Police 4.0 alpha

[LeeZH]

Well, I have been trying to keep it under the wraps for a while due to the horrendously slow pace that I work, but now that J0linar released his playermodel, I thought I might as well showcase mine.




This is actually the 8th iteration of my playermodel, but only the 4th one that survived to make it to public release. Here, I realised my biggest problem that I had with the previous model: I cared too much about the minor details. Back then, I would spend hours to get some nice deformations on the elbows and knees, and fail. It was only after careful examination that due to the nature of video games, it doesn't really matter because you rarely have time to stand and examine another player up close. Taking this in mind, I skimped on other things as well such as face detail, which would be sufficiently provided by textures.

By reducing unnecessary polygons, I can finally afford (in terms of poly count) to concentrate details on the bigger picture. For instance, the limbs are now hexagonal (cross-section) making them look nicer from almost all angles.

Compare this to my old playermodel [oh right, old forum's gone :| ] and it is now more detailed with less triangles (1100 vs 900). By the way, the original playermodel is 700 triangles.

Anyways, modelling and rigging are done. All that is left are skins and animations. Anybody who wants to skin may do so, but I have to warn you, I'm only providing it in Blender format because it is the only one so far that can store skeletal information. Apparently the Milkshape export gives static meshes only, and I do not want to go through rigging again. It took me weeks.

I can't spend much time on this work, though, as I have my engineering course applications and exams coming up.

Download 4.0 Alpha3
Download 4.0 Alpha2
Download 4.0 Alpha1

Cheers,
LeeZH ([aCKa]Ki113r)

PS: My college has re-imposed the blocking of game ports so I can't play online. :(
PPS: Placeholder weapon model is CC-BY-SA 3.0 Kingofthecrows. I'll remove it in the final version. Removed because it got in the way.
PPPS: The md2 (in-game playable) format would only be available when it loses the alpha status. No point playing with something that isn't complete yet.

[yata]

sweet stuff, hope we can find someone to skin it :)

[a_slow_old_man]

I could make a nice face skin, but I think thats it ^ ^

[LeeZH]

Oh, and the UV mappings that I did is crappy, so you might have to unfold the skins yourself, but sure, go ahead. A skinned head is better than a head with no texture image. :)

[a_slow_old_man]

But think of this: The head will deform everything and no matter whose face I'll use, it'll all look kinda.. same

Btw. afaik every texture got to be on one image

[DrauL]

Leave it with no face. And make it wear a suit.
Anonymous style.
Or at least Slender Man! :P

Slender Man: see http://marblehornets.wikidot.com/

[makkE]

This looks promising. I will have a go at making a proper unwrap, maybe give it a skin :)

[a_slow_old_man]

I'll wait till makkE's unwrap

[makkE]

Well, I have never worked with 2.5, and everything is different.

Can someone explain to me how I

a) hide the gun and skeleton from view
b) select all faces _at once_ in order to uv them
c) apply a checker to all faces ?

Otherwise, I am pretty much lost.

[LeeZH]

Um ...
a) H to hide Alt-H to unhide
b) A selects all vertices in a mesh, but then I separated the vest from the rest of the body so you need to join them. So ...

... It's kinda troublesome. I'll just convert it into 2.4 format. I got both versions installed on my computer anyways. I've also combined the two meshes so that you don't need to do it.

Also here's my second take on the UV mapping. Lots of wasted space and many things here are out of proportion. I think it's better if you wait for makkE's.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/PDQ...H1bUjFjHSQ

Download here: Download 4.0 Alpha2

[V-Man]

I could make a nice face skin, but I think thats it ^ ^

Take it easy there, speedy.

[J0linar]

Not bad, i would still rework the mesh (but that`s me :P)
gl with your model :)

[makkE]

As long as it's no problem if I do join the vest with the rest, I would be fine.
I would also like to remove the materials, so I can assign only one material with a checker texture.

[LeeZH]

The initial reason why I split the vest was because I thought of having two texture images where it would be easier to swap vest designs (great for clans), but it turns out it is bad on a technical side, so it doesn't matter anymore.

If you want a single material, just select everything (A) and in the Editing Tab (F9) there is an Assign button for a single material. The materials were there mainly to get a general feel of how the finished model would look like, but at this stage it's not necessary anymore.

