September 2011 Custom Content Challenge: Horror/Creepy themed custom content

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <pinching...>

Hate to let the "Activated" "Deactivated" anims get away...

What about:
- Deactivated: Eyes closed
- Activated: Eyes open
- Open: Mouth open
- Closed: well, you get the idea :-)

<...pennies>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Raven_Xantrice]

               

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I try...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Great submissions so far, everyone!  

@Raven - Great to see you jumping right in- that is very cool!

@Rolo & Heneusa - I can't remember if you can put on/off and open/closed on a placeable like that but if you can, just know that for on/off animation sequences you'll have unlimited frames to play with but open/closed are locked at 30 or 60 frames or something like that.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

                <looking confused...>

I thought placeables were limited to those four...

<...'cuz he usually is>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 05 septembre 2011 - 04:10 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I thought it was two states with transitional animations between the states. Isn't the pattern a static "on", a transition from on to off, a static "off", and a transition from off to on?

I figured "on" = "open" and "off" = "closed".

In otherwords, aren't placeables binary, with four animations to achieve this?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <constantly...>

henesua wrote...

I thought it was two states with transitional animations between the states. Isn't the pattern a static "on", a transition from on to off, a static "off", and a transition from off to on?

I figured "on" = "open" and "off" = "closed".

In otherwords, aren't placeables binary, with four animations to achieve this?

This is what I get from the Constants section of the 1.69 lexicon:

ANIMATION_PLACEABLE_ACTIVATE                            200    The animation of a placeable becoming activated.
ANIMATION_PLACEABLE_CLOSE                                 203    The closing animation of a placeable.
ANIMATION_PLACEABLE_DEACTIVATE                       201    The animation of a placeable becoming deactivated.
ANIMATION_PLACEABLE_OPEN                                   202     The opening of a placeable animation.

Edit: what a wierd order to put them in...

<...variable>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 05 septembre 2011 - 06:57 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_TheSpiritedLass]

               Woohoo!  Lots of new people jumping on board this month.  How awesome!  Welcome ShadowM, henesua and Rolo Kipp.

@Birdman076 - Book of the Dead!  Awesome.

@Rolo Kipp - oops, fixed that in the first post.  Thanks.  I long ago learned not to make Mistress my user name.  Lots of crazies out there. '>  Will send a PM about the 2das.

@henesua - loving the tree with a face, what a great idea.

@Raven_Xantrice - The book looks great.  The texturing on the sides for the pages is a nice touch.  Is the brown spine supposed to be leather?  The texture there is harder to see in the screenie.

@Rolo Kipp (some more) - "Edit: what a wierd order to put them in..."  They are in alphabetical order.  The addition of the numerical values didn't happen until version 1.68.

Whew!  I think I caught up on all the posts.  *grins*  Looks like it is going to be a big month for content.  *happy chair wiggles*
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jez_fr]

               @henesua: I'm willing to convert your models & textures to NWN proper format, from .OBJ or other common 3d format. There are a few limitations though:

- do not "multi texture/multi material" a single mesh, rather do 1 mesh per texture. It doesn't really matter if the model have several parts.

- if possible use 1 cm unit scale in your 3D software. Thats the NWN one, and will spare me some scaling issues that can be tricky.

- if possible do a very low poly copy of the whole model, as a single mesh (untextured), that will be used as Shadow for the whole model. This "shadow" model won't be displayed ingame (not rendered), it will only be used to "project" the shadow ingame, and spare a lot of crashes. Its kind of a LOD but only used for shadow projection (like they did in The Witcher 1, it works super well and really removes a LOT of potential crashes and issues)

I'll handle node placements and walkmesh.

About animations, I'm rather bad/unknowledgeable at that, I'm not sure I'll be able to convert these. I did a few simple animations for some plc, long time ago, but never really took the time to learn that properly (regretfully), so I may not be able to include them.

For placeables you need these animations steps:
- closed
- closed to open
- open
- open to close
- default (this one must be at the end of the step's chain, not at the start or the animation will not work or crash (that may be an issue with NWNmax exportation, Im not sure, but at least it was the case several years ago when I worked on placeables animations.)

However, as long as the model is static, it won't be a problem to convert it. I won't do creature though as it is way more time consuming. Send me a PM if needed, as don't come around very often =)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Jez_fr, 07 septembre 2011 - 03:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <trying to look wide-eyed and innocent...>

TheSpiritedLass wrote...

Woohoo!  Lots of new people jumping on board this month.  How awesome!  Welcome ShadowM, henesua and Rolo Kipp.

