GameCharacter

[StJoris]

Hello there, I've been starting out on this character for a game I am creating during my free time for fun together with a fantastic programmer. Comments and Critique is highly appreciated, and right off the bat I also have a problem which I haven't encountered before, maybe it's real easy to solve.

Screengrab showing the Wire

Another one

A third


A Render showing the upper part

Showing the body

Again

His back


Now my problem is when I go convert the editable poly to editable mesh
Here is how it looks as editable poly

Here converted to editable mesh


As you can see a lot of edges and vertices disappeared, and that is not what I want. Any ideas?

[Squash-n-stretch]

You need to start this model again...there are way way way too many poly's in your model. I suggest you visit www.poopinmymouth.com , download the tuts, and spend a few months getting into the whole low-poly mentality.

[jackobeast]

I may not be able to offer lots of advice personally, but we've seen worse meshes than these. I don't think he needs to scrap it totally. Perhaps those I see commenting frequently that know a lot more than I do about low poly game characters can chime in. You can almost be certain that by having to fix the mistakes, you will never make them again.

StJoris, All the edges are still there, I believe. When you converted to a mesh, they became invisible. As far as I remember, only the visible ones matter in character deformation. Or is that smoothing. Can't remember at the moment. Just to be sure, go into edge mode, hit ctrl-a, and there should be a slew of dotted redlines along with the solid ones. any of those you need you can select individually, and hit the visible button over on the tool panel.

Squash is correct in telling you about the tutorials, though. That's a great site for game-related models. There are also the following resources:

http://67.15.36.49/ffa/tutorials/max...c/joanmenu.asp
http://www.ant-online.co.uk/downloads/ModTutorial.htm

Now, each of those tutorials have their flaws. The JoA one will help you out with mesh modeling from references which is handy since you will need to export the char as a mesh more than likely. The other is designed specifically for game modelling (low polly frame of mind) using poly modeling techniques. They are both for women, but they get the point across.

Hope this helps.
-j

[Firestorm]

When you are modeling for games, what the programmer should be doing is finding out what the engine can handle. If the engine can handle 15,000 polys on the screen at a time. Your charater is 5,000 that only leaves 10,000 for everything else on the screen at any one time.

This is just an example, colusion and everything else have to be allowed for along with your target FPS with minium system requirements. The programmer should really give you some numbers roughly before you start.

He should know what the engine can handle, or if he is making his own then I guess you have to be doing a lot of tweaking. I wouldn't start it again yet, I would export it and send it to the programer, get him to put it in the engine and see how it goes.(Consider it a test model) If it can't handle it or has problem or even just runs slow you'll have to go back to the drawing board.

Welcome to game design, the biggest challange making this look good, with the lowest ammount of poly's. You may want to look into normal mapping if you are a detail freak (If the engine can support it not all can, or not all support it well)

[StJoris]

Squash-n-stretch: Thanks for pointing me to that site but I really looked into everything there before, it's very valueable info indeed. I think this character is on a very different poly budget than most of what you see there, it's rather next-gen, more like the next-gen horse.

jackobeast: Thanks for that push in the direction of edge visibility, is that new in max9? I liked how it just made quads into two tris and left the other tris in earlier version, now I have an auto-edge tool that makes a complete jumble. Any way to get that again? Had already seen the joan one, it is usefull in a way but I really prefer looking at muscles and structure more.

Firestorm666: I will definately ask my programmer to stress test the engine to see what it can handle, it is an own made engine so there aren't hard numbers. He gave the rough estimation of 2 times a doom 3 char would be ok, and a little above wouldn't hurt either. I am a detail freak yes, and it does support normal mapping, and works well.


The TriCount for this at the moment is 2500 which is quite on schedule actually considering the budget. On a sidenote, this is made with only an anatomy book next to me.

[Squash-n-stretch]

Originally Posted by StJoris

Squash-n-stretch: Thanks for pointing me to that site but I really looked into everything there before, it's very valueable info indeed. I think this character is on a very different poly budget than most of what you see there, it's rather next-gen, more like the next-gen horse.


He gave the rough estimation of 2 times a doom 3 char would be ok, and a little above wouldn't hurt either.

