Creature Creation Team

battle_bison · Post by **battle_bison** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 2:49 am

I think that's awsome, but as mentioned above, I think by Stumpy, with the Morrowind system, you have to make separate textures i believe. The bears are definitely cute in a luring-unsuspecting-adventurer-in-for-breakfast kind of way.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:15 am

Awesome job Eyeball. You rock

The texture looks nice too, but unfortunately each body part is defined by texture. So you'll need to create a new texture for each part, and map the limbs in sections. If you look at files for Vorrheis's Vermai Daedra you can see how he created textures for each different part. I think the break in body peices is defined as where to different texture meet.

I hope this makes sense.. i've actually never done it, i'm just trying to make sense of what i've read.

Spider · Post by **Spider** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:09 pm

Hey, it's always the cutest beasties that are the most dangerous. I won't even begin to describe the horrible mauling the last time I dared to look a chinchilla in the eye. Horrifying.

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 6:41 am

I'm so confused. One person is telling me one thing, the other person is telling me something else. Eep!

I built my texture similar to the Werewolf texture on the Bloodmoon CD. So I'm a little confused with having to do it in different bits now, but I'm assuming I can just cut up the pieces I used and turn them into the individual maps.

Do you know if there's any guides to animating in Morrowind that come with pictures/videos to show my dense head what to do?

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 8:51 am

Maybe check out Lady Eternity's board for help. And try asking Vorrheis.

Also, apparently somebody named "AcidBasick" on the official forums know a lot about animating for Morrowind models.

Checkout this resource page for animation tutorials. Just scroll down about a page.

[url]http://66.106.110.151/Morrowind/Thanos_Tower/tutorials.html[/url]

I believe the tutorials are in .pdf format so you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Meer-Sei · Post by **Meer-Sei** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 11:31 pm

OK, a few things.

First off, the texture has to be a multiple of 8 as far as dimesnsions, otherwise morrowind wont read it, so i advise making it 512x512.

As far as breaking up the textures, I ask why the hell would you ever even remotely need to?! As long as you're using physique, u don't need to break up the textures for animating. Look at the Bloodmoon werewolf and better bodies for example.

My case remains standing. Don't break it up. No need. You don't even need to break up the model at all. Just assign sections of the model's vertexes to the parts of the biped you want, one mesh. It works.

Ace_Pro7 · Post by **Ace_Pro7** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 10:20 pm

K, how does the .Nif exporter work? okay when you export a character for QuakeIII, the exporter runs through the frames and copies how the mesh moves and saves it as a file. If that is how the .nif exporter exports then there are a whole sh*tload of things you could do!!! you could use deformers and...WOAH...ideas are flowing!!!.....too bad i dont know how to use Max. I think im gonna' go and learn how now be back sometime when i can create stuff and animate them, until then im useless...

---good job on the werebear by the way, it looks GREAT!

-Ace

Meer-Sei · Post by **Meer-Sei** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 4:33 am

Ace,

Just use the default settings

Unless, of course, you're doing a bunch of complicated Vertex Weighting. Then you need to check Vertex Weights for exporting.

Other than that, just leave it how it is.

Ace_Pro7 · Post by **Ace_Pro7** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 11:50 pm

i don't mean how to use it, i mean how does the exporter work? does it work like the md3 exporter? if so theres lots of different stuff we could do!

-Ace

Meer-Sei · Post by **Meer-Sei** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:44 am

Well, it exports the file to a .NIF and splits it into 3 different files: the main model (modelname.nif), the xmodelname.nif, and the xmodelname.kf, the x files being the animaton setup for NIF's.

Deformers do work, physics do not. THere is a list somewhere of things that work and things that dont.

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Mon Aug 30, 2004 6:15 am

Physique animation only works with the official exporter and 3ds max version 4.2.
Morphers can work, but they are tricky and are very likely to glitch.

Dragon · Post by **Dragon** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:23 am

Could you flesh out some more fur, it looks alittle too chibi for my taste, very very nice though.. Also perhaps you can get some of the texture for the werebear using the bear in bloodmoon

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:20 am

Most of the texture is using the same fur from Bloodmoon, with some modifications to make it fit better. I'll probably add more fur to him, though. I've got a lot of fur on the back, but very little on the front and sides, because I didn't know where to put it to make it look good.

Stumpytheguar · Post by **Stumpytheguar** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:25 am

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:15 pm

Well, the original Werewolf's texture was done in one huge image (1024x1024 if I remember correctly.) That is why I chose to do the Werebear in that style.

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:24 pm

I've looked at the werewolf in the cs, and the part called skin was the full werewolf mesh, animated like a creature. Also there was a part called skin1st, that contained only the animated claws (for first person view). But the main part was just a creature, with animations and sounds. So the werewolf isn't made out of parts, it's only one complete part. So I don't think Eyeball needs to split the mesh up. I may be totally wrong, but just thought you would want to know. By the way Eyeball, your mesh and textures rule. Only what are those "pauldrons" on the mesh?

