I don't quite understand how I don't know how to texture just because his skin hue is different than you think it should be. I don't exactly want a huge amount of contrast with the texture when the lighting will do be responsible for much of it as well.
I had been planning to basically pour all my efforts into an extensive story-strong RPG for Starcraft 2, which I had some ideas for, but seeing this great concept art and WIP models, I would much rather join you in making this RPG than start my own.
You seem to have some great ideas, and are skilled with modelling/art. Custom models are key to making good characters the players can believe in. :)
Judging from your Concept Art, you will be having some militaristic themes?
Yup, it's going to involve quite a bit of military.
For now I'm unsure about forming a team. I'm not ruling out any possibility of getting people to help in the future, but for the time being it will be independent. When I get a good foundation and if I feel it's the right thing to do, I'll start forming a team, and I will definitely be sure to contact you.
Wow, very very nice work on the models, and that concept art looks beautiful. Their features convey a lot of character. :D
I hope you will take it as a sign of how much I am impressed by these, that I made an account just so I could congratulate you on great work. :)
Though also to ask, what type/genre of project is this going to be?
Is it going to be Singleplayer or Multiplayer?
And most importantly, are you more concerned with telling a compelling story with rounded characters, or with enjoyable, and unique gameplay.
Of course they are both very important, but which takes priority for you on this map. I have often found that multiplayer maps can lack greatly in the story area, depending on how it is implemented.
Thank you very much. What I would currently like to do is have a singleplayer and multiplayer mode. I am definitely going to have a compelling story for single player, but I am unsure if I want to make multiplayer a co-op kind of thing or something separate like PvP.
I have a pretty good idea on the story so far, but I'm still coming up with stuff.
However I'd like to add that I plan to have a pretty unique gameplay style, though I suppose the game would be considered an RPG. Having played with the editor, it seems like the basic things I would like to do are possible, but of course difficult.
I want changeable clothing (like in WoW for example), but I'm unsure how I'm going to do it. I'd like different meshes for the clothing, but I don't know how I'm going to have that attached to the same bones as just the body, which probably rules out having it as attachment points.
In WoW, all the geometry for armor is on the same model, but different geosets are hidden. If that's possible with the editor I'd like to do that. For now I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the character models after texturing and maybe animating. In the meantime I'll probably be making doodads, weapons, etc.
On a side note, each model is roughly 4000 polygons.
I'd like to ask, is it complicated to make 3d models for Starcraft 2? I would like to make some custom 'wall' buildings for my map, but I'm not sure if it's something I'd be able to do or not. Is there a model creator included with Galaxy or would it require outside programs?
No more complicated than any other modeling, I suppose. Compared to WarCraft III, you'll just be making more detailed models in terms of polygons and textures, as well as having additional maps such as bump maps and specular maps.
As mentioned, walls in general are very simple. Unless you're making a fancy wall (even then, a nice texture would probably suffice), it probably won't be much more complicated than a box.
I have heard there will be some kind of program along with Galaxy that will allow players to create custom doodads and such. However, I have absolutely no idea how that will work. I don't know if they're planning to make that user-friendly or if it's geared towards people who are experienced with modeling with other programs.
I don't have access to 3D Max, but I have used SolidWork to create objects in the past. Is it possible to import Solidwork's objects to the galaxy editor?
I have not heard of SolidWork, but it really depends on what users and Blizzard do. All I know is that there are people working on making an importer/exporter for SC2 for 3ds max, and that Blizzard used 3ds max and Mudbox (a 3D sculpting program also made by Autodesk) for their in-game models.
If there is a way to export models from SolidWork to 3ds max, then it is definitely possible that way. I don't know if it's still available, but a free version of 3ds max called Gmax could probably do the job.
What features does 3ds max have that Blender doesn't have? I've always thought that Blender is close to being on par with 3ds max in terms of features (but not performance).
I don't really know much about Blender, but I do know that most gaming and film companies do not use Blender because it does not meet their needs. From the looks of it, the UI makes it even less desired.
3ds max is a very powerful program; all of Blizzard's cinematics from WC3 up until the first SC2 cinematic were made purely with 3ds max for example, although they had trouble due to a polygon count limit with the SC2 cinematic (Blizzard also uses Maya and Mudbox now partially for that reason), and I haven't heard of anything really remarkable with Blender.
Kanaru, you're quite the artist, that's impressive...
Also, if you didn't know, Witchsong and NiNToxicated are the two who run
the libm3 google code, they've been discussing their findings here... If
you were wondering how that's going, ;P.
Very well done! I also do 3d modeling and 2d art, and to say the least,
I'm very jealous impressed. As a side note, have you ever used Blender
before? If so, how does it compare to 3ds Max, (which I've never used)?
Thank you. I've never used Blender, sorry. All I can really say is that I find 3ds max to be a great program. It might not be easy to pick up but I recommend it.
Cool. I am asking because I am interested in playing with Galaxy. Sadly I am not in the Beta (working on that) so while I wait for a release I can get my hands on, I have been just researching the most I can about it...which pretty much lead me here.
Are you just comparing/studying portraits or are you able to view models in a viewer of sorts (or can you view wireframe ingame and just zoom in)?
From an art perspective, any numbers to things like buildings or terrain? Again you just comparing/studying or can you actually view said models? Any texture sizes you know about?
-edit- Yes, I recall reading somewhere a marine was around 1k and a Battlecruiser was 3k (they mentioned something about 1800, but I forget what that was).
There is an incomplete .m3 importer for 3ds max which I used to look at existing models (http://code.google.com/p/libm3/downloads/list) It's good enough to import meshes, bones, and most animations correctly, so I looked at the detail that way.