Gosh, Gee! ;-)

@Rolo Kipp - oops, fixed that in the first post.  Thanks.  I long ago learned not to make Mistress my user name.  Lots of crazies out there. '>  Will send a PM about the 2das.

Crazies?! Here?! No! It wasn't *me*! It was the one-armed man!

@Rolo Kipp (some more) - "Edit: what a wierd order to put them in..."  They are in alphabetical order.  The addition of the numerical values didn't happen until version 1.68.

Yes, I got that about 20 seconds later looking at the full list... It just struck me as odd after pasting that clip out of context... and I blurted it out without censorship :-P

Whew!  I think I caught up on all the posts.  *grins*  Looks like it is going to be a big month for content.  *happy chair wiggles*

Hmmm... You're giving me ideas for that lovely nymph taunt animation... Seated, hands raised to about shoulder height and a sweet little wiggle...

<sigh>
<reluctantly puts on a back burner>

<...and coming across as a bit crazy>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 07 septembre 2011 - 04:59 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

                I'm thinking that if I animate these spooky trees, I will probably have to do the animation in GMax/3DS Max rather than import them there. Seems like much could go wrong if I rely on the import process to keep the keyframes organized the way I want them.

I also just discovered that 3DS comes in a free/educational version. Wow. So if I get that working I suppose I'll be able to handle this all myself. At least I won't have to model in GMAx or 3DS. I can use the free 3DS as a tool to get the model into NWN.

(Disclaimer: about the only thing that I like from Autodesk is the FBX model standard.)

Anyway... here's my last proof of concept.


I don't like it because its too tame and boring. But I sketched out a dozen other concepts in my sketchbook before falling asleep, and I think I've found traction. If I do nothing else for this challenge, I will have several gnarled trees.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 07 septembre 2011 - 08:02 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               

Rolo Kipp wrote...
<snip>
Hmmm... You're giving me ideas for that lovely nymph taunt animation... Seated, hands raised to about shoulder height and a sweet little wiggle...

Heh... gotta keep a watch on yourself when dealing with that Nymph mdl.  She tends to distract males from ALL concious thought and after a while, they tend to forget to breath with a subsequent saving throw(dice roll) against death.   Not that I am speaking from experience or anything...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               

henesua wrote...
<snip>

(Disclaimer: about the only thing that I like from Autodesk is the FBX model standard.)

Anyway... here's my last proof of concept.


I don't like it because its too tame and boring. But I sketched out a dozen other concepts in my sketchbook before falling asleep, and I think I've found traction. If I do nothing else for this challenge, I will have several gnarled trees.

Looks like a great start there.  I look forward to seeing your other sketches too.  :happy:
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Thanks, Bannor. It does have a nice silhouette from any angle I've tried. (I hate blocky looking silhouettes.) But thats about all I like about this guy. So I think I'll take the face off, add a gash from the base extending up the side, and then just use this as a nearly dead tree. I'll then be able to keep this to 300 triangles and move on to the next tree.

I can't stand the face because its not expressive. To get an adequate amount of expression in the mouth and eyes (which are the parts that I plan to animate) in this model is difficult because I didn't start with them in mind. I'm cutting them into the geometry and I now realize one of the pitfalls that comes with inadequate planning. With that rather crude face, I've already blown my polygon budget. Most importantly however let it be known that I've not modeled a head before. Most of my past 3D projects have been environment focused rather than character focused. Thus trees are easy and faces are not.

I do have a bunch of pencil sketches. I suppose I could post them to show process. But given that I am no artist (as that face on the tree can attest)  I'm usually shy about exposing my process.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <proudly displaying...>

Awww! Don't let that stop you :-)
I'm a *terrible* artist and I feel that if someone wants to laugh at my pitiful.. er, earnest attempts, then I at least made one person happy =)

Besides... if you're not so good at faces, but obviously good at trees... (*nice* texture, *interesting* shape!), just steal, er, *distribute to a wider audience* someone else's efforts...
There's quite a few low-poly faces around... I think...

Edit: you might start a project here and put your sketches in the gallery...

<...his ignorance>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 07 septembre 2011 - 10:26 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Those are NWN textures that I found with NWN Explorer. I think DLA made them, but not sure. I still haven't made custom textures for this model. But I'm thinking these are good enough. Those in Q are very nice too! I'll probably change the textures in the model to Q textures if I use these trees in goblinboy. I really like project Q and think more assets should work with it.