Updated Character Models, New project that requires export.

[Zeealex]

I'm not sure how welcome this idea will be, but i'll give it a shot.

first and foremost, happy new year, i hope 2013 will be great for you

I've Got 3dsMax 2012 under a student(non commercial use) license agreement, and i've taken a look at the program a bit, seeing as it is completely useless when it comes to cryengine exports i thought i'd give the old ghost recon models a shot, i got the exported ones from here and took a look. and thought about smoothing the model out a bit making it less bumpy.

so, even though the method is laughably simple, and the models don't look particularly amazing at this present moment. i've tesselated the polys and placed a smoothing effect on the model to remove some of it's initial boxiness, the models will eventually as i learn to use the program more, will undergo a full update.

Initial Character's face. (US Marine From IT)

Character's face after Tesselation and Smoothing:

(yes the gaps at the neck have been sealed.)

Despite the small shape loss and "scarring" of the model, the tesselation and smoothing seems to remove the blockiness fairly well and makes the face more, facey!

i'm sure someone else has probably experimented with these methods before, it wouldn't surprise me.

what i do know is the exporter to get this in game won't work on anything later than 3ds max 5 am i wrong?

would anyone be interested in attaching bones and exporting this to the game to see what it looks like textured and in the game environment?

let me know how it looks to you and/or if you can export it to the game for me.

thanks

you know who.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Zeealex

[Operative]

Hi Alex. I also got 3DSMax student's license (tough mine is 2010) and, yeah, only up to 3DSM 2005 will accept the RedStorm plugin.

[Hammer]

Yep you need Max5 or below.. and TBH attaching the bones is a nightmare of a job and is very hit & miss with the RSB plugin, which is why more people on the sit have not tried it. Good luck

[JohnTC02]

Just thought I should mention that you need to be aware of the poly count for these models, "cleaning" them up will dramatically increase the poly count for the model.

I'm not sure but I think the total poly count for the entire map in GR is around 20k, I'm sure that Tinker or someone can tell you for sure.

In GR:AW2 I like to keep the poly count as a low as possible to reduce lag so my buildings are lower than 7k poly's each, but I don't have the same restrictions as you do in GR, the poly count can be around 15k per model.

[Hammer]

There was a discusion about poly count not long ago in another mod thead, If i remember wright the 20K limit is the amount of polys in view at any 1 time and not a totoal count. But im sure someone will correct me )

[teppe]

http://www.ghostrecon.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=59261&st=60

Link to poly-discussion,

[Zeealex]

I am aware of poly count limit and optimisation has reduced the model poly count to 9,949 polys and 5,555 verts without loss of too much quality.

the process is experimental, i'm not saying the model updates will mean that they are smoother, it might be that the equipment is updated and changed a little.

but if attaching bones and exporting is a problem, then that's going to stop this going anywhere.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Zeealex

[Zeealex]

had a go at updating the character's kit a bit. this is so far what i have.

the textures are just reference ones i did quick, nothing marvellous, trying to get my head around the UVW mapping.

I have been using other models from the net to help me at the moment, as i'm not amazingly competent with this yet, but the annoying process of editing the vest to fit the model was suffered by me alone, trust me it was more than a resize.

like i said, i will make the vests myself as i grow used to the program, they will be the ones i will (hopefully) have exported, but this is an idea of what i'm going for, only it will be a T-shirt he's wearing not a long sleeve shirt.

[teppe]

Hey, that looks briilliant!

[Zeealex]

thanks teppe!

[squad_e]

DUDE!

THIS IS SOME SERIOUS WORK!

keep it up!

[Zeealex]

thanks squad_e

lol

can you keep posts like that one to a minimal across the forum please teppe, the forums arent chatrooms as such and they add no real contribution to the topics they are in. thanks

completed version of the character above:

and another character:

the colouring on the vest isn't right on this one, i am looking into that

more on the way.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Zeealex

[SnowFella]

Yep you need Max5 or below.. and TBH attaching the bones is a nightmare of a job and is very hit & miss with the RSB plugin, which is why more people on the sit have not tried it. Good luck

Call BS on that one. Back when I did character work, mainly cut and paste work as in swaping bits from one model to another but also new pouches, it used to be a 10 minute operation to merge in the bones, set vertex weights and export. Only models I ever had a problem with and that took longer was characters wearing ghille, bit of a pain to get the ghille bits weighed correctly to minimise stretching.

