Wintermute Engine Forum
Wintermute Engine => Technical forum => Topic started by: PrestonD on November 27, 2004, 07:29:38 PM
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Hi everyone,
I went through the various posts and on Mnemonic's 3d demo test we had a little slice of discussion about what character animation or design software to use. Seems like a lot of folks use Poser, and I saw some suggestions on using Milkshape but what do most of the respondents and viewers here on this forum use for their character design software and why?
I thought about maybe using even some of the character development and skins used in other games that allow you to create your own character and just doing a screen capture to create the character bitmaps or graphic screens.
Any suggestions on what to use? Seems like character graphical development is one of the most labor intensive aspects of game development here...
Thanks,
Preston D
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Do we talk about realtime animation or prerendered graphics (you mentioned both)?
Poser would be about prerendered art, because as said before, the characters have too many polys to get decent speed. I would say to use Poser is a bad idea. Its so favourite because you just need a small amout of knowledge to get results. But first of all, you can recognize that ugly "poser look" without much effort, and it's not so easy to customise your model in every way. The interface is not so good when comparing to other established 3d apps. If you just need a generic human model for prerendered animations it would be enough though. Perhaps you could edit the renderes frames in your favourite graphic app to get away from the poser style.
Milkshape is the choice for wintermute realtime character animation, because afaik thats the only supported format. Its cheap, easy to use and quite powerful for generating realtime content. It wouldnt qualify for prerenderes graphics, because it lacks an powerful render engine.
I dont know much about animation possibilities in Blender, so maybe thats an alternative.
Of course there are the big, expensive 3d apps like 3dsmax (+character studio), Maya, Lightwave, Cinema4d and so on. Character rigging, the setup for animations, is not that easy although there are lots of tutorials everywhere. Powerful with a learning curve, and expensive to buy.
As you said, you could use modification tools of good games, a nice idea. I dont know if you will get animation tools though. For example, Max Payne 2 uses 3dsmax for creating animations even camera paths).
Zbrush 2 is also a nice application and features Zspheres, so you could eays pose your model and create an animation of single frames (much easier to learn character rigging). And ZBrush isnt that expensive, too (but more expensive than Milkshape ;) ).
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I dont know much about animation possibilities in Blender, so maybe thats an alternative.
blender has everything, including a full animation support rivaling even ligtwave in that respect
there is a plugin called makehuman, which gives you a completed model that you can modify every single bodypart of (including breast size and various aspects of the genitals :o), the problem is that there is no support for clothes afaik
I guess that milkshape is the best alternative, since it's easy to use
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there is a plugin called makehuman, which gives you a completed model that you can modify every single bodypart of (including breast size and various aspects of the genitals :o), the problem is that there is no support for clothes afaik
I was wondering if MakeHuman gives you some control over the resulting polycount. Anyone knows?
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Not really as far as I know, only thing you can do is not using Subdive & co, but else than this you have to go with the given polycount. Maybe in the future someone creates low-ply basemodels? That would be the only real possibility I think,
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And to answer the question, I think there is no real best tool. It all depends on what you want to achieve and what your capabilities are. I use Poser, even if I hate it (and I do ;-) ), because I totally suck at charcter-design in other apps, and even MakeHuman is no alternative for me, because I can't model clothes and do decent animations and so on. So for me Poser is the way to go. (of course I use 2d-sprites for my actors, not 3d-models :-) )
If I was good enough to model the characters myself I would do it, but I prefer a good-looking but not very unique Posermodel over a self-modelled onethat looks like the result of a serious car-crash :-)
I have no problem with people knowing that the characters were done in Poser, and I think most people who will play the game won't have one either, because we are talking about amateur adventures here, and the graphics are by far not the most important part here.
Just look at all the AGS-games that use ripped graphics from 15-year old games ... who cares if the game is fun to play?
Another case is if you aim to do a commercial game - but how much of us are doing this really? I think not too much.
