Hello my fellow Modders and friends,
As I'm sure you'd all like to know, work on the Dragonlance Mod is progressing slowly but surely. I've been plugging away on the world map and some custom tiles (though the tile editor keeps crashing on me). Realistically I'm still at least a month or two away from a 1.0 release, maybe longer if I can't find the models I need. As I've mentioned before, 3D Modeling is Not one of my strong suits. Skins, Textures, Colors, I can handle all those and even apply those to current models in game. Making decent looking New Models is somewhat beyond me though. As such I thought I would come to my fellow Modders for help. I also figure if others have Model Requests we could keep all the requests in one thread like a "Order Form" where we can request Models and when those Models are made the requests can be filled and posted in this thread.
Here are the Models I currently need. Some of these may not be needed after release but there's no way to know for sure until we have the full release and see what goodies they've been holding back from us for the full game.
Draconians: In Dragonlance there is a race called "Draconians". They are an intelligent race though they are not natural. They were made by magic and twisting the eggs of Dragons into a Dragon/Man hybrid. They have the head, wings, and tails of a Dragon with the body shape of a man. Their skin is scaly.
Minotaurs: In Dragonlance Minotaurs are a intelligent race which mainly inhabit the island nations of Mithas and Kothas. Minotaurs have a Human Body with the Head of a Bull.
Elves: In all honesty this one shouldn't be that hard. All that really needs to be done is to have pointy ears places on a standard human model.
Dwarves: Short, stocky, humans.
Kender/Halflings: Short, skinny, child-like, humans. I wonder if there will be models of children in the full game? We have all kinds of civilians walking around the cities so it would make sense that kids would be running around as well. If so I can use their model for Kender.
If anyone else has any Model Requests by all means please place them in this thread. Since I consider Kyogre to be in charge of keeping all the modding info in order maybe he will be so kind as to keep track of these as well.
Here is my modeled minotaur cowotaur. Man, I suck. the head needs some major work. I like my axe though. Sorry that he is naked
Looks good! But I think that the neck must be thicker - just like on 2D sketch. And 'nose' too long (like at crocodile, sooorry), better to make it shorter ?!
Ah, thanks Zukaza, Raven, Civ. Raven, I don't mind the crits at all man. Not one bit. If my stuff looks like shit, it looks like shit and needs changing. Don't worry about my feelings because I have no feelings, all my feelings were crushed in first grade by a girl with pigtails named Lilly and they never regrew. Plus booze helps. By the way, you talk about minotaurs and fur, but what if they all like Brazilian body waxes? All the minotaurs I know are metrosexuals. Ohh, ohh, a minosexualaur.
Civ, you deserve an atta boy for the draconian.
Zukaza, yeah. I need to redo the head. Hopefully this is starting to shape it up a bit. It still needs more work and the body and legs need more shaping and buffing. He needs muscles galore.
Well, it definitely does NOT look like shit. Now if I did model...THAT would look like shit...lol. Both you guys are modeling master artists compared to what I know about modeling.
Ok, for the minotaur and definition. When it comes to both muscles and fur I know how hard it can be to try to place those as seperate pieces on a model. Instead of trying to kill yourself doing that (not to mention ramping up the poly count in the process) just try to get the shapes as close as you can and I can add in muscle and fur definition with the skin. Think along the lines of how actors get pictures of themselves air-brushed to look like they have abs or pecks or skinny stomachs for the chicks. This is how skinning works. With the skin alone I can draw in Tons of definition that would be insane to do with an actual model, like having defined photo realistic hair or skin tone.
As for the shape. The neck should be short and thick with the head closer to the shoulders. For the legs, bring the knees forward. Picture a tilted "Z' shape and that's how a minotaurs legs look. You can also look at the shape of a dogs or cats back legs. Many animals in nature have the same leg shape/design. Since a minotaur walks on two legs and not 4 like a bull the legs need to be thick and muscular with large hooves. You could also alter it though and use a fully human body if that's easier for you. While bull legs and hooves do look cool and stick more to a minotaur theme, I don't mind at all if you take some artistic license with it and change a few things. If doing human legs are easier on you then do that if you want my friend. In that case you could even start by modifing a basic Elemental human model. Make it look beefier and add in the head you make. Tada, instant minotaur race. That could be a lazy way out though, but if that's what needs to be done, that's what we'll do.
