nico

looks good! cant wait to see more.

looks sweet! i like the acid-birds picture the most =)

allrighty, heres the small update. rendered like ferret suggested, fixed a minor issue with the gloves, fixed the skirt (this one looks way better, thanks for that one ), and added the katana-sword-thingy. Also tweaked the ear a bit. I was supposed to post a small turnaround-video (5 mb) , but when i finally found a place to put it (putfile.com or something) they were doing some maintenance and i couldnt upload. so if anyone cares to see the character magically turning around, suggestions of where to post it would be nice. Oh well, here we go. comments/crits welcome as allways.

thanks for nice comments! Cool that you guys spottet that he looks a bit like bruce, then my goal has been completed =) the next render will be made with your fancy matte/shadow thingy ferret Oh well, suggestions to stuff he can wear/accessories (sp?) would be nice. More updates will come later today.

thanks for the tip Gaz, ill redo the skirt tomorrow. little update before i go to sleep: http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brucern8cf.jpg

really cool stuff! =)

oh well. Here is a little update on the character im working on. making the skirt thingy is a pain in the ass. Still very WIP. Ive made the legs under the skirt. Suggestions and crits is welcome as allways =) http://img240.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brucern0mr.jpg

terribly wip at the moment, but this is my latest thingy. Got 3 weeks to finish it. Gonna be a wizard with a long beard when its done. Sorry for the rather fucked up light =) Face modelled after bruce willis http://img124.imageshack.us/my.php?image=brucern6bk.jpg

hehe, well people here tend not to try being bitchy when adding comments, you should allways try to see it from a more humerous (sp) point of view. Nobody is "after you" here! =) Anyhow; back to the topic: Some leather stuff as you mentioned might be nice. Allthough another point you should perhaps consider is that if he is a badass leader of some sort, he might not be spending his time out on the battlefield, even though he commands an army? When speaking of starwars as you mentioned, darth vader is indeed wearing some sort of armour, but that is because he tends to spend time on the front lines actually fighting, the emperor on the other hand, is the actual ruler and does not need a big armor because he just sits inside the deathstar or somewhere safe, so he wears a simple robe. Dunno if that made much sense, but what im trying to say is that even though he is a military commander/leader, he may not spend all his time wearing a friggin huge armor. However, its up to you and where you think he is supposed to be placed in your game, as he would indeed need the armor if you place him in some sort of battlefield. But if he is to be placed inside a congress house or something, he would be wearing something different, so you might want to experiment with some other clothes. =) Anyhow, cant wait to see more of those scetches, and how it turns out with more leather.

chill out dude. Tho i am not quite sure how to make him look more steam-punk-ish, im sure you`ll figure it out. Keep them scetches coming!

Nailed> We do not have a mo-cap studio at our school, we only have like 30-40 mo cap files to play around with. So, as of now, the workflow is build model, rig it, load the .bip file, see it appear weird on your model, then give up and keyframe your own animation swartsz> welcome dude! you should make it more dirty where dirt would be appropriate, my suggestion would be the bottomn, perhaps add some wear and tear on the edges and finally make the pattern-thingys pop out more. As of now, it looks like it is brand new. Keep it up, and good luck

ferret: that just keeps getting better and better Cant say i like doing architectural stuff in max myself, makes me wish i could make steam/hammer work =) oh well, on with another pic. Looks weird as i loaded a mo-cap file thats done for a "regular" biped, not mine as its scaled sortof "weird" in some places to fit the character, so as a result, the legs look a bit fucked up. oh, and pay no attention to the car in the background

cool pics dude. I like the second one best as it sortof glows a bit =)

trying to rig the thing, proves to be more difficult than i thought, as his head is sortof "low", so i get a sortof bump thingy at the neck area =/ The texture sucks too, so if anyone feels like skinning a minotaur i got a rather messy unwrap to play around with anyhow: here is a "beauty" render

sweet stuff, looks lovely! Cant wait for more screens =)

That looks incredibly sweet! Hope i get my comp fixed up soon so i can try it out! =)