As for buildings/terrain, I'm really unsure at this point. I'd like to give an estimate but I really don't have much of an idea.
Texture sizes seem to be about 1024x1024 for the most part, which includes portraits. However I don't suppose it would hurt to go too far over, especially that portraits are a fraction of an entire body.
Also if anyone is interested, here's some concept art I made a little before I started modeling.
Any chance you can give us some numbers on the poly counts that you are thinking about?
Since I would like the character models to be similar to that of the story mode campaign characters, I looked at the polycount of a few portraits (since they're about the same quality). They're about 2000-3000, but it's only about a third of their body showing. But the head is generally the most detailed part of the body, so I'm aiming for about 6000 or less polygons for characters. I've finished modeling the body, and right now I'm at about 4000, so I'm on the right track.
If you're aiming for the general unit quality, I'd say 1000-3000 depending on the size of the unit. Thors for example are about 3000 if I recall, but a Marine might be about 1000.
Since I have a pretty good idea on the poly count of SC2's models, I decided to start some modeling today to get a head start on a planned map mod. It's going to be a 3rd person game, so the models will be higher quality, similar to unit portraits.
I felt like sharing it, so here's a render of what I have so far for a certain character.
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@zwd: Go
You did not have to be rude.
I don't quite understand how I don't know how to texture just because his skin hue is different than you think it should be. I don't exactly want a huge amount of contrast with the texture when the lighting will do be responsible for much of it as well.
Yup, it's going to involve quite a bit of military.
For now I'm unsure about forming a team. I'm not ruling out any possibility of getting people to help in the future, but for the time being it will be independent. When I get a good foundation and if I feel it's the right thing to do, I'll start forming a team, and I will definitely be sure to contact you.
Thank you very much. What I would currently like to do is have a singleplayer and multiplayer mode. I am definitely going to have a compelling story for single player, but I am unsure if I want to make multiplayer a co-op kind of thing or something separate like PvP.
I have a pretty good idea on the story so far, but I'm still coming up with stuff.
However I'd like to add that I plan to have a pretty unique gameplay style, though I suppose the game would be considered an RPG. Having played with the editor, it seems like the basic things I would like to do are possible, but of course difficult.
Update.
I want changeable clothing (like in WoW for example), but I'm unsure how I'm going to do it. I'd like different meshes for the clothing, but I don't know how I'm going to have that attached to the same bones as just the body, which probably rules out having it as attachment points.
In WoW, all the geometry for armor is on the same model, but different geosets are hidden. If that's possible with the editor I'd like to do that. For now I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the character models after texturing and maybe animating. In the meantime I'll probably be making doodads, weapons, etc.
On a side note, each model is roughly 4000 polygons.
No more complicated than any other modeling, I suppose. Compared to WarCraft III, you'll just be making more detailed models in terms of polygons and textures, as well as having additional maps such as bump maps and specular maps.
As mentioned, walls in general are very simple. Unless you're making a fancy wall (even then, a nice texture would probably suffice), it probably won't be much more complicated than a box.
I have heard there will be some kind of program along with Galaxy that will allow players to create custom doodads and such. However, I have absolutely no idea how that will work. I don't know if they're planning to make that user-friendly or if it's geared towards people who are experienced with modeling with other programs.
I have not heard of SolidWork, but it really depends on what users and Blizzard do. All I know is that there are people working on making an importer/exporter for SC2 for 3ds max, and that Blizzard used 3ds max and Mudbox (a 3D sculpting program also made by Autodesk) for their in-game models.
If there is a way to export models from SolidWork to 3ds max, then it is definitely possible that way. I don't know if it's still available, but a free version of 3ds max called Gmax could probably do the job.
I don't really know much about Blender, but I do know that most gaming and film companies do not use Blender because it does not meet their needs. From the looks of it, the UI makes it even less desired.
3ds max is a very powerful program; all of Blizzard's cinematics from WC3 up until the first SC2 cinematic were made purely with 3ds max for example, although they had trouble due to a polygon count limit with the SC2 cinematic (Blizzard also uses Maya and Mudbox now partially for that reason), and I haven't heard of anything really remarkable with Blender.
I'll probably be more active after today.
Thanks again. :)
Thank you. I've never used Blender, sorry. All I can really say is that I find 3ds max to be a great program. It might not be easy to pick up but I recommend it.
There is an incomplete .m3 importer for 3ds max which I used to look at existing models (http://code.google.com/p/libm3/downloads/list) It's good enough to import meshes, bones, and most animations correctly, so I looked at the detail that way.
As for buildings/terrain, I'm really unsure at this point. I'd like to give an estimate but I really don't have much of an idea.
Texture sizes seem to be about 1024x1024 for the most part, which includes portraits. However I don't suppose it would hurt to go too far over, especially that portraits are a fraction of an entire body.
Also if anyone is interested, here's some concept art I made a little before I started modeling.
Thank you. :p
Since I would like the character models to be similar to that of the story mode campaign characters, I looked at the polycount of a few portraits (since they're about the same quality). They're about 2000-3000, but it's only about a third of their body showing. But the head is generally the most detailed part of the body, so I'm aiming for about 6000 or less polygons for characters. I've finished modeling the body, and right now I'm at about 4000, so I'm on the right track.
If you're aiming for the general unit quality, I'd say 1000-3000 depending on the size of the unit. Thors for example are about 3000 if I recall, but a Marine might be about 1000.
Haha, no, it's a bump map. The model is only about 300 polys at the moment.
Since I have a pretty good idea on the poly count of SC2's models, I decided to start some modeling today to get a head start on a planned map mod. It's going to be a 3rd person game, so the models will be higher quality, similar to unit portraits.
I felt like sharing it, so here's a render of what I have so far for a certain character.