What would you like to see...

Now, i know that currently theres still a roadblock in that models with more than one bone and animations can't be brought into the game. My question is about what people would like to see added into the game creature-wise; if that particular hurdle were to be overcome

I've started some preliminary work on a couple of models (though i havent done any actual animation in a while), which i'll picture below - very, very early days yet.

But yeah, what would everyone like to see most? no matter how obscure; or what 'world' they hail from

the models below are working towards an ape/tiger.

I'm using mostly zbrush for the ape so far, but decided to use maya to model the tiger, as the zbrush method i use was producing absolute crap for that so im using that sideways modeling method i linked in the other thread for it...

oh and yes, im aware that the hands/feet of the gorilla are kinda off :anger:

but yeah, criticisms of my models aside, who wants mind flayers?

 

Well, if you're simply asking pie-in-the-sky requests, I can do that: why not dragons turtles, displacer beasts, shambling mounds, kua-toans, driders and, yes, mind flayers.

 

GAWD, I wish I'da thought of that. Helmets to create new monsters leads us to the same, plus some extra armor & viola...new giants! They'd need to be sized up a wee bit, but it could work.

:notworthy

 

I gotta admit, thats an awesome idea

 

could we do that with a Lamia and create a Centaur?... just think centaurs galloping around the countryside beating up on your PC's

 

we need driders - the body off the lamia and the rest a black widow :dribble:

 

now now... remeshing? i thought we couldnt touch models with more than one bone currently? thats not to say it isnt doable... just without editing the geometry right?

 

Some other works-in-progress:

Beholder (current eye of the deep one has silly crab claws :questionm )
Storm Giant

 

Correct, we can't touch the models with more than one bone. But we can edit the mesh, or skin, of the models. That doesn't touch the underlying geometry. The more artistic among us have already done some of that.

 

Yep, the kobolds were a result of that, right?

I'm curious about one thing for anyone who's actually already modded in a re-skin of an existing model; is there any specific constraints upon the size of the uv map?

ie. has anyone tried remapping an existing skin thats say at 128 pixels square to something larger? Anyone tried anything larger that the current maps in the game? most toee monster maps range from 64x64 to 256x256.

I'm just wondering if theres a certain limit on UV-map size that should be avoided, due to engine constraints, or system strain...

The current maps are VERY efficient; and consequently, barring special characters like Zuggtmoy or the Balor, they use single maps. Zuggy actually uses 3 maps, as well as an additional glow map.

Essentially most maps (with a few exceptions like the earth elemental and one or two more) have made use of overlapping UV regions, to create a model that maximises UV texture space, while minimising file size.

If that doesnt make sense to anyone; they've reused as much of the UV map, as many times as possible; essentially they've mirrored UVs whenever possible.

As an example here is a screenshot of a 256x256 pixel UV map that i've created for the Beholder model i've been working on, mapped in Zbrush. I'll show a correct render of it when i figure out a succesful way to import a .OBJ (wavefront generic format) file - which i like to work with between different programs, into max without losing UV coordinates. There's an initial render (from maya) of the complete model - though normals/smoothing groups still need to be worked on as well as a look at the current UV map.

To explain, All the eyestalks will use the same pixel data as each other; and the other half of the beholder will also use a mirrored version of the UVs for the original half - this is why i'm mapping it in an incomplete state

I hope i'm not talking a load of gibberish to most people :icon_chuc

 

What i'm asking though is is there an upper limit for UV map size? ie, if we were to start adding in enormous monsters; and wanting to add UV maps that were detailed to them; would we be able to go beyond the sizes that are currently used by the existing models?

Or does this cause slowdown etc.

For example; currently if you were to create a gargantuan creature from an existing creature with a 64x64 UV map size, it would look rather blurry I'm just wondering if you know how far we can push things