With short sleeve characters if they are meant as regular teammates I think I remember that the arms need to be separate from the rest of the texture. Something way back in old memories tells me GR randomly selects face textures for regulars and you could end up in a situation where you have a coloured face with white arms

[Zeealex]

With short sleeve characters if they are meant as regular teammates I think I remember that the arms need to be separate from the rest of the texture. Something way back in old memories tells me GR randomly selects face textures for regulars and you could end up in a situation where you have a coloured face with white arms

oh yeah, i forgot about that, he can be a hero character, i'll adjust the face texture of one of them. thanks for reminding me of that, i'll remember that for next time

[Hammer]

Yep you need Max5 or below.. and TBH attaching the bones is a nightmare of a job and is very hit & miss with the RSB plugin, which is why more people on the sit have not tried it. Good luck

Call BS on that one. Back when I did character work, mainly cut and paste work as in swaping bits from one model to another but also new pouches, it used to be a 10 minute operation to merge in the bones, set vertex weights and export. Only models I ever had a problem with and that took longer was characters wearing ghille, bit of a pain to get the ghille bits weighed correctly to minimise stretching.

With short sleeve characters if they are meant as regular teammates I think I remember that the arms need to be separate from the rest of the texture. Something way back in old memories tells me GR randomly selects face textures for regulars and you could end up in a situation where you have a coloured face with white arms

I think calling BS on that is a bit strong dont you ? After all, were not all experts in 3Dmax and i spoke from my experence , But im sure now theres an expert on the scene all will be expanded..

[SnowFella]

Hardly expert as I haven't done it in near a 7 odd years now but from memory the key was to weld all your verts before merging the bones in (10 000 polys and 5 500 verts doesn't sound welded btw) and generally most verts were reasonably weighed even without having to do any editing. Wrists were from memory the worst bit as you could end up with some serious deformation, think I worked around that by mainly making characters with gloves on.

[Zeealex]

It was welded in a tiny area, but I kind of scrapped the initial smoothing idea and went for something that takes up less polys I'll weld the verts on these two new ones. And yes! That's a good point actually, I remember seeing the deformation I think you speak of in Dieter munz, I shall add a pair of better gloves to the characters

Being out of the modelling buisiness for 7 years doesn't take away your expert badge snow!

I always thought calling BS was a term of phrase?

[SnowFella]

Well, out of the GR modeling for 7 or so years but I've modeled a fair bit since then. It's only in the last 3 or so years that I hardly have touched 3dsm. Haven't used the skin modifier since I stopped GR work though.

For ###### and giggles though I fired up max and opened an ooooold GR character with the bones already merged in. 90% of verts were already weighed reasonably even without any editing, odd one here and there that was outside of the envelopes and needed editing. Key is to cycle between frame 0 (the T-pose) and frame 1 while still being in "Edit envelope" mode. Anything that is outside the envelopes will stand out like crazy and all you need to do is attach it to the appropriate IK node.

[Zeealex]

Can't be any worse than the 'fun' time I had with cryengine I suppose. So, I'll give skinning on these two a go, sounds quite simple and more trial and error I'll put them into a cute little pose if all works well

You are quite good with the tips snow, thanks.

[teppe]

lol

can you keep posts like that one to a minimal across the forum please teppe, the forums arent chatrooms as such and they add no real contribution to the topics they are in. thanks

more on the way.

I'm sorry Alex, but I assume i'm heir over what i'm writting, through if there's any rules agaisn't saying suchar comments as I did, please show it too me, and I should stop. But please respect that if there's no rules about it, I can write it. Thanks.

/t

[RileyFletcher_01]

Forum Guidelines

[2.2] Try and stay on-topic within a thread, start a new thread if you move onto a new topic. Excessive off-topic discussion within a topical thread will be removed if it detracts from the discussion.

I notice that a lot of people, not just you, continually go off-topic and it gets annoying after a thread is derailed. It is especially disrespectful to do it in a modding thread because it appears that you don't care about the mod and would rather discuss other matters.

Just keep that in mind when you're posting

[Zeealex]

precisely, i try to apologize if i feel what i'm about to say or have said might drive the thread off topic.

in the mean time, getting back on with life, going to try a female character next me thinks.

[Zeealex]

eurrgh skinning these things is annoying me, i'm adding the corresponding vertices to the bones, and then moving on to the next BEFORE deselecting the vertices, and when i move the helper, nothing happens! can someone talk me through the PROPER method of skinning please? i'm obviously doing something stupidly wrong and the youtube tutorials are useless.

Edited January 5, 2013 by Zeealex

[SnowFella]

Alright, when you talk about moving a helper what exactly are you doing?

All I used to do when it came to skinning was merge the bones in, attach the mesh to the bones and then start looking for lost vertices by skipping from frame 0 to frame 1.

You checked out the old tutorial that Ruin did in the "recon" section?

http://www.ghostrecon.net/html/recon-chr.htm

[Tinker]

I am aware of poly count limit and optimisation has reduced the model poly count to 9,949 polys and 5,555 verts without loss of too much quality.

Quick test with a basic GR 3ds file. Selected all poly and hit the MSmooth button. Result Around 4000 polys. Here you can go in and chamfer hard edges, put some detail in, optimize, and all will be fine. Check the tut posted above from Ruin.