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You are right imho. I used Poser myself some time ago and i loved it, because i wasn't able to create characters on my own (in fact i'm not sure if i am able today ;D ) and it was fun to create any kind of animation. I love amateur adventures and would play them with any kind of graphics. If you are interested i could try to create an animated character for you btw; i have to do more on my game design (not sure if i will change my game idea big time) and it would be good practice for me ;D
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Thanks for all the replies, this character development is primarily for a game on the Wintermute engine, and I dont think I would be very good at character animation along with many of the other posters as they replied above. I would essentialy create a 3d character and make screenshots for use as a 2d sprite as an actor/character in Wintermute. Trouble is you have to create a large variety of characters in various positions (8 for walking, other positions for talking, etc.) and I am not much of an artist, so that is why I am thinking about using the 3d characters, pose them for the needed positions and make the bitmap shots.
I did download a program today for creating Sim characters using their meshes, etc. called Simposeium http://www.simpose.com/ but I have not tried to use it yet and cannot report on its usage and effectiveness.
I am also looking at the Milkshape 3D as was mentioned above.
Again thanks for the replies I will continue to monitor this thread for any more input from anybody else.
Regards,
Preston D
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I don't think that if a game is 'amateaur' it should have bad graphics. I know that this is the case for most games of this type, but I think that this should change and I'm trying to do just that in the game I've started.
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It's not obligatory to have bad graphics in an amateur adventure, of course. I personally want to achieve quality graphics too. But creating an adventure is a lot of work, and sometimes there is only one creator, so its impossible to make everything high quality. And you can enjoy an adventure (even every other genre, too) even with bad art, because the gameplay or the story is that good. So if you can create good graphics, go for it of course. But there will be lots of adventure fans who will play nice little games with bad graphics too :)
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Speaking about art: http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=609.0
It is not really state-of-the-art 8) but I loved it :-)
Of course bad graphics are not a must-have for an amateur-adventure, but I prefer one with not so perfect graphics over one that aims to be super-comercial quality but never gets finished - and thats what happens to the most announced games, unfortunately.
Of course, if you are a good artist it will push the game to higher levels, but if not, well, just give your best ;-)
@Johnny: Thanks for the offer! Next week my new PC finally arrives (at least I hope so :-) ), and then I start again with character design, maybe I need some help then :-)
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Here is an example of Zbrush and its ZSpheres-Posing. I guess it's similar to Simpose, but you can create everything within ZBrush of course. The character is an old one of mine, not that good, but just for showing the ZSpheres. It's very easy to control that Spheres, you just drag them around, rotate them and so on.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/Hansi666/zbrushpose.png)
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Are they comparable to metaballs in Blender?
I downloaded the demo-version of zBrush a while ago, but of course it didn't run on my PC :-)
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I dont know Blender that good, but i know Metaballs from Truespace for example. Its different from standard metaballs.
I think a picture says more than lots of words, so look at this animated gif (http://www.steph3d.net/Dossier/Divers/articles/dossier_zbrush/zspheres.gif).
You construct your model using spheres, and Zbrush will skin it according to position and scale of that spheres. After that, you con edit your model using standard Zbrush Tools, paint 3d structure directly on it (so great), push and move 3d geometry, it's like sculpting clay. And after your model is finished, rotate the Zspheres and the geometry will adapt, so you can have any pose you wish.
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Sounds good! Unfortunately, Zbrush is out of my financial range :-)
According to the gif-file I would say that Zspheres are very advanced versions of metaballs? They look somehow similar, but I think they provide way more complex interaction from what I have seen there.
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It's not obligatory to have bad graphics in an amateur adventure, of course. I personally want to achieve quality graphics too. But creating an adventure is a lot of work, and sometimes there is only one creator, so its impossible to make everything high quality. And you can enjoy an adventure (even every other genre, too) even with bad art, because the gameplay or the story is that good. So if you can create good graphics, go for it of course. But there will be lots of adventure fans who will play nice little games with bad graphics too
Yes, I agree with that. One problem with amateaur adventure developers is that they always hurry to release their game. Why all the hurry? I know how time-consuming good graphics are, but if you have created a strict plan that spans for several months or more, making those little details that make a game really attractive could become quite enjoyable.
