaves us around 500 to 700 polygons to add for the high-poly character. We just need to decide where we want them to go. The reason for my questions on the number of skeletons asked above is due to the complexity we could have in the highpoly version vs the more simplistic animations we will be constrained to in the low-mid characters.

w00p

[jitspoe]

1 - I would prefer to have a new model from scratch because a) I'd have to get permission from the original author to modify his model, and he's kind of disappeared from the quake scene (planetquake has even deleted his website), and b) The proportions on that model were... off, to put it simply.  I think you can make something that looks much better and more realistic.
2 - We can do it whatever way you want.  If I recall correctly, you just name the animation file the same as the mesh, and it will use that, OR you can use a .cfg file that tells it which animation file to use, so you can make some share bones/animations and others use different ones.  I figured it would be simplest to just have one set of bones for everything.  Players will be holding onto the weapons, so you won't need to have bones in each individual finger or anything that complex.  Actually, I think it will be best to have the same skeleton for all of them, otherwise some funky stuff may happen when player models cross the threshold of LOD's (based on distance).  We want to make this as seamless as possible.  Interpolation won't be possible if we switch skeletons.
3 - As much as needed to make them look good.   The only finger that NEEDS to be free is the index finger, so it can be placed on the gun.  The rest will be holding the grip.  I think 1200 polys should be enough to make individual fingers, though.

Some other notes about the player model:
- Make each part a separate mesh that uses its own skin: hands, head, mask, transparent part of mask, pants, shirt, shoes.  Eventually I want to have several choices for outfits that people can choose from, and they'll be able to select each part.  The visor (or whatever you call the transparent part) is important as that will need to have a different skin/shader in order to be transparent.  You'll need to model a little bit of the face behind it (just the eye area).

[S8NSSON]

Woah...wait a minute...this sounds like MD3-hell to the 10th power.

Are you saying you want each of the parts stated above to be a separate model, and that you will piece together the model over the bones through code? -OR- Are you saying you want the model to be multi-mapped (or multi-sub-object mapped) so that you have a different .TGA file for each of these parts?

I REALLY hope you are talking about the latter.
To have each piece as a separate physical mesh would be incredibly difficult for you and me, both. Having multiple skins for one model would just be difficult for you

I can't even imagine how you would pull off separate meshes. That would mean the bone system would have to be separate, aswell. Would be kind of hard to animate the different parts all by themselves without the rest of the body for some kind of reference. Then you would have to attatch each skeletal segment independantly and presicely. At the weapon you would actually have a four skeletal chain (body->arm->hand->weapon). WOAH my brain is hurting already! :O

With separate skins the model would be one piece on one skeleton. You would just have different mapping channels for all the different parts (not hard at all for the modeler-unwrapper-skinner). Then the weapon (or it's bone(s) rather) would simply attatch to the hand(s) bone(s). This method is actually very Unrealish.

You maybe should put a little thought to the whole attatchment issue as far as weapons go also. With the skeletal attatchment method you can have all the accessories of a marker attatched through the skeletal system. That would involve simply placing a bone or three in the hoppers, barrels, and bottles and attatching them to the marker (that would mean more bones on the markers of course...not a big deal). AND THIS bring up the issue of being able to animate the markers and accessories, aswell.

Wow this is almost exatly like Unreal.../me has MVPB flashbacks...I just hope the work I do here will not be FOR NOTHING because of lazy bastards and a piss poor mod leader...*calm down keith*

THE POSSIBILTIES ARE ENDLESS..............................................................................

[jitspoe]

It would all be one object, just multiple meshes.  Or, I guess as it appears in 3DS Max, one mesh with multiple subobjects/skins.  It just needs to be set up so you can have a different skin for each of those parts.

And yes, we can put bones in the weapons and attach different parts at those locations.

[S8NSSON]

Ok GREAT.
I will plan it so each part has it's own .TGA file.