I've got a lot of experimenting to do with the skins I have in mind and seeing just what the engine can handle displaying it in game. As of right now I'm still unsure what the color limitaions are. By that I don't mean by what the colors are, but how many it can display at once. Some things can only be done in 256 colors, some might even go as low as 16 or 32 colors. I'm not sure what limitations (if any) the engine has on displaying high res colors or whether or not we can mod out those limitations if they do exist. Doing so though would increase the running requirements of the base game and most likely if that too can be modded it will probably be through Python and not XML.
Keep up the great work my friend. It's coming along real well and your dedication to doing it has been fully noted by all of us I'd say
Well, I think I am almost done. I think it's come along better than I thought it would. Hope y'all don't mind the large pic, but it is easier to see any flaws and whatnot. Raven, Civ, guys tell me what you think. Face need changing? Legs? Blender is a pretty cool program for a free program. Anyway, here it is so far:
Nice work Admiral. That looks great!!!
F-ing awesome guys ! How long ya'll been doing modeling?
I wana help the Elemental mod community in some way but i'm pretty useless at all aspects of modding. Last game i modded was Dawn of War 1 and they were just model imports, stat changes and modding other peoples pre-modded stuff.
Looking awesome bro, very awesome. The legs though are still too straight. Try bringing the knees out forward some. The legs should have a somewhat Z shape. The proportions are looking a lot better now. He's much more beefy. Well done, man.
Don't feel bad, critique is something important for many reasons, simplest reason being you might just see something I can't see easily. Also keep in mind this is the 4th model I ever do, the third being that 15 minute centaur lol, so I NEED critique since this is a learning process for me. My first model was a head, and my second was a car I havent finished, so I kinda jumped to full body modeling outta nowhere therefore I could use all the help possible.
I changed the wings quite a bit, the shape *I think* is what you asked for, and I removed the bones that supported the membrane cause making those look good is kind of hard for me atm, so they'll have to be skinned in . I also made the wings a bit longer and angled down some more, if you think they need some more don't feel bad and let me know
Heres an updated pic:
Good news! I got around to doing the UV map and... omg what a pain in the ass, I think I respect 3D artists a bit more after working on this. I kept unwrapping and shit was just all messed up -.- Long story short, I missed a hiden face inside the wings and that fked it all up, deleting it fixed. BUt that wasn't the worse, the damn hands gave me a headache, the UV I made I included the hands all messed up cuz I wasnt sure what it was. Funny enough when I was finally done arranging the Map, I discovered the cause, I missed this tinyyyyy little seam gahhh-.-.
Anyways here is the UV Map Layout:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8088480/DraconiandUVWrappingTest_Cube.tga
Note that I stacked some things that are probably going to be symmetrical, for example the Front part of the wings are stacked on top of each other so that whatever you place there will appear on the other membrane. Same for the tail, Crests in the back, and a buncha other stuff. If you got any questions let me know!
Awesome job btw admiral! All your cowtaur needed was some more beef Now he has evolved and looks very much like a cool minotaur
The game have a bone system to make the models animate? Or does the person have to do it themselves? I'm not in beta, not sure how they are doing it. Also, what file format (xxx.???) does it use?
I am whupped, I think this about does it. ..... (again thanks for the kind words and the critiques from everyone.. Raven, you were right the legs looked funky- hard to see in this shot but they look much better now).
I told myself I would wait till Raven did a skin that I could apply but I couldn't do it! I went and did a poor skin just to see if it worked, and to my surprise it did! Here are the results in a render:
The wing colors are shit lol, but at least it all went were it was supposed to. Its still too shiny but I guess playing around with the material settings is next .