I think that, after the 3d character option gets released, wintermute will give us possibilities for creating games of the quality of Black Mirror for instance (wonderful game btw), so the tools will be at hand and only more perseverance will be needed for creating such a high quality.
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btw. black mirror uses sprites for characters, so WME is giving this option right now. :)
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Really? Then they must have used a lot of frames. I noticed that the main character animations were not as perfectly smooth as real 3d, but they are very nicely made and the shadow is transparent. As for the NPCs, it's obvious that they're sprites.
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Poser is the most versatile, the so called poser look can be changed with post production via an art package.
I say the most versatile because the camera, lighting controls are excellent as well as loading a background to get perspective and height ratios of the characters within a scene.
With POSER 5 the old look of poser has gone and in its place are characters that look and can react realistically.
Get this with MIMIC 2 and you have not also a charcter designer but a lip synching tool for vocal speech.
You then can use these tools to create cut scenes, ACTOR animations, NPC animations etc , etc.
Remember though as with all graphic software you get out what you put in. You need imagination and artistic flare to really push these tools. (the tool itself is not enought!!)
>:D
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I think the biggest problem with the Poser-look is that most people use the standard-textures. If you replace them with self-made or bought ones you get a WAY different result. And the models (at least the popular ones) can be modified with the head- and body-morphpacks ... if they were not THAT expensive :-(
But technically I still don't like Poser, because the UI is crap, and so is the renderer (probably the slowest I have ever seen). And even with SR3 it does not run really stable on my PC, though I'm not sure if this is perhaps more a hardware issue.
I think DAZ is on the right way with Studio, but it's not yet usable because of the missing support for dynamic stuff and, most important, animations. But as it is still in Beta I hope the missing features will follow soon. (and another big plus is of course that it's free :-) )
Does anyone know about Poser 6? I heard that they started to develop it in 2003, but since then I never read any news about it.
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Poser is quite expensive for a hobbyist. And I haven't seen many professional games using their models, so I wonder what audience this software is targetted at?
--Erwin
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Hi,
Great thread and replies everyone, I really appreciate your comments and feedback.
I did look into using the Sims characters and the Simposium software and there is enough free meshes and skins out there that you may be able to build enough of a colllection of characters to do a pretty good game with some character depth.
Another option I am actually considering is using live models and rotoscoping the video of their actions to capture all the actor/sprite movements necessary. Thats another alternative...I know hiring actors is expensive but I think you can shop around and for nominal fees or favors you might be able to find some models willing to do it just for the experience and credits on their dossier.
Regards,
Preston D
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Poser is quite expensive for a hobbyist. And I haven't seen many professional games using their models, so I wonder what audience this software is targetted at?
--Erwin
I know some people who user Raytracers like PovRay also use Poser. Anyway, using Poser must be the most unoriginal idea ever, so... ??? :-\
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Poser is quite expensive for a hobbyist. And I haven't seen many professional games using their models, so I wonder what audience this software is targetted at?
--Erwin
It's not THAT expensive compared to other software actually.
The main audience is people who like to do some nice pics with elves, dragons and nude girls I suppose :-) It does not target the game-designer scene.
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I am a bit confused by some of these replies, If you have used POSER in any shape or form you will realise that it is a character manipulator NOT a modeller.
You create the models in 3DS MAX or Lightwave then import into POSER to manipulate, animate, light etc.
This product is good at what it does but hey you do need to know how to use it and understand its strengths and weaknesses.
Milkshape is a good moddeler for low poly models but the industry is moving forward with very high definition models. Just look at the UNREAL 3 engine to see what I mean.
Games with low poly models, and game creators like 3D GAMESTUDIO always look flat, angular and lack lustre.
I believe if you create excellent good looking models in a high poly modeller and then animate using, say poser 5.
Then save as TGA or BMP, import into Sprite edit and then into the WME engine you would be suprised at the results. I was, and am using this method for all my NPC`s for my project LIMBO of the LOST.
>:D
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I beg to differ. I guess it's all about your perspective. AFAIK Poser 5 has a new good render engine behind it, so the results are (almost?) as beautiful using state of the art render tools (brazil, vray, mental ray and so on). So i think no one will be surprised at good outcomes using poser for prerendered characters.
