END OF PROJECT

END OF PROJECT

(for now.. mwuhahahahaaaa!)

Random extra bits I did and forgot to put on blog

This is just a little forcefield experiment. Just to see what a fake forcefield would look liek on the Anthropod.. again the forcefield being another element of the game.

This next picture is a shot of the skeletoid with 3D inventory space around him. The parts around the character are taken directly from the game and placed around it to demonstrate what my version of the character would be like in a more modern version of the game. obviously a more modern version would have its own graphical version but it is just here to demonstrate.

The idea here is that the character would probably breathe or animate somehow on this screen and when you equip it with weapons the weapons will appear on the body in real time. You could also zoom around in 3D and place the items behind and infront of other items in the inventory spaces too. So instead of an item needing 2 dimensions to fit into, they will now need 3.

Newer Anthropod Textures

I'm still not happy with the texture and here are a few more experiments..





With the darker one I tried a whole newer look, based from the fur/feathers of these animals..




Teh reason for this is because I wanted the Anthropod more purple, but retaining some blue at teh same time. And I think these are perfect examples, except mine didn't really look as good or nearly as natural. I'm also taking something from which I've seen on feathers and putting it on skin... which is probably a recipe for disaster, hence why it doesn't quite look right.

The second grey background version is a lot better I think and more true to the original design adn I think is rpobably the best so far and which I should probably stick with.

Anthropod Rig

I have created the Anthropod Rig and with it some poses.. But the weighting was far to difficult with the time remaining on the project that I have no time to proper weight. I thought this would be the easiest to pose because of it's simple structure compared to the skeletoid, yet I knew the legs would be difficult, but it turned out that the rig wasn't bad, it was the weighting that needs to be done on it which is too difficult.

And although my rig was good, the spine part of the rig for some reason broke. It's 'fine' but would not let me rotate backwards and there is no time left to fix this unfortunately.

I did (barely) manage to get the Anthropod in a rough crouching position..





But I had the Prone planned out to have the back rotated but of course could not do this in the end. The plan was to have the Anthropod laying down like normal, but rotating his chest upwards in an odd (and hopefully creepy) way. This would be at a 90 degrees to the body. the idea behind this is that the Anthropod's body is slightly jelly like, it would still move like a humanoid adn have tough skin, but it's insides would be like jelly, making it able to bend into awkward positions that humans cannot. This also means having flexible bones. This is the only decent way of having such a design being able to go 'prone', or at least half prone.

Of course it cannot prone like humans as it's head would be facing the floor and it wouldn't be able to see. I only really wanted from around the shoulders to top of head rotated upwards but unfortunately i could not do this.


Oh, back to the rig.. The arm IK handles I used arn't the conventional RC IK which create the nice bend for the arm. Instead, I thought 'd use a spline IK across each section of the arm. This was to give a lot more control over each part and makes them move more like worms on a body rather than arms. This si to further fortify my idea of the body being kind of like jelly rather than completely tough and completely resembling a human.

New Positions, prone and flight

These are some new pictures of the skeletoid in prone position. I created them with the gun and a mine and a version with dual guns as this is one of the capabilities in the game.

And these are the flight poses.

Crouching Skeletoid, Hidden Texture

These are some shots of a better crouching pose of the skeletoid. As you can see it is holding the newly textured gun and mine.

This first shot I tried to do from a distance to demonstrate the maximum distance you would be looking at seeing when zooming in on a character in game. The original game itself didn't have any zoom because everything was 2 dimensional (yet isometric) but I would presume in today's standards of video games it would probably have the function tozoom in, and this distance is what I imagine would be the maximum zoom distance. (Because it is a strategy game and zooming in any further would be pointless and would ruin gameplay).

You're probably wondering why I wasted time on high textures if you won't see the detail in game, but again the character WILL be shown larger than this in the game but not during gameplay, only in menus and video clips will the larger poly and texture files be used (but they would be used).

This is to hopefully give you a more idea of what the characters would loo like in the game.

These other two shots are just shots to show the position in a closer perspective for closer inspection.

Textured weapons

So, as I said before I have been texturing the new boomeroid and have also textured the disrupter gun.

Here are the final textures.

I like these but I might redo the boomeroid at a later date as I'm not completely happy with it. It's turned out nice, but like the skeletoid, it could probably do with some texture (other than a bump map) to bring it to life a bit more.

Here are a few experiments I made before I had my finished texture for the disrupter gun.

A lot of the first ones just looked like paint on a wall, but again I was concentrating more on bump textures. I later textured the basic texture map and with both of them started to look a lot better. This proves how important it is to have a good texture and bump map in conjuction with each other, because without it it can look awful.

And here are the final textures for both low poly and high poly models.

Low Poly - 494 poly

High Poly - 1962 poly

The high poly model is 1962 polygons. This is too much for in game but menus and prerenders it is perfect.

Other weaponry

I have now created some more weapons. the mine is what was made before, but the new additions are the Disrupter gun (middle) and a brainsucker pod (right).

The disrupter gun is another alien weapon seen in the game. This is one of the basic popular weapons in the game and is a good choice for the demonstrated poses coming shortly. The brainsucker pod is ammo which goes along with a launcher which I haven't made yet. I shall come back to model the launcher later if I have enough time, but really only one weapon and a grenade are need for the time being to help demonstrate the different poses the characters will be doing in game.

The following are reference material from the game from which I worked from.

All these weapons will be textured in the near future to match the quality of the characters that will be holding them.

Boomeroid and Posing

These are pictures of a weapon from Xcom apocalypse. It is the 'boomeroid'. An alien weapon either the Anthropod or the Skeletoid would use. I have made this to help further demonstrate the purpose of my characters and will hopefully help make my characters look more like computer game characters rather than 3D pieces of art.

These will help greatly with the poses.. one of which I have created already.

This is a quick pose which is meant to portray a crouching position. A position possible for the characters in the game. As you can see I have placed the mine in it's hand to help demonstrate the characters purpose.

If you look closely on the third and fourth pictures you will notice that it wasn't a simple task of just smoothing the object (although I did smooth it) because noticeably on the third image you can see a lot of the vertices are messed up near the joins where the middle is more square and the outside is more round. I later fixed this (with some time) to kind of flatten the the rounder parts and make the middle bit more smooth, reconnecting them all together to create the finished piece.

Say Cheese

High poly character snap shot. "Say Cheese"

EDIT (Oops forgot to give the skeletoid the new texture.. oh well you get the idea)

Retexturing (again)

I know I said I'd be concentrating on posing, but I thought I'd redo the texture slightly. I tried changing it completely on the first three just to see if the overall colour could look better. I tried one more human looking skin colour, one more cream and one more orange.. looking more like the referenced image.

The last ones I experimented with a new texture on it. got a dirty looking texture and painted it on my texture for the skin and kept changing it slightly see how it looked. I think it made it look a lot more realistic. Tehy are only subtle differences but look closely especially around the belly/chest and you'll see what I have changed.

You see, I got the idea from another photo on the Internet of varicose veins (which I looked up before for the bump texture). This is different than the bump used before, just a normal photo but of the leg of a varicose vein subject.

In this photo the colour slightly resembles that of the skeletoid and is obviously very different than the normal healthy leg on the right. On closer inspection you can see dark patches where the body is obviously not healthy (other than the overall skin tone). In the latter of the experiments I tried to copy this look with the dirty texture I mentioned. but of course placed all over the body, rather than just the legs. I think this turned out quite successful, especially the very last image.