hi,

i've recently started using blender and i wanted to try my hand at making character models for games. i don't feel ready to make one from scratch just yet, so i've been working with nexuiz models to get a feel for how it's done. here's an example of what i've done so far....

http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bothls6.png

i started working on the lycanthrope model. to me it looked like an older werewolf, stocky and a bit grizzled. i decided to make a younger sleeker version. after extensively remodelling the head i decided that i wanted to give it dog legs, so i took the head and grafted it onto the body of the carni model. it's still not quite finished, but i'm pretty pleased with how it's working out.

any feedback?

white haired boy

Nice though I'm not so sure about the legs. They seem to have one too many joints.

One of the major complaints about Nexuiz's models is that the polycounts are way too high. If you can do any clever optimisations there then it could improve performance a lot.

on the subject of optimising the characters, i did notice something really wierd about the character meshes. if i selected what looked like a single vertex it would often turn out to be loads of them, so i had to use blender's merge function to turn them into a single vertex before i could do anything useful. i foung the quickest way of finding these multilple vertices was to apply subsurf to the model and looking for rips and gaps in the subsurf.

these were models that someone had converted to 3ds files and posted on the forum, so the same problem may not exist with the actual character meshes in the game, but it might be worth checking.

white haired boy

welcome! yay another modeler on board.

The polyflow is very messy, and that crotch :X tossing him in nexuiz at this state would turn it into Furcadia 3d

also that's some tiny non-canine feet

Although it is much too high=poly for games you may want to check out makehuman: http://sourceforge.net/projects/makehuman/

Merge verts like a maniac and you can get some great characters

Makehuman as a base isn't really optimal at all, not even when decimating. I really really wouldn't recommend it.

Yeah cool to see a modeler being interested in Nexuiz. We really need more people that are able to create some cool stuff. I like that model but i too think its feet are a bit tiny and look to fragile

ihsan-
i've downloaded the makehuman stuff, thanks for the link. even if it's too high poly for gaming stuff it looks like an interesting project.

cheap alert -
thanks for the welcome.
could you explain what polyflow is, i've heard the term before but i've no idea of what it means.
as you can see from the picture it looks pretty realistic with subsurf on it, so i'm guessing whoever made the model might have made it using subsurf and that's why it looks the way it does.

esteel-
yeah, i reckon you're right about the feet.

Yeah, as Cheapy said, the polyflow is pretty messy in that model, particuarly in the way the muscles on the arms and legs are being done.

Another thing to consider is, that is just too many polys for what the model is, and being in a deathmatch game. There are a number of areas where you can cut down the number, such as there is really not a need to model each finger on the hands, and if you do, certainly not using as many polys there.

I'm not sure how many polys that model currently has, but for it's type, you should aim for something less than 2000, maybe even around 1500.

There's this guy (cannot find the thread nor the link) that is doing a wiki on the models and if I remember correctly these models have something like 2000 polys. If I find the link I'll update this post.

UPDATE:

The forum thread: http://www.forums.alientrap.local/viewtopic.php?t=1013
The site link: http://virtualworlds.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Nexuiz

Check that thread out to get more info about that site if interested.

Welcome white.haired.boy
1st. for nexuiz 3.0 we will need humanoid characters, with normal legs and arms, because all characters will use same anims and same skeletons
2nd. you better use quads instead of triangles, its better for smoothing and it will helps acquire good polyflow and nice edge loops
3rd. imho going into nexuiz battle without any armor it suicide and stupid

oh and 3.0 will use segmented models like q3, so it will be head, torso+arms and legs

Morphed wrote:1st. for nexuiz 3.0 we will need humanoid characters, with normal legs and arms, because all characters will use same anims and same skeletons
2nd. you better use quads instead of triangles, its better for smoothing and it will helps acquire good polyflow and nice edge loops

oh and 3.0 will use segmented models like q3, so it will be head, torso+arms and legs

Quads good, I'm better with those than triangles (never tried modeling with those actually). Also I am modelling something right now (nothing I've planned having for a game but if this is how you do models for a game I think I can actually start with a small test character.
And should the arms and legs not be combined/attached to the whole model?