Then you should have random stuff like destroyed bunkers, small towns, some rocks/small mountains and/or perhaps an oasis in between the bases to make it more interesting. If the bases are far enough apart, it will not become a problem with people going there anyways, at least not if you dont place any veichles and/or anti-air weapons there. However its allways nice with something to break up the emptiness. If not, it will just look like its made in a hurry. Good luck! (edit: there is a map with just helicopters in a mappack for battlefield 2. I belive its called nan hai or something, its with a lot of water. However, its hangar ships on both sides with helicopters an planes, but instead of just having water inbetween and sortof saying "be happy and kill eachother", the author has placed sortof a ruined construction site that could perhaps remind of an oil platform or something, with cranes and stuff so you can easily crash into it. Thats what makes the map fun to play, chasing another helicopter, it makes a quick turn, you try to follow and BLAM! - you crashed in the crane If you find the map, you should check it for reference. A simple "flat" desert with only planes would not be too exciting to play imo. )

Well, you should get used to editable poly`s. (at least that what i prefer, it seems to have some advantages over Edit Mesh and nurbs and whatnot) The minotaur-thingy ive made started out with a 1x1 poly plane, and ive basically just extuded and chamfered my way to the result you can see there. The only thing that is a "standard" shape is a torus (doughnut) ive used as his nose piercing. Poly editing is basically the only thing you need to learn if you are going to make models, all that other stuff with hair, cloth and other physics stuff and animation is things you can learn when you have a neat model to apply it to! =) If you need some help with learning how "move around vertices and stuff", you should perhaps start with theese tuts in the following order: (just skip the ones that are too basic ) Mouse - http://67.15.36.49/team/tutorials/amouse/amouse01.asp Gnome (or something like that) - http://67.15.36.49/team/tutorials/knut1/knut_pilot_01.asp this one may be a bit tricky as it only has side view, but it works pretty well anyhow. "low poly" dude - http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/character_tutorial/character_process.htm and last but not the least, the joan of arc tutorial - http://67.15.36.49/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/joanmenu.asp Personally ive only done the mouse and the gnome. However, i found that the low poly dude and the joan of arc tutorials are pretty decent referring to when you may be stuck on how to do stuff. So if you do not want to create a human but rather a monster of some sort, just look at the tutorials for reference. The same principles of how to create the shapes apply anyhow! =) And as you mentioned, its important that you WANT TO create whatever you are creating! That way it will be more fun, and you will have a reason to stop bashing your head against your desk and continue trying to get lets say that nose looking like you want to! You should just browse the net for more tutorials, and keep trying. A good site (where i found theese tutorials) is http://www.3dtotal.com It is also good for inspiration too. oh and just another tip: it may make you feel pretty silly, at least i feel pretty silly when i`m in class, but if you are having problems with how to create lets say an ear, you should just feel/touch own ear. That way you will sortof "know" how the ear should be modelled. At least it works for me. You may want to not use this method for creating the private parts of a char tho, you might get some wierd looks! anyways, good luck, im sure you`ll figure it out.

it looks like you`ve made a huge bumpy area with a checker/sand texture on it, and placed a couple of models in the middle. I think you should work a bit more with that new editor of yours before you post any new screens, so that we can see something "proper" to critique =) Right now it just aint all that much...

