Sauer needs artists!

by eihrul on 07/28/2007 23:39, 129 messages, last message: 12/22/2007 05:06, 58410 views, last view: 05/05/2024 20:43

So... think ogro and the hudguns are a little dated? Would you like to see vweps that actually match what the player is shooting?

Well, now's your chance to help!

I have tried to organize people in the shadows to get this stuff replaced, but after much time, either all our existing artists have run off or simply chosen not to get involved.

All we've got is an unskinned md3 playermodel. But it has no vweps, no matching hudguns, and of course, no real skin.

So if you think you can take a shot at making better stuff than what we've got, don't hesitate to speak up here.

Also, if you've got some improved sounds that are attributable to royalty free sources, then those would help too. We pretty much had to revert to Sauer's old sounds since the release due to reasons I will not go into.

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#110: Re: ..

by kurtis84 on 11/04/2007 15:06, refers to #109

We shouldn't discourage anyone from building new art for sauer. Just keep in mind theres no way for us to use unique player models in-game...if you change your player model, you will be the only one to see it.

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#111: Re: ..

by shadow,516 on 11/04/2007 22:15, refers to #110

The only reason I mentioned is that it makes me wonder "where were all these people BEFORE?"

But honestly, I would suggest anyone interested in making player models make new models for the monsters / rpg characters specifically.

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#112: ..

by geartrooper2 on 11/04/2007 23:37

Sauerbraten is painless for seeing art in a real game. Its a good opportunity to set your character side by side with legends like the ogro to see how it stacks up. Artists. Make more, smooth the burrs, adjust. Don't get stuck in animated loops with repetitive animations between characters. Inject personality into a stand animation that will explain the reason your character is what it is. Experiment with rigging setups to fine tune action ability. Personally I find the stricter the rotation limits on bones and the less IK modifiers the better. The least amount of IK handles I'd use for an expressive character would be;

Head/Neck
Shoulders
Elbow Rotation
Arms
Use FK for fingers and hands, generally
Chest
Waist
Knee Rotation
Legs
Heel Rotation
Toes

If you have the extra resources experiment with facial expressions via shape keys or bones.

Don't forget the Master Root bone for the ability to turn the character and all bones for easier death and pain anims if you use IK chains.

Once you've mastered the basics or are eager there's always musculature simulation.

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#113: Re: ..

by JadeMatrix (via Safari) on 11/05/2007 01:25, refers to #110

I\'m doing my designs with the mp mode I just recently suggested in mind.
http://cubeengine.com/forum.php4?action=display_thread&thread_id=1524&start=95#49514
(post #100)

Although, seeing as that would require massive (I assume) recoding, these would still work as more interesting sp monsters.

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#114: ..

by JadeMatrix on 12/13/2007 17:00

geartrooper:
just an idea i'm throwing out:

http://www.maj.com/gallery/kofan/sauer/soldiersheet.jpg

*kinda* fits with your hudhands.
I personally plan on modeling this, but if anyone else wants to, they can try their hand at it.

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#115: Re: ..

by geartrooper2 on 12/14/2007 08:07, refers to #114

Not a bad design. Aard and eihrul are more mindful of comic proportions. Make the proportions a bit more cartoonish. Regardless I am waiting for blender to release their tangent normals build before endeavoring into new character designs. After this milestone is reached then I would be more inclined to approach new character designs.

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#116: ..

by Acord on 12/14/2007 14:45

Blender needs a whoopin'.

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#117: ..

by Julius on 12/14/2007 15:44

Tangent space maps are already implemented, just comile the developer version yourself.
And I bet by the time you have some modeled that is actually worth baking the new official version will be out to :p

Besides, xnormal is the much better tool for normal-map baking, and it probably has a linux version in the next iteration, too.
http://www.xnormal.net/

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#118: ..

by Captain_Ahab on 12/15/2007 03:47

You might try this node setup for tangent maps too.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=108106&highlight=tangent+normal+space

I haven't played with it yet, but it seems okay until a proper baking setup is in the official release ( for those of us too lazy to do our own build )

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#119: Re: playermodel designs

by Eris on 12/18/2007 20:17, refers to #106

I like the gladiator look in those sketches.

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#120: ..

by pi on 12/21/2007 17:29

Hmm... I think it could be a good idea to make sharing of models, so each player can use thier own model
(with restrictions, like overall size, minimum/maximum dimensions)

Of course, there much to do before we put something like that on the aard's shoulders.

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#121: Re: ..

by jbuk2k7s cookie has gone on 12/21/2007 19:06, refers to #120

And what happens when someone creates an invisible model?

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#122: Re: ..

by JadeMatrix on 12/21/2007 19:07, refers to #120

1. Figure out the basic logistics of giving each player a custom model.
2. Conceptualize/design models.
3. Model models.
4. Skin models.
5. Program in logistics from step 1.
6. Present the finished product to Aard (and the community) to be approved, and maybe included.

That's the problem with any of these major change suggestions (of which I am partially guilty). Members of the community with TOTH need to do all this stuff, and so that it "fits"* with the codebase. Otherwise, it just won't happen.

*Aard, General Thread, #9633

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#123: Re: ..

by JadeMatrix on 12/21/2007 19:10, refers to #121

Part of the logistics step: Players upload their own models when joining a server (bad), or submit them to get them approved (time consuming), etc.

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#124: Re: ..

by rancor on 12/21/2007 19:54, refers to #123

I'd say both alternatives you present are unviable for reasons of security and simplicity.
The solution that occurs to me off the top of my head would be having an offset into an array of player models stored client and server side. Each client could define it's own list of available player models with something like an addplayermodel MODELNAME command, and indexes outside that range could just be clamped to the index of the first model by clients.
This would be robust, simple, and add almost no network overhead. It by no means guarantees that players see the same models, but that is the case for any content item in Sauerbraten.
The issue here is really that we don't have a number of player models large enough to make it worth while, as Aard said.

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#125: Re: ..

by JadeMatrix on 12/21/2007 20:45, refers to #124

And that's the etc..

Would work very well, plus I don't see many players content-modding a slew of player models anyway... hudguns & menus, maybe, but fewer have the talent to model.

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#126: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 12/21/2007 22:44, refers to #125

I don't see the point of people seeing your custom models in-game if they don't use them...
If they're good, put them on Quadropolis and people will use them. If not, people won't.
If you like them, you see them... Why make others see them?

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#127: Re: ..

by rancor on 12/21/2007 23:25, refers to #126

Which would actually be easier under a scheme such as I proposed, just put the model you want as a default as the first one. No overwriting shipped content needed. At least as I proposed it, nobody else need see the same thing you see, only up to n different models.

Random thought: some of the models from http://openarena.ws/?about are nice, MD3, and appropriately licensed. Might be a good starting point?

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#128: Re: ..

by SheeEttin on 12/21/2007 23:42, refers to #127

Oh, that makes a bit more sense.
Though I think just renaming the old ones would work just as well... Seems a bit too much work for too little return.

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#129: Re: ..

by rancor on 12/22/2007 05:06, refers to #128

Tend to agree, having different player models doesn't really matter to me at all. I haven't even used a replacement model since the wasada pluspack one...

Still, since it is possible to do it in a simple, general way, it is worth focusing on the art assets that would be required, since this is a pretty commonly requested addition.

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