Close Encounter of the Third Kind

[Wired_Crawler]

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And here is short video with some action (7.24 MB, 640x480, 40 seconds, link expires after 14 days of inactivity)

Happy New Year Everybody!

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P.S. Tech info: tools used: blender (+cal3d exporter), gimp, text editor. The model consists of 378 triangles (just imagine, what could be accomplished with 1000 more...), texture size is 512x512. Skeleton has 31 bones.

[Nilrem]

Hi,

mmm with my first report, I was told that I lacked some criticism... well, ok. You wanted it.


Things I see, that I personally don\'t like at all:

Although you made an skeleton, when the wild boar (I was about to write wild board ) runs around in circles, seems like being a mass of liquid covered with skin, really doesn\'t seem that there\'s a muscular body under that skin, specially in the zone between the two legs, that is, its stomach seems like filled with water, I don\'t know, but there\'s something weird there, when I was seeing it it came to my mind the sound of water inside a bottle being shacked...

As for the skin itself, its short fur and marks, made me think of wood, you know those woods that are ornated, with incisions on them, and I couldn\'t appart that thinking during all the play... its bulky appearance recalls of a chopped tree, that has sharpened ends.

More things, this probably related to polygons, both the front and rear are too shape, and rigid, its tail for instance seems more like a bone (and perhaps that\'s the intention, I don\'t know) and it\'s sout should, imo, look more smoothed, tending to make the spectator think it\'s both soft and wet.

And this time, I\'m really making comments, so, even more:
Look at its \"legs\" both the ones in front and rear look the same, while, resembling the wild boar, or even basing my guessings in the attitude it shows in the video, there should be a clearly distinguished shape between both pairs. I\'ll try to explain myself: while the front ones, are used to \"wave\" and almost as \"landing\" legs to avoid colliding with the ground, the rear ones, are clearly the
\"motor\" ones, so they should be more \"explosives\" if that\'s the word... mmm better take a look at some animal in real life, because it\'s clear that a picture will do best than my attempt with unknown words :S

Once that is said, comes the personal congratulation
You know you always surprise me, so, I won\'t surprise you if I say that you did it again, and making the video and the scenes with text, only shows even more the extreme care that you put on everything you make.

Happy new year to you too (Hope you got the PM)
and I\'m looking forward to see you in game, Wired.

[Wired_Crawler]

Actually, it was not going to be boar. It was my... guinea pig I thought it was too good to be simply thrown away, so I posted it here. It should be 3x smaller, but that way You would not see much (sample).

Originally posted by Nilrem
mmm with my first report, I was told that I lacked some criticism... well, ok. You wanted it.

Yes, it was exactly what I wanted
Most of the \"weirdness\" you see is caused by low poly count. I was trying to find limits of \"keep polygon count low\" rule. I was wondering, if number of polygons for so small creature as groffel is reasonable (model of groffel has more than 1400 polygons, it is more than model of menki has).

Although you made an skeleton, when the wild boar (I was about to write wild board ) runs around in circles, seems like being a mass of liquid covered with skin...

This is because too big parts of skin are moving together with bones. It can\'t be helped, number of vertexes is too low.

As for the skin itself, its short fur and marks, made me think of wood, you know those woods that are ornated, with incisions on them, and I couldn\'t appart that thinking during all the play... its bulky appearance recalls of a chopped tree, that has sharpened ends.

Texture is too small for the model of that size, it looks better on small creature (sample again). I  think I would need 3x more space to make a texture, which looks good on 3x bigger model.
Those ornaments are not only supposed to be pretty, they show, whether UV mapping is done corectly, In idle position all curves are smooth, it means I did it well.

Look at its \"legs\" both the ones in front and rear look the same...

I\'m happy it is noticable, it means, that it really matters, how bones are placed. Actualy, I have exchanged places of front and rear legs
Besides, it was an alien, who knows, what aliens have in their stomachs We won\'t see it again, so we will never know...
Cheers

[Gentar]

Ah! you had me excited for a second. I thought there was a new monster.

Thats really awsome, why didnt you do that on a more \"official\" basis? I take it you replaced your character model with that one?

[Wired_Crawler]

Originally posted by Gentar
Thats really awsome, why didnt you do that on a more \"official\" basis?

\'Cause I don\'t feel like I\'m ready, I\'m still learning. On the other hand - how can You say If am doing anything on \"official\" basis ?

I take it you replaced your character model with that one?

Yes. Kran was acting as another guinea pig

[zanzibar]

Awww, it\'s jiggly!

[dying_inside]

i dunno about the fur. Its a nice idea but it reminds me of a mosiac being put on a wave machine. I mean maybe thats just the outsized thing, and it would look a whole lot better with its intended size. maybe if we could  sethe real size in action it would get a better idea of it.
but apart from that its pretty cool.

[Cherppow]

Hello

Happy new year! Very nice initiative Wired_Crawler. I also liked the bathroom scene you did earlier. I agree that the bigger vestion would like to have few more polys. Keep up the good work.