Ms. Marvel and Spiderman (most recent)

It's Alive! It's Alive!

This is the link to my first "animations", followed by a turntable of a bust of my model demonstrating the route I'd like to go for the hair. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAa8PNMELc0 The hair needs alot more modelling and styling, but for the purpose intended, it should be sufficient in it's current state.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAa8PNMELc0

A couple notes about the animating:

-there are no shape keys yet so there is some stretching and deformation at the joints(especially where the torso meets the limbs.

-they are still in the "blocking out" stage. By this I mean most key frames are set at multiples of 4 or 5, which provides a good basic concept, but lacks character.

-there is also a sash she wears that for the animation I removed. I would like to use the spline IK to rig it, but it seems that, at least in R2.57, this modifier is pretty fussy and finicky to use.

-the video may seem poor quality as screen recording is pretty taxing on my laptop. I think it turned out well enough.

About the animations themselves: Well, for starters, to those unfamiliar with the character, her name is Ms. Marvel. She is a character from the Marvel Universe(right in there with Spiderman, Ironman and Dr. Doom). I believe she currently has her own book, but has been affiliated with the Avengers. At this point in time I should state that, no, I have not sought out permission to use these characters, as of yet. Quite frankly, I don't belive the project is at a substantial enough state, that would justify the efforts taken on both parties behalf for such communications. Having said that if anything I've currently posted is viewed and thought to be offensive to Marvel Characters Inc., simply, kindly let me know and I would be happy to remove any offensive material. If I am able to stick it out and this project continues forward, I do intend to pursue the means to obtain said rights.

Okay, with that out of the way, Ms Marvel. Her power set includes enhanced strength and durability, flight and the ability to absorb and project energy, though I am not sure what type of energy. Also Carol Danvers(Ms Marvel's counterpart) was an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. prior to being "Ms. Marvel", in which she developed hand to hand combat skills and demonstrated high intellect. So what you are seeing is a demonstration of some basic strikes, the beginning of a energy projection animation some flight movements and basic walk and run cycles. I followed it up with the wig turntable to show the style used for modelling the hair and to show my intentions to not have a bald character.

Some random goals and notes about the project and possibly Blender:

-I would like to push the BGE, as this is a higher poly mesh(approx. 4500 w/o hair)aimed at running on a higher end machine.

-to best give a glimpse at what I'd like to capture, think of the movie, the Matrix: Revolutions. In particular recall the grandeur of the final battle between Neo and Mr. Smith. A good mix of close quarter combat and that epic, comic book-like action of people being tossed through buildings and fights spanning several blocks. In a nut shell I'd like to give a big, open playground, show casing some of Marvels characters, in which the user has to play.

-I am not an inventor, but rather an innovator, meaning I watch a movie or play a game and it seems my mind set instinctively goes, "that was good, but this could have made it better". So the fighting engine would be a collabaration of many titles I've played each bringing their good points and hopefully producing something great.

-the animations and character actions and reactions would be a combination of user input(similiar to Fight Night, Smack Down vs. Raw, etc) and character selection. Best put(I don't know if this is what qualifies as role playing), to as best as possible, put the user in the shoes of said character. Strengths and limitations. Super humans provide a vast variety of dynamics to play with. Ie. Juggernaught can take a beaten, so the user would really have to lay a beating to beat him, Ms Marvel/Ironman can fly, therefore you can fly, Green Goblin has a glider, in turn so do you and the list goes on.

-Looking at the Virtual fighter series, I really liked their approach to the combo system. I found it allowed for alot of control and creativity on behalf of the user. Personally, I'm tired of the three hit combos provided by most combat systems.

-I'd like to try increase replayability, by creating each matchup from the ground up. Ie. Wolverine would interact differently with Magneto than with Sabertooth.

-In regards to control layout I would like it to be designed simple with the potential to be complex. Button mashing younger siblings could still play and enjoy, but a more experienced, controlled combatant would have the upperhand. Answer simply lies in more emphasis on defensive controls. Fight Night is a perfect example.

-limit as much physics and use many smaller animations to hopefully achieve smooth character movement. Use the walk cycle to demonstrate, I have it broken down into four parts. They are: "start walk", "left foot stride", "right foot stride" and "end walk" stages.

Well that is it for now. Thank you if you've taking the time to read this.

Back to the Drawing Board

Well I've spent the last little while taking a deep look into such subjects as anatomy, topology artistic styles and proportions and really studied piles of images, models, videos and watched and read many tutorials. After all that I really comtemplated starting from scratch, but the thought of all the time and effort put into the existing models really weighed against such an idea. About two weeks ago, entirely out of curiousity I began modelling a person just to see how much I could do in an evening. That went surprisingly well and snowballed into a completely new Ms. Marvel model. I am much happier with these results. I realized I'm getting much faster with the modelling and texturing process. The current mesh looks more polished and has a considerably lower face count (4866 to 7588 on the old mesh). I've included a before and after and as I've mentioned my brother is working on 2D art so I've also included an almost coompleted load screen of the Juggernaut.

Before

After

Load Screen

I haven't posted in awhile due to the holidays, but have continued to work. Over the holidays I started reading comics again. In particular the Civil War series, the Dark Reign series, the House of M series and the Secret Invasion. All very good reads for any comic book fans. Norman Osborn is my new favorite villian, replacing the Joker. Anyways this encouraged a change of scenary and I've taken to working on T.O.C. again. Here are some updated pics. Other news is that my brother has moved from the enviroments department to the 2D arts department. I also learned a new uv unwrapping technique from a fellow blender user(matthew). Basically the ability layer islands on the same unwrap and assign them to different materials.

A late post and not much to report for November. The murmillo character is all modelled and texturing has begun on each object. The final face count is 11 100. That may sound like alot, but bare in mind this game is a two player fighter and I believe I'll be able to get away with it. I've also run into some problems with baking textures that will hopefully get resolved soon. Just sort of a before and after to show the progress.

Normal Maps: High poly to Low poly

For October's post I've started using the high poly to low poly method for creating textures and have so far really liked the process as opposed to creating textures solely in Gimp. It eliminates a lot of the guess work and calculating that goes into creating a height template, then generating a normal map in Gimp. Plus it's been a nice change creating high poly meshes with being able to model and not having face count constantly in the back of your mind. Baking ambient occlusion maps and adding them as a layer to textures created in Gimp also creates a bit of noise which produces a little bit of flavor to solid colors as well as emphasizing light and shadow. In general I've found it to make the texture process quicker and less painful. I have a couple shots of before and afters. They are still in need of few tweaks and adjustments though. Unfortunately there were no updates to the coliseum as my brother's hard drive crashed. We didn't lose anything, but we also didn't gain anything this month. Thankfully he's back up and running now. I'd also like to give a quick, really vague mention of a third project brewing on the back burners. “The Invincible Man” As far as it's use in Blender, it will be making use of renders as opposed to the game engine. In what form, is yet to be established. So ya... “The Invincible Man”... it's coming... watch for it.

Attention to Details...

I've decided to start updated once a month, this being September's post. I've finished two models: a gladius and a helmet worn by a murmillo. These models are game ready. Some details have been added to the emperor's box. The awning has a shader map and the throne is being modelled. We are trying to put alot of attention towards details. I'm currently working on the murmillo's body. Hopefully by next post I'll having some decent shots.

emperor's box

murmillo helmet

gladius