To see my model I'm working on press: http://www.origionstudios.com/ai/pics/turtleLab/werewolf/Werewolf_lowpoly_01.JPG

This model is actually going to be converted to subdivs, a project one of my friend wanted me to do. Create a turtle and a werewolf with background, textures, lightning and animation in two weeks. Seems like an impossible thing to do for me as this is actually my first real organic character I'm doing and don't know too much about that yet. And with animation and textures all in two whole weeks... working 24/7 now. (The werewolf will chase the turtle, this will be looped), gimme caffeine pills! I'm actaully seeing vertices, move handles and everything now, it gets worse when I close my eyes I love it xD

Oh also, this being a model of a werewolf has nothing to do with this topic Just a coincidence, it was my friend that decided what characters would be in this short "story". He's doing a game in Java and wanted a 3D intro for it.

Morphed wrote:Welcome white.haired.boy
1st. for nexuiz 3.0 we will need humanoid characters, with normal legs and arms, because all characters will use same anims and same skeletons
2nd. you better use quads instead of triangles, its better for smoothing and it will helps acquire good polyflow and nice edge loops
3rd. imho going into nexuiz battle without any armor it suicide and stupid

oh and 3.0 will use segmented models like q3, so it will be head, torso+arms and legs

Great news! Which format will 3.0 use? DPM? When will there be a beta available with this functionality? I want to make a compatable blender 3D template.

There's a roadmap for 3.0 already? Geeze. I don't even know what 2.2 is supposed to be having in it

Mostly bugfixes.. 2.x is supposed to be compatible with all 2.x releases. You will get (probably) two new gun models which look WAY better then the old ones. Nex will get more compatible with quake3 maps. Support for animated textures will be added.. Not really used yet but ClientSideQuakeC got improved..
Oh and 2.2 will have Multi Campaign support and someone did a huge mappack containing converted (free) quake3 maps for Nexuiz.. so Vermeulen wanted to write a campaign for this mappack. That will however be a seperate download..

Like the model!

The legs do not have too many joints - canine hind legs have an elongated foot with the ankle off the ground. Same number of joints as humans, just in different places. I think the legs look right.

The feet look too small and not canine, the look is something in between those of the "reptile" and "carni" models. The upper body looks great, nice work!

This page has many photographs of various completed werewolf model kits: http://theclubhouse1.net/museum/modelswerewolf.htm

HTH

Slightly OT: I WANT THE 1.2.1 WOLF/LYCANTHROPE SKINS BACK!

Taiyo.uk wrote:Slightly OT: I WANT THE 1.2.1 WOLF/LYCANTHROPE SKINS BACK!

Hmm just copy the old skin files from 1.2.1 into 2.2.1

esteel wrote:Hmm just copy the old skin files from 1.2.1 into 2.2.1

That won't work in teamgames, cause shirt/pants textures are missing...

ai wrote:To see my model I'm working on press: http://www.origionstudios.com/ai/pics/turtleLab/werewolf/Werewolf_lowpoly_01.JPG

Keep up to good work.. I hope to see it in Nexuiz

morfar wrote:

ai wrote:To see my model I'm working on press: http://www.origionstudios.com/ai/pics/turtleLab/werewolf/Werewolf_lowpoly_01.JPG

Keep up to good work.. I hope to see it in Nexuiz

Wtf? Loopia has messed up that link! Now I get angry!

Though that model is most likely not gonna get into nexuiz, for several reasons. One is that the legs should not be like that, they should bend the other direction and it has to high poly count (although that is easy to fix). So if I'm gonna make it for nexuiz I will need to redo the legs.

The legs are fine. Only the feet need attention (to give them a more canine appearance). The polycount can be reduced if needed, but it's not any higher than that of character models in modern games (doom3, etc).

True, about that modern games. But the legs will need to be remodeled as I am later (or someone else if they beat me to it) make animations for the models, and all models will use the same animation thus legs bent the wrong way won't work.

In my bavarian home dialect we call that a "Wolpertinger" for which as I experienced there is also an english expression "Jackalope" *lol*