PlaneShift
Fan Area => Fan Art => Topic started by: Stydracos on October 17, 2004, 02:06:13 pm
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My first monster created in the hopes to learn more about modelling/animating and hopefully to contribute to Planeshift itself.
The Forager
This beasty belongs to an as yet unnamed insect hive society... which relies on these relatively docile creatures to gather its resources from outside of the hive/nest. I have roughly worked out my concept for the creature and its hive. Anyway more info on these will come later.
The forager beast forages for the hive, normally docile they will only engage in conflict if they think you are considered food; if they are under attack; if aiding another forager or if they are securing a food source from competitors.
Unfortunately this leads to \'disputes\' in farmland regions as farmers attempt to prevent these raiders from stripping their fields bare or carrying off domestic animals.
A foragers primary task is to raid the surrounding areas of the hive; to gorge itself on food ( to bring back food from its holding stomach to share); to gather materials for the hive.
Mesh Totals:
Verts: 108
Faces: 219
(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/forager.jpg)
Click an image below to view a large version.
(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/perspective_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/perspective.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/front_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/front.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/left_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/left.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/back_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/back.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/bottom_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/bottom.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/fronttop_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/fronttop.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/topback_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/topback.jpg)(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/topside_sm.jpg) (http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/topside.jpg)
(http://www.koali.com.au/stydracos/Planeshift/Forager/foragersize.gif)
Notes : The texture at the moment is quite large, however reducing it back to 256x256 shows only a slight drop quality, which I can improve easily.
Excuse the lighting if it seems a little too dark, I haven\'t added any lighting.
I\'m now getting its bones together :) or learning too, then it\'ll be animation and conversion. I have a lot to learn!
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wow, thats pretty kick-a$$. I really like it. Really good design. I would be happy to do a search n destroy on that suka. Thats good stuff Stydracos, keep it up.
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Very nice Stydracos!
I want to model monsters, but as I am new to 3d I have no idea where to start. Any advice?
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Nice, very low-poly, yet semi-detailed...
I was thinking of modeling such a concept but you beet me to it, maybe modeling a queen & some \"Soldier Harvesters\" then we can make a quest for it kill the queen harvest or somthing... could model a large cave to go into & search for the queen....
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Very Nice, Im sure this could be put in-game. The textures seem fine to me. Good Model. 8)
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Heh that is really good, maybe you and Zeraph should work together to get the whole race done.
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Originally posted by Zeraph
Nice, very low-poly, yet semi-detailed...
I was thinking of modeling such a concept but you beet me to it, maybe modeling a queen & some \"Soldier Harvesters\" then we can make a quest for it kill the queen harvest or somthing... could model a large cave to go into & search for the queen....
lol what a coincidance, i wrote a quest yesterday on something very much like that. its in wishlist. give me a PM if you want to see the whole version wid the details, Zeraph.
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Good idea Armeen, Zeraph and Stydracos could do this easily, my advice, enlist the help of ArcaneFalcon, another talented individual.
Tapo, you\'re thinking this could be your Orca race aren\'t you? I read your quest and I approve of it, except for the name of the adventuring troupe, change it, and I\'m happy.
So does anyone have any ideas on where to start with monster design? What is the best way? I am eager to learn. Did you use box modelling and extrusion? Or Splines?
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Those are awsome !
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Indeed, that is great stuff Stydracos. I can\'t help but think of the Kwama from Morrowind when I see \"forager\" and hear talk of soldiers and caves of these. I\'ll see if I can find the kwama art, I\'ve got it here somewhere...
:emerald:
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Arcane, that was my first thought as well, Kwama, stupid little things they were.
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Here, got it. I\'ll only link to it, \'cause it\'s like 200 some kb. http://www.freepgs.com/falcon/images/Splash_KwamaWarrior.jpg
Edit: These guys live in caves and harvested the kwama eggs that the queen layed. The little guys you could find outside, but the workers and warriors were only found inside their caves.
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Originally posted by Adeli
Very nice Stydracos!
I want to model monsters, but as I am new to 3d I have no idea where to start. Any advice?
My advice is to play around first, don\'t aim too high straight away. Do some models just to learn where everything is in your 3d program -> tool wise, get used to all the cool stuff and see what it is useful for...
Tutorials are handy, if you don\'t want to do them... just reading them can help give you quick tips on tools you didn\'t know about or techniques.
A good tip is don\'t be afraid to start again, sometimes if you\'ve got a screwy model wasting time fixing it would be better served doing it more carefully fromm scratch.
You\'ll probably end up with a better result and especially now that you have a rough idea on what you wanted.
Another tip is to save often and using slightly different names (I use a number on the end) that way you can\'t lose any good work through error or through optimizing etc.
As for 3d programs well thats a different topic all together... not one I can really offer a good answer for as it comes down to personal choice. I\'d suggest finding any demos or free 3d programs (Some have been mentioned in the forums) and giving them a go.
Hope that helps!
*edit* I know I double posted, I just wanted to split the posts up and well answer a bit more personally. */edit*
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Thankyou all for the positive feedback!