The TriCount for this at the moment is 2500 which is quite on schedule actually considering the budget. On a sidenote, this is made with only an anatomy book next to me.

Hmm. A 'homemade' engine is never going to be as good as one a huge studio can produce, unless your friend has unwittingly creates the next unreal3 engine beater.

Even if the engine is really good, keep in mind that just because you CAN have a high poly character, doesn't mean you SHOULD. There are far more poly's than there should be in your model, primarily because they are there, but not serving the two most eventually important functions; skinning or defining further some part of the body. It is imperative that every tri in your model is defining the form of your character. Detail can come later with Normal Maps.

Can I ask what anatomy book you are referencing from? Because the model's pecs are about 20 inches lower than they should be, I would reccomend lifting those up. Is this character going to be in the game naked?

[StJoris]

Originally Posted by Squash-n-stretch

Hmm. A 'homemade' engine is never going to be as good as one a huge studio can produce, unless your friend has unwittingly creates the next unreal3 engine beater.

Even if the engine is really good, keep in mind that just because you CAN have a high poly character, doesn't mean you SHOULD. There are far more poly's than there should be in your model, primarily because they are there, but not serving the two most eventually important functions; skinning or defining further some part of the body. It is imperative that every tri in your model is defining the form of your character. Detail can come later with Normal Maps.

Can I ask what anatomy book you are referencing from? Because the model's pecs are about 20 inches lower than they should be, I would reccomend lifting those up. Is this character going to be in the game naked?

True, the engine probably won't become the Unreal3 beater but that's not what I am aiming for either.

Can you point out some polys that are most obvious in not serving any of those functions you name?

You are quite right about the pecs I guess, just a mistake from me. This is the book that I use:
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-...e=UTF8&s=books

Though mine is a dutch translation, being dutch myself, sorry for any incorrect use of english btw.

The model won't be naked but will have basic clothing, very basic medieval clothing.

[jackobeast]

Originally Posted by StJoris

jackobeast: Thanks for that push in the direction of edge visibility, is that new in max9? I liked how it just made quads into two tris and left the other tris in earlier version, now I have an auto-edge tool that makes a complete jumble. Any way to get that again? Had already seen the joan one, it is usefull in a way but I really prefer looking at muscles and structure more.

I don't think the edge visibility thing is anything new. I just know from my experiences with Max 8 that it turns a lot of the visible poly edges invisible on conversion to a mesh or at least that it can. I about had a heart attack one day when I converted an editable poly to an editable mesh and a bunch of edges just disappeared. They came back after I converted it back, and then I figured out Max was making them invisible for no other reason than Max is Max (at least I have not found a concrete explanation).

If you are really huge into anatomy, you would fully enjoy the other link I provided. The guy that wrote that wrote it as a teaser for his book, basically. Download his sample model. He pretty much makes cuts for major muscle groups for deformations in games. I own his book (I wanted to start in Maya and ended up in Max), and he's pretty detailed in what he says.

Stretch, there is giving advice on his mesh, and then there is pissing on people's parades based on assumptions. We have no way of knowing at this point if that engine will be the one that sets us all free. Let's try to help the guy with his problem... He's been nice enough about it already.
-j

[Xadeko]

<i quickly scanned the text a bit>

You reaped those polys :'(

You must take a real good look at how you are going to spend a poly/face, a character may have a budget of 5k faces, but that does not mean you can uselessly trow them in. Take a good look at what you did, then try to see what can be improved. You also have a lot of shading errors, clean it up. flipping edges may help alot.

besides the structure you also can improve the shape, use some good references.

i will say this again, it is a learning proces! i made the same mistakes. Just keep posting and we will help you out, so take this as positive advise

[StJoris]

Ok I think I'm going to start over, and this time make some concept and characters sheets first Well the shading errors, with max9 it now has 2-sided viewport rendering on by default though it is not checked, so sometimes that makes for awkward things aswell. Before max9 I could never get 2-sided to work, and now I can't turn it off, ugh..
I'm going for a much lower poly character this time. What do you guys think about using the "bendy straw" shoulder/upper arm, or the more muscular horizontally accented form, regarding deformation?