hey, I am a character modeler.. working toward professional level design work.

I accidentally came by a post in blendernation asking for character designers from 2006, but I just thought I would pop in and see if there was still a need, or if development here has slowed down to maintenance level.

I wouldn't mind doing a character for nexuiz and seeing how things go, but I do have some questions and some requirements of my own.

first, do you even want anyone to create new characters for Nexuiz, or do you think it is worth it??

Second, it takes me approximately between 60 to 100 hrs to create a character, low poly, high poly, normal map, texture, rigging and animations. In other words the first character I create will be it will be obvious that it is a new generation character (i.e. lots of detail) and will not fit really well with the existing game characters. Would it seem strange to have one high detail character in the middle of the game, even if it is only midterm.

third, the post from 2006 mentioned keeping characters to 1200 tris. This is highly unrealistic these days with 4,000 - 5,000 tris on the low end... UT2007 I think is using characters in the range of 10,000 tris. I like to keep mine under 4,500 but that is about where this would end up. Textures even remapped to take up all texture space still end up being at least 512x512.. larger if you really want to see the scars.. Is this to much??

Fourth, I probably should have asked this second, but I do need to know what the state of export from blender to nexuiz is. I did read about using tags like the .smd exporter for the source engine. This is of course a little strange for me because I thought that nexuiz was built from quake which is ID software, not Valve... ??

Anyway.. just poking so maybe someone could answer some of that ..

I do have plenty of prior work, but I don't want to show up here and start stuffing my work into peoples faces, so if you want to see stuff I've done just ask and I'll post it.

DG

deathguppie wrote:hey, I am a character modeler.. working toward professional level design work.

I accidentally came by a post in blendernation asking for character designers from 2006, but I just thought I would pop in and see if there was still a need, or if development here has slowed down to maintenance level.

I wouldn't mind doing a character for nexuiz and seeing how things go, but I do have some questions and some requirements of my own.

first, do you even want anyone to create new characters for Nexuiz, or do you think it is worth it??

Second, it takes me approximately between 60 to 100 hrs to create a character, low poly, high poly, normal map, texture, rigging and animations. In other words the first character I create will be it will be obvious that it is a new generation character (i.e. lots of detail) and will not fit really well with the existing game characters. Would it seem strange to have one high detail character in the middle of the game, even if it is only midterm.

third, the post from 2006 mentioned keeping characters to 1200 tris. This is highly unrealistic these days with 4,000 - 5,000 tris on the low end... UT2007 I think is using characters in the range of 10,000 tris. I like to keep mine under 4,500 but that is about where this would end up. Textures even remapped to take up all texture space still end up being at least 512x512.. larger if you really want to see the scars.. Is this to much??

Fourth, I probably should have asked this second, but I do need to know what the state of export from blender to nexuiz is. I did read about using tags like the .smd exporter for the source engine. This is of course a little strange for me because I thought that nexuiz was built from quake which is ID software, not Valve... ??

Anyway.. just poking so maybe someone could answer some of that ..

I do have plenty of prior work, but I don't want to show up here and start stuffing my work into peoples faces, so if you want to see stuff I've done just ask and I'll post it.

DG

To your first question, yes. The game needs them. The current models aren't too pretty and don't complement the visual work gone into everything else in the game.

For number two: The main devs wouldn't release unless officially unless there was a significant amount of replacement models. It'd only look weird for people who downloaded the replacements themselves.

Someone with more technical knowledge would be better able to answer your third question.

And next, it is based on Quake 1, but DarkPlaces uses a specially developed model format (made by Lord Havoc) based upon .smd. However, more support for different model formats (like md3) have become available recently.

2006 is about four major releases ago, so that thread might not be entirely accurate. However they've been looking for character modellers to do full replacements for a long time

deathguppie wrote:[...] if you want to see stuff I've done just ask and I'll post it.

Butt wants!

\o_

ok.. here is some..

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/image ... Spider.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4FFQdB0Gaw

heres some high poly stuff..

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/images/shot18.jpg

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/images/beast1s.jpg

concept work

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/images/Alien21.jpg

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/image ... layer1.jpg

that looks really great!
IIRC nexuiz can handle around 1500 polys per model.
Work with models is desperately needed, it's /very/ hard to find in the open source world.

deathguppie wrote:ok.. here is some..

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/image ... Spider.jpg

Looks like a dretch and a marauder from tremulous


Good modelers are indeed hard to find, and updated player models are most welcome here.

Good work!

deathguppie wrote:concept work

http://proviction.com/deathguppie/image ... layer1.jpg

damn i want to have this!

tHonestly, u want to keep the model down to about 2000 tris or less, 4500 is waaaaaaaaaayyy too much. Skins 256x256 or so, if possible. I thinks 512 may choke some older cards. This game has an updated engine over quake, but at its core its still a quake engine. HL was based off a modified form of the quake engine. So thats why u see .smd files and such. As you already know, u can use .md3's too. Professional models look more detailed with less polys, so stay on budget.
BTW: I have some models made up already, but I suck at texturing. If you like, I can send u a screenshot of a couple to see if u can texture them.

Genegineer wrote:Skins 256x256 or so, if possible. I thinks 512 may choke some older cards.

If a card can't handle 512 skins then it can't handle Nexuiz. The stock playermodel skins are 512 and it shows. I vote for 1024.

I"m shooting for 2000, but I'll probably end up around 2500 which I really think should be acceptable for any reasonably recent graphics card nvidia 6800 or better.

512x512 is a rather small texture but it can be done, you won't be able to see a belt buckle very well and eyes just become dots, but it can be done. The problem is that normal maps that small are almost useless for a character. The details just disappear. Any detailed texture will show pixels pretty badly but the normal map will only show large objects.

When creating a character texture, I'll work with an image of no less than 4096x4096 and usually larger depending on the amount of detail. Then reduce it to the necessary size and fix any bad pixels with a smudge or blur brush. Sometimes I have to actually go in and paint pixel by pixel but usually only around the eyes or on any small details.

Oh, and the character I am working on I'll keep progress here
http://forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.php?t=3128