Indie art pipeline

I am happy to announce that I have finally put together a 6 week course called Player Model Mechanics for Torque School. I focused on using the less expensive tools like Milkshape, Fragmotion and Ultimate Unwrap to create an art pipeline that is easy to understand and powerful.

Torque School

Here is a quick look at what I have planned:

Week One:

Dissecting the player: The class will take a game ready player model and break it down to understand the basic mechanics.

Discussion: The configuration export file and player components.



Week Two:

Groupings and UV maps: Class will break a model into groupings and UV mapping. Creating textures with painting program. Tips and tricks of the trade.

Discussion: Techniques for UV mapping using groups in Ultimate Unwrap. Preparation of Levels of Detail for export.


Week Three:

Rigging the player model: The class will take existing skeleton rig and correctly weight it to a player model.

Discussion: Procedures and techniques. The player's construct script file.



Week Four:

Animation: Using Fragmotion the class will delve into poses and animation sequences.

Discussion: Full body animations and partial body animations and blended animations. Advanced configuration file setups.


Week Five:

Advanced animations and triggers: The class will add face animations such as blinking and laughing to the player model. Triggers for foot prints will be added to animations.

Discussion: Typical animations added to give more a more realistic feel to player models. How ambient and advanced animations and triggers are handled in the script and game engine.



Week Six:

Guest Speaker: Dave Young will be explaining the concept of multi mesh and multi textures in the Torque Game Engine.

Multi textures and meshes: Class will add mesh and textures to player model. Learn scripting guides for changing textures and meshes used for hair and clothing. Selling art, contract work and team work..

Discussion: Clothing and hair created with hidden meshes. Multiple textures and switching them in game. Selling yourself and your art. Knowing your limitations.