@Tiberonmagnus: I have no idea if we will have to animate the models ourselves, we still don't know if any 3D program outside of Maya and 3DS will be supported. The file format used by elemental is *.hkb which is a havok file I believe? There is a thread somewhere around forums with all the known info relating to this.
@Admiral How do you make 3 different poses appear in the same window like you show in the picture above? Or is that copy pasting to paint or something?
"Shift+D" copies anything on your model/mesh. So I copied and posed three different models. It's a handy lil' function.
Hey, that ole draconian is now all fancied up.
Man, speaking of Maya and 3DS... I am fairly certain Blender can export files in a whole bunch of formats including 3DS. Civ, have you ever tried that? I really don't know much about it really. Same for boning. I have boned a few models (heh... I won't go there, but what a pun) but have only used it to pose a few things, so if animation is required I hope someone knows how to do that stuff.
It might be possible to use Poser (the software) and it's stock animations to do humanoid stuff. I've used Poser before, but it's been years so I'm rusty, very rusty. Just talking in the sense of workflow and the speed of getting things done. But still, without actually looking at the game and how it handles animations I have no clue.
You guys might have an easier time if you just made props.. for example, that winged example up above that someone posted. Create..
- Color the person to whatever color.
- A pair of wings for a prop to attach to the person.
- Create a helmet that goes over the entire head in the shape of the demonic head that your looking for.
- For claws look at how they do weapons, create a weapon prop that wraps around the hand and up to the wrist which would look like a claw.
Hopefully with this method of doing it you don't need to know animation, or boning, or anything like that, just make a static model.
That's Awesome work man, well done . The wings look much better shape wise now. One last crit to make it *just right*. The extra wing bone that sticks out the top doesn't need to be there, or shorten it to a stub/spike. Aside from that, fuckin Awesome!!!
Hehe, no worries man. For a basic color that came out nice. Unfortunately I got stuck driving all over f'king hell and back today trying to find my god damn meds. All the pharmacies in Central Florida seem to be having a shortage of Oxycodone and my wife and I spent all day and half the night driving around trying to find a place that had them. It's illegal to call the place and ask them over the phone if they have them. Even if they do they aren't allowed to say so over the phone for fear they'll be robbed. All the damn junkies out there make it impossible for people with Real Medical Need to get the shit they have to have...
Anyway, now that I'm all set on my meds I'll spend the weekend skinning this bad boy . When I skin it I won't skin the extra wing bone sticking up until you decide if you want to clip it off entirely or shorten it to a wing spike. I'll leave the call up to you. As I finish skins (I'll do more then one) I'll link them here and you can grab them and throw them on the model and post pics here and we'll talk about how they look. The crits are fare game too. If some part of the upcoming skins look odd just say so. Check back tomorrow (Saturday) evening and I should have at least one version done by then. I should probably download this Blender thing since I haven't been able to find my 3DSMax disk yet. At least that way I can view the model and apply the skin locally on my system. Where can I grab it?
Also, do you guys (CivFreak and Admiral) use Yahoo Messenger? We should probably get together and chat about some ideas I'm having for the mod and future work plus some tweaks we'll need to do. Download Yahoo Messenger if you don't already have it and add the contact "SeerusStoryteller". It's one of my old Seer accounts from my UO days. I'm also on Skype and Trillian (under a different name though) so I guess you guys don't Have to grab Yahoo. Which ever works for yall so long as we can contact each other a little easier than relying on the forums. Hell, I have free nation wide long distance so if need be we can do a phone conference if it comes down to it.
Killer job man, well done indeed!!! It does look much better now. Proportionately everything is pretty much spot on I'd say. The size and beefyness is perfect. The position of the legs needs a small adjustment. Check out this pic here below:
Notice the red arrows I laid out. See if you can bring the knee forward. Actually pull that whole part of the leg forward from where it connects at the waist. The top part of the leg is a little too straight up and down and should be more like a zigzag. Adjust that and I'd say it's %100 Perfect . Again Awesome job brother. It's much improved from your first go round.