[makkE]

Next problem: I have managed to create a checker using the nodes. Shows up in the material preview, but I can't make it show up in the 3d-view. The video tutorial tells me to render, but I can't render it all the time, that would be extrtemely unpractical.

Also, I don't see a way to select the whole thing, since the mirror modifier is still in place. Shouldn't the model be mirrored and welded by hand once done? How does the rigging even work this way ?

[LeeZH]

The mirror modifier can mirror mesh, v-groups (that has .r or .l in their names) and UV textures. You could select them from the modifier window. Useful, but confusing to anyone who isn't familiar with Blender. But if you get my updated alpha2 file, I've permanently applied the modifier so that it wouldn't get in the way. I wouldn't need it anymore since the mesh is more or less done.

About the 3d view, there is a selector button at the bottom of the main panel that looks like a sphere. Try using "Draw Type: Shaded" (Shortcut Shift-Z).

If I remember correctly, the textured view mode is used if you loaded the texture through another method.

[PrimeviL]

It looks sweet =)

[Lightning]

You should team up with that other model guy (Jolinar I think).

You are awesome btw.

[Orynge]

Yeah, it looks good :)

[J0linar]

Well this Model looks more and more like a community project, 1guy made it another is goin to skin it and probably a third one will animate it.

And maybe that is how it should be, anyways i have reworked my ac model (shape/proportions) and to be honest i broke the poly wall with it, it has atm 1300 polys and i dont think that am goin to release another version of it, maybe i will make the paintball playermodel (even this one has 1300 +/-polys lol) ac ready.

Anyways my point!!! is stick to LeeZH model and make a community project of it, a good way to make sure that all ppl like it and that its worth to be a official model.
just my 2cents :P

[LeeZH]

Well, the skin that you did for your model was awesome, J0linar. I was kinda hoping you would be able to help me out in that area.

Oh, if you're wondering how I get my proportions right:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=114676
(Except that I use a better reference model generated from Makehuman)

But yeah, I've learnt that when you suck at any one section (for me it is UV mapping & texturing) there are lots of people on the internet who are willing to contribute.

[J0linar]

just dropped in before work, hah u r sneaky^^
funny that i didnt tought about doin it this way but well my 1st goal was to get it done
right or wrong, didn`t cared much about that as am a bit new to character animating
but with time u know how to handle it ;) even a prehistorical Model Format like md2.

well look at my skin, the uvmapping isn't that good am lazy to stretch things, i would probably fall asleep if i would stretch every uvmap^^

I could give it a try, suggestions about color/gear stuff are welcome
cuz even if some ppl liked my model, some didnt liked the skin of it, 1 guy even wrote new pants please lol

[makkE]

I am still struggling with blender... I tried to use the 02 version of your model, but now I can't even find the "materials" tab and the material preview... argh.. help still points to 2.4x things.

[LeeZH]

Oh dear. You know what? I think it is pretty feasible now to convert to some other format that you are comfortable with. Re-rigging isn't a big problem for me either ways.

[LeeZH]

So ... anyways I've been busy lately studying but I managed to clock in a couple of hours for the model. The UV mapping still isn't as great as it can be, but I think that I've been dragging this for too long. So, I did the best I could and started drawing the skin. My skinning skill is n00b, so anybody willing to improve it is welcome to do so.




Remember in the old forum I mentioned that I could do awesome eyes with a tablet? I finally got one and did it ;)




Largely due to the fact that most of the exporters are not ported to Blender 2.5 yet, I've decided to stick to Blender 2.49 for now. Also, I've simplified the hands even further because most of the details there were redundant.

Download here: Download 4.0 Alpha3

PS: If you haven't noticed, the full render is in the OP.

[Zarjio]

This looks really sweet man. Nicely done!

[makkE]

I would like to improve the skin, but I can't make out the texture coordinates. Do you have a layered version with the wires and isles, preferably in 512² ? 1024² is overkill for AC imho.

[LeeZH]

Well, it's a force of habbit of mine to start with a pretty high res image, because scaling down is easier than scaling up. I've checked and it still looks fine when scaled to 512², so go ahead.

Anyways, here's the UV wire map in 512² format:

http://www.leezh.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/uv.png