Uhm... My impressions of Farcry: 1st hour: "Hooray! the graphics are sweet, and theese areas are huge!" 2nd hour: "YAY! i can choose between to paths! its non-linear! *walk one path through a cave and come out on someplace else on the mountain* "woops, turns out im about 200 feet from the place i entered the cave, it doesnt matter what path i choose! HOORAY! (irony) 3rd hour: "Perhaps the game really is non-linear! what happens if I use that flying thingy to fly somewhere else than the developers wanted me to fly?" *fly out to some hill filled with bushes* Perhaps not all that cool, as this place is empty and i now had to load because im stuck on somewhere i cannot get away from. Once again, hooray for non-linear games! Although you can argue with the fact that it might not be necessary for the soldiers to be stationed the place i flew to, ill say that it made the game linear as even though you _could_ travel pretty far off into the jungle of emptyness, there was no reason for you to do so, you couldnt discover an alternate route or something to that base you needed to the destroy other than that specific area they wanted you to discover, just because of the fact that it was indeed empty (except for the trees), and therefore the player would learn that pretty fast and not attempt it later. That made the game linear, even though they tried to hide the linearity. (Dunno if that made any sense ) Other things: The AI must be sweet!? or does it? Because the can just run around randomly, and they will appear to be "smart" hiding behind bushes and trees and whatnot as its so much vegetation anyhow. So i didnt get the impression that the AI was terribly smart, allthough they might have been programmed to be so. The story appear rather cool at the beginning, but then along came the monsters and it pretty much went downhill from there. Anyhow, the gfx (and physics) was sweet. So all in all, the farcry game didnt do much for me. Now that they say they will have aliens in the next game im not getting all that excited. But its allways nice with someone who pushes the limits and possibilities of graphics, even though my wallet seems to shrink remarkably every time a game who does that comes by. Oh well, ill keep an open mind and cross my fingers! Hope they make it a better game than farcry! oh, and HL2 was`nt really all that good for me either, as it did not contain the "HOLY FUCK I NEED TO GET OUTTA HERE AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!"-feeling wich (imo) made the first game as good as it was. In other words, there are other games i look more forward to that the succeder of farcry, such as The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion , and The Legend of Zelda : Twilight Princess. Oh, and st0lve - The fallout games are pure genius, and in case you do not allready know; Beteshda (or however you spell it ) are going to make the next game in the series! =) bah, too much text

Not really sure what pelt mapping is, perhaps it is a nifty feature in 3dsmax 8 or something? I only got 3dsmax 7 and i havent seen that option. However, if you just plan ahead with a bit of UVWmapping and material ID`s, it should`nt bee too hard. As of now, the head, body, arms and horns are seperate maps, but when i unwrapped them it worked out pretty good. So i guess the "hard part" is to unwrap them all together in one map. Anyways, ill take the time! =) Noone got any ideas for armor/other stuff to put on him?

thanks for the nice words. Suggestions to improvements/armor/other things would be great too. spellbinder > i opened 3dsmax for the first time in late august 2005 so im still learning and your comment was nice to hear I suggest you get yourself a copy of 3dsmax or whatever and just start playing around with it. Most likely you will have so much fun you are going to keep doing it, and that way you`ll get good. Best advice: Dont panic just because there are _A LOT_ more buttons than in hammer! =) You`ll probably sit there with the typical "wtf?"-expression on your face and wonder where to start ( i did ), but if you just play around with basic shapes and stuff you will eventually get used to the interface, and you`ll continue from there. [/rant] hehe now anyways; suggestions to cool stuff to my model would be neat, and if someone feels like "testing their skillz" (aka helping out this lazy bum who cant use photoshop) with creating a texture for the minotaur once i have properly unwrapped it, please let me know! ooh, and the plants looks sweet vivi! cant get enough of those props eh bah, too much text at once...

here it is (if thats the one you asked for ferret)

looks sweet! the vines are a really neat touch =) Dunno who said it first, but i agree the railings does not fit. Should perhaps make them more detailed and "tighter" with a sortof oriental pattern, or change it fully to something made out of clay with small pillars. The metal railing does not fit the "old" look as it is now, but with more detail it might. Keep it up!

lights in the first indoor screenie looks like shit, so you should change that. You should perhaps try to do as I3yG-MaK suggested, try to make some more interesting brushwork on the inside of the castle. It never looks good when you feel like you are inside a cube with a rather detailed prop, because when you see the detailed thingy you automatically compare it to the rest of the room, and it will feel even more "empty". The models are supposed to be a supplement to the overall detail, not the only detail! The last screenshot looks pretty neat, try to keep that feel all over the map and you got a winner! =)