Oh, one last thing. We might want to put a fur loin cloth to cover up the minotaur ass heh. For an idea on how the "loin cloth" should look check out this pic of He-Man here:
That's what I meant before when I said put in bulk for "fur". I know trying to model clumps of fur would be a serious pain in the ass so don't worry about trying to make it look "hairy" or "fury", I'll do that with the skin. The loin cloth needs to be there for me to skin it though.
Alright. So, the next step now that we have two base models to work with is to make variants of those models wearing different types of armor or wearing different "pieces" of armor. This way we can have different "Types" of Draconians and Minotaurs for the players to use in their armies in the DL Mod. For an idea of what I mean by different types or looks check the concept art Das123 posted on page 2 of this thread.
Seriously Awesome work Team!!! That's right, I said Team
I'm gonna crash out and get some sleep now, but, as soon as I wake up I've got a day of skinning ahead of me . I'm totally stoked. I dare say the Dragonlance Mod is going to fucking OWN!!! Now we need to find us a few coders who know their way around Python and maybe one who has a better understanding of some of the more advanced tags and "if's" in XML. Contrary to popular belief there IS more to XML than just editing values. Editing values is just the easiest thing to do with most Mods. I can already tell now though to implement some of the mechanics we'll need that some Python scripting will need to be done and I'm completely lost when i comes to Python.
How about now? More work? I added a simple loin cloth- 'cause I ain't too sure what you are asking for there. I can throw out some different stuff there. I *think* what you want is sort of a cloth-y/fur-type-looking thing but without the fur.
I am gonna warn you, I really, really suck at clothes. Armor, no problem. A body, no problem. Hair and cloths.... yikes. And it isn't necessarily *my* problem. See, Blender is a great program and all, but it is great because it is free. And, well, with similar "free" programs it has it's, um, issues. One thing that helps when doing stuff in Blender are its modifiers. Things like "mirror" (Jesus I loves my mirror), subsurf, smooth, bevel, displace, etc., are great but they can only do so much. And that leads me to a modifier called Shrinkwrap. I should be able to use shrink wrap to make clothes and other stuff, but it sucks donkey poop. Another way to do clothes is to actually weight paint the clothes, animate it, and then it looks more "cloth-like". Only problem with that for me it is a pain in the ass, and I feel clueless about it. Oh, not to mention that messing with stuff like that ramps up the poly count like a sumbitch. Oh, and if anyone out there knows of better ways to do stuff like clothes, hey, feel free to chime in. I would absolutely love to hear any ideas. But hopefully I can do stuff like the furry cloth/pants/leggings of what ya need in a different way though. Seriously man, I really do appreciate the feedback. Hair is also a hard thing to do and that is another thing. Supposedly the newer version of Blender is better at stuff like clothes, hair, and some particle physics among other stuff, but as of now the newer version of Blender is pretty much still in Alpha and crashes a lot (it's also buggy, supposedly missing a few functions, and would require relearning a lot of the UI- fun huh?).
Meh, sorry, rambling on there. Tell me what you think about the loin cloth there, I can hopefully monkey around with something you'll like.
PS. Hey, sadly, I think that minotaur has a better ass than me. I am jealous of my own creation.
*I keep saying "there" a lot. what's up with that? I feel Canadian there, which I ain't. Although my avatar is a really shitty Canadian beer. Hey, maybe that's why.
A little dwarf , um, guy... perhaps a goblin or gnoll, er something. He's cute....
Nice!
Look at the waist section of the model on the right, uhhhmm.. at first I was like.. "he's getting a bit too detailed".. then I was like "oohh.. it's a hand!"
Very Awesome. The legs are the perfect shape now . Well done my friend. The top part of the leg, from the waist to the knee, looks Perfect, dead on. The other two parts look a tad too long now and a little skinny from the side view. Here's a pic to show what I mean:
If you can shorten those two parts of the legs just a tad it will be %100 Perfect. The loin cloth looks totally Awesome as well. Great work there. It looks even better the way you did it than the "He-Man" example too I think.