The model was created using splines, which I surfaced and converted to mesh. It is based off a mouse spider originally. It had around 600 faces so I set about changing it and slowly optimising it until a form took shape that pleased my eye. Eventually I had a model I couldn\'t change much further. I optimised it still, eventually a bit too much as I had to recreate the legs from scratch. I exported a 1024x1024 bmp using texporter and set about making a skin.
An insect is no original idea I admit, but what satisfied me about this insect is that it is the result of a journey.
This journey was playing around rather then setting out specifically to make it, in that way I consider it unique to me.
However this creature needed a reason to exist a purpose for being... it needed a source and a purpose. Ants and bees are the perfect inspiration for any hive... admittedly though it has great influence from Gothic and Gothic 2. There are creatures ingame called mine crawlers and field raiders, one looks like an huge ant thing and the other a huge upright beetle. I have to admit I never thought of the Kwama, perhaps I find them too uninspiring.
I hope to one day model what it is I see in my mind, different hive species living in different areas. Great forest hives made from leaves and secretions on the forest floor and in the greatest trees. Under ground hives of stone and rock, carved from the jaws of vicious warrior/workers who protect the inner nest... a place filled with the Queen. She is both ruler and prisoner, too heavy and bloated to move she serves as life giver and controls the hives very survival. These creatures are afterall very large and with size comes low numbers a hive would only consist of 30 - 60 members depending on size and food sources. I also have models for warriors and a few complete queen concepts... but the wait until the forager is done ;) (still need to be texture mapped and textured too :S ) oh I also have a cute pupae.
I am happy there are quests this creature may fill, for now though I\'m concentrating on my end goal.
Complete a model and submit it to the devs and see what they say. In order to do that I\'m on focused on this model atm and trying to be realistic about my task. Besides I hope to learn to add bones properly and convert over to the desired format without a hitch.... trust me I have many models that will follow after I manage that..... riding animals... odds and ends... weaponry... a boat somewhere (damn harddrive crash lost me 80% of my stockpile!) etc all at various stages waiting to be finished and seen ;) .
Anyway typed so much I\'ve forgotten what I was saying :). So I\'ll end by saying this model took ~8 hours to make, ~8 hours to texture.... the hardest part is finding the time atm to do this stuff :D. I\'ll post some raw images of the queen and warrior etc concepts later.
*edit* I am tired while typing this so I\'m trying to correct my most obvious errors */edit*
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I know a lot of the tools, but I\'m still learning, I got Blender and hated it... the UI was horrible...
I now have 3dsmax6, and am working my way through that.
I even have GMAX, which is a modified max4
LWW are sick of people trying to submit weapons, just so you know.
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Originally posted by Adeli
I know a lot of the tools, but I\'m still learning, I got Blender and hated it... the UI was horrible...
I now have 3dsmax6, and am working my way through that.
I even have GMAX, which is a modified max4
LWW are sick of people trying to submit weapons, just so you know.
I have 3dsmax 5 and love it!
It all started by installing the demo of 3dmax. I knew then that this was something I wanted to learn and well was hooked. Little did I know the the interface stuck in my head and when playing with other demos, freeware etc they could match the ease of use.
So how could I resist! unfortunately I haven\'t done the things I\'ve wanted to do... hopefully with some better time management I can ;).
I know about the weapons thing, hence why I haven\'t posted anything about them or images I think you\'d like them though, low poly with nice texture maps.
I\'m also not going to submit to LWW... last time I was there I wasn\'t impressed with a slight difference between the legal agreement there to the one on the PS site (I preferred the latter). While I don\'t doubt it would probably be excercised exactly the same way I am careful about these things. Careful enough to send a few emails to both people running the site at the time about it and was ignored; (maybe they were too busy who knows?) the result was I stopped modelling for PS.
That was until I saw a few models here and thought well maybe through the forum I can still offer something to PS without going through a middle man. I believe it was the pterosaurs that inspired me to restart ;).
The main thing I want do is produce something complete and hear if what I am doing is liked. Hopefully all a dev has to do by then is have a look and if they like what they see they can PM me and It\'ll make my day.
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I\'m also not going to submit to LWW... last time I was there I wasn\'t impressed with a slight difference between the legal agreement there to the one on the PS site (I preferred the latter). While I don\'t doubt it would probably be excercised exactly the same way I am careful about these things. Careful enough to send a few emails to both people running the site at the time about it and was ignored; (maybe they were too busy who knows?) the result was I stopped modelling for PS.
They are very busy right now, and I don\'t think they are replying to anything. Once things begin to settle down, (after CB is publically released) they will start paying attention to us.
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Originally posted by Icefalcon
They are very busy right now, and I don\'t think they are replying to anything. Once things begin to settle down, (after CB is publically released) they will start paying attention to us.
:) I wasn\'t talking about now, this was when the lww site was young. I didn\'t realise the webmasters would be busy now anymore then usual unless they are also devs too? If so I didn\'t know that and after 6+ months waiting I don\'t expect them to reply in the near future either. Anyway it was a simple response to a comment about lww nothing more.