Textured Chaps
by Steve Acaster · 03/02/2009 (2:54 pm) · 8 comments
I've been busy to the extent that February passed without a single blog post. Busy sorting out a host of chaps - and not the sort of chaps exotic dancers may wear either, but manly chaps - and no, not male exotic dancers, although it does feature men in uniform.
Officer Dibble now looks a lot less like a two-tone blue blob
Having never actually done anything like this before, it was all a bit of an unknown quantity - but having said that I'm new to almost every part of game design beyond BSP level design and scripting play events (player hits trigger = bad guys spawn/action ensues/badgers attack)
Included in the top left of each series of images is the original, raw version of the model type, as used in my TGE Dubious Demo way back in April'08.
Bald Space Marine free zone, moustaches and mullets only - the sign of a man so manly he bleeds cheap aftershave
Being a great believer in Keep It Simple Stoopid I based as much as possible off each other to reuse things like normal maps and share blueprints. There are 4 base face types, 3 base jacket types, 5 base hat types on a single image file, everyone wears the same gloves and everyone loves denim and hiking boots.
I was also concerned with the horror of stereotype which is the crime against decency, creativity and intellect better known as the generic bald space marine. So everyone has hair and plenty of it, both on head and face. Everyone wears a hat. More game characters should have lush and bountiful moustaches and bad teeth.
Action heroes may occaisonally get stuck in a lift armed only with a string vest, but no-one ever puts a cheap suit with a bretton cap.
That's about it on the character modelling front for the time being. There's still a bit of tweaking required when the models pose, a few animations to sort out (though I did alter/faff with some in the last month), and some other related work yet to do. But I'm planning on sorting that out at a later date.
Next up is back to level design and a specific test. Now that I have pretty much all of the required textures/maps/models/assests/etc for an environment prebuilt, I need to see how fast I can "knock up" a complete level. Also, prior to this but possible at the same time, I have an idea to try on building a BSP in a slightly different manner to my first level.
And if you haven't seen on the forums, Alan James came up with a solution to the TGEA_DIF exporter green/purple problem. He claims it's a hacky solution, but it is still a solution which makes the brush-border issue much easier to live with. There's a download of a hacked DIF_exporter on the above link.
Officer Dibble now looks a lot less like a two-tone blue blobHaving never actually done anything like this before, it was all a bit of an unknown quantity - but having said that I'm new to almost every part of game design beyond BSP level design and scripting play events (player hits trigger = bad guys spawn/action ensues/badgers attack)
Included in the top left of each series of images is the original, raw version of the model type, as used in my TGE Dubious Demo way back in April'08.
Bald Space Marine free zone, moustaches and mullets only - the sign of a man so manly he bleeds cheap aftershaveBeing a great believer in Keep It Simple Stoopid I based as much as possible off each other to reuse things like normal maps and share blueprints. There are 4 base face types, 3 base jacket types, 5 base hat types on a single image file, everyone wears the same gloves and everyone loves denim and hiking boots.
I was also concerned with the horror of stereotype which is the crime against decency, creativity and intellect better known as the generic bald space marine. So everyone has hair and plenty of it, both on head and face. Everyone wears a hat. More game characters should have lush and bountiful moustaches and bad teeth.
Action heroes may occaisonally get stuck in a lift armed only with a string vest, but no-one ever puts a cheap suit with a bretton cap.That's about it on the character modelling front for the time being. There's still a bit of tweaking required when the models pose, a few animations to sort out (though I did alter/faff with some in the last month), and some other related work yet to do. But I'm planning on sorting that out at a later date.
Next up is back to level design and a specific test. Now that I have pretty much all of the required textures/maps/models/assests/etc for an environment prebuilt, I need to see how fast I can "knock up" a complete level. Also, prior to this but possible at the same time, I have an idea to try on building a BSP in a slightly different manner to my first level.
And if you haven't seen on the forums, Alan James came up with a solution to the TGEA_DIF exporter green/purple problem. He claims it's a hacky solution, but it is still a solution which makes the brush-border issue much easier to live with. There's a download of a hacked DIF_exporter on the above link.
About the author
One Bloke ... In His Bedroom ... Making Indie Games ...
#2
03/02/2009 (3:45 pm)
@Alan, that's good news on the exporter front. With GG moving away from brush based geometry in T3D I was thinking that might be the end of updates/fixes for Constructor and map2difplus_tgea. 
#3
EDIT: Then I actually read your text. ;)
03/02/2009 (8:34 pm)
Where are the chaps? All I see are guys. I was expecting to see some assless chaps action...Blue Oyster Bar style.EDIT: Then I actually read your text. ;)
#4
03/02/2009 (11:05 pm)
Is that a town out in the middle of no where? They look like a bunch of inbreads lol (maybe they should of wore chaps =p ). Had to pick on you, congratz on how far you've come man. 
#5
03/02/2009 (11:06 pm)
Very nice texturing Steve! Those models are looking great now. 
#6
Though it seems like all their eyes are half-closed. I thought this was the English countryside, not the French!
But congratulations and very good work all round.
03/03/2009 (4:00 am)
Those faces are... ruggedly handsome...Though it seems like all their eyes are half-closed. I thought this was the English countryside, not the French!
But congratulations and very good work all round.
#7
03/03/2009 (8:00 am)
I like the textures- it's hard to get fabrics to look like they're supposed to. 
#8
Textures look good the only issue I would say is the fabrics textures the threads are far to big. look at the scale like you look at it and say that looks like denim. if you look at the size of hands to finger vs the thread you see that you have about a half a cm size thread that make up ur jeans there. The yellow vest has a bit if the same issue other than that looks great!
03/03/2009 (2:58 pm)
lol I wasn't sure what I was gonna find when I clicked on this. Chaps has a totally different meaning in America. Over there is is like saying fellow over here it is pant with no bottoms.Textures look good the only issue I would say is the fabrics textures the threads are far to big. look at the scale like you look at it and say that looks like denim. if you look at the size of hands to finger vs the thread you see that you have about a half a cm size thread that make up ur jeans there. The yellow vest has a bit if the same issue other than that looks great!
Torque Owner Alan James
Really Really Good Things Studio
Hopefully he'll post a Plan about his, since it's *Not* a code trick like mine, but a genuine fix. I'm going to encourage him to do so when he's satisfied with testing it. (It seemed to work great for me).
Anyway, the models are looking good! I know exactly where you are coming from on the whole modeling thing, give me a BSP based editor over a mesh based one anytime!