The Dwarf is Awesome too. It's only missing one thing, a beard. Don't try to do individual hairs or anything, just add in a "beard shape". Actually, the He-Man loin cloth "shape" would be perfect for a beard. Slap it on the dwarf's face and I can skin it too look like a beard. Seriously that's an awesome dwarf, great work indeed.
When we make Kender you might be able to use the Dwarf model you have there and just make it skinnier and take off the helmet and add the shape of a high pony tail for hair and then we've got instant Kender . Seriously killer stuff man, great work!!!
Side note to Civfreak: I slept all day and have only been awake a little over an hour. I'll be starting the Draconian skin tonight after my wife falls asleep after we get back from the movies so I won't have the first skin posted until some time late tonight/tomorrow morning (Sunday). See, this always happens when I say I'm going to do something by a certain time. Life conspires against me to make me look like a liar as often as it can...LoL.
Okay, I beefed them up. Anymore beefed up and he won't have any knees. His lower legs will just be calf muscle and thigh muscle. Dude, I am glad you can do hair. That makes doing this a bunch easier. BTW, that loincloth looks weird. I will try to mess around with it. That little dwarf guy, thing was nothing serious, I don't think I even saved him. It was just a way to see if I could do a smaller model that looked like a dwarf/halfling type of figure. I will try and put in some time on that next though. I had some pretty cool stuff going on him before I quit. Spikes on his armor and stuff.
The legs look %100 perfect now man, great job . The size is perfect, position is perfect, spot on all around. Keep in mind when I say I can make things look like hair that it's just a skin. It still needs a basic shape. You just won't have to model individual hairs or anything. To see what I mean look back up at the pic of He_man. His hair is blond. If we were to model that you would have to put in the model piece that matches his hair "shape", but I would lay a skin over it that makes it look like it has individual hairs in it. It's like a picture of hair on something. If the model "shape" isn't right the hair picture will look stupid no matter how much detail I put in it. Just something to keep in mind.
Civfreak got ahold of me on Yahoo and we had a chat about making variations of units and I told him a little bit about some of the foundation game-play mechanics for the Mod. You need to get ahold of me as well and probably him too. Since you two are the modelers it will be important for you to collaborate your work.
Kinda sucks you didn't save the dwarf but if it only took you a few minutes so I guess it's no big deal. It was kick ass work though . It's looking like we'll have a lot of the models done way before we get the plugins to animate them and put them in game. I'm hoping we'll be able to apply some of the animations that already in game to some of our models, but for others we may have no choice but to do custom animations. Since the Minotaur has bull legs and not human legs we won't be able to use the standard human animation packs for him. We can probably use them for the Draconians and Kender and Dwarves though, at least I hope.
Again, excellent work man. The Minotaur is looking like a full on bad ass now. Next up will be at least 3 variants with different types of weapons and armors.
Beginings of a female centaur. Needs some work. How come horse owners and such don't take front pictures of horses?
This is something I'd actually like to take a stab at, though I don't have any real experience with it. Part of my work is doing a lot of Solidworks and Pro-E model development, so I'm familiar with 3d rendering, but just not for this type of work. What program would be a good one for me to pick up to start this kind of work? Also, is there someplace I could go to read how to skin models once they're built? (Skinning isn't something we do a lot of in my line of work).
You're just like me then, before using Blender the only experience I had was using those two engineering programs. The program I am using, and Admiral is Blender, version 2.49 in my case. Its a great program, and you can find tons of tutorials online on just about anything related to the program.
Just as a heads up, I'll tell you that when you model in Blender, its more of a visual thing and I'll explain myself lol. What I mean is when I started to use this program I was trying to use it like solidworks and Pro-E, in which you make sides by specific lengths and angles you input. That cause me trouble for a while because I was trying to make stuff fit all the time as if it were an engineering design lol.
Anywyas you could do that if you wanted to, but in Blender you can't measure in inches, cm's, etc; there is only Blender units which could be used to represent a certain unit but it ends up being a pain. Blah I kept babbling on, my point is get Blender but don't treat it like Pro-E and Solid Works and enjoy
Admiral, that is some really awesome work! The minotaur would be easy to convert to a fawn too, great stuff .
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