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:36 am

The pauldrons are going to be bigger tufts of fur; the opacity isn't showing up in my Max renders, but they will in-game.

Majra · Post by **Majra** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:45 am

eyeball I cant wait, lets see some progress, Im excited

Stumpytheguar · Post by **Stumpytheguar** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:50 am

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 9:36 pm

Don't want to interrupt praising those marvellous werebears but *cough**cough* can I hope to see new Dwemer Animunculi ?

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 3:48 am

Hehe, I have a special interest in Werebears myself, and in shapechanging incidentally, which I'll probubly bring up again once it gets to be around time for me to actually offically be working on Hendor-Stardumz instead of being semi-sneaky about it. But yeah, as an offical Dw3m3r f4nb01 I demand animunculi!

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 4:37 am

How many designs are there for other Dwemer Animunculi?

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 9:50 am

2. Kokimadze bomber type of the thing + homunculus. Homunculus would be the easiest IMO. It's just a bunch of dwemer armor parts connected together, slightly redisigned and animated. It would be some kind of android which could wield shield and weapon.

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:38 pm

Updates?

By the way, don't mean to be pushy

.

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 7:59 am

Hey everyone, I'm really sorry for the lack of updates, it's been busy. I won't bog down this thread with personal details, but you can see my thread in The Lounge from a week ago ("Recent Absence")

I can not get Physique to work with my copy of 3dsmax 5, so I may have to convert over to the segmented style for the Werebear.

So... I cheated and skipped ahead to the Skylamp.

I don't know what colour scheme Spider had in mind, but Morden suggested a dark, grey-purple for the skin and I think it worked pretty well. The only problem I have is that I can't decide what colour his gas-sack thing should be (I thought green, but it looks really ugly, so maybe a very bright blue, or just plain white,) and I have no idea how to make the stretched skin over the sac look good.

Here's a close-up of the face so you can see the detail. If anyone has any ideas on how to do better stretched-skin, and what colour I should have the glowing lamp part of him be, I'd really appreciate it.

Again, sorry for the slow progress over here. I'm going to keep on modeling and texturing in my spare time, and I'm planning a format of the computer and a reinstall of Max, so that hopefully I can get Physique to work. Thanks for your patience with me, everyone.

Edit: Err, another problem is that some of the plates on his head have shading issues, but I'll work that out in a bit.

(sorry to use the attachment thing, but the Cuneo Morrowind Screenshot Library is down for me.) Click for bigger.

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:11 am

Eyeball, the skylamp looks really good. About your problems, I think bright blue would look better. Also, about the stretched skin, try to add more contrast and brightness, it may make it clearer.

sirwootalot123 · Post by **sirwootalot123** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 3:10 am

the texturing on the bottom of the sac doesnt look too good, and also as a suggestion I would make the sac semi-transparent (like the netch's).
Otherwise, awesome. Only other suggestion would be to use the same blue as the DE lanterns for the sac, make the creature emit light (fire atronach did this, so it is possible), and also make the eyes have similar properties to the sac. I'd also apply a glow map to the sac and eyes.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 3:17 am

Eyeball, you're the shit, hands down.
For the sack, I would try to make it look like a fleshy membrane. I would make the basic layer a fleshy-gray color, with purple veins running through it. Make the color uneven and mottled, so it looks more transparent.

Lord_Gallant · Post by **Lord_Gallant** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:05 am

While I guess it doesn't mean too much at this point, the word from the devs is that the skylamps are actually another name for cliffracers.

But, given how frickin' pimpin' that model looks and how skylamp seems to fit it very well, I'd say we could find some work around in the lore for this

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:20 am

Dexter wrote:Eyeball, you're the shit, hands down.
For the sack, I would try to make it look like a fleshy membrane. I would make the basic layer a fleshy-gray color, with purple veins running through it. Make the color uneven and mottled, so it looks more transparent.

Do you mean that the outer layer (the stupid looking stretched skin) should be a grey membrane with little veins in it, and it should be see-through... and then have the bright blue underneath?

Also, I think I've figured out how to have this beast be segmented and still look decent.

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:41 am

Also, I think I've figured out how to have this beast be segmented and still look decent.

Were you talking about the skylamp, or about the werebear???

If you were talking about the skylamp, it does not have to be segmented, only were-creatures have to, because they will be made playable.

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:19 am

Because I can't get Physique to work, isn't Segmented animation the only other option?

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:28 am

Hmmm, I guess you are right. I am no modeler, and don't know a thing about animating, but I thought bethesda and Vorrheis animated there creatures as a whole, not segmented. Maybe you want to contact Vorrheis, and ask about animations. Also there are lots of good animation tutorials out there.

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:55 pm

Wow, this thread is old. Anyone knows what happened to Eyeball after I left? He was working on some great models. We need that skylamp and those werecreatures. They look awesome.

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