It's about a comparison between poser and other solutions, and a comparison about your skills. If you can create a model from scratch, setup the rig and animate it, poser would be only an alternative because of its price. Poser is not the most versatile app, if you ask me. That would be 3ds max or maya, cinema etc. Because there you have also excellent possibilities for camera, lighting, animation, and modeling too. If anything, it is the other way round, with that awkward interface of Poser. It is nice if you are not able to create your model all alone and regarding the fee.
So yes, Poser is has its strengths, and i'm sure you can create high quality content for your game.
The main audience is people who like to do some nice pics with elves, dragons and nude girls I suppose :-)
That was a good one :D Exactly my feeling when i looked up several poser galleries a long time ago.
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blender has everything, including a full animation support rivaling even ligtwave in that respect
there is a plugin called makehuman, which gives you a completed model that you can modify every single bodypart of (including breast size and various aspects of the genitals :o), the problem is that there is no support for clothes afaik
Blender should have cloth simulator (resp. soft bodies) in latest release but due to it´s betatesting and bugs killing it didn´t make it in time so it will be in 2.36 on 99%. I have seen some animations from betatesting of this feature and it looked quite impressive :)
Btw- besides it´s modelling capabilities, which were greatly improved with recently 2.35 version and character rigging animation tools you may also like Blender´s unwrap tools for draw your UV maps textures like LSCM unwrap which speed up process really significantly ;)
As for MakeHuman- it is something like Poser supplement with some nice and not so common animation features planned for the further development, but like in Poser, those meshes are rather hi-res and If I am not mistaken, animation isn´t done via armatures (bones) directly so ...:-\
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Btw- besides it´s modelling capabilities, which were greatly improved with recently 2.35 version and character rigging animation tools you may also like Blender´s unwrap tools for draw your UV maps textures like LSCM unwrap which speed up process really significantly ;)
This is OT, excuse me, but: Do you (or anyone else) know any good tutorial that explains all the UV-features in an easy way?
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And some news: For anyone who is interested in using Poser-models but not Poser, DAZ3d released a new beta-version of Studio which contains basic animation support now - if you don't know the software, it's designed for using Poser-content, but has an interface that is more like "normal" 3d-Apps, and, it's freeware :-)
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Btw- besides it´s modelling capabilities, which were greatly improved with recently 2.35 version and character rigging animation tools you may also like Blender´s unwrap tools for draw your UV maps textures like LSCM unwrap which speed up process really significantly ;)
This is OT, excuse me, but: Do you (or anyone else) know any good tutorial that explains all the UV-features in an easy way?
OT again ;-)
I found a good video tutorial done by GreyBeard that explains the LSCM-feature in an idiot-prove-way (that means, I understood it ;-) ): http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Model_Material_Light.397.0.html
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One of the best modeling app you're going to find is Wings 3D. It's free and you can get it at http://www.wings3d.com/
You can get a commercial app, called Silo, that is like Wings except with more features and will probably have animation one day. It's fantastic: http://www.nevercenter.com/
For just a little bit more you can get Caligari's Gamespace. There's also a free lite version: http://www.caligari.com/gamespace/
There's also the free version(not for commercial use) of 3D MAX at http://www4.discreet.com/gmax/
Milkshape is a good moddeler for low poly models but the industry is moving forward with very high definition models. Just look at the UNREAL 3 engine to see what I mean.
Games with low poly models, and game creators like 3D GAMESTUDIO always look flat, angular and lack lustre.
The models in Unreal 3 aren't really that high poly. They have a normalmap shader assigned which makes a low poly model look much higher than it really is. You have to create both a low and high poly version and create a normalmap off of the high one. Next time you see a screenshot from Doom III, look at the model's profile. You'll notice all of them are very low poly. Unreal 3's models are pretty high for lowpoly, but then again that engine isn't going to hit the market for a couple years so standards will have risen by then anyway. IMHO, a well made low poly model will always look better than any old claylooking normalmapped one. If a lowpoly model looks flat, angular(which there's nothing wrong with really), and lackluster then this is because it is poorly constructed and poorly lit.